# People respond to a "Rent a Hitman" website, web guy turns them in **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 14, 2021, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065 "2021-12-14T18:32:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/1 "2021-12-14T18:32:32Z")
People want to [rent a hit man](https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/12/us/hireahitman-website-cracks-crimes-cec/index.html?fbclid=IwAR3e6RgFJLzB8_bWDolm4kH2W29M__AIfuiNdttm4NYRPw7mP0SnVyCFy6I), and the fellow who runs the site calls the cops. This seems like entrapment to me, and I’m surprised that police don’t ask for the web site to be shut down. ---
**Author:** ![Ranch\_Dip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranch_dip/32/5238_2.png) [@Ranch\_Dip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranch_Dip)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/2 "2021-12-14T18:33:43Z")
How is it entrapment for a private citizen has a web page? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/3 "2021-12-14T18:35:16Z")
Doesn’t the defense of entrapment usually require coercion or some kind of overbearing tactics that positively _encourage_ someone to commit a crime? I cannot really imagine how the mere existence of a fake website that someone must search out could qualify. Sending out mass email or cold calling people to _offer_ them hit man services, perhaps. And I believe it would need to be a cop or someone else in some official capacity doing the entrapping? I’m not sure what the situation would be if a private citizen were doing something like this _after_ the cops knew about it, if the cops allowed it to continue. From my extensive T.V.-based knowledge of legal proceedings, I think then there may be an argument that the person is acting on behalf of the cops. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/4 "2021-12-14T18:42:14Z")
By its very nature, a trap is useless unless you fuck with it. A hidden trap is one thing but when there’s a giant bear trap laying out in the middle of a parking lot with a “BEAR TRAP” sign on it, you can’t blame the owner of the bear trap if someone decides to stick their foot in it. Ppl r dum. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/5 "2021-12-14T18:45:41Z")
I imagine that if I left a bear trap on my sidewalk and the mailman stepped on it, I’d be arrested. I don’t know what the legal definition of entrapment is, that is why I asked. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/6 "2021-12-14T18:51:53Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I don’t know what the legal definition of entrapment is, that is why I asked. From DOJ website _Entrapment is a complete defense to a criminal charge, on the theory that “Government agents may not originate a criminal design, implant in an innocent person’s mind the disposition to commit a criminal act, and then induce commission of the crime so that the Government may prosecute.” Jacobson v. United States , 503 U.S. 540, 548 (1992). A valid entrapment defense has two related elements: (1) government inducement of the crime, and (2) the defendant’s lack of predisposition to engage in the criminal conduct. Mathews v. United States , 485 U.S. 58, 63 (1988). Of the two elements, predisposition is by far the more important._ ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/7 "2021-12-14T18:54:17Z")
It’s a dangerous game for a private citizen to be doing something like this. What if another private citizen contacts the website, they agree to a “hit” contract and exchange money, and _both_ then claim to have been trying to catch bad guys? Or what if the guy who contacts your website is a cop, and you maintain the pretence of being a hitman a bit too long? I seem to recall more than one occasion when someone charged with child pornography crimes claimed to be trying to _catch_ child abusers. Almost certainly those people were lying, but there’s also a lesson there that you should always leave such things to the police. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/8 "2021-12-14T18:59:32Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Doesn’t the defense of entrapment usually require coercion or some kind of overbearing tactics that positively _encourage_ someone to commit a crime? > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I don’t know what the legal definition of entrapment is, that is why I asked. For entrapment, it’s pretty much as Riemann says. It’s not enough that the person is merely offered an opportunity to commit a crime, the police (or their agents) must be going out of their way to pressure the person into committing the crime. It’s just like drug or prostitution stings. An undercover cop hanging out acting like a prostitute or a drug dealer can bust anyone who comes up and solicits the drugs or sex. If the cop was aggressively saying, “Hey, why don’t you buy some drugs, what are you a wimp, why aren’t you buying drugs, tough guy?!?!”, they would probably be entrapping the person. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I imagine that if I left a bear trap on my sidewalk and the mailman stepped on it, I’d be arrested. Leaving a trap that can hurt someone just going about their regular daily duties falls under different laws. There have been cases of homeowners being charge with assaulting or injuring people with traps set up to catch burglars. The idea is that an unattended trap will catch anyone, even if they have a legal reason to be there (say, firefighters responding to a fire). A website that merely records your name and contact info isn’t really analogous. Probably the best comparison is to those people who go on chat sites pretending to be kids, looking to catch pedophiles. There have been many successful prosecutions in such cases. