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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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.