Convicted of Sex Crimes, but With No Victims
Since 2015, nearly 300 men in cities and towns across Washington State have been arrested in online-predator stings, most of them run by the State Patrol and code-named Operation Net Nanny. The men range in age from 17 to 77, though about a quarter are 25 or younger. As many as two dozen have been rounded up in a single sting and charged with attempted rape of a child, as Jace Hambrick was, even though no actual children were involved. The emails and texts offering sex are written by undercover officers. The “girls” in the photos are not 13. They are police officers, typically the youngest women on the force.
For law enforcement, stings are an efficient way to make high-profile felony arrests and secure convictions. In June 2016, John Garden, a State Patrol detective, emailed a fellow trooper about joining him on a sting in Spokane. “See if you can come play” and “chat some guys in,” he wrote, according to a court filing. The conviction rate in cases that go to trial is about 95 percent, though most don’t get that far. There is such shame associated with a sex crime, let alone a child sex crime, that a majority of the defendants plead guilty rather than face a jury. At least five of the men have committed suicide, including a 66-year-old caught in the same operation as Hambrick who then fled to California. As the police there moved to make the arrest, the man shot himself in the head.
An analysis of court records in Washington State stings, as well as interviews with police and prosecutors, reveals that most of the men arrested have no felony record. A strong predictor of predatory behavior is an obsession with child pornography, but at the time of their arrest, according to the State Patrol, 89 percent have none in their possession and 92 percent have no history of violent crime. They are nonetheless sentenced, on average, to more than six years in prison with no chance of parole, according to my analysis of the 271 arrests I was able to confirm. (State police calculate the average is just over five years.) Once released, the men are listed on the state’s sex-offender registry for at least 10 years — and often for life.
Of 24 comments posted so far, about 22 are AGAINST such stings.
Readers get it!
I read through the comments on the article and many readers DON’T get it. It’s as if they didn’t read passed the headline. They totally dismiss the young man saying he has been “pranked” in the past and was curious if this was yet another prank. They dismiss that he (like millions of people) was an introvert and has ADHD. These jerks in the comments are patting themselves on the back saying “Well, he got caught! Don’t try to have sex with kids.” They are no better than the detectives who tell you what YOU were thinking and intending. Everyone’s a mind reader until something happens to them.
This is “MANUFACTURING A CRIME!!!!. And simply should NOT be legal!!. Law Enforcement should spend more time a d effort on crimes that are already happening instead of creating more problems!!!!!.
This is nothing short of a total disgrace. Calling it anything other than entrapment and unconstitutional would be a disgrace unto itself. If this is what the citizens of Washington State have to endure on a regular basis, no wonder they are rioting.
This is exactly what I did. I was in a Yahoo chat room. I found an article that stated as of 2005 all Yahoo chatroom and use of messenger were for 18 and up due to predators. I was in an adult chat didn’t message anyone. I was contacted by a person in the chat room first. They sent me a message first. Talked for 3 months. Just typing words no phone conversation. Then I get told hey by the way I’m 15. Now I do admit I should have stopped typing messages but I believed I was talking to an adult who was roleplaying. But to law enforcement actual knowledge and belief are 2 different things. It’s what you were thinking not what you actually did that can get you arrested. I always thought that if you told someone I’m going rob that bank tomorrow. Is that a crime or is me going into the bank, pulling a gun or giving the teller a letter asking for all the money in drawer the crime? I never met my “victim” never went anywhere near where she lived. Yet about a month later I was arrested in my house in a different county and carted off to jail. I took it to trial and had a public defender cause in 2007 no lawyer is going to defend a sex offender unless your rich. I lost at trial but have statements from the judge that my victim was a law enforcement officer and a willing participant in the alleged crime. 5 years prison 5 years probation lifetime registration. Had 1 misdemeanor charge before being arrested at age 47.
Not sure if you’ll post this but here’s my thoughts on the following…
The founder, Tim Ballard…told a reporter that he started O.U.R. after God told him, “Find the lost children.
Typically, when you hear voices in your head…. you should probably get a mental evaluation.
Imagine the evidence used against someone for saying “Something told me she wasn’t 13, that she was pranking me so I went to see for myself”. Oh wait… we don’t have to imagine it because it happened to the young man in this story. And the detective told the young man “You came here to have sex with a child”. So police are now mind readers, too? A cop gets to tell YOU what YOUR actual intentions were?
“God told me….” yeah yeah, and Ronald McDonald told me to try Burger King instead. Dude, get help! You need it.