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/9 "2021-12-14T19:00:54Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > It’s a dangerous game for a private citizen to be doing something like this. What if another private citizen contacts the website, they agree to a “hit” contract and exchange money, and _both_ then claim to have been trying to catch bad guys? The website is laughably obviously fake and even the most cursory check would reveal that it’s clearly not someone soliciting real assassination contracts. > [@RentAHitman.com](#): > > Our clients confidentiality is important to us, so rest assured that your information will remain private as required under **HIPPA** , the **H** itman **I** nformation **P** rivacy & **P** rotection **A** ct of 1964. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/10 "2021-12-14T19:05:09Z")
So the defense here will be not be entrapment, it will be not guilty be reason of mental disease or defect. Members of the jury, my client is an imbecile. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/11 "2021-12-14T19:07:15Z")
I didn’t realize Bret Hart was so hard up for work. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/12 "2021-12-14T19:10:29Z")
Did you even read the link in the OP? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/13 "2021-12-14T19:18:13Z")
Did you? Although it seems ridiculous, the website does not exist just as a joke, it is maintained for the purpose of catching people who apply for hitman services. And hundreds of people have done so. Setting aside the obvious stupidity required from the “clients” here, it does leads you to question whether this kind of thing is really a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/14 "2021-12-14T19:35:15Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > It’s a dangerous game for a private citizen to be doing something like this. What if another private citizen contacts the website, they agree to a “hit” contract and exchange money, and _both_ then claim to have been trying to catch bad guys? From the article: > [@](#): > > If a person fills out a form on his site and explicitly seeks to have someone killed, Innes will wait 24 hours before contacting police. > > “It’s kind of like a cooling-off period, to come back to your senses. I want to give people the opportunity to walk away,” he says. “After a day, I ask them two questions. Do you still require our services? Do you want to be connected with a field operative?” > > If they respond yes to both, Innes connects them with a law enforcement agency in their area, which takes over communications with the suspect. Innes never discusses a fee – he leaves that to the “field operatives.” So, that doesn’t seem to be a real concern. ---
**Author:** ![Tarataratara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Tarataratara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarataratara)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/15 "2021-12-14T19:40:33Z")
Scamgoddess has a pretty funny podcast about this website. Warning for language. [https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/scam-goddess/rent-a-hitman-dot-con-with-nJv1Qmz\_adl/](https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/scam-goddess/rent-a-hitman-dot-con-with-nJv1Qmz_adl/) ---
**Author:** ![lum\_s\_husband](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lum_s_husband/32/3698_2.png) [@lum\_s\_husband](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lum_s_husband)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/16 "2021-12-14T19:40:41Z")
What sort of a fool rents a hit man anyway? The vast majority of the time, leasing is the smartest option, and for the rest, it’s buying. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/17 "2021-12-14T19:46:38Z")
I did read the link. The reason I asked is that both of your posts I responded to suggest an unfamiliarity with the facts reported in it. The website owner does not seem to be reasonably confusable with an actual purveyor of hitman services, and your suggested “I’m an idiot” defense (not sure that’s a real legal defense, but whatever) was not taken. The woman in question met with an undercover agent and gave him money to kill her husband, and then pled guilty. So it seems to me that the website operator has done good. A woman who took multiple substantial real world steps to hire an assassin was stymied by this honeypot of a site rather than possibly continuing her schemes in some more effective manner, and she wasn’t able to get out of prosecution either. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/18 "2021-12-14T21:35:02Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > So it seems to me that the website operator has done good. A woman who took multiple substantial real world steps to hire an assassin was stymied by this honeypot of a site rather than possibly continuing her schemes in some more effective manner, and she wasn’t able to get out of prosecution either. Meh, she may not have done it if she didn’t find the web site. At any rate, it isn’t entrapment because the police aren’t running the web site. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/19 "2021-12-14T21:55:59Z")
You would think that eventually the 1 star reviews would ruin the site. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065/20 "2021-12-14T22:01:41Z")
Indeed. I imagine his site is toast now. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-respond-to-a-rent-a-hitman-website-web-guy-turns-them-in/956065.md?page=2)