A Fake Person Is a Real Victim – At Least Under the Law
One of the most common criticisms of internet sting operations is that there was never an actual child involved. If the “victim” was really an undercover officer sitting behind a computer screen, can there truly be a victim at all?
The criminal conviction itself is not the surprising part — that question has largely been settled by decades of case law holding that an attempted offense can be prosecuted even when the intended victim never existed. The more interesting question is whether a fictitious victim should continue to carry legal weight years later when determining eligibility for sentencing benefits or exposure to collateral consequences.
Amendment 821 was adopted by the United States Sentencing Commission to provide modest sentence reductions for certain low-risk offenders with no criminal history, reflecting the Commission’s determination that these individuals generally present a lower risk of recidivism. However, the amendment excludes individuals convicted of “sex offenses”.
In United States v. Bryant, the defendant was convicted of attempting to entice a minor after communicating online with someone he believed was the mother of a 10-year-old girl. We all know how that ends up. Of course neither the woman nor the mother existed. They were a law enforcement officer. Years later, Bryant sought a sentence reduction under Amendment 821 to the federal sentencing guidelines. He argued that because there was no real child involved, his offense should not be considered a qualifying “sex offense” that would disqualify him from relief.
The court disagreed, taking the same stance with the requested relief under 821 as it does with the conviction. The court noted that federal courts across the country have consistently rejected the argument that an actual child must be involved for a conviction under the enticement statute. The crime, the courts have said, is the attempt itself.
Whether one agrees with that policy or not, the Bryant decision serves as another reminder that under the law, a person who never existed can still function as a “victim” for purposes of criminal prosecution, sentencing and even post-conviction relief. In the eyes of the court, it seems like the fictional person will be following Mr. Bryant for the rest of his life.
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Are you in Florida? If so, I’m wondering what county you’re in?
Who are you asking? And yes in florida
My arresting officer well at least the lead was a woman who admitted to using her teenage daughters photos to entice. Scary dynamics there
I would like to add another very disturbing thought that should keep everyone awake at night and many of us know first hand. We don’t have an innocent until proven guilty legal system.We have a Guilty until we make up the reasons why system.
In a true legal system rooted in liberty, there are no **imaginary crimes**. No victims? No real harm? No crime. Criminal law should punish actual wrongdoing against real people — not fantasies, objects, or thoughts. Yet America’s system has drifted dangerously far from “innocent until proven guilty.” It now operates more like a conviction machine where defendants start behind the eight ball, and prosecutors hold nearly all the cards.
**Consider these patterns:**
– **Child-like sex dolls**: People have been arrested and prosecuted for owning inflatable or silicone dolls resembling minors — items with **no actual victim**. In Kentucky, charges were initially brought until a judge dismissed them because no real child was involved; lawmakers then rushed to create new felonies specifically targeting them. Similar cases in Texas and elsewhere treat possession as akin to child pornography, even without harm to anyone. Prosecutors argue these “prove” future risk, but that’s pre-crime thinking — punishing imagination rather than acts.
– **Strict liability in statutory cases**:
Mistake of age is often **not a defense** in statutory rape prosecutions across most states. Even if the minor lied, showed a fake ID, or appeared clearly adult, defendants can be convicted without true intent or knowledge. Contrast that with serving alcohol to a minor, where a reasonable belief via ID can mitigate. The system demands defendants “prove” the doll or person was “of age” while stripping ordinary mens rea (guilty mind) protections.
– **Victims blocked or ignored**: Prosecutors increasingly pursue “evidence-based” or “victimless” cases in domestic violence, sex crimes, and beyond — even when the alleged victim recants, refuses to testify, or explicitly says they were **not victimized**. While this can counter coercion, it also lets cases roll forward against the complainant’s will, limiting the defense from directly challenging the heart of the accusation.
– **Entrapment? Good luck**: Federal entrapment defenses succeed in **under 1%** of cases. Defendants must often admit the acts and then prove government inducement plus no predisposition — an uphill battle against well-resourced stings.
This isn’t balance. The state has unlimited money, investigators, and plea leverage. Public defenders are crushed. Laws are written with strict liability, narrow defenses, and reversed burdens that make “innocent until proven guilty” a slogan, not reality. Media cheers prosecutors as heroes while the public stays unaware — until it’s their turn in the judicial assembly line.
**Real justice requires real victims and real harm.** Punishing thought, fantasy, or victimless “crimes” isn’t protection — it’s control. The true danger is a system that presumes guilt and hunts for the charge, eroding the foundational safeguard that separates America from authoritarian regimes.
We need reforms: broader mistake-of-age defenses, realistic entrapment standards, and a return to requiring actual harm. Otherwise, we’re all one misunderstanding, one sting, or one misinterpreted object away from the machine.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty? It’s been replaced by “guilty until we figure out the details.”
Yep. Well said. I have been trying to tell people this forever. Long before the registry. This applies in all aspect of our injustice system and gov. People don’t seem to understand what true justice and accountability and freedom are anymore. And I don’t get it. Even within this movement. I see people wanting more gov, more regulations in other areas as if this is the “only” area they get it wrong. It is crazy to me.
