Thank goodness for Grady Judd!
Sheriff Judd arrested 17 people in “Operation Child Protector” which ran from July 27 through Aug. 1. The sting created a revenue stream for central Florida by generating a purported 49 felonies and two misdemeanours, including “travelling to meet a minor for sex, attempted lewd battery, use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of material harmful to a child.” (1)
There was, not surprisingly, a press conference where Judd eloquently described those arrested as “incredible deviants,” “dangerous,” and “nasty, nasty, nasty people.”(3) In the article the fact that these stings use online dating sites to entice men to show up was downplayed, but surprisingly acknowledged. Mugshots and personal information was flaunted in Judd’s media postings, even though these men have yet to be convicted of any crime. A vision of the old time pillory, used to shame and punish, whirls through my head, complete with the angry mob throwing rotten vegetables at the accused, for sport
and entertainment. Have we really come very far from sixteenth century England?
“We threw the bait out in the water … and you bit the bait. What we didn’t do is take this big net … grab you and then stick the bait in your mouth.” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, on child sex stings (2)
Sheriff Grady believes posting innocuous ad’s on adult dating sites doesn’t constitute a ‘big net’. Knowing that people searching for legal, adult interaction are the number one users of ADULT dating sites, I’m not sure how else to describe that net other than BIG and WIDE.
The articles bombarding the internet concerning this particular sting also tout that purportedly 3 of those arrested worked at Disney – an obvious attempt to scare the public into thinking people bent on child sexual abuse have a devious master plan. While true that there are unsavory persons, both actively seeking, and situationally not adverse to a sexual encounter with a child, implying those people are rampant among Disney employees is entirely unfounded.
A quick review of Walt Disney Company’s hiring practices through the job search website “Indeed” verifies that Disney background checks it’s employees. (4)
In fact, Disney has one of the strictest policies on hiring, for obvious reasons. Following a 2014 investigation of Disney employees, Disney posted the following statement:
“Providing a safe environment for children and families is a responsibility we take very seriously,” a Disney spokeswoman said in a statement to CNN. “We have extensive measures in place, including pre-employment and ongoing criminal background checks and computer monitoring and firewalls. The numbers reported by CNN represent one one-hundredth of one percent of the 300,000 people we have employed during this time period. We continue to work closely with law enforcement and organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as we constantly strengthen our efforts.”(5)
Unfortunately, as is so often the case, that article also points out that Universal Studios fired an employee, caught in a sting, as proof that they too take public safety seriously. It does not mention if that person was tried and convicted of the crime.
The Epoch Times article stated that “nine of them have criminal histories” yet you can be sure none of them had previous sex offenses. That would have been the headline. So again, we are talking about arresting and prosecuting 27 persons, with no history of child sexual exploitation, caught potentially on adult dating sites.
The article states law enforcement officers posed as children, yet it does not say that the ads responded to specifically mentioned children. As we know, often police post normal looking ads, change the age(s) after contact is made, and then claim the arrestees were ‘looking for children’. Articles like these remind me that the spin from police is intentional, to steer public opinion in a self serving direction. Public shaming skirts the truth, in this case specifically pointing out that one arrestee has herpes, and that some sent pornography. Notice that nothing to do with children is used here as evidence of intent or wrong doing.
Judd Grady wants us all to applaud “Operation Child protector”. Yet the real crime here is that law enforcement purposely try to spin the truth to public shaming so that their unethical tactics stay unscrutinized.
What child was protected in this sting? Certainly not the children of these 27 persons who will be prosecuted regardless of intent or design to harm a child.
Written by Lady Justice Myth
- https://news.yahoo.com/three-employees-walt-disney-world
- https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/14/us/theme-park-employees-child-sex-stings/
- https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/17-arrested-in-undercover-child-predator- operation-including-3-disney-employees
- https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Walt-Disney-Parks-and-Resorts/faq/background-check
- https://www.esrcheck.com/wordpress/2014/07/17/disney-stresses-background-checks-after-investigation/
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My main take away on this article is a statement made that I never even thought of. The sting team changing the age on their profile “After” the conversation gets going.
That is some low down police work in any book. Yes you can change your profile but anyone else would have gotten kicked off the site for being underage.
So law enforcement I am sure notified the site in advance, otherwise if you changed your profile to say you are under 18, a lot of sites will block your profile, or only give you access to those in your own age group.
Instead of the cops being crime preventers they are “Creating” crimes and or imaginary victims.
And lawyers need to start bringing this up in their arguments in court. That the person was initially trying to communicate with other adults. The police are using adult dating sites, not some random teenager chat room on a video game site. Good. Grief.
