Central Florida Sex Stings have become a known joke… only it’s not funny.
Police will troll adult sites such as Craigslist (which expressly require that users be over the age of 18, so there’s a presumption that whoever you are speaking with, will be) and post or respond to personal ads.
Initially, the ad or response will lead the sting target to believe the person is an adult looking for the same thing as they are. The police engage in a few back and forth correspondence, getting increasingly sexual and trying to get the target vested in the relationship (let’s call this the “grooming” process). Then, out of nowhere, the officer will introduce a “minor” into the mix – either a “sister” or a confession the officer them self is “under age”.
The “bait and switch” scam was reported on in more detail in this series from reporter Noah Pransky and extensively in earlier posts on our site, so there’s no point in re-telling it here. What is helpful to answer is the questions we repeatedly get asked; ‘how does law enforcement get away with it?’ and ‘why don’t these people fight back?’
As we’ll explain, the answers to both go hand in hand, as victims (referring to the “invented sex offender”, not the fictional-police officer minor) need to fight back in order to stop the scam.
“A law enforcement officer, a person engaged in cooperation with a law enforcement officer, or a person acting as an agent of a law enforcement officer perpetrates an entrapment if, for the purpose of obtaining evidence of the commission of a crime, he or she induces or encourages and, as a direct result, causes another person to engage in conduct constituting such crime by employing methods of persuasion or inducement which create a substantial risk that such crime will be committed by a person other than one who is ready to commit it.”
The above paragraph is language taken directly from Florida Statutes 777.201 (1) which describes entrapment. What clearly takes place in these “stings” is entrapment and entrapment is a defense to a crime F.S. 777.201 (2) “A person prosecuted for a crime shall be acquitted if the person proves by a preponderance of the evidence that his or her criminal conduct occurred as a result of an entrapment. The issue of entrapment shall be tried by the trier of fact.”
To someone who has not “been through the system” fighting back seems like a no-brainier. Anyone who doesn’t do it, “must be guilty”.
To someone who HAS been through the system, fighting back is a naive concept. They know the facts – which are;
1) You’re sitting in jail – Bail is an absurd amount because the state attorney gave their canned speech about how “dangerous to children” you are, so you can’t afford it. Jail absolutely SUCKS and you just want out.
2) Legal fees – Your family scrambled to interview some attorneys and the cheapest one needs a $5000 retainer today! And that’s just the beginning… re-read a couple of paragraphs above… “if the person proves by a preponderance of the evidence…” “shall be tried by the trier of fact”. You need to go to trial to beat this thing. Trial is going to easily cost you $25-50,000. Nobody will do it pro bono and good luck with the Public Defender’s office!
3) The cops got your computer – Somewhere in the fog of what your attorney has been talking about he mentioned a “forensic computer expert” that will cost a few more thousand. What’s that? Oh, well the cops confiscated your computer. The entire exchange of conversations you have where you were originally talking to a 19 year old were on that computer! Everything that can prove your case is on there! Well the cops are not going to bring your computer to the jail and allow you to print off those conversations. You’ll need a forensic guy to go to them and then testify.
4) You’ve already been convicted in a court of public opinion – As you sit in Jail, your County Sheriff is holding a press conference standing by a large poster board with a dozen mugshots on it, including yours! Shit that’s a bad picture! He’s calling you a “monster” and the “thousands of innocent children…” Do you think the Sheriff will get up and do another press conference after you’re acquitted to admit he was wrong? Do you think the paper will do a follow-up story to restore your reputation or contact Google to remove your name from their index so that article doesn’t repeatedly come up for the rest of your life even after you’re proven innocent? Hell no! Damage has been done.
5) Judges are politicians – in our state, judges are elected. Even if you take this thing to trial, your trier of fact will be up for re-election soon. All they are thinking is, “oh shit, if I acquit this person this will make my opponent’s entire campaign”. There are very few judges with the integrity to commit political suicide. If a trial is a crap-shoot, elected judges stack the odds waaaaaaay against you.
6) You’ve been offered a plea – The prosecutor has told you that if you take a plea, you can get out of Jail soon. If you don’t take the plea, they will pile on the charges and ask for 20 years. 20 years?!?!?! Holy crap!!! With today’s “witch hunt” mentality and a politician for a judge, who in their right mind could take that chance? Even though you never had any intent of soliciting a minor, were on an ADULT website and are completely innocent, if you take this plea you have some chance of having a life, you have the possibility of being there for your aging parents and you don’t deplete everyone’s life savings in legal fees. They are both shitty options, but you have no choice but to take the one less shitty.
For “the system” these sex sting victims are low hanging fruit. Free grant money! Like shooting fish in a barrel.
There are very, very, very few people willing to stand up and expose the horrible injustice that’s taking place. That’s how law enforcement gets away with it.
Advocates like Trey Gennette and reporters like Noah Pransky, who have the courage and character to stand up are slowly chipping away sludge to uncover the truth. We need to help!
If you or someone you know were a victim of a Central Florida Sex Sting, particularly from Polk County, please contact [email protected], as we are interested in speaking with you.
