Article by Steven Yoder calls motivation for sex offender stings into question.
When I began volunteering for FAC a lifetime ago, I responded to a member call from a man I thought was delusional. He began by explaining how he found himself on the registry and the story seemed too preposterous to believe. He posted an ad in the personals section of Craigslist, a section intended for adults only, and began chatting with a few women. One chat turned very sexual and he got caught up in the excitement. At some point the woman he was talking to mentioned the fact that she had a daughter, which he was fine with. He wasn’t looking to be a step dad, he just wanted to hook up with this woman he was talking to. After a long and convoluted chain of messages (which were further confused by other women he was talking to), this woman turned out to be an undercover officer, the sexual conversations were taken out of context as if they were discussing the daughter and here he is.
I hung up the phone thinking to myself, “yeah right!” There is no way! There were too many absurdities in his story. Why would undercover police go into an adult site, pretending to be a child, pretending to be an adult pretending to be a child and initiate sexual conversations with people looking to meet adults? Police have much better things to do than trying bait people into sex with a fictional minor. Plus, if this were a real issue, law enforcement would be working with the dating apps to implement some sort of an identity verification or something. Clearly that would do more to protect kids than this?
It wasn’t a matter of days until I spoke with someone else who shared an almost identical story, and then another, and then another, before I realized this was an actual thing. This was actually happening and it was not a minority of the people caught up in this situation, it’s the majority.
As years passed and we learned more about these online stings, we uncovered a lot of sketchy practices. Steven Yoder’s article in The Appeal sheds some light on the motivation for these stings. It looks like $30,000,000 a year in funding might be that motivation and unless law enforcement can show results, by any means necessary, that $30,000,000 could be at risk of drying up.
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Yes, police officers and vigilante groups have been targeting men on adult dating/hookup sites and other adult sex forums to solicit random men in those places to commit a crime (to get them to talk sexually to someone who claims to be a minor and to get them to show up to find out what this extremely rare situation is really about). These cases meet both elements required to show these fake heroes are actually violating this federal law, 18 U.S. Code § 373 – Solicitation to commit a crime of violence, yet they continue to get away with doing this with no accountability or consequences for their not only very sick and twisted behavior but also illegal.
Isn’t the rape of a minor considered to be a violent act? So, based on talking men into having sex with a minor instead of with an adult (which the men were properly seeking), it’s a fact that those fake heroes have solicited men to commit a “crime of violence”. If all the boxes for this can be checked off, then all of those fake heroes who have done this should be charged and convicted of this crime. Who cares if this law was not intended for this. The fake heroes chose to misuse another law against others. Therefore, they deserve now to have a different law misused against them. There is plenty of evidence from these cases to show this is exactly what these fake heroes have been doing.
I’d support legislation directing that that $30MM be directed towards the rescue of actual victims.
If they can do that, then they can have my money.
Jacob, I think most people would agree with this, but many are just clueless about the reality of what law enforcement has really been doing. Most people are clueless about the fact that ICAC task forces have been throwing away millions of dollars and using up resources on creating fake child predator cases that have not save or protected any children at all. In fact, they have been doing this while helping increase the real risk of real children online. Sextortion has been a big problem for kids online for years, and ICAC has never done anything about that. It’s now increased. ICAC never even bothered to put out any information or any kind of education for parents and kids about this, even though this is exactly what they get funded to do. ICAC needs to be held accountable for throwing away so much money and wasting so many resources on creating fake crimes that only benefit them and failing to save and protect real children from real risks and real abuse. What they have been doing is beyond shameful.
I’ve always said it was about the money. ALWAYS follow the money. Just remember that in the late 80’s, early 90’s, FDLE was just a rinky-dink operation using old beat up, spray painted vehicles. Now, it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t have a budget pushing a billion dollars. Trolling for lonely people online by twisting a conversation is cheap, low-hanging fruit. Funny how many of the leo-trolls wind up on the registry themselves.
