5-18-2009 Michigan: (Phase-I)
GRAND RAPIDS -- ____ chatted online with a girl he thought was just 14, and even drove by what he thought was her Grand Rapids Township home.
But he never met with the teen and, when police working with on an Internet predator sting caught up with ____, the 34-year-old insurance representative was more than 20 miles from the girl's alleged home. He had no condoms or alcohol in his car.
Nonetheless, the Cedar Springs man pleaded guilty to using the Internet to communicate in order to commit a crime and was sentenced Monday to one year in the Kent County Jail. He will be on the state sex offender list for the next 10 years.
Before taking the plea offered by the state Attorney General's Office, ___ was facing up to 20 years in prison. He was one of 21 people nabbed in an October child predator sting at a Grand Rapids Township home conducted by the AG's office, along with the national group Perverted Justice.
Many of those cases are making their way through the courtroom of Kent County Circuit Judge James Robert Redford, with most defendants taking a plea deal and only one so far going to a jury trial.
Redford said he looked through 40 pages of Internet chat logs between ___ and the woman decoy for the Internet sting, who claimed online to be a teen.
"The e-mail conversation, while disturbing at a basic level, is not as disturbing as some I've seen (from those arrested in this group)," Redford said.
"i wish i wasn't, but i care that you dont get hurt and i don't go to jail," ___24829 wrote, according to transcripts released by authorities. "i don't want to lose everything i have."
The faux 14-year-old expressed disappointment that ____ might back out and not want to "hook up."
"you know i do...i just have A LOT to lose, ya know," wrote ____24829.
"sowwwy," wrote angeldreemzzz, the decoy.
"my home, my job everything," ____24829 wrote.
Angeldreemzzz: "i jst wanna have fun."
____24829: "i know. me too."
Before he was sentenced on Monday, ____ choked out an apology as he fought back tears.
"I'm deeply sorry," he said.
____'s lawyer, Terry Tobias, said his client never intended to have sex and would not go to the "girl's" home, arranging to meet her elsewhere.
"They were just going to go to a football game and that's it," Tobias said.
Curt ____, the father of the defendant, said his son has never been in trouble with the law and was not looking for under-aged sex. He said his son wrote numerous times. "I can't do it."
For the father, there is no doubt what happened here.
"It's definitely entrapment," he said. ..News Source.. by Barton Deiters | The Grand Rapids Press
May 19, 2009
MI- Cedar Springs man pleads guilty, sentenced to year in jail as part of Internet sex sting; father says it was entrapment
January 15, 2008
Entrapment allegations get attention, but not in court
1-14-2008 Ohio:
They were two of the area's most talked-about cases last year -- people in the public eye accused of provocative crimes.
Months later, debate continues about whether police entrapped the accused.
A Columbus firefighter was charged with public indecency in May for exposing himself to a woman he was cozying up to in a park.
A backup quarterback for the Ohio State football team was charged with solicitation in September after talking to an undercover police officer posing as a prostitute.
Both cases ended up in court in November: A jury convicted Robin Garrison of exposing himself in Berliner Park, and OSU's Antonio Henton pleaded guilty to a reduced charge.
Garrison's story has been featured on ABC and Fox news reports as well as on blogs and local talk radio. ABC posted a videotape of Garrison's encounter and asked viewers to comment. By Jan. 4, more than 800 people had weighed in.
"It's a big chaotic mess that won't go away," said Amanda Ford, a spokeswoman for the Columbus Police Division.
Garrison's attorney, Sam Shamansky, argued in court that police used a woman who was sunbathing topless in the park to entrap his client. She flirted with him, put her foot on his shoulder and asked to see his penis, Shamansky said.
Police had asked the woman to move to the back of the park because she was causing traffic problems on Greenlawn Avenue as motorists slowed down to look at her. She did, and police set up a video camera nearby.
Police said she wasn't working for them, but the woman didn't seem surprised when three officers moved in on Garrison, Shamansky said. Another man was charged with exposing himself to the sunbather the same day.
"What was done is done," said Lt. Steve Hope of the vice squad. "She was not working at our request."
