'Stupidity' Author Caught Soliciting Minor Online

Palm Beach Post ^ | 11/8/02 | By Antigone Barton

[Taliesan]

If they are making a movie in my town and they build a set with a fake bank and someone tries to rob the fake bank, is it bank robbery?

Let's change that just slightly. Suppose I pull a gun on you and say "give me all your money." But you don't have any. So I walk away and you are completley unharmed. Am I as morally responsible for what I did as if you had had 100 bucks on you?

Of course I am. That I am a stupid robber does not make me innocent. The man who attempts to rob a movie-set bank is guilty of bank robbery, or perhaps we could simply create a new felony called "attempted bank robbery".

[Blue Screen of Death]

I don't support pedophiles. It was not an analogy it was a question. I am trying to uderstand the line between entrapment and not entrapment and your name calling sheds no light on the question.

[Blue Screen of Death]

create a new felony called "attempted bank robbery".

Now that makes sense. They can charge this guy with attempted child rape. I can see that. I can see an attempted solicitation charge. What I had a problem with is that there never was a child involved in this specific case, so there was no specific victim.

[weegee]

If the person that you rob has $1,000, the charges are tougher than if he only has $100. Perhaps if you (hypothetically) rob someone and he has $1,000 it would be best to leave him with $50-100 so your charge is lesser.

[Salman]

For the last three weeks the author had been corresponding, in increasingly explicit terms, not with a teenage girl but with a 40-year-old male detective, going slightly gray at the temples, sitting in an office at the Lantana Police Department.

Was a crime committed? Soliciting sex from a 15 year old is a crime. Soliciting sex from a consenting adult while fantasizing about children? Creepy yes, but a crime?

[weegee]

Perhaps next time, the "14 year old" will poor out "her" heart to one of these old men. Tell him how her stepfather is abusing her and she wants someone to "whack" him.

Is it any harder to believe that someone could be talked into "working" as a hitman? There was an article posted in the last couple of weeks about a girl who was being investigated because her personal website (at AOL or some other provider) included a request (joke or not) for someone to kill her parents.

Vice squad picking up Johns and arresting underage prostitutes would do more good. If they want to protect kids, they might also do better to investigate some of the people in professions that have daily encounters with youths. We've read about teachers, coaches, principals, counselors, psychiatrists, religious leaders, etc. who actually do have sex with minors.

[wimpycat]

Read the article again, this time skipping over the parts that make you indignant, such as an undercover detective doing his job, and get to the part that tells us exactly what the charges are against him.

Still looking? That's because none of the specific charges against him are mentioned, so you don't know what he was charged with. He could have a child pornography charge against him for all you know. It doesn't say what he was charged with in relation to going to meet a young girl for sex, either.

[AdA$tra]

Still looking? That's because none of the specific charges against him are mentioned, so you don't know what he was charged with.

I am quite capable of looking elsewhere for information. He was arraigned on one felony charge of soliciting a minor over the Internet and was released on bond. I am not defending this idiot but I cannot condone the methods used by law enforcement in this case either. Given and opprotunity to establish a dialog eventually I could make someone incriminate themselves somehow too. It just isn't the way we do things here in our once great country. If we have evidence of a crime we make our case and prosecute, we don't go out and talk/trick people into breaking the law so we can arrest them.

[Timesink]

LOL! Jeez, soliciting sex with a minor on the internet is just plain stupid.

Yes, but not nearly as stupid as thinking a 15-year-old girl would want to have sex with a 61-year-old man in the first place.

[Timesink]

I wonder if the cop became aroused while playing his little game. If so, would that be illegal?

Heh, good question. But I know there's been more than one case where one a has ended up wasting months of his time slowly "reeling in" a supposed pedophile who ended up being another cop from somewhere else in the country attempting the same thing, with both sides nearly ending up in a shootout with each other at the "meeting place" because both sides pounced on each others' "pedo" at the same time with a zillion guns drawns.

