The following Article by investigative reporter Noah Pransky appeared in Florida Politics today. We STRONGLY encourage you to post comments under the article and share it with your legislators. This practice by taking men who went online with NO INTENTION of engaging with someone underage and then police encouraging them to talk to a fictitious underage person by baiting and switching, should be stopped.
A 62-year-old soon-to-be-grandfather is dead following a controversial undercover operation by the Sarasota Co. Sheriff’s office — a sting designed to target child predators, but one that instead targeted men looking to meet other adults on adult websites.
XXXXX XXXXX committed suicide last week, less than 24 hours after bonding out on charges related to his conversations about sex with an undercover deputy, who claimed to be a 14-year-old prostitute.
The chats began on hookup site SkipTheGames.com, where Keshmirian responded to an ad that appeared to be for an adult escort. But detectives with the Sarasota Co. Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) changed the woman’s age to that of a 14-year-old after the conversation about sex began.
…What Knight didn’t say was that the men — many of whom traveled long distances — might not have ever have come to Sarasota had deputies not convinced them to. It’s also likely many of them — who were looking to talk to other adults on legal, adult dating sites and apps such as Bumble, Grindr, and Plenty of Fish — would never have considered talking to underage teens had deputies not suggested it.
…WTSP’s landmark investigation into the stings relied on public records — specifically, chats between detectives and men who weren’t interested in meeting up with an underage teen — to show how far law enforcement officers would go to try and trap otherwise law-abiding men.
Since the investigation was reported in 2015, Florida law enforcement agencies have gone out of their way to destroy records related to the stings before the media or attorneys can obtain them. Public records experts consulted by Florida Politics say the unsuccessful chats between detectives and men on various dating or chat sites should be public records, but there is little risk to agencies violating the law.
I’m fascinated by these stings. I have a former teacher who actually physically molested a child and only got 4 years. But I’m now seeing these new sentencing laws most being a mandatory minimum. Online solicitation of minor(chatting only no meet). 15 years minimum Watching a video or looking at pics. 10 year minimum. People went crazy with these sentences. On top of that you ll be put on that life ending registry. So in summary you can actually get more time in prison for chatting, going to meet a cop talking dirty, and watching a video that you get for actually touching a kid. Case in point my teacher only got 4 years for touching two kids .
Hello, my case also was on an adult website but difference in my case is the post the cops posted online said “he’s not sure if he’s gay or straight” so i opened the post and all it said was he believes he’s gay and he don’t know what to bout what his mother an father will say and what will his friends say. I just happened to had a friend in high school who had a friend with same issue and didn’t know what to do and he committed suicide. So i tried explain (in short) it doesnt matter what any of them say if they stop being your friend or your parent then were not there for in first place. He kept bringing things like ” his penis is only 5 inches” i told him that stuff dont matter, you have a lot to deal with, parents friends, ect., he asked if we meet and i said to talk and only in public, they setup where (public park) got arrested and convicted. For same reason another guy on here said, if you go to court 98% of the time you will be convicted, as soon as jury here it’s a trial on a sex offender your done. My lawyer told when he told me on day that i set date for trial or take a deal, he told me deal is 1 year jail out in 45-90 days plus 3yrs probation an register, plus he said you don’t wanna go to court cause they’ll put the detective on stand an he said who do you theyll believe you or a detective, y heart dropped, i took the deal, i took my case to a out of town lawyer after i got out of jail with all paperwork with every text with everything said in chat and gave it to him came back a week later and he said ” this should have never went past arraignment, there nothing in there sexually, not wanting, not wanting from, no pics. Then told me the cost basically all together and i couldnt afford by any means, i payed him pretty much my last $2500.00. So yes absolutely there’s alot of crookedness going on.
Already gone to far!
Didn’t the state of Florida remove entrapment from their laws? I heard they got tired of losing cases to entrapment, so they just made it legal. Is there any truth to that?
Sorry for the lateness of this response WHL.
There are 2 versions of entrapment available for criminal defense in Florida courts. Subjective and objective.