CherokeeJack,
You can’t change your age to anything below 18 on the sites or apps. The “change of age” has to be done during chat conversations.
This is why attorneys need to start bringing this up to the courts. These “stings” are creating criminals, not catching criminals.
Stings get very ugly. Out of curiosity, I attended a couple of hearings in my state. In this case, a much older man began non-sexual conversations with a 16-year-old (the age of consent) in a hotel lobby while she was waiting for her mother to get off work in an adjoining building. He gave her his phone number. Her mother objected when she came in after work. The guy even offered to take the girl and the mother to lunch sometime.
Unfortunately for this guy, the mother was a federal Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA). She went upstairs to the state DA’s office and arranged for a sting operation with an investigator she knew. Posing as “Gwen”, the investigator initiated textual contact in which he turned the conversation sexual, changed the age to 15 and arranged a meeting.
I was sitting in the gallery when the judge, to her credit, dismissed all charges due to entrapment. The state appealed and the case has languished at the appeals court since November 2019. For nearly two years, the poor guy has had this hanging over his head making life stressful and uncertain. An AUSA abused her position and contacts out of simple vindictiveness, costing the taxpayers plenty.
Veritas.
ED C
The good news is, if it has been going on that long, it means the guy didn’t give in like I did, and just plead guilty. I was trying to save my family from a trial so I just gave in and confessed to everything, even Killing Abe Lincoln if it all could just be over.
In hind sight, that was a foolish decision, then again, I thought “Justice” was fair, especially when you cooperate. Wow was I so wrong. I couldn’t have gotten a worse sentence unless I was Charles Manson.
It took a long long time but finally got some relief from an appeals judge (re-Sentencing only no charges dropped)
Cherokee, I’m going to stick my neck out and rave about the legal system a bit. The crux of the problem is with ambitious prosecutors. Although their oaths are to the Constitution and the rule of law, their incentives for advancement are to keep their numbers higher than others in the office. By numbers I mean things like win/loss ratio, dollars spent per case, sentence lengths, time/case, etc.
Lawyering is by its very nature a competitive occupation that draws in some very predatory types. Unless they get caught in an egregious ethical violation by a judge or an enterprising journalist, prosecutors will not be disciplined by their superiors. Due to the 97% plea rate (federal), judges rarely have visibility into the process. Indeed, they are prohibited from any involvement in plea negotiations. Add to this the fact prosecutors have not just qualified immunity, but ABSOLUTE immunity, and the result is that they operate with absolute impunity.
In addition to things I’ve seen and read, I have direct personal experience with prosecutorial malfeasance and defense incompetence. I was charged and convicted via a plea agreement for actions that were not criminal (morality notwithstanding). After doing legal research in prison, I wrote a 2255 motion and that conviction was vacated due to “actual innocence.” If the prosecutors knew what they were doing it was an ethical violation. If they didn’t, it was incompetence.
I believe that until the system provides corrective feedback to prosecutors, injustices will continue and escalate. This is just my opinion, so take it for what it is worth.
Veritas.
@ Ed C,
Are you implying that Prosecutors use the system as a stepping stone into political careers? That they’re using the system to their advantage by doling out years upon years of incarcerations for semi personal gain and potentially basing incarceration times on personal feelings? That, that, oh! I’m clutching my pearls here… !!!
This sounds like you’re suggesting that our justice system is a system of pleas and not trials sir!
/Sarcasm off
I fully agree with you regarding the prosecutorial misconduct and immunity from said conduct. It should also be noted that Prosecutors offices in general tend to get up to 5 times more funding than the Public Defenders offices do…
ED C
I am not only mad at the prosecutor and the judge for treating me like dookie on their shoes, but my own lawyer was so scared of the judge, he had to be excused and we could hear him puking in the garbage can in the hallway.
I do not scare easily, You could say I would fight a vampire bare fisted and not be afraid. However, when my own PAID lawyer go so scared of the judge that he had to puke, I knew I was done.
Anyway many years later when he was more experienced, and I had 6 years left on my sentence, he redeemed himself. He timed the hearing just right so a new judge could take over. My remaining 6 years were vacated. I broke down in tears and was so overjoyed, My Mom got scared and thought I had been sentenced to even more time. That is how hard I was crying.
The real minor victims of real online predators, who were targeted and lured on the regular social media platforms that real minors use, which is exactly where the real predators target and find minors to victimize, should be suing these ICAC task forces for failing to protect them. Not only that, ICAC task forces are lying to the public, pretending that this is what they’ve been doing, when in fact what they really do is spend their time and resources creating fake crimes on adult dating platforms, where they are the ones soliciting men for a hook up and for sex, while they ignore and allow the real situations of real minors being preyed on to continue.
