CA- Judge’s ruling favors doctor in sex-sting case

1-1-2009 California:

A Sonoma County judge ruled that Petaluma Police twice violated the Miranda rights of a Piedmont oncologist arrested in a sex sting in a home on the 1800 block of Castle Drive in August 2006. A prosecutor is now trying to determine if this will have any impact on the case.

Judge Andy Wick said in a ruling filed on Dec. 23 that police officers twice improperly interrogated Maurice Wolin, 50, after he invoked his Miranda rights by asking to speak with an attorney. The Miranda requirement refers to an individual’s right to counsel, and was based on a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966 to protect Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

Wick ruled that the booking officer should have advised Detective Steve Nelson not to start an interrogation after Wolin requested counsel, and should not have subsequently tried again to interrogate him without defense counsel present.

The ruling didn’t exclude other evidence, such as sexually charged Internet chats, as well as film footage showing Wolin talking at the home with a female decoy pretending to be the girl he allegedly arranged to meet with to have sex, and starting to leave when he saw television monitors.

Wolin, along with 27 other men, was arrested at the Petaluma home on Aug. 25-27 in an operation conducted by the Petaluma Police Department and Perverted Justice, an online watchdog group. The men previously had chatted online with a decoy pretending to be a 13-year-old girl, and then made arrangements to meet “her” at the home, allegedly to have sex.

In a related development, Xavier Von Erck, the founder of Perverted Justice, recently told prosecutors that the hard drive of the computer he used to chat with Wolin while pretending to be the 13-year-old girl “experienced a complete failure” in February 2007, and cannot be copied. Wolin’s attorney, Blair Berk, said that this was not conveyed to her by prosecutors or during Von Erck’s testimony at Wolin’s preliminary hearing in August and September 2006.

Hearings in the case are scheduled for January, and the trial is scheduled to begin on Feb. 6. Wolin, who was freed after posting bail, is facing the felony charge of attempting lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison, be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and have the suspension of his medical license extended. ..News Source.. by DAN JOHNSON, ARGUS-COURIER STAFF