The Sad “Operation March Sadness”
It’s only half-way through the month of March, but Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County, who is now infamous for his name and shame press conferences touting the “success” of sex stings, has already netted more than 100 people in his latest operation which he named “Operation March Sadness”.
The operation was promoted to the media as a “six-day human trafficking sting” but it’s unclear from the press conference whether any human trafficking victims were rescued as a result. By the numbers, there were a couple dozen people arrested for “Offering to Commit Prostitution”, Roughly 80 people arrested for “Seeking a Prostitute”, 4 that appear on the poster as “child sex predators” and one woman under the heading of “Charged with Human Trafficking”
Let’s start with an analysis of whether this can really be considered a successful “human trafficking operation”. When less than 1% of the targets are actually arrested for human trafficking and more than 96% arrested for prostitution-related offenses, it’s not really a successful human trafficking sting, is it?
Next, the couple dozen people charged with “offering to commit prostitution”… aren’t they technically the victims here? Why were they arrested and why are they on the poster? As far as the majority of the busts… the 80 people arrested for “seeking a prostitute” are technically committing a misdemeanor. Again… not what you consider when thinking of a human trafficker and actually not a human trafficker at all.
I’m going to divert from my thoughts on the sting operation for a minute to make a point about “seeking a prostitute”. Remember three years ago the Florida legislature enacted Florida Statute 943.0433, the “Soliciting for Prostitution Public Database”? Well if a 6-day operation netted 80 people, I was curious to see how many thousands of people were added to the public database in three years, so I checked. 28. Yes twenty-eight. Not 28,000. Just 28. Odd.
Anyhow, so getting back to the Polk County sting. The four men listed as “child sex predators” are not listed on the FDLE registry as sexual predators or sexual offenders. In order to be classified as a “predator”, the person must meet specific criteria set forth in Florida Statute 775.21. Not sure why the Sheriff promoted them on his poster as such.
As far as the one “human trafficker”, according to one news report, “[a]ccording to the sheriff’s office, 32-year-old XXXXXX XXXXXX was arrested for trafficking another woman. Deputies say they learned Nash repeatedly threatened violence against the woman, who is an adult if she didn’t prostitute herself.” If true, horrible, not exactly the “human trafficking” one envisions, but still horrible. But what if the trafficking victim told police that just to avoid getting arrested? “Officer, she made me do it” By no means saying that’s what happened, but definitely suggesting the truth come out in court before we go out there with press conferences and scary headlines.
Here is a good article that explains why they call this sex trafficking when it’s not.
GROUP THAT OPPOSES SEX WORK GAVE MONEY TO PROSECUTORS’ OFFICES — AND GOT STINGS AGAINST JOHNS IN RETURN
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/24/demand-abolition-sex-work-nonprofit-prosecutors-king-county/
Here is a quote from that article:
In her email explaining why she wanted to use the term sex trafficking, the consultant, Sydney Asbury, wrote, “Removing all references to sex trafficking will hurt our ability to grab reporters’ attention.”
The truth does not come out in court when police and prosecutors are running a scam to help themselves (their own careers, make more money, feed their own egos, etc. ) Their focusing more on prostitution stings now, I guess since we’ve been exposing their dirty secrets about how they were entrapping men on adult hook up platforms to falsely label them as child predators, because it was a scam that was bringing them in a lot of money. I guess we ruined that for them.
Now we have to uncover their dirty secrets for these new stings and they expose them like we’ve been doing with their other “child predator stings”.
Basically, what they’re doing is just the work of cowards. There’s nothing heroic about what they’re doing with these online sting operations. It’s just an excuse for them to get to play out their own fantasies, using men on adult hook up platforms, while they get paid for it. That doesn’t make them heroes. That makes them cowards.
I found it interesting that of the four arrested for allegedly soliciting minors, two of them didn’t even meet their “victims”, they have warrants for enticing, but they didn’t do anything but have a conversation online. Make it make sense? And as a side note, Grady is nothing more than an attention whore….oh the irony.
More propaganda from Judd? Gee golly… How surprising!
Side note. It IS election year is it not?
Not sticking up at all for child sex predators, however, there are several criteria to meet that standard of designation.
#1 You have to be convicted, not just arrested to get that designation.
#2 Generally a specialist either for the defense, the prosecution or both testifies after testing that, that person qualifies for that label.
#3 A judge ultimately gets most of the credit for deciding if you will be forever called a sex offender or a sexual predator.
There are other factors, but these are the main standards that determine the designation. Also, a thought. Regardless if someone is listed as a child sexual predator, just a predator, or a sex offender, we kind of all get thrown into the same basket by our neighbors, the public, the news and law enforcement.
CherokeeJack, You are right about #1, you need to be convicted, however as to #2 and #3, I think you are incorrect. In Florida, the offenses that require registration as a predator are defined in Statute (see below). You might be thinking about civil commitment, which is completely different. There are people designated predators strictly because their offense happened to fall under the statute, but there was nothing predatory about it and no specialist’s risk assessment would find them to be a predator.
(a. A capital, life, or first degree felony violation, or any attempt thereof, of s. 787.01 or s. 787.02, where the victim is a minor, or s. 794.011, s. 800.04, or s. 847.0145, or a violation of a similar law of another jurisdiction; or
b. Any felony violation, or any attempt thereof, of s. 393.135(2); s. 394.4593(2); s. 787.01, s. 787.02, or s. 787.025(2)(c), where the victim is a minor; s. 787.06(3)(b), (d), (f), or (g); former s. 787.06(3)(h); s. 794.011, excluding s. 794.011(10); s. 794.05; former s. 796.03; former s. 796.035; s. 800.04; s. 810.145(8)(b); s. 825.1025; s. 827.071; s. 847.0135, excluding s. 847.0135(6); s. 847.0145; s. 895.03, if the court makes a written finding that the racketeering activity involved at least one sexual offense listed in this sub-subparagraph or at least one offense listed in this sub-subparagraph with sexual intent or motive; s. 916.1075(2); or s. 985.701(1); or a violation of a similar law of another jurisdiction, and the offender has previously been convicted of or found to have committed, or has pled nolo contendere or guilty to, regardless of adjudication, any violation of s. 393.135(2); s. 394.4593(2); s. 787.01, s. 787.02, or s. 787.025(2)(c), where the victim is a minor; s. 787.06(3)(b), (d), (f), or (g); former s. 787.06(3)(h); s. 794.011, excluding s. 794.011(10); s. 794.05; former s. 796.03; former s. 796.035; s. 800.04; s. 825.1025; s. 827.071; s. 847.0133; s. 847.0135, excluding s. 847.0135(6); s. 847.0145; s. 895.03, if the court makes a written finding that the racketeering activity involved at least one sexual offense listed in this sub-subparagraph or at least one offense listed in this sub-subparagraph with sexual intent or motive; s. 916.1075(2); or s. 985.701(1); or a violation of a similar law of another jurisdiction;)
Things change so much even the judges, prosecutors and lawyers are sometimes left in the dark. No wonder it is so hard to become a lawyer.
Thanks, that was A LOT of statues LOL I got dizzy just looking at them. I always wondered how they could have ENTIRE law libraries. Now I know, good lord.
A lot of the best content on this site is FAC original content.
Thank you Contributor 3!