And you know what is even more crazy about those sting operations? They conduct them on apps like HUSH (previously known as Whispr), where it’s supposed to be about being able to express yourself freely: your thoughts, feelings, fantasies, desires, etc. – all while being anonymous. So, anybody who is communicating with anybody else on that app is automatically assumed to be someone who wants to keep their true identity hidden. For the government to conduct sting operations in places like that and then say, “He KNEW or believed he was talking to a minor because HE WAS TOLD that,” is just absolutely ridiculous! Why would anybody go out of their way to access an anonymous app, engage a man (or someone claiming to be an adult man) in a sexual conversation, tell him that they are underage, and invite that person claiming to be a man to meet for a casual sexual encounter. There is no way they can know for sure that they are engaging with an actual adult man. All they know is that this person has identified themselves as that. And it works the same way for the other person. Being told that this is a minor is not going to make a difference for many people, because why would anybody go out of their way to access this app and engage others just to reveal their true identity to them? It’s more logical to assume this person who feels the need to talk about their identity is role playing, pretending, or lying – or catfishing (like in sting operation cases).
So, the point is that this shows they are deliberately being malicious. They are conducting these sting operations where people expect their identities and the identities of others to be anonymous. So, to say that anybody using this app “knew” or “believed” who somebody else communicating with them on this app (or as a result of using this app) was – is total BS, and those who run these sting operations know that! They just don’t want for the public, courts, and juries to know that.
The defense lawyers for these cases just need to get with it. Many of them don’t see how they’ve been getting played too. Most lawyers just fold because they are very narrowly focused and don’t see the whole picture, primarily because there is so much they just don’t understand about these cases – and many are just not willing to admit that. If they put more focus on the websites and apps the sting operations are conducted on, they would know and understand a lot more about how and why this keeps happening. I think most of them never even bother to look at where the sting operation was conducted or know much about how those places work. The men entrapped are typically too traumatized to be able to verbalize and explain important facts like this that really matter.
In a world grounded in reality and evidence-based justice, imaginary crimes cannot constitute actual offenses. The notion of prosecuting individuals for manufactured offenses—whether involving fabricated evidence, play pretend cops as minors,questionable porn materials distributed by intelligence agencies, or CGI simulations involving inanimate objects—represents a profound distortion of justice. Real justice should address tangible harm, not contrived scenarios designed to showcase government power. Charging and arresting people for “thought” crimes should stay the realm of Stallone “Time Cop” Movies not real life.
When Judges sentence , congress manufacturers laws, law enforcement or prosecutors pursue such “crimes,” they undermine the very foundation of the entire legal system. The justice system should focus on preventing and addressing actual harm to real victims, not creating artificial crimes to boost conviction rates, increase finances, or generate media attention. The absurdity of such prosecutions becomes clear when we consider their logical extensions—should children breaking dolls playing with dolls be charged with assault? Should Match Box toy car races result in traffic violations? How about all the crimes portrayed in Hollywood movies, should actors/actresses be arrested? Absurd right? But here we are .
This trend reflects a dangerous expansion of government authority and a departure from the principle that justice requires both an actual victim and actual harm. Instead of concentrating resources on genuine threats to society, this approach manufactures threats to justify increased surveillance,pad prison cells,generate funds, control, and government power. True justice requires evidence, proportionality, and a focus on real-world harm—not the prosecution of imaginary offenses designed to satisfy bureaucratic metrics or political narratives. Home of the free my axx.
No victim. No crime. Period.
How many children has LE found on adult web sites talking it up? Any? Do they try? Do they try to find the kids who intentionally lie about their age to get onto an adult web site. I mean if there are so many doing it, should be easy. Do they not want to save them? Nope.
Seriously, how many 14 year olds are getting onto adult web sites to talk sex? Some how I am thinking that is not a thing, but LE says otherwise so they should find the actual child would be nice.
@mp
The problem with ‘no victim no crime’ is that when Intelligence catches terrorists with all the hardware necessary to bomb a facility with hundreds of people BEFORE they carry out their plot, we should let them go because there were no victims and no crime was yet committed??
That’s right, IT’S NOT A THING. These decoys, like Chris Hansen, are pretending like kids as young as 13 and 14 – and they’ll even use the “v” word – you know those with no experience at all – somehow these kids just want to find random adult male strangers on adult hookup/sexual sites, to engage those strangers in casual sexual conversations and to invite those adult strangers to meet for a casual sexual encounter. According to the fantasy they present, these kids have never done anything like this before, but for some very odd reason, on this day, they decided they wanted to do this – and not just do it – but do it specifically with an ADULT STRANGER. And Chris Hansen has said that “this could’ve been a real 14 year old who would’ve been here ready to perform or*l s** on the man who showed up.
I’m not lying about that! It’s in some of his videos. He promotes and encourages sexual fantasies about that, and then he pretends like it’s others who have this problem and not him. Seriously!! How the heck has everybody been missing that for this long??? That man right there is clearly the real problem! And there are many more just like him.
The word “Entrapment” should be taken out of the dictionary because we rarely ever see an entrapment case as a defense that has success when related to sex offenses.
The prosecutors will say “There was not entrapment because you knew you were going to meet an under aged teen”. The second problem with that is, sometimes the person pretends to be 18 then later says they are really 15. When you close down and leave the chat upon hearing that new age, you still get arrested even though you were not trying to find kids.
How is that justice, being arrested for someone you were not looking for with a false age change halfway through. You do not even have to meet in person because the cops help you to jail by giving you a ride to jail from your own home. How nice of them.