(International Crimes Against Children; ICAC)

(To Catch A Predator)

Our client was a young Soldier who regularly engaged in prostitution and escort services online. This was an activity that he regularly contracted with predating his time in the Army.

For some reason, the New York State Investigators thought it would be a good idea to do a joint sting operation on Fort Drum with CID. However, none of the CID agents were ICAC trained, so the New York State Investigators ran the show.

First, they rented some cabins on Fort Drum to set up. One cabin was for the chatters, one was for the arrest team, and one was for the undercover officer posing as “bad momma”.

Then, one of the investigators developed an ad for a known prostitution website known as skipthegames.eu. This ad had age regressed photos, posted the age of the individual as 87 along with the words “young and juicy” while listing the location as Fort Drum.

Then, the investigators sit back and wait for someone to click on the ad.

One morning, our client clicked on the ad. In fact, he clicked on several ads, and ended up chatting with at least four other prostitutes that day.

I have tried a handful of these cases. Up and until this case, all of them had lewd and lascivious language, requests for photos among other things. This case was the shortest conversation I have ever seen. The chatter directed the conversation. He was able to get our client to agree to the price and the service before revealing the actual age of the individual.

Now, our client was used to dealing with an intermediary…a pimp. And in this case, “bad momma” was the pimp for her stepdaughter. Yet, during this conversation, the chatter failed to get our client to confirm that he was meeting a child. The chatter failed to confirm that he knew the age of the child. Finally, the chatter failed to give our client an out by reminding him that he could walk away.

Having tried these cases before, I have been exposed to and studied ICAC best practices for conducting enticement operations. The New York State Investigators blatantly ignored those best practices.

During trial, the chatter was the Governments chief witness. I was able to cross examine him on three separate occasions. This investigator was one of the worst witnesses for the Government I have ever seen. During cross examination, he actually said that he didn’t know what it meant to be objective. He admitted for ignoring the best practices that ICAC teaches, while knowing exactly what they are. He offered no explanation as to why they would conduct such an operation on Fort Drum as there are no trends on the base that would necessitate such an operation. He attempted to preclude us from knowing what the software was he used to conduct the chat, calling it “privileged” information. The Military Judge ended up ordering him to tell us.

This witness was so bad that he gesticulated to Government Counsel during my cross examination as if to say I was badgering him. When the Government did object to badgering, the Judge’s response was, “he could just answer the question”. My questions were direct and to the point. There was no misunderstanding anything I said.

One of the interesting moments in trial was when this witness said that his chat program generated an EXCEL spreadsheet that could not be manipulated after it was generated. I quickly dispelled that myth by demonstrating to the Court and the Members that the excel spreadsheet could be manipulated. We loaded it up on a computer, displayed it on a screen and played around with the spreadsheet.

Finally, our client opted to testify and tell his story. We were able to show thru the evidence the Government admitted, coupled with our client’s testimony that he was indeed chatting with multiple prostitutes and that he had already met with one the previous week.

This case is a classic case of entrapment. There was no evidence of predisposition; meaning, the Government produced no evidence showing that our client had an interest in wanting to have sex with minors. The ad itself was placed on an adult website. To be on the website, you had to be 18 years or older. To post on the site, you had to be 18 years or older. Ultimately the military panel saw it for what it was. It was a Trap!

Result: Not Guilty! Full Acquittal!