If Facebook can be held accountable for failing to protect minors from being lured and victimized on their platform, well, heck, ICAC task forces are even more responsible for this. This is exactly what they receive money to do (to protect these minors and to prevent this), and they are clearly failing at this, not because they are unable to do this, but because they choose to spend their time and resources on adult dating platforms, instead, soliciting men for a casual hook up.
It’s insane that anybody believes this is protecting any real children. How much longer will it be before the public wakes up and starts holding these ICAC task forces accountable for failing to do their jobs properly and lying to everybody about what they’ve really been doing?
The sting ‘created a revenue stream’? How does that work?
@Jacob
In order to receive continued funding for ICAC operations from our Federal Government, they are required to meet and beat a certain number of arrests from the previous funding period.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/34/21116
…see (d)(1)(B)
The proactive solicitation stings are their bread and butter in that they “catch” so many people in such a short time. The real pisser is that the law enforcement agencies also get funding for showboating, oops, for the press releases that parade those who have been arrested , not convicted.
Hi Jacob, ICAC funding is tied to investigations, arrests, and prosecutions. They have three task forces in Florida. The Sheriff and police departments have connections to these task forces. Proactive stings, for a bounty, is an ICAC perverse incentive. The federal government pays the ICAC task forces in each state millions to run these stings. It’s not to keep anyone’s children safe. It may have started that way but now, It’s for the money.
Yes, but not just that. The more people that these law enforcement crooks can pull into the system/business, the more they can sell to their budget allocators that they need ever more money. They sell the same thing to the public.
De-fund these monsters.
The only good thing for us that will come out of this is that they enlist more people to join our cause. The scales will tip eventually.
Even before I became involved in all this, whenever I would hear politicians broad labeling others, I knew it was just red meat to get votes from the politically unsavvy, those that vote on gut feelings and not issues. I am sure most of us would agree that is not a good thing. Especially as we espouse science over rhetoric as it relates to our cause. Facts over gut feelings.
And so when read that Judd used the words “nasty, nasty, nasty” repeatedly it reminded me of a politician that uses that a lot. And the name Judd also seem vaguely familiar so googled his name and came across this. https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2021/04/20/polk-county-sheriff-tells-new-florida-residents-to-avoid-voting-the-stupid-way-you-did-up-north. I then googled “nasty usage politics”. I leave it for all to do so and make their own conclusions.
All I am saying is I believe we all agree that “labelling” others is not intelligent respectful discourse. And in my humble opinion, this current overuse of labeling language in the political arena is one of the main reasons why there is so much discord and hatred among Americans towards each other. Sad to see our country scooping to those levels.
In my humble opinion the tone and words our leaders use matters and has consequences. We have seen a dramatic surge of White Supremacists movements (now ranked by the intelligence community as the number one threat to Americans) and attacks on minorities recently and the experts in the filed say it is due to the tone at the top. I imagine regardless of political leanings we can agree this is not a good thing.
Let us hope we get leaders that base their words on facts and science and make less of use of divisive offending labeling words against other Americans. To me that approach, which filters down to the general public, benefits our cause.
“ We have seen a dramatic surge of White Supremacists movements (now ranked by the intelligence community as the number one threat to Americans) and attacks on minorities recently and the experts in the filed say it is due to the tone at the top. I imagine regardless of political leanings we can agree this is not a good thing.”
I imagine, regardless of political leanings, that we can agree this is a blatant lie. But since we’re kind of on a topic that includes the subtopic of “brainwashing”, I’d suggest you maybe come up with proof of this “white supremacy” that you and liberal media claim is the “biggest threat to America” or just stop parroting what you hear on CNN.
So you’re ok with millions of people crossing our border with potential COVID? None of them are being tested but I’m sure you’re aware of that while YOU are told to “Mask up, or else!”
Misinformation , misdirection, fear, and plain ignorance are rampant in this country. We registrants are subject to it daily. We have educated and uneducated peoples, concocting and spewing such ideas nationally. We have people who don’t believe in science and public health practices. We have politicians and sheriffs spouting lies about us on the registry to further their agendas. When people find out that we are on the registry their imaginations are often worse than our offenses.
We have to be careful not to fall into the same practices that are used against us. It is difficult not to be emotional, and thus lose sight of our goals. We need to be coherent and cohesive in our fight for humanity.
More people to be on Florida’s registry for life all for talking to an adult pretending to be a minor. How many real minors were victimized while a deputy was engaged in sexual conversations getting glimpse of a promotion? Sheriff Judd is one lure I’d like to see stay in a tackle box for life.
The sting created a revenue stream for central Florida.
That’s all we need to know.