Let me see if I understand this correctly. According to Florida Statute 777.201(1) and (2), even though an adult is on an adult – no one under 18 allowed – website and is picked up in a “sting”, and it is shown, by the undercover officer’s language that the officer was the initiator, AND, even if the adult backs off, suspecting that he or she is not talking with someone who is NOT a minor, that individual can still be prosecuted, but under the law must show (through discovery?) that the conversation was in fact not initiated by the individual. If so, what is the individual to do? Don’t we need to make this one of our priorities, not just for our s. o.s, but the PUBLIC in general, on the usage of “safe computing”? To go along with this, shouldn’t law enforcement agencies be responsible for their verbiage and in what constitutes “proper” usage? I agree this is a huge waste of time and money, but, I also feel, that with the encroachments upon innocent people and the lack of regard for any Constitutional rights, that there needs to be a push for a “Miranda v. Arizona 1966” statute, to mitigate these injustices.
We cannot rely on – obviously – local law enforcement to do the proper thing. While the HCSO may understand this and put their efforts and money to hunting down true predators, we still have to deal with people like the Polk County Sheriff.
I should also note that there is a swing, albeit, a slight one in the pendulum. I see that Sheriff Joe Arpaio may have cost his county millions of dollars and although he thinks he’s running for re-election, his actions are coming under heavy scrutiny.
One more note. I understand that our Florida judges are elected, but they must be held to the same scrutiny as other public officials. When judges begin to make bad calls because it will hurt them with their electorate, it may be time to look at judicial appointees, who have to be vetted and go through a process similar to that on the Federal level.
EXACTLY!!!!
Why only Central Florida Sex Stings? There are many that have happened in the Panhandle.
Agreed – it’s all over the state.
For those reading the above who have never been through this (I have) every letter of the above is true. My evidence in my case shows that although I communicated with the detectives (read: police who posted an ad on an adult site looking for sex) I also said numerous times I was not interested in the minor.
I was offered 10 years in prison! I had a 3 year old son, a career, a marriage (albiet troubled) and a good life. How can one get out of that?
These stings are not law enforcement… They are law MANIPULATION.
This is the criminalization of U.S. citizens who needed help. We needed counseling, we needed support. What we got was taken advantage of. No one was saved. No child was protected.
there was a story out of Sanford on the news 3 days ago where an adult man used an app called grinder to meet another man at a park and during the interview with tv station the man said he thought he was talking to an adult as the profile said he was 19 or 21 i forget what was said and the picture that was used showed tatoo’s sometime after they chated for a while they agreed to meet at a park and while the gut that was arrest was driving to the park he received a msg. that the other guy was 14. the gentelman that was arrested thought it was a typo or something as the profile showed a person with a tatoo and age listed in profile was over the age of concent. If that is not clearly bait and switch and entrapment i don’t know what is
These law enforcement actions used to be called entrapment…an illegal act.
Charles, but it’s very nature, Statute 777.201(1) and 777.201(2) stack the deck against the “defendant”. It reads as follows:
“A law enforcement officer, a person engaged in cooperation with a law enforcement officer, or a person acting as an agent of a law enforcement officer perpetrates an entrapment if, for the purpose of obtaining evidence of the commission of a crime, he or she induces or encourages and, as a direct result, causes another person to engage in conduct constituting such crime by employing methods of persuasion or inducement which create a substantial risk that such crime will be committed by a person other than one who is ready to commit it.”
The above paragraph is language taken directly from Florida Statutes 777.201 (1) which describes entrapment. What clearly takes place in these “stings” is entrapment and entrapment is a defense to a crime F.S. 777.201 (2)”A person prosecuted for a crime shall be acquitted if the person proves by a preponderance of the evidence that his or her criminal conduct occurred as a result of an entrapment. The issue of entrapment shall be tried by the trier of fact.”
The problem here is that the “issue of entrapment” shall be tried by the “trier of the fact”, i. e. the judge adjudicating. Therefore, what judge is going to backtrack on a verdict, when he is worried about his constituency, since he or she is elected, and not appointed.
The fact is this needs to be addressed on two fronts: 1) Educating the computer-using public and I mean EVERYONE in “safe computing”. If the conversation doesn’t sit well with the individual, the person who is the target should IMMEDIATELY contact their local law enforcement and tell them that they believe there is a minor in whatever “adults only” chat room the incident is occurring. The individual can also just say, “I think you’re a cop, trying to entrap me, and I’m ending this conversation NOW!” But the word needs to be gotten out. Number 2) ALL of these laws need to be challenged on a Constitutional level, and if possible need to be addressed, much in the way the Miranda Act (Miranda v. Arizona 1966) and CHANGED so that the onus is put back on the law enforcement agencies. This is not only unfair, it’s horrible police work. Time and money could be spent in much more fruitful ways, and just depending on a “nice” sheriff’s department, such as HCSO is not enough, when Polk County has a rabid dog as Sheriff and his whole reason for being seems to be running these police “stings”.
In ending this, entrapment is one of the most egregious acts that can be committed against local citizenry, short of denying Writ of Habeas Corpus (where a law enforcer is REQUIRED to literally, “produce the body”:)
You highlight a VERY important point and one that we’ve been making for a long time… In a state with ELECTED judges; our judges are politicians. If they make an unpopular decision they see 100K votes going out the door. Who will do that?