I’m sure FAC doesn’t want to post many of my comments because I don’t give a damn about being “politically correct” and I don’t care about anyone’s “feelings” regarding my personal opinions. That doesn’t mean I’m trying to be an asshole, it means I’m thinking OUTSIDE THE BOX and giving an alternative perception of an observation after reading story upon story and dealing with people like this man mentioned above in my former Christian life pattern.
So, if you get offended by my comments about religion, then you’re actually admitting that you also fall into that far reaching religious mind set. If you don’t fall into that religious mind set, then don’t get offended at what I’m about to say: These “Christian” bible thumping goodie-two-shoes are literally LOONEY! They use religion as an excuse to ruin other people’s lives. How is this any different from the days of people being accused of witchcraft? How? It’s not! It’s the damn same!
I was glad to see there was a section of this article that mentioned meetings with the president. Why? Because unlike any former president of either political party, Donald Trump was NOT a previous politician. He’s an average millionaire with hotels and other businesses and he ran for the presidency and won. Great! Someone who’s not been PRE-brainwashed by politics and can see ALL sides of an issue.
I’ve said many times that neither party is going to do anything for us because of “political suicide”. They’d lose all their support and voters if they abolished the registry. HOWEVER… the entire first 2 or 3 sections of this article SHOULD be brought to President Trump’s attention. Why? Because then he would be able to notice the DECEPTION he’s being sold by all these goodie-two-shoes lawmakers and politicians who literally lie to him saying things like “International Megan’s Law is working, sir.”
No, sir, it’s not. The only thing IML is doing is stopping people with prior convictions from living their lives and traveling with family or for schooling elsewhere or overseas employment. IML is NOT catching the WEALTHY POLITICIANS who go on vacations to places like Indonesia and the Philippines to engage in child sex. We put way too much emphasis on people with prior convictions and tend to forget that those people had to obviously do something in order to get convicted of it. When they had no criminal record, no one cared to know what they were planning to do wherever they were going.
Someone in FAC should maybe draft a professional sounding letter to Pres Trump along with a copy of this article so he can see first hand what these “wonderful men and women of law enforcement” are really up to when they don’t have any actual crimes to go after.
I’m no fan of the Democratic left, but I also have my reservations with the bible thumping conservative republican right as well. The right always upholds law enforcement as if law enforcement can never do any wrong. Well… they can. And they do. And what they are doing under the bullshit disguise of “capturing child predators” is WRONG! They are not sitting in a TEENAGER chat group waiting for an actual predator to start messaging them. They are in ADULT groups, chats and sites luring men to them first pretending to be adults and then pretending to be underage teens.
Perhaps it’s time the top leader of this country sees the disgrace his wonderful law enforcement agencies are doing.
I’m pretty sure Trump is the type to look these cops/agents/detectives whatever they are that are putting these stings together and say to them: “What’s your reasoning for this type of action as a way to catch CHILD predators when these men CLEARLY thought they were talking to an adult woman?” Trump is ballsy like that. And I guarantee you that before they answer him, they’ll most likely stumble over their reply kind of like “Well… uhhh…umm…well, you see, Mr President..” I guarantee that will happen.
Please!!! Someone with great professional writing skills, get this article with a letter over to the President ASAP!!!!
No president has ever been an expert on anything so that’s why they have people giving them advice. If a president is misled by anyone, he’s only listening to what “professionals” are telling him.
If Dr Fauci tells the president to make sure to tell people to social distance and not to let everything fully open up yet, how can anyone be blaming Trump for taking the advice of a PROFESSIONAL DOCTOR??? “It’s Trump’s fault that I can’t go back to work”, no, it’s Dr Fauci’s fault for advising the President to not allow all businesses to reopen. Trump isn’t a doctor. He’s taking advice from someone who is.
Get a letter and this article over to Trump ASAP!!! Please!! I would do it myself but I won’t be professional in my wording. I get too heated over this topic.
Well said Maestro……especially the “religion” part. I usually would say nothing on the subject but you did and I am responding to what I think but do not bother to say. And no we have not moved beyond the puritanical thinking…….we are as backwards as the day they stepped off the Mayflower. They know “sex” and the internet porn are not going anywhere…..if it makes money (and it does big time) it will be here forever. Must be why the sex therapist told me “they can’t get rid of porn…it will keep coming back”. Yes I asked, LOL.
