State v. Mr. R (DMC No. 15042) – Felony Child Prostitution- Reduced to Child Abuse with Probation and Zero Days in Jail – Maricopa County Superior Court (Case No. CR2017-135355):
Mr. R was a 60 year old man who was leaving the Maryvale Hospital when a 16 year old girl struck up a conversation with him. He agreed to give her a ride and later offered to help her get a job with the government. He dropped her off at her apartment complex and she provided him with her phone number and agreed to meet on the following day. She then claimed that the next day, Mr. R started offering her money for sexual acts.
The Police then set up a confrontation call in which the alleged victim “confronted” Mr. R on the phone. He apologized for saying anything about sex, and he just wanted to help her out so she can have a job and go to college after she graduates high school. The Police then came in and arrested Mr. R and interrogated him. He indicated that the alleged victim told him that she was 18 years old when he gave her a ride in the past. We were then hired and brought into the case.
The Prosecutor’s Office filed a 404 allegation, which involves “prior bad acts.” They claimed that approximately 14 years earlier, Police reports were prepared against Mr. R based on stalking a young girl outside of a CVS and offering her money to model for him. When he was contacted in that case, he denied stalking, and stated that he only had given the girl a ride. Obviously, this was very bad information for our case, because it appeared that he had been engaging in this activity for years. However, we were able to pull up information on the alleged victim in our case which showed that she had a criminal history, and had lied in the past on multiple occasions. Ultimately, the Prosecutor agreed to reduce the charges down to a single count of Child Abuse which included Probation and Zero Days in Jail. Originally, Mr. R was facing 7 to 21 years in prison if he were to be convicted.