Ohio School Computer Technician accused of buying kids for sexual torture

[Trevelyan_06]

I noticed that no one has addressed the fact that this person wasn't actually going to dunk any kids. The kids didn't exist. The man was TRICKED by the same people who are now going to sentence him.

It's unlikely this crime would have ever occurred, as I find it highly unlikely that one would happen across a mother who would willingly sell her children to be drowned. Only an undercover agent dealing with imaginary children would do such a thing.

Nowadays, it's like INTENT is just as bad as the actual ACTION. It reminds me of Minority Report, where you don't have to do anything to be prosecuted, you just have to be "going to do something".

This man wasn't going to drown any kids. Don't any of you dare tell me that he was. There were no kids to drown, so he wasn't going to. This was a fantasy situation, and shouldn't be carried over to real life.

Undercover agents should be ashamed. They just troll chatrooms trying to trick people so they can jail them. It's so malicious.

It's nothing like Minority Report. In that movies pre-cogs were able to see a murder before it happened. That was the only thing they could see too.

You did, however, get one thing right. It was a fantasy situation, right up until he attempted to solicit the sale of underage children for sex. That right there is his crime. If he would have keep it to himself, nothing would have happened to him. Instead this guy friggin flew to Florida in order to purchase these two girls. He set up a transaction with someone he thought was a mother to the effect that he'd pay her $550 to let him dunk her two girls. He wasn't tricked by law enforcement, he was caught.

[Glenn the Great]

He wasn't tricked by law enforcement, he was caught.

The law against solicitation is a load of bullshit.

The responsibility should lie on the solicitee to ignore the solicitor.

I like how you pointed out that...

If he would have keep it to himself, nothing would have happened to him.

So, if he kept this to himself, nothing happens to him. If he didn't keep it to himself (which is what happened), and law enforcement didn't dick around like this, nothing would have happened to anyone.

And the police wonder why people are so distrusting of the authorities.

This is nothing but a malicious and unethical act by the police.

I think if anything, the undercover agent should be tried as an accomplice to this "crime".

[rock_nog]

So what you're saying is, let's say that this was real and the authorities somehow found out about the transaction (fairly plausible - there's a pretty damn big underground slave market, I'm sure he could buy a couple of children if he knew where to look - thank God he didn't). Should the authorities then wait until the children are already harmed to intervene? According to you, there's nothing wrong with soliciting, but I would think you would want to step in before anything bad actually happens.

[AtmaWeapon]

Glenn you need to stick to trolling and kind of stay away from debate because you only seem to excel in one.

Proven intent to perform an illegal action is, in general, as sinister as actually performing the action. I'm sure you can contrive a situation where intent is innocent but I'm going to share an analogous maxim concerning whether a sexual desire is something you should be ashamed of or not:

Fact: If you have to spend hours in photoshop creating porn for your fetish because none exists, you have something wrong with you.

The analogy suggests that the longer you have to think to come up with a counterpoint to the statement "Proven intent to commit a crime should be as punishable as committing the crime", the less likely your point is correct.

Now, I forsee the counterpoint being something along the lines of a slippery slope fallacy: "Oh, so I should go to jail for murder if I tell you I want to strangle you?" This is, in fact, not really a fallacy because I haven't defined the specific scope of the phrase "intent" in my argument.

Among rational individuals, certain threats carry no teeth. When I do something that causes someone trouble and they say they wish they could strangle me, most people are able to understand this is a usage of hyperbole to express the concept "I am very frustrated with you right now!". When I say "proven intent to commit a crime" I do not speak of this situation at all. I mean to imply a situation where the person has made preparations and taken actions indicative of a meaningful desire to follow through with a criminal act.

When police set up a sting operation to catch drug offenders, intent is proven. The suspect initiates the transaction and it is clarified that their intent is to exchange money for drugs. At this point, the suspect has the capability to say "Ha ha just kidding" and walk away, and the police have no right to arrest him. It is only after the suspect agrees he wishes to exhange money for drugs then produces money that he is placed under arrest. There is a miniscule chance that he was still playing around at this point, but most people would understand it's not a good idea to walk up to a known drug dealer, offer money for drugs, then produce said money and take it away at the last minute.

For another example let's consider a successful sting I saw on a special about contract killers. The man was a pharmacist and had contacted an undercover policeman expressing interest in the murder of his wife. At this point he was a suspect and the police had no charges they could bring against him. A meeting was arranged, and he showed up to discuss details of the hit and provide payment. At this point, the police had excellent grounds for reasonable suspicious but still had no charges they could bring against him. The men discussed the details, and it was agreed that the pharmacist would provide a large amount of prescription narcotics in return for the crime. Even at this point, the police had no grounds for charges and the man could have walked out of the room innocent (but still creepy). Finally, the man produced a small bottle of narcotics for the down payment and handed it to the undercover policeman. They shook hands and said their parting words, in which the policeman included his code word for "come make the arrest". The man was completely innocent until he actually provided payment for the crime, at which point there is no possible way to refute the claim that he provided payment for a contract on another's life.

