I’m watching yet another NBC Dateline special where pederasts attempting to meet a 13 year old girl are instead greeted by Chris Hansen – and later, police officers – after they arrive at the house where the girl supposedly lives.
In the show, men that drive by the house, slow down, and speed up again without actually stopping are pursued by police officers, and like those that entered the house, they’re arrested too.
Let’s say there’s a man driving slowly down the street past the house where the Dateline stings are taking place, at the same time the stings are occurring, at the same moment someone is expected to visit the decoy girl. He has no idea what’s going on, and never chatted with anyone online, much less a decoy; he’s just looking for a party, a lost dog, delivering a pizza, or something else. Would he be busted? If so, how could he prove he had no idea what was going on?
In most cases these guys have already committed a crime by arranging to meet the supposed minor, whether they go in the house or not. If you just drive by the house randomly and they arrest you, what crime can they charge you with? You wouldn’t have to prove you had no idea what was going on, they’d have to prove you came by the house to have sex with a minor. And unless they’ve got IM transcripts they can trace back to your computer they can’t do that.
I’m certain that the cops already know quite a bit about these guys, including their names and license numbers. They probably have surveillance units that ID the vehicles as soon as they come into the area. They aren’t just stopping them for slowing down in front of the house.
Also this might be a question if the guy shows up and says nothing. Usually ( always? ) they incriminate the hell out of themselves on camera though… :smack:
I’m sure the shows are edited for broadcast long after such details are made available to the authorities. What we watch on TV probably occurred weeks, if not months earlier.
I don’t know. On tonight’s show, at the end I think they said that all those depicted on the show declared they were not guilty in court, but none have been tried yet.
This isn’t snarky, but how about some cites. Surely just making a date can’t possibly be actionable, right? If so, why the pretense of making these guys show up to be arrested there? And then, even if someone clearly intends to commit a crime but ends up chickening out, is that still an offense?
I’m not sure if they could be charged with some nebulous “endangering a minor” bit, but the police have better things to do, and more willing pervs to go after, than to arrest someone who hasn’t already incriminated himself. Nearly all these instances that I’m aware of, the perp has already made clear it will be a “hot date” rather than just a meeting.
I have not seen every minute of each episode but I have seen some. Each one I have seen has done a lot more than “make a date”. They have been very specific about what they were going to do to a 13 year old. From the Dateline webpage:
Every instance I know personally about, either on this show or in my personal experience, they always nab the guy when he physically shows up. It would be hard to prove intent otherwise. It seems like on the show they always use local law enforcement so it goes by which laws are in effect at each location.
Making a date with a fourteen year old to rent a movie and toss some popcorn in the microwave? No, no crime.
But the chat logs show that the suspects have explicitly arranged to have sex with a minor child. That’s a crime, even if there is no actual minor child involved.
This is because of the general area of inchoate crimes, into which the “attempt” of a crime falls. Since you asked for cites, I’ll give you Virginia’s law on attempt:
What felony is being attempted in these cases? Again from Virginia law:
I have a slightly different question: suppose you allow your friends to use your computer. one of them uses MYSPACE to arrange a tryst with a “13 year old girl”-who happens to be an FBI agent. Your friend then goes off to meet his newfound friend, and is promptly arrested. At trial, his lawyer pleads “not guilty”-your "friend’ now alleges that YOU are the guilty party! Now, how would you prove your innocence? The computer is yours, and the friend now says that the salacious conversation on MYSPACE was in fact yours!
This could be a VERY challenging issue!
Yeah, but the ‘friend’ was the person that actually showed up for the salacious activity. It would be pretty easy for you, the computer owner, to show that you were innocent. Here’s why; if the friend claimed that he happened upon the girl accidentily and coincidentily the exact same time that you were supposed to meet her, then how does he explain that you didn’t show up and he did? How would he be able to finger you unless he was aware of the original IM exchange?
He’d be better off not fingering you and not saying anything. By knowing even a little about the attempted crime he implicates himself.
Why would you need to prove your innocence? Unless the police believe his story and then come after you. They are just throwing something at the jury to try and raise reasonable doubt. You have no legal reason to try and prove anything.
What I don’t get is why these guys, after being caught, agree to talk at length about what they did and why they did it, ON CAMERA! Maybe they think if allowed to talk, they can talk their way out of it, but all they are actually doing is letting everyone in the US- their family, boss, friends, etc- see that are into doing children. Now, a crime that would have gone punished, pretty much anonymously,ends up a public thing, where you now are an outcast, probably lose your job, family, etc. What morons.
Have there been any convictions.? There is no underage person involved. How can you be trying to have sex with someone who does not exist. I dismissed it as TV ,not truth.