Even if Garrison thought he was about to have consensual sex in a park, exposing himself is a crime, Hope said. Flirting and going topless are legal.
"You might think they were using her as bait, but Garrison took it," said Jeff Furbee, an assistant city attorney who advises the police on legal issues. "But police said they weren't using her as bait. … Police kept an eye on her hoping to catch someone."
ABC News has compared Garrison's case to a New York City sting in which police set out wallets and iPods to see if anyone would take them. Those who did were charged with theft.
Critics have argued that the New York operation turned potential good Samaritans into criminals by charging them before they could turn in what they thought were lost items. A jury found Garrison guilty of public indecency, a fourth-degree misdemeanor. Shamansky has appealed, saying the jury should have been instructed to consider entrapment.
Under Ohio law, entrapment occurs when government officials such as the police persuade an innocent person to commit a crime just so they can prosecute him or her.
"Where a person is ready and willing to break the law, the fact that government officials provide a means to do so is not entrapment," the law says.
"It takes a lot to get to the level of entrapment," Furbee said. "It's a hard thing for a defendant to claim: 'I did it, but the government officials essentially made me do it.' "
That's why officers posing as prostitutes or as children online are not committing entrapment when a potential "john" or online pedophile comes calling, he said.
Garrison has been assigned to a fire station on the Northwest Side while he awaits a disciplinary decision by the city's safety director. Fire Chief Ned Pettus Jr. has recommended unpaid suspension for 240 hours and firing if Garrison violates the yearlong probation ordered by Franklin County Municipal Judge Michael T. Brandt.
Some wondered whether Henton, a freshman quarterback, had been entrapped because the officer named the price for sex, which once was not allowed.
"He wasn't entrapped, because he didn't do it," said Henton's attorney, Jim Phillips.
Police said Henton agreed to pay an undercover officer $20 for sex on Sept. 14. After his arrest, he was suspended from the football team.
Because a jury trial was unlikely before January, Henton pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of loitering to engage in soliciting, Phillips said. That cleared the way for him to play in the final two games of the season, although he didn't.
Despite the guilty plea to the minor misdemeanor, Henton did "absolutely nothing wrong," Phillips said.
The officer brought up sex and mentioned a price, he pointed out. In her report, the officer said Henton nodded and answered "yeah," but his response couldn't be heard or seen in a videotape of the arrest.
After the 42-word exchange, Henton made a U-turn and was heading away from the alley where the female officer had suggested they meet, Phillips said.
Franklin County Court of Appeals rulings in 2005 and 2006 gave Columbus police officers more leeway in what they can say to prostitutes and johns, Furbee said.
Officers now can mention price and sex acts, Furbee said. Previously, that wasn't allowed.
"A lot of cases are close calls because they get into a verbal dance," he said. "I think that's why the courts have relaxed the standards a bit." ..more.. Dispatch reporter Ted Decker contributed to this story.
December 28, 2007
Topless Woman Lured Perverts in Police Sting
Firefighter Busted for Exposing Himself to Sunbather Appeals 'Entrapment' Conviction
12-27-2007 Ohio:
Robin Garrison, an off-duty 42-year-old firefighter, was walking in Berliner Park in Columbus, Ohio, in May when he saw a woman sunbathing topless under a tree.
He approached her and they started talking and getting comfortable, the woman smiling and resting her foot on his shoulder at one point.
Eventually, she asked to see Garrison's penis; he unzipped his pants and complied.
Seconds later, undercover police officers pulled up in a van and arrested Garrison; he was later charged with public indecency, a misdemeanor, based on video footage taken by cops who were targeting men having sex or masturbating in the park. While topless sunbathing is legal in the city's parks, exposing more than that is against the law.
The case is just one of the more extreme examples of police stings aimed at luring people into committing crimes, a tactic that has resulted in hundreds of arrests, many convictions and plenty of controversy.
Law enforcement officials say that such sting operations are an extremely effective means of lowering crime rates and stopping the criminally minded before they commit worse offenses. From early 2006 to the spring of 2007, there were 160 citations for public indecency in the city, according to an investigation by 10TV News. Among those who were caught in the stings: an Ohio State University doctor, government employees and a retired highway trooper.
