Posted on 01/02/2003 12:34:22 PM PST by hoosierskypilot
TURLOCK -- Jerry Dock McClain drove 1,500 miles from Texas to Turlock with plans to rendezvous with a 13-year-old girl he met on the Internet and whisk her away to Mexico, police say.
Instead, the 65-year-old retired Navy veteran was whisked away -- to jail -- after his arrest by detectives with the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force.
McClain's arrest was the 30th that Detective Ken Hedrick has made in the past 30 months -- a string that drew the attention of ABC Television's "Good Morning America." The show plans to profile the latest case Friday.
The investigation began in April when McClain met who he thought was a 13-year-old girl in an Internet chat room.
Only later would he learn that the teen-ager was Hedrick, who was playing the role of a 13-year-old as part of an electronic sting targeting pedophiles.
Over the months, Hedrick and McClain chatted regularly, detectives said. At one point, the two talked on the telephone.
"Hedrick uses a voice synthesizer that changes his voice to that of a young girl," said Sgt. Adam Christianson, Hedrick's supervisor on the task force. "We use it because often perpetrators want to talk to the victim to validate that they actually are talking to a young girl."
The two also exchanged items through the mail. McClain asked for some girl's underwear, and Hedrick sent him some, Christianson said.
McClain later e-mailed and told Hedrick he had framed and hung the underwear on his wall. And when police in Kerrville
Texas, searched McClain's home, that is exactly what they found.
Man allegedly meant to take teen to Mexico
The e-mail liaison stretched into October, when McClain unveiled a plan to come get the teen-ager, take her to Texas and then to Mexico, Stanislaus County sheriff's deputy Tom Letras said.
"He went so far as to tell the girl to get rid of all pictures of herself in the house so they couldn't issue an Amber alert, and said, 'We'll cut your hair and make you look like a boy,'" Letras said.
"The plan was they were going to meet at a motel in Turlock and have sex after school. Then after Thanksgiving she was going to run off with him."
McClain scratched the November rendezvous because of car trouble, Letras said. They rescheduled for Dec. 19, and he made the 1,500-mile trip from Kerrville.
"He showed up 24 hours early and drove by her junior high and the Burger King where they were to meet," Christianson said. "We had him under surveillance the whole time."
McClain had said he would be in the Burger King and would leave the doors to his car unlocked, Letras said. The girl was to get in his car and duck behind the seat. He would then come out and they would drive away.
Instead, McClain stayed parked across the street waiting for the girl, Christianson said.
"We have a female deputy who is very young-looking and small, who we dressed in the clothes he requested -- backpack, baseball cap and coveralls," Christianson said.
"She went into the Burger King and he pulled up from across the street, flashing his lights to get her attention, and into the Burger King parking lot. The moment he walked into the restaurant, we arrested him."
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
That is one of the reasons that SCOTUS made the right ruling last year regarding "virtual" child porn, and allowing it. The way the law they struck down was written, if a 20 year actress portrayed a 15 year old girl and appeared nude or in sexual acts, that, by law was child pornography! Never mind that the actress was 20!
Or, if the actress "appeared" to be under the age of 18. Never mind her age. If she "appeared" to be under 18 to the judge, it is child pornography.
And I also said that I have no problem with them nabing someone who did solicit. But i have a feeling that chat rooms are loaded with agents of the government actively seeking out men to engage in conversation, not sitting back waiting for one to engage them. And that is what I think is wrong.
I cruised some boards and rooms back when I was single. Occaisonally you'd see that '16 y/o'...
Not only would I not respond, I would log out and come back another day.
Mmmmm. And it sound as if it was a fairly expensive investigation to boot.
Either way, the right guy is in irons.
... that would have benefited you and me. Personally, I find that removing a pedophile like this from the community benefits my neices (I don't have a daughter but I have five neices).
I'm sure a sleezy lawyer will try to argue the entrapment angle, but unless they contacted him first, sought him out and tried to lure him into the encounter (seems a little pushy for a 13-yr old girl so it probably wouldn't be a very effective technique for catching pedophiles who tend to be predatory by nature), I doubt such a defense will fly with even a gullible jury -- let alone a judge who would rule on such questions.
I'm sure the FBI has to be really careful about how they approach something like this. Cases have been thrown out because the judge ruled that the FBI was engaging in entrapment. The FBI has to be able to prove that the perp was actively seeking a meeting and wasn't just being led on.
I personally don't buy the entrapment argument in a case like this. Even if the agent posing as a young girl was trying to initiate a meeting, a guy should have the discretion to say 'No, this is wrong, I shouldn't be doing this.'
I wonder if an FBI agent pretending to be a 13 year old girl has ever hooked up with an FBI agent pretending to be a perv on the prowl. That'd be a hoot. Wouldn't you love to be there when they meet at the local Burger King?
You statement is really like the whole "if you aren't doing anything wrong..." argument for no privacy, etc.
I know pederasty is nasty and properly illegal, but this law enforcement technique does seem to border on entrapment.
Law enforcement officials, Intelligence and Security agents, etc. often have to disguise their identities in order to apprehend drug dealers, smugglers, terrorists, kidnappers, rapists, serial killers, and other sorts of low-lifes -- including this pervert. I'm glad he encountered a federal official lying about who he was rather than an impressionable and gullible little 13-yr old girl starved for fatherly affection who would turn to a stranger in hopes of attention.
Perhaps it would be better to (1) wait until after the pedaphile successfully lures away, abducts, molests, and probably murders a few 13-yr old girls, (2) collect enough evidence from the documentation of the arrangements via chat room logs, (3) hopefully recover the bodies, and (4) prosecute the creep for kidnapping, rape, and murder thereby sending him away for longer.
We lose a few children along the way but we make sure the perverts' civil rights are protected and there is no hint of entrapment.
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