In the end, I believe the problem is actually that you are confusing "intent to commit a crime" with "going well out of your way to perform all of the actions characteristic of committing a crime, including agreeing upon payment and providing said payment". I am too lazy to go edit my post to reflect this conclusion, but perhaps this will prove a good test of reading comprehension for several of AGN's more developmentally challenged readers.

I highly doubt they arrested him as he boarded the plane to leave for Miami. He wasn't arrested after he left the plane. He wasn't arrested as soon as he reached the appointed place. Here, the article is scant on details, but it is clear he discussed fully his intent to submerge the children until they lost consciousness. My belief is that after payment was agreed upon and money changed hands, he found his face pressed against the table and handcuffs on his hands.

You cannot convince me you believe anyone in their right mind would initiate a conversation for such a thing, then book a flight, then describe in great detail his intents and produce money all as an elaborate prank. Anyone who thinks that's a good idea needs to spend some time reevaluating their sense of humor anyway.

*edit* That aside I do agree he deserves a fair trial as much as anyone else; even in the presence of abundant evidence the trial should never be forgone.

[Glenn the Great]

So what you're saying is, let's say that this was real and the authorities somehow found out about the transaction (fairly plausible - there's a pretty damn big underground slave market, I'm sure he could buy a couple of children if he knew where to look - thank God he didn't). Should the authorities then wait until the children are already harmed to intervene? According to you, there's nothing wrong with soliciting, but I would think you would want to step in before anything bad actually happens.

The police didn't need to step in here because nothing bad was going to happen.

If this man had made a contract with a real, legitimate dealer of children, then yes, it would have been very heroic for the police to step in before the transfer of the children took place.

I think that you guys don't appreciate the fact that during the interaction of the suspect and the undercover police officer, it isn't as simple as the suspect pushing toward committing the offence. There is this dynamic of being pulled into the crime coming from the police officer's end.

You've seen this sort of thing where the undercover officer talks to the suspect like everything is cool, putting the suspect at ease, making him comfortable, getting him in the mood to commit a crime.

Transactions of any kind are never one-way. There is always a back and forth interaction between the supplier and the consumer.

Alright... let me ask you this:

Let's say that right this moment, I agreed to sell you some dope. I don't have any in real life, but I tell you I do, and we make an agreement, and you come to get my drugs.

Could I be prosecuted for drug dealing, considering that I had neither actual nor constructive possession?

Yes.

The precedent has been that Crime of sale is independent from the seller actually possessing the good to be sold in any manner.

The undercover officer has committed an Offence of Sale. He didn't possess the children, he didn't intend to possess them, nor was he in the process of obtaining them. He wasn't even acting as an intermediary in the sale of children. But none of this matters according to precedent.

The undercover officer has committed a crime, and should be tried for it, just like any other citizen.

What we have here is a case of an undercover officer being above the law. I'm not creating a new controversy here. It is commonplace and controversial for undercover cops to be allowed to commit crimes in their line of work. It causes there to be inequity in the law, and that is why I am having a problem with this.

[Mitsukara]

I have to say Glenn has a good point here. The crime he's being punished for was never committed, and the man was lured into a falsified situation as a trap prior to commiting any crime.

Now, given his actions (as Trev pointed, he flew to Florida and such), it certainly does look like he had intent to go ahead with it. Does that guarantee he would've really gone through with it? No. Does that mean he's just as guilty as if he had already committed the full act? Hell no. Does it mean he's guilty of something? Yes; intent to commit a hostile act. Instead of punishing him as though he committed the whole crime and sending him to kangaroo court to be convicted with no hope of any reasonable treatment, he should be watched, guarded, possibly given a fair, real sort of reeducation program treatment to help him change- not sent to prison after a bullshit trial/executed/whatever.

America's view of "justice" is... disturbing. A word that comes to mind is sociopathic.

Yes, I do understand this guy is dangerous. No, I don't support his actions, and yes, I think response is necessary and, while I don't much like the methodology, I do think it's good that he was caught in advance in case he did do something. But what they're doing/going to do with that information disgusts me.

[biggiy05]

How is this any different than police going into online chat rooms and posing as 13-16 year old girls? They hook a guy who thinks it's a girl and he goes to meet said girl only to be arrested. That's legit and the guy trying to have sex with a minor needs to be put in jail.

Also. Glenn shut up.

[AtmaWeapon]

If this man had made a contract with a real, legitimate dealer of children, then yes, it would have been very heroic for the police to step in before the transfer of the children took place.

