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twitterEx-TV cameraman sentenced for enticing child for sex
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 | 4:59 p.m.
A federal judge sentenced 35-year-old Kristopher Duke of Las Vegas to 10 years in federal prison and lifetime supervised release for his guilty plea to coercion and enticing a minor for sex.
U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George handed down the sentence today, said U.S. Attorney Greg Brower of Nevada.
During June and July 2007, Duke engaged in numerous online conversations of a sexual nature with who he thought was a 13-year-old girl who lived in Los Angeles.
The "girl" was actually an FBI agent working undercover. Duke told the girl he was a 33-year-old man living in Nevada and repeatedly engaged the girl in sexual conversations, court documents said. Duke expressed in graphic terms his desire to meet the girl in person and to engage in sexual activity.
During one of the online conversations, Duke and the girl exchanged photographs of each other. Pictures of the girl were actually of a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy, taken when she was 13 years old.
Duke made arrangements to meet the girl at a Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Woodland Hills, Calif., on July 28, 2007 and to spend the night with her. Duke was seen by FBI agents leaving his Las Vegas residence and driving southbound on Interstate 15 toward Los Angeles. He was arrested about five hours later when he arrived at the bookstore.
During an interview with FBI agents, Duke admitted that he had communicated online with the girl and that his intentions were to get to know her a little and to engage in sexual relations with her if she was willing to do so. Child pornography was found on his laptop computer in Los Angeles, as well as on two computers in his house in Las Vegas. Duke was employed as a cameraman with KLAS-TV Channel 8 at the time of his arrest.
This case was brought under the Project Safe Childhood, created in February 2006. The national initiative is designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse.
The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy J. Koppe.
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This guy is sick, no doubt about it but an FBI agent pretending to be a 13 yr old girl online. Isn't that entrapment?
The courts used to call this entrapment.
Law enforcement is way off its leash again. Until this society can face up to the reality of its children's sexuality, this kind of thing is going to keep happening.
While we may believe we are safer to have this particular predator off the streets - I agree with Lenny that it smacks of entrapment. The comment by KillerB is intriguing regarding "children's sexuality." Not for one minute can I believe that children desire sexual contact via internet connections, phone calls, etc. Pre-teen and early teen children are just beginning to experience sexual feelings. Being "stimulated" by a 35-year old man might be flattering to both parties - that's all it is - stimulating. It is not love, it is not intellectual enhancement, it is not real. It is simple, illegal lust on the adult's part.
With that said - what do we as a society learn from this situation. Jailing this man feels great - or safe. But, why? Why was he so interested in this conquest? Most shrinks would agree that it is a power-play situation. We, as a society, must - must learn more about these child-sex-seekers. What truly motivates them and how we can stop them. We must also educate our children without sugar-coating the realities of sexual involvement. The earlier - the better!
Entrapment is when law enforcement persuades a person to do something that he would not ordinarily do. This guy clearly wanted to have sex with an underage girl and needed no encouragement. Just because the victim turned out to not be a victim doesn't mean that it's entrapment.
KillerB's comment about "children's sexuality" is what is "way off the leash." Dude, if you really believe this, get some help. Seriously.
Nevada5 -- your thoughtful post is appreciated.
As a father, when my children were young I would have agreed with you without hesitation. Since then I've read some Freud and history. Freud is good on this subject.
Less than a hundred years ago the common law still prevailed and 12 year old girls were getting married. Today's 12 yo girls are far more sophisticated and coquettish (Google prostitot). Sex permeates our society and media. Kids know what's up. However, stupid laws ignore reality and show little difference between a 17 yo girl and her 7 yo little sister.
My point is this article accuses this guy of enticing and coercing, yet that's what the police did to him. That was my point about his history, was the object of the sting to catch this guy, already a suspect, in the act? Or were these cops just trolling for busts?? Looks like the latter.
To quote the famous Justice Brandeis: "Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that, in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution." Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928).
Auslander -- you are completely clueless. "Seriously."
A technical definition of entrapment is "whether the idea for the commission or encouragement of the criminal act originated with the police or government agents instead of with the "criminal." It seems that technical bit was lost in the prosecution and conviction.
