In August 2008. A man was arrested in South Carolina for the crime of “criminal solicitation of a Minor” a charge that requires little to no proof to prosecute. He maintained his innocence all the way up until march of 2011. When it was made clear by his public defender, that he had no choice but to plead guilty, or go to jail for 30 years, he took the deal and was sentenced to four years of probation.
First, I’d like to elaborate on what constitutes “criminal solicitation of a minor” in SC. The exact code is as follows:
A person eighteen years of age or older commits the offense of criminal solicitation of a minor if he knowingly contacts or communicates with, or attempts to contact or communicate with, a person who is under the age of eighteen, or a person reasonably believed to be under the age of eighteen, for the purpose of or with the intent of persuading, inducing, enticing, or coercing the person to engage or participate in a sexual activity as defined in Section 16-15-375(5) or a violent crime as defined in Section 16-1-60, or with the intent to perform a sexual activity in the presence of the person under the age of eighteen, or person reasonably believed to be under the age of eighteen
The people who ARE guilty of this need to rot, but, as was made clear, no investigation is needed if your name is used in the commission of this crime, as long as it is done on your account, you are guilty. You may receive ten years in prison for each STATEMENT made to said “child” who could actually be 17 years and 364 days old. And still be guilty.
After the plea deal, the man requested his lawyer give him everything in discovery, as he was made aware that he was not given all of the evidence before making his decision to plead. Astonishingly, it took over a month to receive the evidence, which eliminated him from being able to appeal his plea. And what we found in the evidence, shocked us all.
In the application for the Search warrant which ultimately led to his arrest. The officer stated in paragraph 4. “ the undercover officer stated she was 13, and from south Carolina” . He, myself, and 6 others read through all of the chat logs, trying to substantiate this, but were unable to, there was no mention of age mentioned by the police, but what we did find interesting was in the 3rd line of the chat, Age is already established by the man's account saying “aren’t you a little young to be in here”. the only other mention of age is his account stating that he was 20 years old and “seven years her elder”. We also found that the profile the police had used, had been deleted and was not in the evidence which is suspect, we all agree.
In paragraph 5 of the application for the search warrant however, they completely contradict themselves by saying “obviously from his messages, the suspect already knew the undercover persona was 13 years of age”.
We were left shaking our heads.
But the biggest shocker to us was that in paragraph 8. ( the final paragraph of this sworn affidavit) it explains how the man was identified, “through the investigation of several websites which upon further investigation revealed pictures of him. And through the chats where he allegedly described his car (they mentioned make, model, year , and color) while in the chats, the only thing mentioned was make and model.
Which led them to the DMV to verify the identity of the suspect.
Upon further research and by asking South Carolina law enforcement, we found that this was not how you are supposed to identify suspects within the scope of the internet, considering as we all very well know, anyone can be anyone, and hacking into a yahoo account takes all of 2 minutes. No IP trace was done, and he was the only one arrested. He was never questioned by law enforcement.
This man is going crazy trying to figure out how this could have happened to him, and the whole community around him as rallied to his defense. We have tried to get new lawyers to take his case, but have been told by every single lawyer that “He cannot afford to be innocent, it will take at least $10,000 to even get this back into court”
The Attorney General of South Carolina handled this case, and upon further Research, it turns out that he made his whole career on pushing “tougher sex laws” and “protecting the children”. While at the same time, using the patriot act in all cases. He went on TV in South Carolina to proclaim “there are millions of sex predators just waiting to prey on your children”. Even after Harvard specifically told him, the attorney General of NC, and Connecticut, that they were grossly overestimating their numbers. As a result, millions of people are in danger of being convicted, with many cases already underway ranging from a 16 year old for "sexting", and even a 6 year old who slapped his friend's butt in a playful manner after seeing his friend do the same.
In another case, The Attorney General had threatened to Prosecute the Executives of Craigslist for simply having an erotic services section available in South Carolina. He was stopped by a federal judge placing a restraining order on him. He did all of this, to announce his run for Governor. Which he lost. The new Attorney General, Alan Wilson, has kept the same policies in place.
We only ask that you take action against obvious corruption in State Governments, innocent people are being ruined for the simple fact that a Greedy Politician wants to further his career.
Anonymous champions fighting for the abused, the suppressed, and the wronged. This is a perfect example of a miscarriage of justice, and must be rectified.
