Defendant WINS in Federal Internet Sting Prosecution
We all hear about these police stings, where law enforcement officers post or respond to ads on ADULT dating sites and then, after engaging in a sexually charged conversation and some strong leading, pull a “switch-a-roo” and announce the fictitious person is fictitiously under-age.
We all know what usually happens; the feds threaten decades in prison but offer a plea deal that, given the risk, most defendants grab. In fact 97% of prosecutions go this way.
Well a Georgia man stood up and fought back! Facing a minimum mandatory 10 years in prison, he took his case to trial AND WON!
Story is below:
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It took a federal jury slightly more than an hour Wednesday to find an Auburn, Ala., man accused of being a child sexual predator not guilty.
Ji Won Kim, 26 was one of 21 men arrested in November as part of a multi-law enforcement agency sting in which investigators posed as children online. Though he was arrested by Columbus Police in early November, Kim was indicted Nov. 16 on the federal charge of attempted online enticement of a minor.
He was tried this week in the Middle District of Georgia in front of Judge Clay Land this week.
If convicted, Kim would have faced a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum term of life in prison and/or a $250,000 fine up to a lifetime term of supervised release, and mandatory sex offender registration if he had been convicted.
Kimâs attorney, Bernard Brody of Atlanta, said the case should never have gone to trial. Some of the jurors hugged Kim outside the downtown Columbus courthouse when the three-day trial was over.
The prosecution contended Kim drove from Auburn to Atlanta for the purposes of having sex with a 14-year-old girl he had met online. Kimâs defense was he did not know the girl was 14 and that she led him to believe by an online photo and a phone conversation that she was much older.
The jury of seven women and five men got the case at 11 a.m. and returned an acquittal at 12:25 p.m.
âThe jury agreed that Ji Won was not a predator and had no intention or desire to meet a 14-year-old girl,â Bernard said. âAlso, they found that Ji Won clearly did not believe she was 14, which is what the government was required to prove at trial.â
The U.S. Attorneyâs Office in the Middle District of Georgia issued a brief statement. The prosecutor was Assistant U.S. Attorney Crawford Seals.
âWe are disappointed with the verdict but we respect the juryâs decision,â said spokesperson Pamela W. Lightsey.
Kim is the first of the defendants arrested in the sting called âOperation Hidden Guardianâ to go to trial. At least four of the defendants have entered guilt pleas in front of Land: Kenneth Jordan, 29, of Columbus; Edwin Nieves, 55, of Columbus; Christopher McGowan, 32, of Mechanicsburg, Pa; and Dereck Weldon, 30, of Columbus.
Each man pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of use of interstate facilities to transmit information about a minor, a felony that carries a possible fine and up to five years in prison.
During Operation Hidden Guardian, which launched Nov. 9, investigators posing as children had more than 600 exchanges with people on various online platforms, including social media and chat rooms. In more than 400 of those exchanges, the suspect initiated contact with the âchildâ and directed the conversation toward sex.
The agencies involved in the investigation were the Columbus Police Department, Muscogee County Sheriffâs Office, District Attorneyâs Office for the the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit, United States Attorneyâs Office for the Middle District of Georgia, the Georgia Bureau of Investigationâs Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit, and the Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
The operation fell under a task force called the Internet Crimes Against Children, which was started by the United States Department of Justiceâs Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Brody said.
The operation, at least in Kimâs case, was flawed, Brody said.
âHe responded to an ad on Backpage.com looking for a prostitute,â Brody said. âThe ad was created by ICAC and it contained pictures of Hayleee Peacock, a 26 year-old GBI agent. âAccording to the agents, many people responded to the ad who were not looking for children but most of them turned away once the agent said she was 14.â
Ji Won initially asked the agent to send him a selfie so he could be sure that the picture in the ad was real as many ads on Backpage contain fake pictures, Brody said. The agent said she was 14 and he was shocked since he had never run into a minor on Backpage before.
âShe then sent the selfie of herself and it was clear that she was at least in her 20s,â Brody said. âThen he called back and said, âYouâre not really 14, right?â she stuttered and he then realized she was lying. Although she kept saying she was 14, he decided to go out to the house anyway. She was very attractive and he just was sure that she was not 14. He then got arrested and told the agents that he in no way believed she was 14, pointing to the ad, the selfie, her voice, etc.â
A search of Kimâs phone showed no evidence of child pornography or any communications with minors, according to evidence presented at trial.
Kim was born in South Korea and moved to the United States when he was 12. He graduated from Auburn High School, and was in the final semester at Georgia Tech. He earned his engineering degree in December, but was not able to walk for the graduation because he was in jail.
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How is this practice not illegal?They use an adults photo and lie about the age. Ridiculous that this is allowed in our country.
It’s entrapment but that’s one of the problems with our State.
Wow congrats to that gentlemen for wining! Now we as a whole should do this here In florida. My son was caught up on a Craigslist sting in 2012. Had no contact with his victim. Those who had a similar situation we should ban together take it to a federal court. Letâs see who can help us. These sheriffs Dept canât still get away with this.
The problem is, most in this situation have taken a plea. When you take a plea it’s very difficult to un-ring the bell.
Very few are willing to roll the dice when the prosecution threatens 20+ years in prison. The general pattern is they threaten “soliciting, traveling, transmission (if you send the image they request), attempted L&L and more” …or… you can take this plea deal and it’s guaranteed you’ll be home in a couple years.