But such operations veer dangerously close to entrapment, say lawyers, civil libertarians and defendants who've been caught in sting operations.
At Garrison's trial, his attorney argued that it was a case of entrapment. "Columbus police utilized this topless woman to snare this man," said Sam Shamansky. "He sees her day after day. He's not some seedy pervert."
The argument failed to sway a Franklin County Municipal Court jury that found Garrison guilty of public indecency last month. He was ordered to stay away from the park, placed on a year's probation and fined $250. Currently, Garrison remains on paid desk duty while the fire department conducts an internal investigation into his behavior.
"We want to be held to a higher standard, we are in the community every day and we put our best foot forward, but sometimes we stumble and make a mistake," said Columbus Fire Battalion Chief Doug Smith.
Garrison could not be reached for comment.
Shamansky plans to appeal the verdict on the grounds that the jury wasn't instructed on the definition of entrapment.
Other police departments across the country have dangled other temptations, from big-screen plasma TVs, Xbox 360 consoles and a shopping bag containing a cell phone and an iPod to catch people breaking the law.
In New York City, nearly 300 people, many of whom had no criminal record, have been snared this year through the NYPD's Operation Lucky Bag, in which undercover officers leave a wallet, iPod or cell phone in a subway station and wait to see who picks it up.
Although deputy police Commissioner Paul Browne says the program has helped cut subway grand larcenies by half, critics say that the police have gone too far.
"It's pretty straightforward that this is a police-created crime," said Legal Aid Society lawyer Alex Lesman, who defended a man arrested for taking a bag containing an Xbox video game box, a Sprint cell phone and cash. "The police set this whole thing up. They shouldn't be doing that and luring people in that situation, especially in this age of terrorism where the transit system is always telling you to be on the lookout for suspicious bags."
The judge agreed with Lesman, acquitting his client, Antonio Arroyo. "The police should concentrate their noble efforts on behalf of the city on countering real crimes committed every day," wrote Kings County criminal court judge Matthew A. Sciarrino Jr. "They do not need to manipulate a situation where temptation may overcome even people who would normally never think of committing a crime."
Other lawyers have argued on behalf of their clients that the operation may also violate New York's personal property law, which allows someone who finds property worth more than $25 10 days to turn it in to the owner or the police.
An NYPD spokesperson emphasized that Operation Lucky Bag does not use abandoned property; rather it is property actively left by an officer who is still in the vicinity. In addition, it is used at stations where similar crimes have been reported.
Another sting operation that made headlines involved police in El Paso, Texas, and U.S. Marshals sending out messages to wanted felons stating that they had "won" free Xbox 360 consoles and/or big-screen plasma TVs. The operation led to 115 arrests last month and the police picked up more than $25,000 in traffic fines.
This ploy, which has been used in other cities in recent years, is a new twist on an old trick, because sting operations involving drugs and prostitutes have been around for decades. And though defendants often claim entrapment, that argument rarely works in those kind of cases.
"The definition of entrapment is police activity that induces somebody to commit a crime that they otherwise wouldn't do," said Gabriel Chin, law professor at the University of Arizona. "It's not entrapment to give somebody an opportunity to commit a crime."
Chin explains that entrapment involves an officer cajoling and persuading someone who's resistant to the idea of committing a crime. "Just preying on a predisposition is not necessarily entrapment."
But he said that Operation Lucky Bag seemed to cross a line, especially when compared to longstanding police operations involving officers posing as drunks to lure muggers to take their wallets or jewelry.
"Very few people who see a drunk with gold chains or an old lady with money sticking out of her purse succumb to temptation and assault that person," he said. "But lots and lots of people wouldn't turn in a wallet when it's full of money. You could ask whether it's an appropriate use of police resources. If we really want to criminalize people who do what we don't want them to do, a lot of people would be in jail."
The temptation may just be too powerful. "I've found $5 on the street and put it in my pocket," said Chin. "If I found $5,000 on the street, I hope I would do something different." ..more.. by MARCUS BARAM
