A prominent reporter from Central Florida who had written a series of articles on “sex offender stings” a few years back, highlighting the methods police departments used to entrap people into committing attempted “sex crimes” on an non existent victim, is doing a follow up investigation.
He is looking for registrants or family members of registrants, who were “caught” in an online sting conducted an an adults-only site, such as Tinder, Bumble, POF, Craigslist personals or similar. People who would have otherwise never engaged in any sexual misconduct, were they not coerced into chats with law enforcement officers that went awry.
If you were arrested in such as sting and would be willing to share your story in an effort to help expose the grievous wrong-doing that law enforcement is engaging in, please reach out to [email protected] with your contact details and some basic information about your case.
While those willing to share their stories will be given pseudonyms and the reporter will do their best to disguise their identity, the story will air on both television and in print and only those willing to appear (with their identities hidden), should reach out.
To Whom It May Concern:
I really need to talk to someone about my son being a victim of entrapment. It is too long for me to explain on paper. Can someone please please call me?
My phone# isXXXXXXXX
Thank you very much.
Sue Gullikson
Sue,
We edited your phone number out. The only people you should be speaking with about your son’s case is a licensed and qualified attorney. If you need a referral, we can possibly help guide you to someone with experience in these types of cases, but this is not a forum through which you should be taking specific legal advice.
Ms. Gullickson
My sympathies. I wish you and your family the best. If you like near Daytona Beach I would recommend contacting attorney John Revis.
Hi I’m 23 n this just happened to me in Alabama can anyone help out
If you’ve just been charged with a criminal offense, the only person you should be soliciting advise from is your attorney. Be very careful what you post or say publicly because remember that anything you say can be used against you. That is why it is so important to have competent representation.
My husband was arrested in a sting like that a few years ago and was railroaded into pleading to Federal charges. If anyone wants to talk to me, please feel free to reach out!
My son was caught in a sting 9 years ago. We are now at the end of the court system and feel/know that what they did was illegal. The courts are on the side of the police. He was only 24 at the time. How many more people will have their lives ruined.
My 20 yr old Son was as arrested for similar charges. I have questions
My fiancé and I are going through this situation right now. He was arrested in a sting operation and is currently incarcerated in Florida. HIs attorney was inexperienced in these types of cases so he was given a very harsh sentence. The years behind bars are not as concerning as the years on probation. Can anyone recommend a good attorney that deals with these types of cases? Also, has anyone heard of any special cases where these types of offenders are able to live with their children even on probation? Just trying to have some sort of normal life when he gets out. Thanks for your help.
Have you spoken to any of the attorneys on the FAC Attorney Referral webpage?
An FAC conference call featured an attorney who is very experienced in these types of stings. FAC/anyone remember his name?
I live with my children while on probation. It’s not a ‘special case,’ as you characterize it. It just depends on what his conditions say in his judgement order.
If you’re in the Daytona Beach area, I would recommend Attorney John Revis.
sex sting operations are a hate crime against men
I love in Tucson Arizona and I’m going through that right now. Look up Tucson stings and you’ll see a picture of 21 guys arrested in that sting operations.please help
Is this story still going on?
I want to update anyone wondering about this. As well as FAC this is not happening anymore. At least not in the immediate future or anytime soon.
Has anyone submitted their story yet? I’ve discussed with my son and he is willing to go ahead with this.
It is so unfair that the cops can ruin peoples lives like this. In Florida the whole process is run like a business. You really have to wonder if all of the legal/justice system is involved, from the bottom up. They get millions from the federal government for these stings. If there is no victim, if they talked on an adult site, there should be no charges.
It is about time that someone , is looking into this entrapment on the adult sites. this is unconstitutional , It is all about money , not to watch over children. This is so bad, what it has done to the family and the man they state is a sex offender. all they are doing is manufacturing sex offenders for money .. please please help save these men and family from this injustice.
I’m out now. But this is what happened to me a few years back. I finally got out and have no probation this time. See story below and if anyone has a good attorney that isn’t afraid of the FDOC or the State of Florida (Stuart, Fl. “Martin County”) I live in Daytona Beach and had never been to Stuart, Florida, until this happened. So where did this so called crime happen? The Exhibits that I refer too is in my Transcripts of my Trial.
PETITION FOR WRIT OF HAVEAS CORPUS:
COMES NOW the Petitioner, Samuel Abrahamsen in Pro se, and pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.630(a) and Florida Statutes section 79.09, petitions this Honorable Court to issue a writ of habeas corpus requiring Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones o sow why the Petitioner is continuing to be incarcerated beyond the expiration of his sentence of imprisonment.
JURISDICTION:
The Petitioner invokes his right declared by Article I, section 13 of the Florida Constitution to petition this Court for a writ of habeas corpus, without cost. Article V, Statute 5(b) of the Florida Constitution provides this Court with original jurisdiction to issue a writ of habeas corpus. A petition for writ of habeas corpus must be filed to a court in the county where the petitioner is being detained, according to Alachua Regional Juvenile Detention Center v. T.O., 684 So. 2d 814, 816 (Fla. 1996); Alday v. Singletary, 719 So. 2d 1260 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998). Apostle Paul of Tarsus orally petitioned Porcius Festus, Governor or Caesarea, where Paul was imprisoned, for a writ of habeas corpus , as recorded in the King James Version of the Holy Bible at Acts 25:11-12- “… I appeal unto Caesar. Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? unto Caesar shalt thou go.”
The ‘holy writ’ was later established as a common law right by being included in the Magna Carta that King John of England signed on June 15, 1215, and later guaranteed as Article I, section 9 of the United States Constitution. The Petitioner herein request the due process he has a right to, by this Court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus and order discharging him from imprisonment, based on the following facts, authorities, and exhibits attached hereto.
