Did Sarasota Sheriff go too far on undercover sex sting?
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.
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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