Actually Killer, I've watched To Catch a Predator several times (it can be hilarious seeing the faces of the pervs when caught), and almost to a T, these pervs engage these "girls" on their own, they make the conversations sexual on their own, they initiate the contact on their own, and they want to meet them on their own. The "girls" or "boys" meanwhile just give them the rope to hang themselves. Basically they'll hit the bot, tell them they are sexy, maybe send them pics of their member, and often ask to come over for a sleepover. When these men get caught it is because they hit the gas, not because they were forced into some act by another. Half the time on TCAP, these men bring condoms, liquor/beer, and other inappropriate items to a 12/13 yo's house. How is this entrapment? How are these people (who have rights and do get their day in court) not utterly dispicable?
redferret -- so you watch TV. Edited for the outcome the TV people want. What does that have to do with Duke?
Mostly what you're saying here makes sense IF you keep the general sense of polite moral standards in the equation. Remove that and you can see this for what it is -- unsupervised girls / young women are doing the enticing and males are responding, just as nature always intended. Add total anonymity in any media (like radio) and you'll find people dropping fast to the lowest common denominator. The internet is perfect for that. Then add in the constant media barrage of young girls/women obsessed with looking "hot." Like Britney and so on.
For perspective on this I recommend you Google prostitot. Selling thongs to tweens outs this society's hypocrisy -- "she's too young, don't look and don't touch" against "I'm so young but I'm so hot, right?"
To qualify this generally, I do have a daughter. She's an adult now and can make her own choices, of course. But if someone showed too much of the wrong kind of interest in her when she was young, believe it Dad would have been like a bull whose pasture you just trespassed -- trample and gore first, ask questions later.
I have to ask where are the parents of the girls these "predators" are supposed to be "endangering." Then, like the child porn cases, I must question what actual harm did any of these "predators" do. That's where crime is committed, not in people's heads.
This goes with the point I made earlier about how this society can't seem to handle the reality of its children's sexuality. At some point in our lives every one of us discovers sex. Stupid lawmakers "handle" this by setting an artificial age of 18 for that threshold, ignoring all human biology and history. So an 18 year old boy goes to prison because his 17 year old girlfriend gives it up to him, but the prosecutors really don't treat that any different than if he had been doing it with her 7 yo little sister instead.
Now do you see what I mean?
First, as said, the men are the ones going after these girls. Second, those thongs that you refered to were discontinued promptly after the parental uproar over it.
Third is that these men going after CHILDREN are sick. If they don't like the US's laws then you know what?
There's always the Roman Polanksy solution, just move to France. Consenting age is only 13 there, or so I've heard.
Putting out some bait to trap a criminal is not entrapment, KillerB. A person can only be entrapped if he is not predisposed to commit the crime in the first place. Presumably in this case the agents did their job by the book and the defense attorney saw that an affirmative defense was not going to hold any water. Hence the guilty plea.
And your "prostitot" defense is used all the time by child molesters who say the victim "wanted it." It's disgusting and creepy and weird.
redferret, Auslander -- you both proved everything I've said.
What? You've proven nothing but a bend for defending the sick. At least the ACLU has the fig leaf cover of giving every person their constitutional right to due process and a trial.
Your defense of some sicko hitting on a 13 yo wading into matters out of her league is pathetic. Just because it was done back in the day doesn't sanction it right now. Unless you really feel that when you have epilepsy you need the demons purged/beaten out of you. Or that most diseases can be remedied with timely bloodletting to cure the vapours. Or if we are going with old time law, why isn't the concept of coverage still in vogue? I mean once I married my wife, her personality, property, and basically herself should be folded into me, being the man and all, right?
And yeah the whole she wanted it thing doesn't excuse it. It's still exploitation. The girl or boy doesn't understand the full ramifications of what they are doing. Plain and simple, because they are in a very literal sense of the word, children. So keep defending sickos, because birds of a feather seem to flock together.
The next time you are aroused by a woman who waxes, ask yourself "Why?"
I'm not really boftx. One word that comes up eventually: stubble.