Subjective is a what if this person wasn’t wanting to do anything illegal kind of thing but the LEO basically peer pressured them into going through with it. Reaching that threshold in Florida is set almost unattainably high with these stings.
Objective entrapment on the other hand, it matters not if the defendant wanted to commit any manner of illegal activities from the very beginning. If it can be proven the the primary goal of a sting was to make as many arrests as possible, regardless of the intention of the defendant, then the threshold for objective entrapment has been met.
As far as stings go the objective entrapment defense is far more viable when the total number of arrests for a particular county due to sting ops , compared to those non sting related (very very few), is highlighted combined with 42 U.S.C. 17612 (https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCODE-2010-title42/USCODE-2010-title42-chap154-subchapI-sec17612).
I was arrested in 2007. I was in an adult Yahoo chat room were you had to sign in twice to state that you were an adult. I had lost my Mom about a year before and my Dad had a heart attack. I took care of both and I had no social life due to helping my parents. Since I couldnt really go out I went into chat rooms to talk to people. While in a Florida romance room I was contacted first by what turned out to be an undercover officer. The contact was unsolicited. We talked for 3 months and was told 4 times at the end that I was talking to a minor. I was stupid for chatting further and exposing myself on cam but I didnt beleive it was a minor. I didnt travel to meet and stopped communicating . I was arrested for what they thought I was going to do. The jury asked during deliberation if I could have been lured the judge stated it takes 2 to tango. The jury was never shown all the archived chats just the ones after the “victim” said she was 15. Even the chats I was charged with first contact was by officer. Once you have any sex charge you rarely win in court and spend the rest of your life a prisoner. All because I was lonely and chatted in an adult room.
Your attorney should have introduced the full chat threads
When I woke up in 2009, 3+ years prior to my family member being sucked into this criminal agenda, I had already become aware that the government, at all levels, is entirely corrupt, and that the only thing the controllers running the government care about is profit and control.
I have seen a great change in law enforcement in my nearly 60 years in this incarnation. Cops have transformed from officers of the peace to robots mandated to reap as many souls as possible…bring in the money and slaves for the elites. Nothing has changed since the days of Robinhood and the evil sheriff of Knottingham…”sheriff” is even still used as the title of the top henchman.
The system is nothing but a HUGE for-profit business. Judges, prosecutors, and politicians, maybe also cops, own stock in jails and prisons that use prisoners as slave labor for profit. They don’t give a rat’s rear-end about conflict of interest. Karma is coming for all of them.
I have studied the Torah and teachings that became the Old Testament, although twisted and context lost in prolific edits. I discovered that “Satan” is a term or title for ANYONE who forces their will on others, who seeks to control, manipulate, oppress, take away freedoms, persecute, prosecute, judge and condemn…all the low vibrational human behaviors. Just look around at what has been and is happening around the world and the truth is so clearly visible.
They created a system of religion that has its followers blaming all the bad on a fictional character “out there” when all along it’s been the ancient priesthood…the black robes of judges are based in ecclesiastical laws…no separation of church and state.
So we have corporations, owned by priesthood members, bribing politicians into making laws, cops who enforce the elites’ laws, judges and prosecutors who play the game…and all of them are doing it for a paycheck…for money. Karma cares not why people harm other people, Karma is concerned only that harm was/is done…and Karma NEVER forgets, especially never forgets hypocrisy which is what these law enforcement deceptions are in truth.
They will all pay dearly because a hypocrite, and anyone who harms for money/a paycheck, are the lowest of the low vibes.
“Forcing my will upon another is an act of violence.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
F.A.C check your email I sent you a story from todays news of another Florida sex sting operation by Sheriff Splits wood in volusia county
Was this from weeks ago? If so; old news.
I went back 3 months of your stories and could not find what you are talking about. This story was from Volusia county and was just posted today. I think you are confusing the sting done in Osceola and Polk counties.
The Sheriff chitwood story you might remember was when he wanted to make people move because of a new ordinance. I think I apologized too soon.
No, I apologize to you Cherokee Jack. I just pulled up the story and will post.
