By Kieran Nicholson, Denver Post Staff Writer, 02/26/2007
Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Chris Andrist pulls a hard drive from a confiscated computer at the agency's computer crime lab in Lakewood earlier this month. Internet predators have no idea to whom they're talking, another agent says. (Post / Karl Gehring)Despite the arrests each year in Colorado of hundreds of predators who attempt to meet children on the Internet for sex, few of those arrested in stings do any jail time for a first offense. Instead, the majority are sentenced to probation.
Internet sex stings, where police pose as children, are resulting in a growing number of arrests here and nationwide. The stings have received a lot of media attention, from the NBC "Dateline" segments that show grown-ups as they arrive for a sex rendezvous with someone they think is a child, to the arrest of Colorado radio personality Scott Cortelyou.
And while the arrests often lead to convictions, jail is a different matter.
"A lot of the public says they should all go to prison," said Mike Harris, an investigator with the Jefferson County district attorney's office, which has made a priority of online sex stings. "I agree. ... But the costs would be outrageous." Harris, who has spent more than a decade investigating predators who lure children online, has made 149 such arrests since 1996. Last year alone, Harris' investigations led to 44 arrests. And this year, he is on a pace to more than double the 2006 total. On Thursday, Harris announced that Steven Wayne Wood, 26, had turned himself in after "talking sexually" with someone he thought was an underage girl in a chat room. It was really Harris, who said he was able to snare Wood after just a few minutes.
Law-enforcement agencies trumpet arrests, and the media is typically quick to report the cases, including one last month in which Cortelyou, a radio business reporter, was arrested after an alleged Internet chat with an undercover officer. No trial date has been set in his case. The bigger the splash these cases make in the media, the more attention they bring to a problem that more than likely has not crested, experts say. "The use of the Internet in terms of availability has grown tremendously," said Colorado Springs police Detective Adam Romine. "Offenders can sit at home and talk to eight to 10 kids at a time until they find the one who is most vulnerable and try to take advantage." Romine works with the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, a federally funded statewide group formed in 1998 and administered by his department. The task force trains and supports Colorado police officers who focus on sex crimes against children in which computers are used.
It has more than 50 participating agencies and has tripled in size over the past two years. Its members made 61 arrests in 2005 and 72 last year, and have made 12 this year. Internet luring of a child is a Class 4 felony, and conviction could bring a prison sentence of up to six years. But in arrests involving officers posing online as children where there has been no actual contact with a minor, defendants seldom get jail sentences.
In two typical cases, Charles Eugene Parsons Jr., 48, and Jamie Lee Sample, 33, were arrested in Jefferson County last March in a multi-agency sting. In September, they were sentenced to intensive supervised probation - Parsons seven years and Sample three years. Both were required to register as sex offenders and enroll in a treatment program. "I think there is still that perception that, since you are not dealing with a real victim, that might influence sentencing in the cases," said Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey, Harris' boss.
Colorado has almost 20,000 inmates behind bars around the state, at a per-inmate cost of about $27,500 a year.
Crowded conditions and rising prison costs are among reasons "to avoid the expedient trap of thinking that anyone who commits a crime deserves to go to jail," said Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Judges in Colorado are given discretion in imposing sentences, in part because jails and courtrooms are so crowded. "I'm sure there is always more we can do," Carroll said. "The question is, how much more can we afford to do?"
Despite the lack of prison sentences, Storey points to court-ordered evaluations, treatment programs, sex-offender registries and felony convictions as positive steps in the battle against online predators. "What amazes me, with as much publicity that this gets, is that they are still out there and they still want to meet," Storey said. "They are so motivated, even with the danger they may be communicating with a cop, and not a 13-year-old, that it still doesn't discourage them."
On Feb. 2, Cañon City police, working with the ICAC, arrested a man from Big Bear, Calif., who allegedly drove halfway across the country thinking he was meeting an underage girl for sex. Andrew Christian Coelho, who had no prior criminal record, was booked on multiple felony counts. State legislators last year beefed up laws dealing with children, the Internet and predators, passing House Bill 1011.
The law makes it a felony to use the Internet to set up a meeting with a child younger than 15 without the parents' permission, or to expose oneself or ask a child to do the same over the Internet. Before the bill, police and prosecutors used other felony charges, such as sexual enticement of a child or attempted sexual assault of a child, to convict Internet predators. Even though no actual contact with a child is made, courts have upheld Internet-sting convictions based on intent.
Parents must bear the responsibility of knowing whom their children are talking with online, said Rep. Carroll, and Internet service providers should help come up with creative solutions to the problem. "We can make it harder for predators to do their work," Carroll said.
Meanwhile, police from throughout the state will keep working to combat predators on the Internet. "Predators who are out there, they never know who they are talking to - it could be a child or it could be a cop," said Collin Reese, an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. "Go ahead, roll the dice."
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
Retrieved February 26, 2007 from http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5304915