This is not even slightly entrapment. Cops selling you dope then arresting you for buying it is entrapment.
Some obviously mentally deficient goofball who has never watched "to catch a fool er I mean predator" that thinks 13 year girls 'want' 33 year old men, needs to be removed from the gene pool to so no more killerb's are born.
13 year old girls consider the Jonas Brothers 'older' men, not some fat, balding clown who spends all his time on the interwebs.
If there was a law for being a complete idiot, this guy should be charged with that also.
And 'prostitot'?!?!??!? What kind of sick !@#$ even knows that term? Let alone googles it.
Angry -- I didn't invent the term, nor did I endorse it, it just is. It reflects the kind of immorality in our society. That has to be factored in before a true conclusion is reached. Otherwise, like redferret, you're not posting anything worth a response.
Angry, I held my nose and checked it. It basically means a tween (think a 10-14 yo) girl who dresses like a girl in her 20s. This means heels, make-up, minidresses, etc. You get the idea, dressing way past what her age is. They don't understand that the clothes they are wearing are fethishized and have become sex symbols in and of themselves (ie sexy heels). Often they are only mimicking what they see mommy wearing. Pervs run with this and then claim these "sexualized" girls then deserve what they get when they engage in some sort of exchange with an older man. Sorry but these girls don't understand what they are doing and what it truly involves. And even if they did understand and want it, it's not the provence of an older man to engage in such an act with them. It's exploitation, plain and simple.
NO it doesn't have to be factored in. Your tacit acceptance of kiddie porn and sexual predators (especially against the young) is disturbing to say the least. And angry, check out his pathetic defense of Chester Stiles to see a perfect case in point.
"Childrens sexuality" WTF??? But this comment is not surprising coming from KillerB who has so passionately stuck up for Chester (the molester) Stiles. But is sure makes me wonder about KillerB -
I personally feel there should be no access to any computers for any prisoner in jail/prison. Some of these clowns are on myspace and have all kinds of correspondence going on with various lonely hearts clubs......and just WHO is paying for THAT?? One guess............
AZsk8fan: I totally agree with you and REDferret. I think KillerB is a sick, individual with too much idle time going on (wherever he is located) The things he posts are so disgusting that it turns my stomach and I try to scroll past as fast as I can because I am usually horrified by the sick ideas that he talks about. The fact that he has children is totally shocking on so many levels.
Children are NOT sexual beings, they are curious and they like to please adults to get love and attention. Even the thought that a child under 18 is mentally prepared to engage in sex or be apart of child porn is criminal. People who believe that children are sexual beings are just trying justify their pathetic attempts at rationalizing the sexual preditors crimes against children.
Adults need to stay away from kiddies..18 and under are off limits. Period. Grow up and seek out mates that are in your age bracket.
To hurt ANY child under the age 18,is an abomonation!!! Whats the point of messing with our future???
So, for Role Playing taxpayers have to pay over $500,000 for his upkeep & "treatment". Is the cop entering "treatment" for his role? What about the cop's 13 year old picture; passing child photos for sexual fulfillment is ILLEGAL!
The better question is whether one can, to use a tired metaphor, stage "Hamlet" without the Prince of Denmark. Since the FBI agent clearly isn't a minor, on the surface it would seem that what we have here is an attempted luring and attempted coercion rather than a completed crime. This may not make a practical difference depending on the wording of the statute (which could list the same penalty for choate and ichoate crimes) but it would be nice to have had more detail on this in the article.
Really dumb thing for the guy to do since it is well known that the cops are using stings. Also dumb for him to admit anything.
The real problem is that our children are not taught proper values. We can catch these weirdos but the fact remains that they are doing this because some of them are scoring with 13 year olds. The laws on the books were written to protect innocent kids but try finding a 13 year old virgin these days.
After seeing the budget proposals at the Fed and state levels I would argue the the government doesn't give a damn about our children, or grandchildren.
Starrynight - my guess would be prisoner or some polygamous place in Utah/Az/Colorado - Those polygamist men sure like em younger and younger the older they (the men) get. CREEPS - and all under the guise of religion.