Sex Chat With Minors Legal

[Bini]

Maybe someone has a link to this story? I only heard about it but apparently a Salt Lake City man is off the hook after being caught sex chatting and arranging to meet an underage girl for sexual relations. Fortunately, this underage girl (13) was actually a police officer working under cover but because this man never showed up to meet, he's been able to wriggle out of doing time, despite conversing sexually with a minor. Does anyone know what the law is regarding this? I can't believe sex chatting with minors is legal, regardless, if the adult never physically engages the child.

[Vort]

Originally Posted by Bini

Maybe someone has a link to this story? I only heard about it but apparently a Salt Lake City man is off the hook after being caught sex chatting and arranging to meet an underage girl for sexual relations. Fortunately, this underage girl (13) was actually a police officer working under cover but because this man never showed up to meet, he's been able to wriggle out of doing time, despite conversing sexually with a minor. Does anyone know what the law is regarding this? I can't believe sex chatting with minors is legal, regardless, if the adult never physically engages the child.

Can they prove it was the man chatting and not someone else using his account? If not, that may be the reason.

[pam]

Sounds to me like it wouldn't be illegal since they were waiting to catch him in person attempting to meet up with a "13 year old."

If sex chatting online were illegal, they would at least be able to get the IP address and records from the service provider as to where it was originating from and go from there.

[Loudmouth_Mormon]

Yeah. A guy can always claim he figured he was talking to an adult who was roleplaying or lying to him. (In this case, he was talking to an adult.) A good bust involves exchanged pictures, and then a meeting where the guy shows up.

One the positive side, for every jerk who misses the appointment, there is a jerk who makes it. Police offices with internet sex crimes unit do good business just sitting around and having predators fly hundreds of miles just to get arrested.

[applepansy]

Bini, I agree sex chatting with a minor is wrong. I don't know that it should be illegal though. How do you prove it? There is too much wiggle room to get out of any charges.

Where are the girls parents? My kids didn't have unsupervised access to the internet but they grew up when the internet was still new. Today its easier to find perverts online. But if parents are vigilant, and teach their children, are involved in their children's lives, etc., these things don't happen as often because the child make better decisions.

And good parental control software is a must.

[SpringGirl]

I don't think sexting or chatting with a minor is illegal, it's when the guy meets the minor with the intent to have sex. That's my guess. Like someone said, the guy could have said he thought he was involved in role playing or he wasn't using the computer, it was someone else.

[Bini]

Originally Posted by SpringGirl

I don't think sexting or chatting with a minor is illegal, it's when the guy meets the minor with the intent to have sex. That's my guess. Like someone said, the guy could have said he thought he was involved in role playing or he wasn't using the computer, it was someone else.

Sex chatting with a minor is not illegal. But it should be, although how would it be enforced, which it can't be. And note, in THIS situation, the man KNOWINGLY was sexually conversing with an underage girl. He believed he was sex chatting to an underage girl and he had intentions to be sexually involved with an underage girl - it was NOT roleplaying.