1-20-2008 Indiana:
HAMMOND | Though their crime may be heinous, every person convicted of soliciting sex from young children over the Internet might not deserve to spend a full decade in prison, one local judge argues.
"I happen to think a 10-year minimum is too high in these cases. There has to be more leeway," U.S. District Judge Philip Simon said in Hammond federal court earlier this month. "I just think it's out of whack, and I think Congress has it flat wrong."
Simon made the statements recently during the sentencing of Matthew Hensley, a former assistant Andrean girls' basketball coach convicted of using multiple online identities to find young girls for sex. Simon actually sentenced Hensley to slightly more than the 10-year minimum but took the opportunity to criticize the mandate nonetheless.
In a federal district that has taken an aggressive approach to Internet enticement cases, other observers of the 10-year mandatory minimums for Internet child enticement could not be more opposed to Simon.
"The way you create deterrence is to increase the penalties," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Benson, who has prosecuted many such cases in the past year. "The mandatory minimums for these Internet child-enticement cases are entirely appropriate."
Until summer 2006, federal law required that people convicted of using Internet chatrooms to convince young children to expose themselves or meet for sexual liaisons serve at least five years in prison.
That changed July 27, 2006, when the president signed the Adam Walsh Act, forcing judges to impose a minimum 10-year prison sentence for the same crime.
One month later, federal prosecutors in Northern Indiana brought charges against 24 men for Internet child enticement.
A Times review of those cases found that 13 of the men were sentenced to 10 or more years in prison, with virtually no difference in sentences between those who pleaded guilty and those who forced the government to put them on trial.
Eight of the cases are pending, and three were dismissed for reasons of mental competency.
None of the men have been acquitted.
David Capp, the acting U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Indiana, said potential offenders and their defense attorneys can expect to keep seeing child-enticement indictments come before the court.
"We are going to continue to take an aggressive posture on these cases because these individuals are dangerous predators, and they are attempting to prey on children," Capp said.
Benson said sexual predator cases are different because of the high level of recidivism among offenders. And if more prisons have to be built to accommodate the mandatory minimums, most people would think that's a good use of taxpayers' money, he said.
"Our children are our greatest resource, and no one has a right to destroy that," Benson said. ..more.. by JOE CARLSON
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