Detective won’t face sex charges in relationship with 16-year-old

Ken Ritter

Friday, Jan. 12, 2001 | 11:24 a.m.

Prosecutors say it would be unconstitutional to file sex charges against a Las Vegas police detective accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy.

Narcotics Detective Vinten Hartung, 43, remains under investigation for lesser charges of stalking and furnishing alcohol to a minor.

Local and federal prosecutors said they won't seek felony charges against him under the state's "soliciting a minor to engage in the infamous crime against nature" law or a federal law making it a felony to use the Internet to solicit a minor for sex.

"In your gut, a 43-year-old man and a high school kid being involved, you say, 'This stinks,"' Clark County District Attorney Stewart Bell said Thursday. "But it is not against the law."

The state's "crime against nature" statute prohibits soliciting someone under the age of 18 for homosexual sex. It also provides for stronger penalties in cases involving victims younger than 14.

However, in Nevada the age of consent is 16.

"We have the constitutional problem, the statutory inconsistency and the victim saying the act was consensual," Bell said.

Hartung and the boy described themselves as having had a consensual dating relationship, the district attorney said. He said a similar relationship between an adult man and a consenting 16-year-old girl is legal in Nevada.

"You can't make it a crime if the 16-year-old is a boy and not a girl," Bell said. He said that would violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

Hartung has been on paid leave from the police department since November, when the boy's father complained the detective wouldn't leave his son alone.

Bell said he has not been in contact with the father since making the decision not to file sex charges.

The boy told investigators he and Hartung met in a men-meeting-men Internet chat room and began an intimate relationship. During the five-month relationship, the boy also joined a youth baseball team Hartung coached.

Howard Zlotnick, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said his office won't file an Internet sexual solicitation charge because the minor has to be under 16 for the law to apply.

"There is no federal statute that covers this conduct," Zlotnick said.

The district attorney's office is reviewing allegations that Hartung offered beer to boys on his team while they were at his home.

The stalking complaint was filed with police by the boy's father, who reported that Hartung left his son a Christmas present at their home.

Hartung remains the focus of an internal police investigation into possible conduct unbecoming an officer and insubordination.