Thank you you had me questioning my own sanity lol
Yall, I was a victim of all of this too back in 2011. I was a teacher and a coach and was moving up fast in my profession. The HS basketball team I was an asst for had just won the state championship and times were good. I started using craigslist in 06 for online dating as it was a relatively new but trendy thing. In 5 years of using it, I never came across any minor using it on their own which is what confused me and got me caught in the sting. I simply thought it was a typo as the picture they used looked like a young actual adult. And come to find out, it was. It was a female colleague of the detective talking to me undercover…….but heres the deal, we can sit here and bitch about it all we want. Until drastic action is taken by us citizens or groups like FAC and others, and until the money source is dried up, it will only continue. It doesn’t take anyone with half a brain to see that all levels of our govt and law enforcement agencies have gotten completely out of control and need to be stopped. We need to figure out hoe to stop it. Our founders created this country with all the power put in the hands of its citizens. Well 250 years later, that has totally flipped on its head. The govt has all the power and unfortunately its waaaayyyy too big for anyone to stop it. Only God can help us now. But standing up and rebelling and revolting against it and refusing to go along with it, is the way of our forefathers but everyone in today’s society is just too damn wimpy and politically correct to do anything drastic like that. That’s why I have a lot of respect for Derek Logue. Hes brave. Hes brash. He speaks his mind and hes not afraid to rise up, rebel, and fight whoever it is. My favorite is that clip on dr drew when he told off that black judge and it pissed him off. That judges response just showed how arrogant they all are. And it pisses me off when I hear people say oh we dont endorse going against the law or law enforcement, well geniuses, the very same people politicians, and police you say we need to respect and follow what they tell us to do, are the very same people who are doing the shit that we just read about that’s ruining people’s lives and even literally killing them. But yet we think getting a little pissed off and voicing our opinion on chat rooms, websites, etc.. is gonna do the job for us. Sorry yall, but its not. Maybe we should take a page out of the LGBT playbook. They’re vocal, militant, aggressive, and ruthless. And over the last 20 years or so, look at how successful they’ve been. Their agenda succeeded. Our population of RSOs as a whole are anything but that. Were too damn scared to come out and do the types of things that are needed to make our lives better. I’m guilty of it too. We just sit in the shadows, scared to come out and stand up for ourselves, all the while letting these assholes in power rip us a new one every year over and over again. Look, I dont have the answers nor the strategy. But I do know we have to take more drastic action to stop this abuse of govt power because it’s a cancer on our country at EVERY SINGLE LEVEL. And the responsibility to stop it was placed in our hands by our forefathers and we’ve failed at every turn and shit like this is what we get. God help us.
The problem is, these judges think they are the all power OZ and instead of doing the right thing and finding these registries illegal they do the popular thing and either divert it to a higher court, Rule in favor of law enforcement or state they have no authority in the matter and tell us to contact our legislators who have no intention of performing a career ending decision in favor of the zombie clan of horrible scary registry occupants who lurk in the shadows just waiting to pounce on defenseless children at every opportunity.
The thing about “God help us”….it is US who directs the energy that is “God” which is actually simply GOOD…doing good, speaking good, thinking good. We grew up hearing “God is good”. It is also true that Good is God. “God”/Good is in us all, as is the dEVIL/EVIL. We all have a dark and light side. The key is balancing these energies and not letting the dark overcome the light.
No one is coming to save us. It was a huge kick in the gut when I woke up and realized the truth of our existence. The Force/Energy Field cares not what we plant in it, it merely responds to our thoughts, invocations…the energy we vibrate into the field.
The Energy Field is super unbalanced. The Earth is wobbling from the imbalance, like a ceiling fan that is out of balance. The dark side is losing ground, though, because the scale is tipping back. People are waking up. The SUN of God/GOOD is returning…gloriously hot…and evolving planet and inhabitants. Airport runways were changed by 1° in 2010 to adjust for the Earth’s movement.
