Florida defendant to go back to the trial court in dismissed sex sting case.
Last week, Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeals, remanded a lower court’s dismissal of a sting case back to the trial court. While the outcome (a dismissed ICAC sting case was reopened) wasn’t great, we’re getting a bit more attention to these stings and the rules of the game. Courts are beginning to notice what’s been going on and hopefully these cases will be viewed with more scrutiny than before.
Let’s begin with the game itself… Law enforcement officers create a fake profile on an adult dating app or chat app. The profile is usually a picture of an attractive woman with a description of being 19-21. They troll the waters waiting for unsuspecting dupes to take the bait and once they have the target on the hook with some sexually suggestive conversation, they suddenly become 14!
I know what you are thinking… Come on! Don’t they warn every male under 25 about this? Who is still so gullible?!?! Well I guess if there are still tens of thousands of people out there waiting for an eight million dollar inheritance from a relative they never heard of that’s supposed to be wired right after they make just one more payment to Barrister Stevens John from Nigeria… there are still some people out there who didn’t get the memo.
Regardless, In State of Florida v. Lopez Garcia (Case No. 2D21-1492) the Court gave us the rules… Section 777.201(1), Florida Statutes (2020), provides: A law enforcement officer, a person engaged in cooperation with a law enforcement officer, or a person acting as an agent of a law enforcement officer perpetrates an entrapment if, for the purpose of obtaining evidence of the commission of a crime, he or she induces or encourages and, as a direct result, causes another person to engage in conduct constituting such crime by employing methods of persuasion or inducement which create a substantial risk that such crime will be committed by a person other than one who is ready to commit it.
“The first question to be determined is whether law enforcement induced the defendant to commit the charged offense. If the answer is yes, then the second question is whether the defendant was predisposed to commit the charged offense.” In other words… (1) did the cop induce the defendant (Inducement is defined as including ‘persuasion, fraudulent representations, threats, coercive tactics, harassment, promises of reward, or pleas based on need, sympathy[,] or friendship.’, and (2) if so, was the defendant predispositioned to commit the crime (Predisposition focuses upon whether the defendant was an ‘unwary innocent’ or, instead, an ‘unwary criminal’ who readily availed himself of the opportunity to perpetrate the crime.)
The Appellate Court held that someone’s predisposition to commit a crime is not a matter of law but a matter to be decided by a Jury, so they sent it back to the trial court.
The problem with many of these cases is that so few people take these cases to trial. The fear of spending decades in prison if you lose is enough to persuade anybody to take a quick plea to get out of the room. Nobody can blame them for not wanting to roll the dice. But, if you showed up in an adult chat room, looking to meet an adult, never had any underage pornography, never have been investigated for soliciting minors and were just an ‘unwary innocent’ who gave into an officer’s persuasive tactics… it’s something to speak to your attorney about.
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Not 100% the case. In my situation, I could have won, just the lawyer ran me out of money is the reason I did not go to trial. I had a solid case. Once the money ran out, I was never told I could have a public defender. My lawyer and the judge agreed I either went to trial or take a plea of guilty.
Once locked up, I sent a letter to the judge explaining that and stating I wanted to come back for trial and I was denied and told too much time had passed to appeal.
Since the courts have help up the Constitutionality of these operations, we can expect to see these continue in perpetuity. No one dares try to put the brakes on them for fear of falling under the bus of the McCarthyism bandwagon that society has so blindly jumped on in the past few decades.
My case was the same.. the judge denied my motion to dismissed but the attorney I had at the time did not appeal the dismissal. I went to trial and lost of course but I got another judge at trial that saw through the game that it is and sentenced me to 42 month prison time instead of the 17 years the state was asking. This stings should be find unconstitutional because the police are posing as Adults on Adults ONLY sites. Just that fact should be enough to show entrapment. In my case I even told the person that I thought it was an adult, to get of the website and be careful.. I even advise the person to be off the internet and they kept on insisting on talking to me. but at the end nobody cares.. they ruined my life and my family live for what??
“They troll the waters waiting for unsuspecting dupes to take the bait”
Thing is, you don’t even have to be actively looking for a “match.” How they “set the hook” is by contacting you first with a PM (private message) or requesting that you “add” them for a chat. They use a normal looking female photo with a fake profile that is private. Then they employ deceptive and aggressive texting to lower inhibition and then it only gets more desperate on their end to “seal the deal.”
If it sound too good to be true, it’s a trap!
I’ve found that most of these cases that do go to full trial (though very few and far between) result in not guilty. But those cases also take years to get to full trial, all the while plea deals keep coming and the defense lawyer (public defenders especially) recommending to take it.
Pretty sure the state (or government, in federal cases) stall everything on purpose for the sole purpose of getting the defendant to plead out, knowing their chances of a jury conviction are less than ideal due to the entrapment defense that is always prevalent in these cases
Grateful for the increasing volume of FAC original content from FAC’s journalist-volunteers. Thank you!
Wishing the defendant the best of success in demonstrating to the jury, his lack of disposition.
I second this! FAC has been amazing at providing content for us…and fighting for us! There are days I want to give up but FAC gives me hope.
Don’t give up. We have something pretty exciting planned!
Oh…? Cliff hangers!