Right but I'm sure that though many dealers of children are honest and above-board what if he manages to get in contact with one that isn't licensed and therefore doesn't file the appropriate paperwork with the Bureau of Missing Children so they know which ones to investigate and which to ignore?

Or even worse, what if he encounters a black-market dealer of children who has no records at all and doesn't use sanctioned kidnappers to obtain his wares?

I think that you guys don't appreciate the fact that during the interaction of the suspect and the undercover police officer, it isn't as simple as the suspect pushing toward committing the offence. There is this dynamic of being pulled into the crime coming from the police officer's end.

You've seen this sort of thing where the undercover officer talks to the suspect like everything is cool, putting the suspect at ease, making him comfortable, getting him in the mood to commit a crime.

It is my belief that at the point where you initiate the transaction you have already exhibited behavior worth putting you under investigation. Reasonable suspicion increases the powers granted to investigators. I do not claim this is never abused, but one cannot claim a system is wrong in circumstances influenced by corruption. It is the corruption itself that is wrong, not the system in which it occurs. Should we reason that because some apples contain insects, all apples are repulsive?

Transactions of any kind are never one-way. There is always a back and forth interaction between the supplier and the consumer.

Correct. Consumer expresses intent. Supplier responds to request. Payment agreement is reached. Consumer upholds contract, supplier upholds contract. I will further explore this below.

Alright... let me ask you this:

Let's say that right this moment, I agreed to sell you some dope. I don't have any in real life, but I tell you I do, and we make an agreement, and you come to get my drugs.

Could I be prosecuted for drug dealing, considering that I had neither actual nor constructive possession?

Yes.

The precedent has been that Crime of sale is independent from the seller actually possessing the good to be sold in any manner.

The undercover officer has committed an Offence of Sale. He didn't possess the children, he didn't intend to possess them, nor was he in the process of obtaining them. He wasn't even acting as an intermediary in the sale of children. But none of this matters according to precedent.

The undercover officer has committed a crime, and should be tried for it, just like any other citizen.

What we have here is a case of an undercover officer being above the law. I'm not creating a new controversy here. It is commonplace and controversial for undercover cops to be allowed to commit crimes in their line of work. It causes there to be inequity in the law, and that is why I am having a problem with this.

First, if you offered to sell me dope I'd probably tell you to eat a dick, and depending on complicated utilitarian analysis of the contempt I feel for you, the level of sarcasm I interpret, and the risks I felt were involved I might inform the authorities.

Second, let's discuss an undercover officer's responsibilities and powers a scenario-based perspective. I shall use 3 actors:

Bob is a man who wishes to purchase some Crystal Methamphetamine with full knowledge of the laws that render acquisition and usage illegal.

Alice is an undercover police officer who wishes to encounter people who wish to obtain controlled substances and arrest them.

Mike is a man who wants to eat hamburgers and browse the internet without the interference of pants.

Alice drops cards at a party that contains information that describes a process to contact a dealer of Crystal Meth. Both Bob and Mike find a card and take it home.

Bob follows the instructions and arranges a meeting with Alice via a middleman. During the establishment of the meeting, he clearly expresses his intent to purchase illegal drugs. At this point there is reasonable suspicion that he is involved in drug transactions, and law enforcement's powers over him are increased. He arrives at the designated location and Alice verifies the quantity he wishes to purchase and the amount of payment expected. Bob produces the money and oh dear, Alice breaks the contract by arresting him!

Mike gets home and remembers he has the card. He's pretty certain this must be a joke so he calls the numbers for kicks. When the call is answered and it's not someone's grandmother or a pizza parlor, he is somewhat creeped out and hangs up after mumbling something about a wrong number. Mike has done nothing more sinister than calling a phone number, and law enforcement has no additional powers over him.

I see no issues with the situation described above. The point you make is valid; Alice is performing an act that would result in the arrest of a civilian, but she is only allowed to perform the action under the direct supervision of law enforcement to individuals that have already established reasonable suspicion.

There is a thing called "due process" and so long as it is followed I refuse to believe undercover operations are wrong.

I feel this is very separate from the "only criminals should be afraid of law enforcement monitoring them" argument, because in this case we are actually arguing whether the maxim "People should be free to enter illegal transactions without fear of law enforcement; only after the transaction is completed should they fear." is correct and I think the point argues itself.

Brandishing a weapon is a crime in all states as far as I know. The idea is when you have taken verbal threats and threat of physical harm to the point at which you feel it necessary to hold a weapon and make threats with that, you have overstepped the bounds of rational behavior and should be punished. I fail to see why any individual who will enter a transaction with full knowledge of its illegality should be considered rational and above investigation.