It’s up to YOU and ME and all of us to continue waking up the rest of the sleeping masses to the corrupt lies and deception that the ancient priesthood has been using to manipulate, rob blind and to divide and conquer for millennia. End game is here. We’re all super heroes when we give it all we’ve got from our hearts. May The Force Be With Us All.🙏🏼
Nonsense – we are just another species of animal. Society, morals, religions, and most certainly LAWS are simply man made inventions. Slavery was once legal, blacks were once segregated, woman were not allowed to vote and being gay was once classified as a mental disorder.
The point is that this inhuman treatment is nothing new and humans have mistreated other humans from day one and will do so until we as a species go extinct – that will happen by the way.
The earth will not miss us for a moment and will keep spinning along.
I have proof of how far law enforcement and prosecutors go to make sure they get the convictions they so desperately want. It has absolutely nothing to do with protecting anybody! It’s all created by them. Even the criminal defense attorneys are in on this huge scam. They help prosecutors get the convictions they desperately want and need. Many of these cases would not even be taken to trial if the prosecutors did not know that the criminal defense attorneys are going to help win the cases. They work hard to cover up many very important facts and they take anything and everything they can and twist it into what they need it to be and what they want for everybody else to believe. They will even completely make up stuff. I have proof of this!
This is what is definitely going on in Texas.
I did send the complaint and the video to the civil rights division. It was returned.
We have even more proof now, but where do we send it? I don’t trust the local FBI. I think they’re in on this. That’s why these “actual criminals” feel very comfortable doing these things. They know very well that they can get away with it. They’ve been doing it for a long time.
What’s going is genocide of so-called sex offenders. Many of their actions should not be crimes at all.
One way to slow them down is to boycott all US products and services.
I have such a list and alternative products from other countries.
There may also be a couple of guys with another solution. IF memory serves I think their names are Smith and Wesson.
Yes they have. All the abc agencies are owned by the elite, who are a priesthood of 300 families that have been running the world since the Sumerian age. The elite own politicians who make laws for the elite, keeping their fellow lawyers in business by having their law enforcement droids round up the slave labor from which the parasites profit. This is where “Human Resources” originated.
I discovered a historian on LinkedIn who wrote about the original 13th Amendment. It barred persons with titles of nobility from holding public office. One example of a title of nobility is “esquire” aka attorney aka lawyer. How many lawyers are in the legislatures and other public office positions?
The original 13th Amendment also removes US citizenship from any person of or accepting a title of nobility. The ratified amendment was enroute to the Attorney General to be officially entered into law but was intercepted by someone working for the elite, possibly the papal guard, who is also said by some to be who killed President Lincoln, Nikola Tesla (or it was his Secretary, Prescott Bush) and who was involved with President Kennedy’s murder.
So I started researching and found other sources writing about this original 13th Amendment and learned that the original 13th Amendment is still on record in military books.
When you discover our true history, everything happening now magically becomes very clear. You can see that about every 100 or so years, they pull events and start wars as a means to reduce the population. It’s staggering how many lives were lost in wars and even in the war training.
History repeats because people forget. But they didn’t see the internet coming or how it was going to connect people and be a tool for spreading the true info and knowledge that they’ve hidden for millennia. Americans are more in the dark ages than the rest of the world that has been invaded and plundered and lived under obvious occupation.
Most Americans are blind to the fact that this country has also been invaded, occupied and plundered by the same elites. My Native American Cherokee ancestors could explain it, but they were mostly wiped out by the elite with smallpox-infected blankets and forced to walk from East Tennessee and North Carolina to Oklahoma, during winter months where thousands died.
Wounded Knee was the largest single mass shooting in America. The elites’ soldiers took the guns from the Natives, then turned and mowed them all down, men, women, CHILDREN and BABIES. Over 300 PEOPLE were murdered in cold blood. This is the truth about what they really think about kids. They use them to make laws and you all know the rest. They’re all nothing more than common criminals and thugs, and look at the hell they continue to force on humanity.
Female informants can place child pornography on computers of men they date, then inform police. The file is never opened yet informant kniws file is there. 3 days after arrest the informant makes off with everything in the house and police do nothing to stop informant. Anyone out there who knows someone to do documentary, I have the details!
