Wacky Internet Predator Wednesday, No. 19
Here’s another weekly round-up of dirtbags that got caught soliciting sex for minors on the internet. In one story, which furthers the reason parents need to utilize monitoring software like PC Pandora to keep an eye on their kids’ Internet activity, a 13-year-old girl willingly ran away with a man she met on MySpace and gave him oral sex. This was all CONSENSUAL! Parents, you think you know what your kids are doing online? Guess again.
Summary of scumbags:
- A 53-year-old Virginia man was arrested for trying to lure what he thought was a 13-year-old girl in an online chat and then trying to meet her.
- A 46-year-old Connecticut man was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl in an Internet chat room; earlier this month a 49-year-old man was arrested on similar charges.
- A 25-year-old South Carolina man has been charged with misconduct after using MySpace to initiate sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl.
The final story is one of justice and a smart judge, as a convicted scumbag who was soliciting minor for sex on the Internet tried to cry “entrapment”! Thankfully, the judge tossed it and said, “Nope, you still tried to solicit what you thought were kids for sex. Rot in jail, sicko.”
Investigation nabs 53-year-old trying to lure teen online
PORTSMOUTH, VA. (WAVY.com) — In an investigation meant to keep youngsters safe from online predators, the Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office was able to nab a 53-year-old man trying to lure a 13-year-old female in an online chat.
During their investigation, they say 53-year-old Richard Salander of Virginia Beach traveled to Gloucester to meet with, who he believed to be a 13-year-old female, he’d been chatting with on Yahoo! Instant Messenger.
Salander was taken into custody without incident and is charged with five counts of Use of Communications System to Facilitate Certain Offenses Against Children, three counts of Attempted Indecent Liberties with Children, and two counts of Indecent Liberties with Children. He’s currently being held in the Gloucester County Jail without bond.
Investigators say Salander was using the screen name CENTENRICK@YAHOO.COM. Investigators want to know if any other child has had contact with this screen name. If so, contact the Gloucester Sheriffs Office at 804-693-1100.
Waterford man faces charges in Internet sex solicitation case
By Amy RenczkowskiWaterford – Police arrested a local man Tuesday and charged him with soliciting sex from an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl in an Internet chat room.
The Waterford man was conversing with police from Stamford and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in an online investigation that started in June, police said.
Joseph Wright, 46, of 161 Boston Post Road, was charged with four counts of obscenity, four counts of criminal attempt to cause risk of injury to a minor and four counts of criminal attempt to entice a minor.
Wright is being held on $150,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in the Stamford Superior Court.
Stamford police Sgt. Joseph Kennedy, commander of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said Wright had several sexually graphic chats with police and sent obscene images through his Web camera.
Waterford police helped provide background about Wright and assisted with the arrest.
This is the second time in the last month that Waterford police paired with another police department in the state to make an arrest of a suspected sexual predator.
On Sept. 18, an East Haddam man was arrested when police said he was trying to entice a 13-year-old online to perform sexual acts with him. State police said during an online investigation, Thomas Marcel, 49, of 264 Parnassus Road, East Haddam, conversed with a person he thought was a 13-year-old female but was actually a police officer.
Marcel was arrested when he traveled to the Crystal Mall in Waterford to meet the girl. He was charged with enticement and impairing the morals of minors. Waterford police helped state police with the mall arrest.
Kennedy said most police departments don’t have Internet crime units. Stamford’s is fairly new, and he said there are six police officers that operate the unit part time.
Since the unit was formed two years ago, Kennedy said, they have arrested more than 16 Internet predators.
”It’s a real problem,” Kennedy said. “There’s a lot of child pornography out there, and you get these type of predators.”
Without disclosing all of the details, Kennedy said the operation works undercover. Police have profiles of boys and girls ages 13 and 14, and they go on the Internet under those identities.
Kennedy said officers don’t solicit the targets; they wait for them to make the first move. “It doesn’t take long before these guys get sexually explicit,” he said.
Man Charged with Misconduct after Myspace Meeting
Lesley Lane – GwdToday News ReporterA 25-year-old Greenwood man has been charged with misconduct after Sheriffs deputies say he used the social networking website MySpace to initiate sexual contact with a 13-year-old Laurens girl.
GCSO arrested Kendrick D. Smith, 25, of 310 Vintage Ct., Gwd, and charged him with criminal sexual conduct of minor.
According to incident reports, a GCSO deputy met with a Laurens Police Officer on August 5th in reference to a runaway 13-year-old girl.
Acting on intelligence gathered by the Laurens County Police, authorities located the girl at the BILO store on Hwy 25NE in Greenwood.
The girl told authorities that she made contact with Smith via her Myspace account and the two arranged a meeting for that day. She said that Smith picked her up in Laurens and drove her back to his home at 310 Vintage Ct where she allegedly preformed oral sex on Smith at his request.
The alleged victim returned to Laurens with a Laurens Police Officer.
COLUMBIA — The South Carolina Supreme Court’s decision Monday in the case of a Travelers Rest man convicted of soliciting minors over the Internet will strengthen the state’s law aimed at catching Internet predators, a spokesman for State Attorney General Henry McMaster said.
The ruling, the first to consider an appeal of South Carolina’s Internet soliciting law after 140 arrests, upheld the conviction of William H. Gaines Jr. of Travelers Rest, accused by police of using Web chat rooms to try to lure teenage girls to have sex, court records show.
“We see this as a tremendous victory for state law,” said Mark Plowden, a spokesman for McMaster. “That law has now been strengthened because it’s been upheld.”
Gaines was convicted of three counts of criminal solicitation of a minor and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, according to court records, suspended to four years in prison and five years’ probation on each count.
Gaines gave statements to police, according to the Supreme Court opinion, admitting that he had contacted girls on the Internet. But he said he was “just talking” with them, according to the opinion.
Neither he nor his appellate lawyers could be reached for comment Monday.
Justices denied that Gaines was entitled to an entrapment defense, ruling that the South Carolina officer’s beginning the chat by saying “Hey” did not constitute entrapment.
“The initial contact merely afforded Gaines the opportunity to solicit sex,” Justice John Waller wrote. “Gaines was in no way induced to commit the crime of criminal solicitation of a minor.”
According to Monday’s ruling, Gaines engaged in conversation in an Internet chat room in early 2004 with someone he believed to be a 12-year-old girl in Philadelphia.
He encouraged the person, according to the opinion, to travel to Greenville, where he planned to rent a hotel room. In fact, according to the opinion, the person was a Pennsylvania undercover detective, who referred the case to South Carolina authorities.
In October of that year, according to the opinion, South Carolina police established a screen name, pretending to be a 13-year-old girl whom Gaines contacted in a chat room later that year.
Gaines argued in his appeal that his earlier talk with the Pennsylvania police shouldn’t have been admitted as evidence because South Carolina didn’t pass its Internet solicitation law until June of 2004. The justices disagreed, saying that soliciting a minor prior to June was still a crime in Pennsylvania.
