Man acquitted in TV sex sting

NOT GUILTY, so sayeth the jury!

11-20-2008 California:

Jurors on Tuesday acquitted a man who was arrested by Hawthorne police during a televised online predator sting.

Thomas Snodgrass, 24, of Culver City was found not guilty of two charges by an Airport Courthouse jury that deliberated a little more than a day.

Snodgrass was arrested on April 6, 2007, after he engaged in a nearly 40-minute sexually explicit online chat with someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl.

He was actually talking with a detective, who was being filmed by CourtTV, now truTV.

Snodgrass was arrested at a gas station at Inglewood Avenue and El Segundo Boulevard, where he had arranged to meet the fake girl.

He was charged with contacting a minor on the Internet to commit a sexual offense and an attempted lewd act on a child.

Snodgrass' attorney, Deputy Public Defender Ann Maloney Dawidziak, argued to the jury last week that her client did not intend to have sex with the girl and that the case is based on illegal entrapment by the police. Dawidziak said she believes the jury reached the correct verdict.

"For a police department to accept any financial benefit from a TV producer in exchange for making on-camera arrests for a television series seems to raise issues of fairness and public policy," Dawidziak said. "Furthermore, the timing, action and drama which contribute to a successful TV show may be antithetical to good police work."

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Houle had argued to the jury that Snodgrass' own words, both during the chat and his admissions to officers, showed he knew what he was doing was wrong.

"The unfortunate reality of a verdict like this is that it sends a message to the public that what the defendant did was not a crime," Houle said. "In cases like this one, that is a very dangerous message to send."

Snodgrass was one of 12 men arrested as part of the sting, which lasted several weeks.

Ten of the men have made deals with prosecutors in which they got probation, usually several months in jail and orders to register as sex offenders and undergo counseling in exchange for pleading no contest. One other man has not made a deal and is scheduled to go to trial in January. ..News Source.. by Denise Nix, Staff Writer