As someone who has over 160 online accounts registered with FDLE, been working online for about 25 years, has tried online dating sites/apps for years… trying to find a relationship while being on the registry is hard enough, but I suggest to all of you… if you’re on the registry already, and you’re talking to someone you’re interested in and they bring up having kids, just end it right there. 99% of those I’ve talked to will bounce as soon as they find out you’re an SO no matter what the reason you are. If you’re not on the registry, Do not discuss ANYTHING sexual until after you’ve met them and gone on a couple dates, and meet somewhere public. In this day and age it’s hard to trust anyone, and the setup and creation of false crimes, building the list further, is always more important to LEOs than protecting actual victims.
My case was very similar, I was on craiglist woman looking for man section and replied a few ads and one of them was” Where are the guys in Sarasota” I replied to it and got a message back, we talked for a day about maybe going out in valentine day, next when I asked tell me more about u.. they said she is 14 but is alone in the house. I said ” ohh I thought you were older, never mind about the wine, you should be playing with toys not in the internet looking for guys. Be careful there are a lot of crazy guys out there” and that it I ended communication and 8 hours later they came back at me” I like older guys” I said we can only be friends … and did a background check on the person and saw it was a 32 years old female, at the end after 5 days going back and forth I was arrested! I was playing games with this adult posing a teenager becuse i knew it was an adult but my lawyers didnt help much and the judge neither. 3.5 years in prison and sex offender.. my life ruined!
LE does similar stings with child pornography cases. It has nothing to do with protecting children. It’s all about the money.
Yep. I was reading the article and thinking what about these CP stings. Many involve P2P file sharing where the people receiving files don’t know what is in the files until they are already received. By that time, LE has tracked the download IP and the person is done for. Even if the person is somehow able to go through the thousands of files that can be downloaded at one time and sees images they don’t want or never intended to have, deleting the files can be a futile effort since LE has ways to recover the files that most lay people don’t. The unbeknownst downloader has little to no recourse once LE has logged the download of files tagged as CP. LE and gov agencies (ICAC, CMEC) tag the files and follow them around the internet nabbing people through P2P sharing programs making no attempt to quell the dissemination but instead allowing and even being known to promote the dissemination in order to reel in people and the federal kickback funds. It’s a pretty lucrative scam on the part of LE nevermind the people caught in the net and the community cost that inevitably comes from LEs paycheck. Just like crack cocaine and marijuana arrests have cost society, so shall these government stings.
Most CP cases involve someone knowingly downloading CP from a private party. Not the same as an online sting.
Sorry, but I don’t think there is enough data to support that statement when it comes to cases involving P2P file sharing. I don’t care who you are or what the title of the file is, you don’t know what is being downloaded until it’s done. LE however knows and watches as each byte is sent and received and does nothing to stop it. I’m not talking about chat apps or texts where people are knowingly exchanging images and requesting them; different scenarios. Sure there are a lot of news reports that would have the general populous believe that people knew what files they were receiving, but that is not surveyable data. You and I will agree to disagree on this.
Why would someone download a P2P file without knowing what it is? How would the govt then prove that the CP possession was willing and knowing?
It’s possible, Jacob. People download viruses from P2P servers and people can download images from P2P servers. Setting aside the intent (which, I agree that pretty much most prosecutions are in cases where there was intent), it is very possible to download a file called “FACFlowchart.jpg” and it can be anything.
Wrong, Jacob.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/fbi-posts-fake-hyperlinks-to-snare-child-porn-suspects/
The fact that you had to reach back 15 years to find one conviction, probably does not prove the point you think it does.
Mike, looking at the article, it’s clear that they are indeed going based on simple intent nowadays. Granted a slew of reasons can work to disprove the charges, but intent is their initial goal, and hopefully more to be discovered. I feel this is what is keeping the online sting operations going.
It’s also about them using their jobs to meet their own sexual desires. Why do you think police created sex crimes are so popular?