Please send the details to [email protected]
Roger, thanks for exposing this. Something similar happened to me too. Judges dont care, LE doesn’t care, juries dont care. They all just want to hold someone accountable and make headlines.
Of course he went too far. Any “reasonable” person can see that. But sadly, we do not live in a world of reasonable people. We live in a world where the police are called “heroes” and elevated above the only real heroes, those who have given their lives and/or shed their blood, sweat, and tears to protect our country, the US Armed Forces.
Props to Noah Pransky and floridapolitics.com for having the guts to expose the illegal activities of our “heroes” in uniform.
@JZ,
The entrapment stings are happening in the military too. Our uniformed servicemembers are being entrapped by NCIS, OSI and CIS in often worse and more confusing scenarios as they have absolutely no ICAC training, or they completely ignore it and for some prosecuted cases they are using picture of twenty year old women as the “child” the guy is talking to! In one case, they sent a twenty year old “decoy” girl to meet an airman at the gym. Convinced that she was of age after that, he met her for sex and was arrested. Another airman was in Afghanistan and was sent pictures of an adult woman. The conversation was turned sexual by the OSI agent and the agent asked him to send a picture of himself that was a lewd picture. He did and was charged with “child sex abuse” for “lewd pictures and lewd language to a child”. Laughable since there was absolutely no child involved. The lady in the picture had a huge visible tattoo on her arm too. He was also on Ambien the military gave him to sleep in a war zone.
That’s how the government treats our heroes overseas who are fighting.
Then they kick them out for that and force them on the sex offender registry.
@Gwen, truly shameful!
They also do this in Polk County. They hunt people down who are looking at legal websites, and push them into something they would never do. They’ve had a number of them committ Suicide, and ruined countless lives. I have a very young, naive Loved one who got caught up in it. He was down there on a Disney internship, still in college. They preyed on him, and then arrested him, and talked him into a plea deal of 5 years, telling him he could get 20. He was bullied into telling officers whatever they wanted him to say. They are in the business of destroying people there. Someone should look into their arrests. It’s heartbreaking.
These internet sex stings are pure entrapment by law enforcement officials. The federal government deposits $30 million every year to local law enforcement through the Internet Crimes against Children (ICAC) agency. The local law enforcement has to produce results (arrests) in order to continue receiving funding. This money could instead be used to combat actual child sex offenses instead of luring innocent men into a Venus-fly-trap in order to “save fictitious children”. Law enforcement needs to be prosecuted for violating fundamental legal and ethical principles–they are “reverse grooming” the adult men in order to bulwark arrest numbers and bulwark a moral panic regarding internet child sex abuse. Their actions result in crime amplification when no crime would exist if not for law enforcement. ICAC needs to stopped and the public should be outraged that their tax payers money is being wasted in these stupid sting operations.
“Reverse Grooming” is the perfect way to describe law enforcement’s behavior.
It is:
– manipulative
– deceitful
– predatory
– intended toward the target’s harm
Continue speaking truth!
Speaking the truth is useless unless real action is taken to stop the injustice.
The action must be effective in stopping the injustice.
I was the first one arrested 23 years ago here in the Tampa bay area on an Internet sex sting. I got the transcript of the chat log just last year after it was listed under another case number. It was just as I remembered it but I was surprised how forceful “she” was. She spoke like a 15yo today instead of 23 years ago. Even back then I knew people like to age play and I thought that is what she was doing. So I can contest to the aggressiveness of the police. Back then there was not shows about the subject or 1000s of arrests on the books. Since then they made new laws to address the issue. If I had known then what I know and have experienced now I would have fought it harder.
They always say follow the money. How much money is given from the Federal government for these stings? How much does it cost the tax payers?
The destruction of evidence is a federal offense since this involved the Internet or travel over state lines. I think the feds should investigate the sheriff and all LE involved for wrongdoing.
Operative word there being should which will result in law enforcement protecting each other which is business as usual.
They already have the perfect scapegoat in place which are so-called sex offenders. The chosen few.