[Timesink]

Let's say your wife contacted a hit man to kill you. Should we wait until you are dead before we arrest anyone?

In many cases, that's exactly what they will do, unless they happened to catch your wife in the act of soliciting the hit man. Just like when you get a restraining order against someone, they won't do jack if the person continues harassing you. Then when he kills you they tell the press "Well, gee, if we'd been there when he pulled out the gun..."

[fnord]

I'm glad to see a few other FReepers have a problem with our police departments spending untold hours trying to entice a guy to cross a line. At least the didn't send a SWAT team to get him.

It would be interesting to see the complete transcripts of their chats. Methinks the 'girl' had to do a lot of talking, increasingly erotic, to keep this guy on the hook.

And unless they can tie him to a crime against an actual person, I bet he walks. But I also bet he won't be tempted to chat up teen-age girls again, lol.

[Bonaparte]

"A buck says he walks. He didn't actually have sex with an underage girl, so not a day of jail time."

Not the way it works. Solicitation or attempted solicitation of sex with a minor or with someone believed to be a minor is a felony. Five-year prison terms are often prescribed for this, along with steep fines. First-time offenders are usually pled out if there are no aggravating factors and defendant shows remorse.

[Timesink]

An odd twist to this tale is that the perp was observed driving recklessly (80mph, weaving) to the meeting place. Why wasn't he cited for speeding/dangerous driving on the way?

Easy. The entire department was in the process of trying to entrap the guy. If they'd pulled him over for speeding, he would've freaked and turned around and headed home. They would have let him drive 150 in a school zone bouncing little old ladies off his grille by the dozen ... anything to insure he showed up so that could get that pedophile nab. Speeding is boring. Hit and runs are boring. Pedophilia is top story on the evening news.

[Timesink]

Let's change that just slightly. Suppose I pull a gun on you and say "give me all your money." But you don't have any. So I walk away and you are completley unharmed. Am I as morally responsible for what I did as if you had had 100 bucks on you?

Yes, because you went after a real human being. And you'd probably be more likely to be charged with assault with a deadly weapon than attempted robbery, or both. It's not the same thing.

[RightOnline]

"First-time offenders are usually pled out if there are no aggravating factors and defendant shows remorse."

I rest my case.

[Timesink]

My guess is that someday, some cop or FBI agent is going to screw up his entrapment of the alleged pedophile in some way along the lines of what you suggest - take the "story" too far and have the pedo end up trying to murder the parents too or somesuch - and the entire mess will end up at the SCOTUS, where all online entrapment will end up being ruled unconstitutional.

(And no, you "for the CHILLLLLL-DRUN" type, I'm not saying they'll make this ruling for any moral reason, merely for constructionist reasons. So I'm not interested in arguing the "morality" of any such potential ruling. I simply believe it will occur.)

[Joe 6-pack]

"Yeah, but just discussing an illegal activity is a crime in Amerika."

He did more than, "discuss," it. It sounds as though he put the wheels in motion to commit a criminal act, and in most state legal codes that I'm aware of, "attempts," also constitute a criminal act. That way, the loser criminals who aren't bright enough to consummate (no pun intended) their planned criminal act can still be prosecuted.

By your logic, had the 9/11 terrorists been overheard on 9/10, discussing their plans while buying their boxcutters at Ace Hardware, there would have been no legal recourse...

[Timesink]

And unless they can tie him to a crime against an actual person, I bet he walks.

More than one has, for just that reason. It just depends on how good a lawyer he gets.

[Bonaparte]

"Why wasn't he cited for speeding/dangerous driving on the way?"

Florida speed limit on freeways: 70
Actual speed (no cop present): 90
Actual speed (cop present): 80

Let me illustrate further, TS. A friend of mine was going 65 mph on a freeway with a 65 mph posted speed limit. He was stopped and cited. Why? Because the rest of the traffic was moving at 80 and he was creating a hazard by driving slower than the flow of traffic. He took this to court and lost. IOW, if he had broken the posted speed limit like everybody else was doing, he would have been fine.