Arrested Development: How a 29-Year-Old Sex Offender Passed Himself Off as a Middle-School Boy

Foxnews.com ^ | Saturday, February 24, 2007 | Robert Nelson, Phoenix New Times

[keats5]

PHOENIX — On Tuesday afternoon, January 16, an old man walked into the administrative office of a small charter school on the high desert plains north of Prescott. He was skinny, with floppy jowls that made him look like the Bitter Beer Face man of the old Keystone ads. But other than his goofy face and laughable name, the staff at Mingus Springs Charter School thought little of him. The old man introduced himself as Lonnie Eugene Stiffler. He asked if the school had any slots open for a seventh-grader. Stiffler said he had home-schooled his grandson, but believed it was time the boy was educated in a classroom setting with kids his own age. Yes, the school did have one opening. Stiffler filled out the necessary paperwork. He was told his grandson, Casey Edwards Price, age 12, could begin school the next day. The next morning, as Casey entered his first classes, administrator Julie Bradshaw began reviewing the paperwork Stiffler had submitted. She apparently was the first person at the four schools Casey attended in Arizona (YCFA Achieve Academy in Prescott Valley, Image Middle School in Surprise, Shelby School in Payson, plus Mingus) to actually do her job. Bradshaw noticed that Stiffler had provided two different birthdates for his grandson — Dec. 22, 1993, and Sept. 22, 1994. Casey had either just celebrated his 13th birthday or he was still 12. Stiffler had provided an unusually spare birth certificate that indicated Casey was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on September 22, 1994. The certificate stated that Casey's birth weight was seven pounds and that he was 50 centimeters tall. Odd, Bradshaw thought, that German nurses would weigh in pounds rather than kilograms and then measure Casey's height in metric centimeters.

[Lil'freeper]

ping

[spinestein]

[...when Stiffler signed the school's publicity permission slip, a legal paper authorizing the child's image or work to be used in school publications or other media, he would not allow Casey's photo or work to be published anywhere, under any circumstances. It's a red flag for cops. Abductors don't want pictures of their victims floating around the Internet.]



Is this true? My daughter has brought these permission slips home and we have to sign them and check the box to allow or disallow her work to be "published anywhere". I've never thought much of the form, but does this mean that if you check the "no" box then some school official starts investigating whether you're a child abductor? This doesn't make sense.

[justche]

What a convoluted story.
Someone else asked, and I'm still curious - if that dateline show - shows all those guys getting arrested because the 'intent' to have sex with a minor - why can't these clowns be charged with rape of a minor - doesn't matter he wasn't they thought he was?

[CGTRWK]

Intent isn't considered when a 17 year old convinced the defendant that she was 18 at the time.

The consistent pattern in the charges filed over all the permutations of statuatory sex crime that you read about is that the male participant always gets screwed. I haven't yet figured out how this works in cases like this one involving fags where there is no woman for the law to coddle.

[keats5]

Actually, the above news article is excerpted from the following link, which provides many more details:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-02-22/news/arrested-development/1

According to page 4 of this link, they found a video showing this guy (the fake 12 year old) having sex with a young boy. The investigators found several incriminating videos in the trailer.

The entire story is so convoluted. All these pervs lived together and scammed each other. The above link describes what happened when the investigators interrogated them all separately. The old perv repeatedly expresses his disgust upon learning he has been having sex with a grown man, instead of a 12 year old boy.

[justche]

yeah, I read it all the way through, that's why I'm wondering why he can't be charged differently.

They must be very slow minded people, or too much alcohol involved - crazy story.

[justche]

pssst, your bitterness is showing...

[investigateworld]

Peoplewonderwhycopsdrink bump

[bannie]

You guys need to start reading The National Enquirer. I read about this well over a week ago.

;-)

Even a stopped watch...

[SoftballMominVA]

I think it becomes a red flag when combined with other anomalies. Many parents don't want their kids identified on the Internet - that's not unusual. But a kid with inadequate medical history, different birth dates, different spellings of the first name, unusual birth records, AND no pictures, yeah, that's a red flag right there.

[ozoneliar]

Stifler?

[gcruse]

The piece in the Arizona paper is quite a story. The "12-year-old-boy's" attorney is already spinning a saga of being brainwashed by porn and "stuck in adolesence." It's hooey, but it's entertaining.

[keats5]

This is a followup article of the original, detailing how the fraud came to light. I thought it was interesting the first tip of was the phony paperwork, as opposed to the fact that the 12 year old wore makeup to cover his stubble. The original article, to this story, was first published two days ago.

[Chickensoup]

We have always said no. Ignore the jerks.

[George W. Bush]

Is this true? My daughter has brought these permission slips home and we have to sign them and check the box to allow or disallow her work to be "published anywhere". I've never thought much of the form, but does this mean that if you check the "no" box then some school official starts investigating whether you're a child abductor? This doesn't make sense.

Yes. One of the reasons they do it is because of an agenda for records of everything a person has ever done. You are giving them permission to publish, indefinitely, ever little thing she writes or anything else she does for the rest of her life, to all her future colleges and employers, to the government, etc.

Parents should think very hard about this. If the school wants to publish a project, they should get permission on each project and they should ask if you give permission for photos/video and/or writings. Press them to change all such agreements to expire at the end of the school year.