They are not all in it together. To believe in such a huge conspiracy is ludicrous. Anyone arrested in one of these stings has the right to file a for an investigation into the deprivation of their civil right and liberties. At a minimum it puts LE on notice that we know our rights.
It’s not conspiracy it’s fact and it’s exactly how law enforcement in the United States has always worked. The only thing ludicrous is that it continues without intervention and that people actually don’t see the reality of the abusive system!
Just try to get truth out of that “investigation” that you have “the right to file” (WTF) and tell me all about the assistance and justice they provide – that was a joke BTY. Not unlike the sex offender registry and entire state government in Florida.
Wake up and smell the truth!
Same thing is going on in WA State. Over past 3-4 years they have arrested over 250 individuals. Around 2% commit suicide. Some get arrested at the trap house some get arrested along the way. Around 75% are taking pleas, 20% are guilty in a trial 2-3% are acquitted, and 2-3% die. These are scary times.
The very definition of entrapment is to entice someone into doing something they would otherwise not be doing / seeking / or wanting to do.
And it’s all in the pursuit of more federal grant money.
There are no records showing that this is an ongoing problem with adults seeking to entice minors online much less of the magnitude necessary to justify sting operations that cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Dunno about you but I’m embarrassed to call myself an American.
The chatrooms have dried up. Craigslist has dried up. Dating apps and services are the new fishing holes.
Sigh…
And as a former law enforcement officer, things like this always pissed me off. Going out catching people in traps, meanwhile the citizen has to way 4 hours for an available officer to come take a report on their home being broken into. Then nothing is ever done about it. If officers actually patrolled the streets instead of trolled chat rooms, maybe more real crimes would be prevented or at least solved.
There are literally millions of unsolved crimes nationwide due to lack of resources, and yet there are resources for 100’s of officers to do a Chris Hansen like sting to catch people with imaginary victims? There should be a medal for that. Wasted tax payer money award.
You should help stand up for the ones that are arrested from internet sex sting tampa/st petersburg paper aug 8 2014 has article saying they bend rules on internet sex sting so start writing and get the word out
By law, entrapment in Florida = opportunity + encouragement to follow through on the opportunity. The problem is that, short of proof that law enforcement held a gun to a “suspect’s” head, nothing that a “decoy” says during one of these conversations — or even the unsolicited photos that they often send — ever qualifies as “encouragement.” In case after case after case after case after case involving these stings, the “shock & awe” of the nature of these cases simply blinds the eyes of judges (to say nothing about the general public when the media runs one of these hit pieces) to the fact that THE ENTIRE PREMISE OF THE “CHILD DECOY’S” reason for participating in these conversations is to encourage them to proceed on the opportunity they’ve established. It never, ever ends. There is no relief for anyone ensnared in these for-profit schemes masked under the guise of “protecting children from online predators.”
I have in my possession depositions where law enforcement agent’s have actually testified to the fact that the questions they ask & the responses they make to those very questions are for the purpose of encouraging a “suspect” to commit a crime. NONE OF IT MATTERS; not even an agency’s failure to comply with federally-mandated standards for these undercover operations.
What Mr. Pransky does in this article — what he’s continued to do since launching his investigation into these stings — is bring an awareness to the fact that there’s actually a human being behind the individuals who make up the mugshots of these particular type of cases. That, coupled with the impact that these operations have on the family members of the accused/convicted, is hopefully compelling enough to, one day, declare these operations illegal & cease them from continuing. Because of the nature of the allegations involved in these cases, the general public isn’t going to give any grace to someone ensnared as a result of “unethical, aggressive” police tactics. Change will only come when these tactics are declared illegal. The fact that law enforcement exhausts all efforts to cover up and destroy evidence related to these operations should, on its surface alone, raise concerns regarding these activities. Unfortunately, all basic logic & any benefit of the doubt gets thrown out the window anytime the words “adult,” “minor,” and “sex” are found in the same sentence; regardless of circumstances or — in the case of these operations — the procedures law enforcement agents use to achieve their objective.