EXHAUSTION OF ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDY:
On 7-12-17 the Petitioner submitted an Inmate Request to Tomoka Correctional Institution (CI), Classification Department, supported with attachments, claiming that he completed his sentence of imprisonment for ten (10) years on November 30, 2016 by having previously served 2,671 days before being re-sentenced on January 8, 2016, for probation revocation, to ten years(3,650 days) with credit for the 2,671 days he previously served plus 155 days of county jail time credit and earned gain time. The Classification Department’s Response stated that the Petitioner’s Tentative Release Date (TRD) is “8/20/18” and advised him to forward his information to the “Central Office”(in Tallahassee) “for further review” if the Petitioner feels like “this is an error.”
On August 30, 2017 the Petitioner submitted a Request for Administrative Remedy or Appeal to the Respondent to show with attachments that the sentencing court has ordered the Petitioner be credited with all the time he was previously physically incarcerated, which should have resulted in his be released on April 18, 2017, and that failing to release him then continues unlawful confinement, which is the most severe manifest injustice imaginable.
On October 18, 2017 the Respondent mailed the denial of the Petitioner’s request. The explanation accompanying that denial addressed only whether the Petitioner has earned enough gain time to be released when he completes 85% of his sentence, without addressing credit for the total time he has served on his ten-year sentence.
HISTORY OF THIS CASE
This case began on September 13, 2006 in Petitioner's residence in South Daytona, Florida (Volusia County) when he accessed the Yahoo role - playing Romance chat room that was restricted by the Terms and Conditions of Yahoo th access by only persons who are eighteen years old or more. Martin County Sheriff's Detective entered that role-playing romance chat room and, pretending to be a fourteen- year old girl, enticed the Petitioner into a conversation. Martin County Sheriff's Deputies subsequently broke into the Petitioner's residence in South Daytona while the Petitioner was not there, and they searched it without a warrant. After their search, they telephoned the Petitioner and asked him to return to his residence, where they questioned him without providing a Miranda Warning because he was "not being arrested." The information obtained from that search and questioning was used to arrest the Petitioner one month later on October 20, 2006 and coerce him into a no contest plea in exchange for a sentence of 2 years imprisonment followed by 3 years of sex offender probation.
A condition of that probation required the Petitioner to pay for and submit to a "denial polygraph examination" administered by the Florida Fact-Finders. The results of 3 rounds of lie-detector tests showed that he did not believe he was talking to a minor while he was in the role-playing Yahoo romance chat room.
The Petitioner was again arrested, on January 26, 2010, and his probation was revoked on November 5, 2010, based on a complaint to his probation officer, made in a telephone call from a competing billiards league team captain, Angie Spivy, as a retaliation against the billiards tournament owner, for having deducted points from Angie's team for a rule violation. Angie knew that the Petitioner was the League owner's (Pam) boyfriend and that he was serving a term of sex offender probation. To punish Pam, Angie fabricated an indecent exposure complaint against the Petitioner, a captain of an opposing billiards league team, by alleging he had exposed his naked body to her while he stood in the open doorway of his residence when she came there to deposit her billiard team's score sheet in a box on the front porch of that house he shared with the Tournament owner, Pam The probation revocation hearing judge reviewed but disregarded the ankle GPS monitor recording that showed the Petitioner was riding his motorcycle on a highway at the same time that Angie Spivy claimed she saw the Petitioner standing in the open doorway of his residence. The hearing judge ignored that proof of innocence by revoking the Petitioner's probation and re-sentencing him to 8 years in prison to be followed by 7 years of probation.
The Petitioner was arrested again, on august 7, 2015, and his probation was revoked for his possession of a cell phone on which the Face book internet website had been accessed. At the January 8, 2016 Plea Sentencing and Violation of Probation Hearing, the judge noted that the original offense on September 13, 2006 for which the Petitioner was initially convicted and sentenced pursuant to Florida Statutes 800.7(c) "Doesn't exist anymore." That judge also noticed that the Petitioner took a denial polygraph examination regarding the original alleged offense, and "He passed a polygraph.
The Petitioner explained that the polygraph examination required three sessions of tests (Exhibit D: p.33, 1. 3-25; p.34,1. 1-12), that he "was in a romance char foom on Yahoo, eighteen or over, age appropriate, Role Playing." (p. 34, 1. 1-12). The Petitioner complained that when a martin County Sheriff's detective pretended to be a minor in a role-playing chat room (p.24, 1. 14-24), "they entrapped me to do this." (p. 36, 1. 15-16).
Petitioner asks this Court to notice that the Martin County Sheriff's role-playing romance chat room sting operation in this county (Volusia), search of the Petitioners residence in Volusia County without a warrant or his presence, and questioning him in Volusia County without a Miranda Warning were in effect an orchard of poisonous trees in Volusia County from which Martin County criminal justice officers harvested the poisonous fruit of probation sentences, probation revocations, and resentences for violating a penal statute that "doesn't exist anymore."
Thank you, I’ve been waiting on this article or one like it.
We must remember that it’s not a crime until alleged perpetrator engages in conversation and shows underage sexual intent. And continues that conversation even though they are engaging with a Law Enforcement Agency. Cops must be forbidden by new laws of entising sexual crimes on citizens whom otherwise would never show intent to commit those crimes. JEV
It is crazy that police can use non existent victims to entrap people. Who did they hurt having a conversation with a 50 year male or female cop pretending to be a minor. I think a lot of people probably interacted with the sting operatives because they are good or experts at luring them into these conversations. It probably could happen to anyone online. Sad you can’t talk to a woman online who then reveals she a minor at some point, then it’s to late your busted.
“Minority Report” starring Tom Cruise covered this “fictional” scenario decades ago. Today, it’s real life non-fiction.