If you’ve ever contacted anyone online regarding sexuality, you should know that, depending on the circumstances, you can be sentenced to years in prison for online solicitation, even if you never met the person you contacted.
That was the case for a Clovis, California, man who was sentenced on Monday, March 25, 2024, to 11 years in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release, also known as probation.
The federal charge against him was attempted online coercion of a minor. Under Section 2422(b) of 18 U.S. Code § 2422, it is illegal to use the mail, the internet or other kinds of interstate commerce to intentionally coerce, persuade or entice a minor to engage in unlawful sex acts.
Punishments for that sex crime involve at least 10 years in prison and even up to life in prison. Thus, for the California man who received one year over the minimum sentence, it could have been worse. (Sometimes defendants can gain a lesser punishment by agreeing to plead guilty.)
According to People magazine, the man had messaged online an undercover federal agent whom he believed was a 15-year-old girl, and then he requested that she send him sexually explicit photos for his “eyes only.”
A sting operation designed to sweep up many such offenders then led to the man’s arrest, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.
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In September of 2023, the man, 56, pleaded guilty to attempted online coercion of a minor, a federal sex crime that can also apply in Texas and all other states, along with each state’s own sex crime laws and punishments.
According to federal authorities, in May of 2021, the man sent a message to an Instagram account that was controlled by an undercover agent who was pretending to be an underage girl. The agent reportedly told the man that the girl he thought he was contacting was 15 years old, or a minor in any state, including Texas.
People magazine said it reviewed the federal complaint, which indicated the man kept messaging the Instagram account while asking the girl for a nude photo. Authorities also said the man sent the undercover agent naked photos of other women as part of the conversation.
They said the man told the agent he wanted to “cuddle” and hoped they could spend at least one night together. In Instagram audio calls, he also referred to being nude, and he repeatedly asked that she meet him in person, the federal complaint stated.
On June 26, 2021, he went to Fresno to meet the would-be victim in order to “engage in various forms of sexual activity, ” prosecutors said. The man was then arrested upon arrival.
Sting operations can make mistakes
Sex sting operations, such as the recent Operation Bad Traffic, are legitimate efforts by authorities to combat online sex crimes.
However, these operations can sometimes result in errors as they cast a wide net to lure and arrest individuals for alleged offenses.
The broad scope of these stings may inadvertently sweep up innocent people, leading to wrongful arrests based on insufficient or flawed evidence.
Some innocent parents have even faced scrutiny, if not legal hot water, when Google mistook photos of their own children, which they took solely for medical and diagnostic health reasons, for child pornography, and authorities were then notified.
A Houston man was investigated by Houston police after they received a warning about him, though he was quickly cleared of any wrongdoing. Even so, his Google-related accounts were disabled.
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Child porn charges also can be misapplied
In other cases, an innocent person may be construed as having child pornography. But there are several common defenses against child porn charges.
Those defenses include having had “unintentional” or “accidental” possession of such images.
Depending on the circumstances, defendants represented by a sex crime lawyer can also assert that authorities made an illegal search or arrest, thus violating their Fourth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution.
Procedural errors by police can include:
- Illegally seizing evidence, which then cannot be used against a defendant
- Lying to get a warrant to seize a personal computer
- Searching beyond the scope allowed by a warrant by exploring a computer or other item not named in the warrant
A defendant’s online solicitation lawyer may also argue that the person was “entrapped” or coerced by police into committing a crime that they otherwise would not have committed. A child porn defense can also include proving that authorities encouraged a person to buy content that was not clearly labeled child porn and then arrested the person for buying child porn.
The very nature of what was construed as child porn also may be questioned—just as in the case of the Houston man who did not produce child porn but rather images of his child that were needed for a medical evaluation or diagnosis.
Get an experienced Houston-area sex crime lawyer
If you or a loved one has been arrested in a sex sting operation, seek legal counsel from an experienced criminal defense attorney. A skilled attorney can help navigate the complexities of your case, challenge any mistakes made during the investigation, and work to protect your rights and freedom
