PC § 288.4(b) Case Resolved in Long Beach for Misdemeanor

Our client, age 51, was a gay man who lived in a condominium in Long Beach.  He had no criminal history.  He had retired early from a long career with a Fortune 500 company.  

One afternoon, he went onto the Grinder website to look around for another gay man to meet up with.  To set up a profile on Grinder, one must be an adult.

He began conversing with a man who said he was 21 years old.  The conversation rather quickly led to a discussion of meeting up with this person, who was allegedly also living in Los Angeles County near Long Beach and stated he could drive to Long Beach.  The two discussed watching movies together and “just hanging out.”

After the two agreed to meet, the allegedly younger man suggested the two continue their conversation by text message instead and our client agreed.  Communication on the Grinder website and others for adults generally delete automatically after a short period of time.

After a few text messages (which are permanent and can be printed out as evidence), the other man stated he really was only seventeen and asked our client if that would be a problem.  Our client agreed to shift the communication to text messages and said meeting him, despite his youth, was agreeable because, our client stated, he had met another boy in another country where it was not illegal.  

Our client did not know this other person was really a person in his late thirties who was ‘catfishing” as a minor to try to set up our client to be arrested for attempting to meet with a minor for lewd purposes, Penal Code § 288.4(b).  A conviction for violation of § 288.4(b) is punishable by two, three or four years in state prison and an obligation to register as a sex offender for life under Penal Code § 290 (as then amended by Senate Bill 384).

This other man was a vigilante who had arranged meetings with over 330 men and posted videos of such encounters on his website, People v. Predators, implying a government agency was involved.  The man had caused a suspect in San Diego County, an attorney, to commit suicide when he saw this vigilante armed with video cameras and yelling that the attorney was a child molester and a pervert. 

 

This vigilante man made money from visits to his website and had a special phone number to call the Long Beach Police Department once he arranged the meeting and the suspect was at the location so that no time would be wasted waiting for the normal recordings to play when one otherwise calls the Long Beach Police Department number.

As intended, the vigilante man then arranged to meet with our client in person.  The meeting was preceded by text messages in which our client and the other man described the type of sexual acts they enjoyed. 

Our client suggested the other man meet him at his Long Beach condominium.  The other man showed up with an expensive video camera, a tripod and other camera gear, much to our client’s surprise.  He also did not look 17 or anything close to the image of the man he claimed was himself.  

When our client realized he had been set up and told the other man to leave, he began yelling, “You’re a child molester, a pervert.”  Our client was afraid his neighbors would hear the commotion, so he told the man, with him camera gear, to come inside his condominium.

Our client then agreed to be interviewed by the vigilante, surprisingly.  The vigilante then called the Long Beach Police Department, who arrived immediately and arrested our bewildered client.

The vigilante man then edited the video tape and provided it to the police.  The edited version did not include a large amount of content wherein our client expressed his horror at what was happening and how he described being tricked by the vigilante into such a meeting.

After posting bail and being released from custody, the client called Greg Hill & Associates and described what had happened.

Greg explained that he had handled several such cases recently and was aware there were dozens of such cases presented to the police by this one individual.  Greg told the client that the vigilante, along with another vigilante operating out of Long Beach, were supplying the Long Beach Police Department with as many as five cases per week, targeting both gay and straight men.  Greg also explained that our client was not a victim of entrapment because the vigilante was not a government employee and moreover, our client was predisposed to such a meeting anyways (and he could have stopped communicating with the vigilante at any time).

Our client was indeed charged with a violation of Penal Code § 288.4(b), arranging a meeting with a person under 18 for lewd purposes.  

Over the next few months, we tried to resolve the case for attempted statutory rape, Penal Code §§ 664/261.5 as a misdemeanor, so that our client would not have to register as a sex offender under Penal Code § 290.  

The Long Beach District Attorney’s Office refused to offer this to our client and for a time “paused” (in their words) filing any new cases presented by this one vigilante, but then resumed such filing.  In response, Greg prepared a motion to dismiss for discriminatory prosecution as violating equal protection guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article 1, section 7 of the California Constitution, as well as selective prosecution under Murgia v. Municipal Court (1975) 15 Cal. 3d 286 at 290, 124 Cal. Rptr. 204, 540 P. 2d 44.

Our office ultimately decided against filing this motion (our of concern it would be denied and the offer of two years in state prison might increase) when the case was assigned to a very conservative judge at the Long Beach Courthouse, who was well known for denying almost all defense motions.  The prosecutor assigned to her courtroom even acknowledged this.

Nonetheless, we were able to plea bargain the case to attempted annoying or molesting a person under age 18, a violation of Penal Code §§ 664 / 646.7(a)(2), a misdemeanor.  Our client was placed on one year of informal probation with no jail, but he had to perform ten days of community service and register as a sex offender, which would most likely end by a motion requesting such termination after ten years under Senate Bill 384.