[Glenn the Great]

Alice is an undercover police officer who wishes to encounter people who wish to obtain controlled substances and arrest them.

So, she's trying to arrest people who have a wish.

Sounds like a thought crime to me.

Before Bob attempted to buy Meth, he wasn't a criminal. At the time Alice dropped her cards, she had no idea who Bob was. He was just an ordinary citizen, just like anyone else.

Bob was a potential criminal, just like we all are. Alice was scheming to arrest a potential criminal, or in other words, she laid a trap hoping to catch not just Bob, but also you, me, and every other person.

Alice and the Police just wanted to snatch an ordinary citizen, and criminalize him or her.

I don't take well to the thought of the police, who are supposed to be there to protect me, actively trying to lay traps to ensnare me. I wouldn't think you'd like that either.

The right course of action is for the police to focus on suppliers. Only so many people have the goods and can supply. Everyone could be a consumer.

Let's look at what this story might look like if the police followed this method...

A woman is trying to sell her kids on the Internet. The undercover agent agrees to buy the kids, and arranges a meeting place. The undercover agent meets her, hands her the money, and receives the children. At this point, the woman is put under arrest, and the children are told that everything will be fine, and then are put in a good home.

That sounds like a heroic story to me. Not this dishonorable trash we are discussing.

[AtmaWeapon]

Bob is not a potential criminal, he is a person that called a person advertised as a drug dealer expressing interest in a transaction involving illegal drugs. There is no potential here, there is action.

It is entrapment and illegal if, while I'm sipping lemonade on the porch, an undercover police officer approaches me and offers to sell me drugs. In this case, the law reckons that the absurdity of the situation could have made me uncomfortable enough to perform the transaction unwillingly in an attempt to avoid a threatening situation.

When the situation is reversed, the police officer is passive. I make the action by initiating the transaction. In the law's eyes, this places me in the dominant position and is reasonable enough proof for conviction.

"Thoughtcrime" is arresting people for having the intent to commit a crime before they obtain the means to commit it. A good example of thoughtcrime arrests today are foreign citizens arrested under suspicion of terrorism due to paranoid racist neighbors rather than evidence. The horse is of a different color if, say, the police are notified by a farm supply company that the family has placed a large order for ammonium nitrate fertilizer though they barely own an acre of land. This could lead the police to investigate the purchases the family has made and could turn up enough evidence to lead to surveillance.

In all of my examples I have taken care to show that I fully support the arrest of someone who has made an illegal action. While I haven't specified it I believe the initiator of action is the party responsible; in entrapment cases the police initiate action and therefore it is not allowable.

What are these traps and snares the police lay out for you? Sometimes cops set up radar traps on the road; these traps only lead to my prosecution if I speed (breaking the law). Undercover police accepting offers for assassination contracts are arresting people who have exchanged some form of payment in return for the murder of another person (breaking the law). Undercover police that set up drug stings are arresting persons who have paid money for illegal substances (breaking the law). This case concerns a man who traveled halfway across the country to "purchase" children so he could halfway drown them for his own sexual gratification (breaking the law).

In all of these instances, the only people caught by the snare are people who express an intent to break the law then follow through with their expression. If you were to approach an undercover officer and ask if they had any weed, then act shocked and walk away when they name a price, you'd never hear any more of it because until you make a payment and accept the drugs you can build a reasonable defense implying that you were just joking around and somehow accidentally stumbled upon the wrong person. (Of course, this case gets shakier if you had to contact a middleman and set up an appointment; remember you aren't convincing the judge but a jury of your peers and if they think you are too stupid to forgive you are going to get busted.)

I do agree with your final point. The users form the bottom of the pyramid and are numerous enough that it is difficult to arrest enough of them to have an effect on the suppliers. The problem with attacking the suppliers is there are multiple tiers of operation. The lower tiers comprise the majority of street dealers and are the easiest to arrest, but their numbers make individual arrests have little effect. Sometimes they can lead to arrests of people higher up the tree, but the people at the upper levels of the organization are wealthy men in foreign countries; it is very difficult to arrest them.

The same goes with any other black market that has been around for a significant amount of time; it's a big pyramid scheme where the effect of an arrest increases significantly with the difficulty of the arrest; unfortunately difficulty increases quite quickly.

It's not really worth arguing further; I think you have an incorrect interpretation but it's in line with a lot of other political policies you believe that I believe are wrong as well. There is nothing you can say that will convince me that a man who said he wanted to abuse children, flew halfway across the country to meet a woman who agreed to supply the children, explained in detail the abuse he wanted to perform and why he wanted to do it, then produced the money and expected the children in return has any chance of being innocent or is a victim of a snare that could have caught any normal, law-abiding citizen. Apparently you feel differently and that's cool, perhaps in your state transactions involving children as currency are more common than in mine.