Maestro, I think I understand your feelings. I went through a time in my life where I questioned God, Christ, and Christianity. After years of enduring separation due to Navy assignments, my wife and I finally attained our goal of retirement and we were living out our dreams. Then 20 years into our marriage cancer took her from me. I believed God could have prevented this but He didn’t. And for that reason I started to doubt my lifelong beliefs. My life that had been full of success took a massive down turn. I let my anger and disappointment control my actions and in the process I failed my family. It led to incarceration and got me back down on my knees asking “Why?”. I failed to realize that in times of adversity my obligation is to honor and glorify God by trusting Him. My time of incarceration, as painful as it could have been, turned out to be what I and my family needed. I came to realize that we honor God by choosing to trust Him when we don’t understand what He is doing or why He has allowed some adverse circumstance to occur. I came to realize that even good men can fail but that failure does not mean life is over. I have since been restored to my family, have been surrounded by previous and new Christian friends. My life has finally moved beyond my wife’s death and I live to honor her and put a smile on her face. The Bible tells us that we will know Christians by their ‘fruits’. I agree that some fruits are rotten to the core but I’ve come to know that they are Christians in name only and on judgement day they will be informed “I knew you not”. One of the greatest rewards we can receive on earth is to be blessed with Christian family and friends. I speak from personal experience. Hang in there and place your faith in God. In His time you will receive your reward. God bless!!
Capt.,
My point was that when someone in a position of power says that “god told them” to save the children, that person gets put on a pedestal. When a person says “god told me to rob the bank because I am poor and needed the money”, that person gets charged, convicted and – the most important part – gets a MENTAL EVALUATION for “hearing voices”.
Now you get what I’m saying?
In politics, the conservatives are all about loving police. The moment you are even so much as a “suspect” to a crime, the conservatives have you judged and sentenced before you reach the courtroom. Then these same conservatives say the liberal left use “mob mentality” and “group think” like sheep.
It’s a double edged sword.
Maestro, I see what you are saying. Depending on one’s political or religious standing, a bank robbery to buy food for one’s family is OK but the same robbery to buy drugs is a crime. We have permitted beliefs to dictate justice outcomes rather than law. Because those in authority believe registered citizens are going to reoffend they are treated as perpetual criminals while they believe drug dealers can be reformed and they are released back into society…completely opposite of facts. When those in authority refuse the facts it becomes a tough uphill climb. A ‘war’ is made up of several battles. It’s whoever wins the final battle who wins the war.
FACTS!
In FLori-DUH, this has been a common practice, especially with a character named Gready Grady Judd (Elmer Fudd, actually)…He has made it his life time passion and mission to do this! Thousands of men, including myself, are victims of this Crime Manufacturing….Again, very few have taken it to trial, in fear of long long prisons sentences…most pled out, including myself!
When ‘they’ threw me to the ground in the Sting House, ‘He’ sat their laughing while gorging himself on a Steak and a Bloomin’ Onion paid by Tax Payer Monies!
My 97 year old grandmother assured me many times, that the only saving grace will be when he Visits St Peter on his judgment day and he will not face heaven BUT HELL! I believe this to be true!
These same scenarios have been played out by other Sheriffs in Flori-DUH and other State Jurisdictions. It is a money making Scheme.
Gready Grady, with all the Federal Monies he has received for the Sting Operations, bought 2 Army Tanks and a Semi-Truck to haul them around-Pitiful Polk County is NOT EAST L.A.!
The Facts speak for themselves.
Grady thinks that he is a Man of God-he is not; as HE is a Man of Satan!
AS I have stated before, ‘they’ used the same Template and added people’s names etc to it, despite what the Defendant said or did!
The Judges, Prosecutors, and their accomplices drink/drank the same Kool-Aid! And most Defendants’ Attorneys were too scared to stand up for their clients, and instead took plea bargains by selling them out!
Here’s a very interesting article about the cult group that has been behind this scam.
https://americancrimejournal.com/operation-underground-railroad-retains-controversial-firm-kirton-mcconkie-threatens-legal-action-against-acj/
Hi everyone. My son was arrested in an online sting with a cop posing as an 18 year old. She suggested they meet and on his way she changed her age to 15. He went along with it for a bit before turning around and then getting arrested at a gas station on his way home. He is now labeled a sexual offender with no previous anything. His life is hell, he works at a manual labor job that is killing him (he was a professional musician before), and the hoops he has to jump through are the dumbest I have ever seen. We kept in contact with him in jail for a year and a half till sentencing with a plea deal. He managed to get a place to live with other SO in a house set up by a person who hates to see SOs live in orange groves. The state bilked us out of a lot of money while he was in jail. He was in solitary for many weeks, let outside once a month, fed garbage, and now told that society wants him to just die basically. (my emphasis here) I am disgusted at the way living breathing human beings are being treated in this country. If you want people to reform into better citizens, then you give them hope and a way to do so. The current laws just want to punish and label SOs and pretend that they have zero rights. I am not foolish enough to think that all SOs are reformed or even not dangerous, but the insanity with my son (who wouldnt hurt a fly) has proven to me that the system is just about politics and money. Shame on florida and the LE community for allowing this travesty of justice.