So what happens after you have served your time and did your 5 yrs probation. You still canât fight it in the courts against the sheriffs Dept or take it to a federal court 5 years later? Or some kind of class action lawsuit if you had more people come forward?
To challenge a guilty plea? That would be individual to one’s case, not a class action.
Presumably, you COULD move to set aside your plea – considering it was not knowingly and voluntarily entered into, because the sanctions were not known, disclosed or even in existence at that time.
If someone wanted to try that route they could, but that would require paying a criminal defense/appellate attorney. If the plea is vacated, you change the plea to not guilty and go through a trial, you had better hope the underlying case is a weak one!
Everyone has to be realistic though as well, this unique case shows a man who was able to clearly demonstrate that he believed he was talking to an adult, presumably with a weird fantasy of her own. This is likely the exception, not the rule, online solicitation cases end in pleas because defendants don’t question if the alleged girl is really older than she claims, and after she identifies herself as a minor they continue to have lurid conversations with her.
The convictions on the whole are rightly earned by the state, it’s just that the law itself is probably very poorly conceived.
Let’s not minimize for ourselves, online solicitation is the easiest sex offense not to commit.
You have to be realistic. Sure it’s the easiest crime not to commit and the law says these men are not committing it, the cops are. Law enforcement dream up the scenarios, post ads (usually sexual solicitations) on sexually explicit, adults only websites as adults and then say they are a minor using the pictures of adults. Sounds like several violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and violating the Interstate Commerce Clause and Due Process of the US Constitution.
So seems to me that someone like me, knowing he is not doing anything illegal, that is on an adult website looking at porn and talking about sex is not going to believe this “person” is a “teen desperate to engage in sex with a random middle aged man.” See People v Aguirre. Also, the sexual solicitations (if any) are not what is penalized. “Sexually explicit speech which is viewed by a child is not a violation of the statute unless the sender of the communication KNOWINGLY attempts to seduce the child.” See Jeffery Cashatt v Florida. So yet again, it seems to me the cops are the ones seducing and lying to the public saying the men are predators to sabotage any trial which is violative of Due Process, Wire Fraud, Computer Fraud, and Equal Protection. Why, to get the illegal money which is more Wire Fraud and violative of Due Process. See also Ex Parte John Christopher Lo v. Texas (declaring that sexual communication directed at a minor is protected speech striking the statute unconstitutional).
Sure all this is immoral IF the man actually believes it’s a minor BUT not illegal because, as law enforcement have stated several times, they are seducing these men. However, that is a huge “if” under these circumstances and (like with this case) the cops cannot prove belief and simply lie to get a coerced, and illegal plea signed. This is a political scam for money and illegal convictions. Politics, where greed where’s the mask of morality.
Probably what would need to happen would be for these illegal stings to be completely exposed for wrongdoings. There probably needs to be an injunction filed in federal ct. to at least temporarily halt the stings with compelling information to do so. There is more than plenty of information to do so, its just a matter of execution. I have heard of an attorney from Tallahassee who would be willing to do so. If prior cases closed were in violation of ICAC rules and /or constitutional issues, it might be possible to reopen cases for dismissal. Im not an attorney so im only speculating. Its a tall order but it would have to start with an injunction in my opinion
My brother is headstrong on not not taking a plea, if it requires SOR , he argues what’s the point of living when you were set up, mind you he doesn’t have a family but wants one in the future but definitely not under SOR, then again he suffers from Diagnosed G.AD . And ADHD, he has read Florida Scandal and is hoping to.down plea.or take this all.the way.
I have been working for years to stop this mockery of Justice. Have you read the article “How law enforcement turns law abiding men into sexual predators.”? Well that was my idea and I orchestrated it. Here’s the link: http://www.wtsp.com/mobile/article/news/investigations/how-law-enforcement-turns-law-abiding-men-into-sexual-predators/236499759
Despite all the victories, the investigation proving our claims are true, and the mountains of case law stating it’s illegal; the stings continue!
Do you have links to the case law? My case is with Largo ICAC and there are at least 3 rules they violated. Can the case be tossed completely due to this? Is there precedence? I need case links if so please.
Sounds like I should’ve hired Bernard Brody to be my lawyer!!
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. There’s millions of dollars to be had for all these “multi-agencies” that involve themselves in these stings. The Feds allocate 70 million dollars each year to task forces that meet certain criteria. One of them being to get as many prosecutions as possible in child sex crimes. And seeing as how child sex crimes really aren’t major problems in most areas of the US, these task forces have to CREATE the crime, as we just saw here in this story. Any logical, critical-thinking citizen has to ask themselves, what is the point for these agencies to essentially hi-jack these websites and social media dating platforms?? I contend that it is the easiest way for the government to get lifetime control of chunks of the citizenry as possible, little by little. The govt won’t stop until they have full control of us and our lives. Now, it’s our guns. They’re coming after our guns. So what will we lose next?????? Yet, the average American citizen is too self-absorbed in their own little artificial lives to even notice or care…..UNTIL it happens to them or their family. Keep sleeping sheeple. Keep sleeping. We’re all like frogs sitting in a pot of gradually heated water. Once it starts to boil, it’s too late. We won’t notice the difference.
It’s about time congrats. I had a similar situation where I asked for proof and law enticement refused to supply it. However this being a strict liability state my lawyer said I had no shot on winning at trial so I did what 97% of us do I took a plea that’s all Florida is concerned with a conviction not justice. These types of stings should be illegal in the first place
Yay! Another chink in the wall – now if someone would take Shady Grady to task!