In May of last year, a pediatric nurse who worked at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital began communicating online with a covert FBI employee posing as a foster mother about having sex with her purported underage daughter.

That initial online conversation on the social media platform Whisper escalated into a series of chats between Rami Rotlewicz and a trio of undercover FBI employees — two posing as foster mothers and a third as a foster child.

Those internet chats led to a law enforcement raid at his home in Plantation last month and his arrest Tuesday on a criminal complaint charging him with receiving and possessing hundreds of child-porn images on his cell phone as well as attempting to entice a minor girl to have sex with him.

Rotlewicz, 34, who has been fired from his job at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, is being held at a federal lock-up in the Broward Sheriff’s Office jail while he faces a pre-trial detention hearing Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale federal court. His arraignment, based on a pending grand jury indictment, is scheduled for June 26. His arrest on child-porn charges is among hundreds that the FBI has made in South Florida while cracking down on the spread of child-porn crimes on the Internet.

“We have no forensics and no discovery. What we have is a two-dimensional, albeit incendiary, complaint which offers the government’s version,” Rotlewicz’s defense attorney, Jude Faccidomo, said Friday. “In this country you are innocent unless proven guilty. We don’t just take the government’s word for it.”

According to an FBI affidavit filed with the complaint, this is how the South Florida bureau’s sting operation evolved over the past year. Rotlewicz began chatting through written messages with the first FBI undercover employee on May 5, 2023, when the nurse asked in response to an advertisement on the Whisper platform: “What is your role in the family?”

The undercover employee, pretending to be in New York, answered “foster mom” with an 11-year-old daughter, looking to “add a dad type.”

Rotlewicz gave his age, saying he’d “love to chat.” Then he added, “I would love to be a daddy figure in her life.”

Nearly two weeks later, they agreed to switch their chat from Whisper to another platform, Telegram. Rotlewicz provided his Telegram user name “@tumtumice” and his display name “Ram Rod.” He also sent a photo of himself and indicated his first name was “Rami” and that he was a nurse.

During their chat on May 16, 2023, Rotlewicz told the purported foster mother that he was interested in talking to her foster daughter.

A couple of days later, the mother added the daughter, who went by the name “K,” to the Telegram chat group with “Ram Rod.”

On May 20, Rotlewicz had his first chat with the mother and daughter.

“I’m 33 and still wear Disney,” Rotlewicz wrote the girl, ending the message with a smile emoji. He also sent her a photo of himself while driving his car.

Her response: “aw that’s cool!!”

“Thank you sweetie,” he wrote. “Good morning how did you sleep?”

“Good! Slept lots. lol” she responded.

“You had my mind wandering all over about you looking all cute in princess panties, little soffe shorts … and a baggy shirt relaxing next to me,” Rotlewicz wrote the girl.

Her response: “aww sounds nice! Could watch movies n stuff.”

“Cuddle up close and watch beauty and the beast,” Rotlewicz wrote.

The following day, the foster mother chatted with Rotlewicz about traveling with the daughter to Fort Lauderdale so he could have sex with her. They discussed flights from New York to Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

At one point during the chat on May 21, 2023, Rotlewicz wrote: “K is prepubescent but also I’m snipped so if you allowed full penetration there is not fear of pregnancy.”

The following day, Rotlewicz chatted only with the daughter and talked about kissing her. “Maybe when you kiss me I’ll turn into a beautiful prince,” he wrote K.

On May 24, 2023, Rotlewicz contacted K’s mother and sent her a picture of himself lying on a bed in boxer shots with his penis exposed, asking if he could send the photo to her daughter.

That June, however, he stopped communicating with the foster mother and daughter.

In April of this year, Rotlewicz reached out to the foster mother again on Telegram, but he didn’t use the profile name “Ram Rod.” His new user name was “Nite Nurse.”

Rotlewicz sent additional photos of himself that showed his face. The foster mother said she knew of another foster mom with a slightly older daughter in the Miami area whom he might want to contact.

According to the FBI affidavit, a Telegram group chat was created on April 20 for Rotlewicz, the first foster mother and the second foster mom, who was actually an FBI undercover employee pretending to have a 12-year-old foster daughter. The second mother wrote that she and her daughter lived in the Miami area. Rotlewicz expressed an interest in meeting the mother initially, before making contact with the daughter. In another chat a few days later, he expressed his desire to have sex with her daughter.

“I would love to teach her from passionate kissing to loving cuddles to pleasuring. I have some experience with that,” Rotlewicz wrote to the second mother on April 23. “But [I] also know it does take moms help too at times.”

The mother responded: “I understand as long as u will guide me?”

According to the FBI affidavit, Rotlewicz and the foster mother agreed to meet on May 2 — but the day before, he told her that he could not make their meeting and rescheduled it for the following week.

Instead of setting up that meeting, FBI agents arranged for the Broward Sheriff’s Office and Plantation Police Department to obtain a state warrant to carry out a search of Rotlewicz’s home in Plantation. They seized multiple electronic devices, including an Apple iPhone 12, which led to the discovery of 219 images and 85 videos of suspected child pornography on the mobile device, according to the FBI affidavit.

“Many of the images and videos of child pornography depicted pre-pubescent males and females engaging in sexual activity [with adults] or posing in a lewd and lascivious manner,” the affidavit stated.

Rotlewicz was present during the search, waived his Miranda rights and told investigators in a recording statement that he had been communicating with the two foster mothers and foster child on social media platforms.

“Rotlewicz described to law enforcement how he had a vivid imagination and advised that the communications with all three [FBI undercover employees] were fantasy,” according to the affidavit and complaint filed by federal prosecutor Brianna Coakley.

This week, federal agents and local police arrested Rotlewicz near his home.