Posted on 11/08/2002 9:18:14 AM PST by marshmallow
LANTANA -- James F. Welles wrote the book on stupidity -- two, in fact -- and then he proved he knew what he was talking about, police say.
This is how they tell it:
The 61-year-old author of The Story of Stupidity and Understanding Stupidity had written extensively about the dumb moves people make, so when he made a date with a 15-year-old girl he met over the Internet, he tried to be cautious.
"We can't be lovey-dovey in public," the stupidity expert explained to his new young friend. "Bottom line, I'm committing a crime."
She could call him "Dad" when they met at a Denny's in Lantana, said Welles, who also has a Ph.D in biology. Then they could go to his car and have sex, he suggested -- but backed away from that plan when he realized his windows were not tinted enough to ensure privacy.
In any case, the date fell apart Friday evening when he was greeted at Denny's by two uniformed police officers.
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.
The relationship began in an Internet chat room, Detective Todd Dwyer said Thursday.
Dwyer, who has arrested six other men since April on charges of soliciting children for sex through the Internet, isn't sure which chat room it was -- he goes to a lot of different ones: " 'I love older men,' 'men and boys,' " he tosses off, "special interests."
Soon Dwyer, who had logged on as a teenage girl, got an instant message from Welles, who asked for a description.
"I was just average, 5-foot 4-inches, about 118 pounds," the detective said. "I didn't make myself a knockout or anything like that."
"He went on to say he would like to meet me to coach me in tennis, tutor me in biology or give me singing lessons," Dwyer wrote in his arrest report. "Welles gradually worked his way from coach/tutor to a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship." But, Dwyer noted, Welles, who has a condo in Pompano Beach, remained concerned "about how we would be seen in public."
On the other hand, Welles figured out a bright side to their supposed age difference: They would escape notice because no one would believe the two could be attracted to each other.
It took about three weeks to get to the point he was willing to commit a crime, Dwyer said.
In the meantime, he bragged to his new friend about his work, directing Dwyer to www.stupidity.com, which touts his The Story of Stupidity, subtitled A History of Western Idiocy From The Days of Greece To The Moment You Saw This Book. A link on that Web site takes a visitor to the table of contents for the book. Chapters include Greek Stupidity, Roman Stupidity, Medieval Stupidity, Stupidity Reborn, Stupidity Reformed, Reasonable Stupidity, Enlightened Stupidity, Industrial Stupidity and The Age of Arrogance.
"Unfortunately," a passage in that last chapter ponders, "the arrogance inherent in this 'We can do anything' attitude came to characterize the general stupidity of our age and contributed to the monumental problems we have created for ourselves."
Still, Welles continued to fret over how he and his new acquaintance would behave in public when they met, the detective said.
It was Dwyer who suggested he could simply pose as "Dad."
"That's a great plan!" he said Welles responded.
Welles was spotted speeding more than 80 miles an hour, zig-zagging through traffic on I-95 to his date Friday evening, according to the arrest report.
Instead, he wound up at the Lantana police station, where he gave a taped statement to police, saying he knew it was wrong to have sex with a minor, but that was what he had hoped to do. He likes girls under 18, he told police.
"He was always aware this could be a set up," Dwyer said. Welles, who had concluded in his 1988 book that "stupidity is a necessary evil," worried in his Internet messages about "the state of Florida looming in the background."
"Yep," Dwyer agreed, it did seem kind of stupid for him to go ahead with the plan, anyway. "He just has no common sense, I guess."
Or, as Welles put it, in the epilogue to The Story of Stupidity: "... our schemas define the way we perceive and interact with our environment while preventing us from learning more about it and ourselves."
antigone_barton@pbpost.com
She could call him "Dad" when they met at a Denny's in Lantana, said Welles, who also has a Ph.D in biology. Then they could go to his car and have sex, he suggested -- but backed away from that plan when he realized his windows were not tinted enough to ensure privacy.
Its so funny, I had to repeat it.
Meanwhile I'm sure the Lantana PD has plenty of unsolved cases in it's files, none of which were committed by this 61 yr. old.
It took about three weeks to get to the point he was willing to commit a crime, Dwyer said.
I thought the job of the police was to prevent crime, not to work three weeks getting someone willing to commit one. Maybe its the way he worded it. I suppose the point is, if this had really been a 15-year old girl, the same thing could have happened, and at least this guy won't have an opportunity to do that for a while.
There's a better way I think:
A lot of this stuff could be stopped if parents would just have the guts to remember they are the adults and are responsible for what happens to their children. Spy on 'em. Better they get upset with you than they get raped or murdered, and someday they'll thank you for loving them enough to save them in spite of themselves.
Why shouldn't we do this for our children. The government and liberals think nothing of doing this to grown adults, saving us from smoking and driving without seat belts or riding without helmets.
Hank
I wonder how smart this cop is. This is the type of thing cops are unofficially told NOT to admit, specifically because it sets up an entrapment defense.
Naturally, one of the things that should keep 61 yr olds and 15 yr olds apart is the perception on the part of the 61 yr old that nobody that young would be interested in him. This assumption was operating in the fellow's head before the cop gave him a different impression. Dunno if the guy deserves jailtime for hitting on a 40 yr old cop, but I can certainly think of better uses of police resources.
Reminds me of the bums who get to sit in strip clubs for 10 hours at a time waiting to see if a "no contact" rule is violated -- often by having the stripper violate the rule by touching the very cops operating the sting. They even get cash to lead the girls on! Nice work if you can get it!
If you want on or off this list, please let me know!
LOL! Jeez, soliciting sex with a minor on the internet is just plain stupid. Practicall ALL the "teenage girls" are cops just like half of all militia members are feds.
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