FELONY SEXUAL EXPLOITATION of A MINOR and FELONY SEXUAL CONDUCT with A MINOR NOT CHARGED – State v. Mr. L (DMC No. 14929) (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office DR No. 2015-XXXXXX): At the time this investigation Mr. L would have been a 23-year old male. This investigation arose out of a polygraph conducted by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as part of an employment background check. Mr. L had been questioned about a variety of issues including prior sexual conduct. After the interview, Detective’s claimed Mr. L sent an email to the polygraphist stating that his answers had been incomplete as he had subsequently remembered an encounter with a young woman at his college. He allegedly stated that the young woman who had told him she was 18, sent him topless pictures and Mr. L further indicated that he subsequently learned that she was not 18 years old and that he did not ask for the pictures and did not save them.
In a subsequent interview based on the email, Mr. L’s situation worsened substantially when Detectives claim he indicated that he had in fact had numerous sexual encounters with the young lady. Mr. L allegedly further disclosed that he had received numerous naked pictures from the young lady and that he had kept them for a period of several months until he dropped his phone in milk while he was eating cereal. At the conclusion of that follow-up interview, the examiner sent a report to the Sex Crimes Bureau of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office along with a copy of the recorded examination requesting an investigation for Sexual Conduct with a Minor per Arizona Revised Statute ARS 13-1405, and Sexual Exploitation of a Minor per Arizona Revised Statute ARS 13-3553. When Sex Crimes Detectives followed up with Mr. L he invoked his right to counsel and came to see us.
After Mr. L retained us, we immediately reached out to the investigating Detective. The Detective informed us that the investigation was still in the initial stages. They were interested in continuing to investigate and obtain the information to contact the young lady involved. We advised the investigating Detective that our client would not be making further statements to him. We then followed that up with a written invocation of rights signed by our client. We also immediately sent a letter of representation to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and advised them that if the case is presented to a grand jury our client wished to inform the grand jury that he was prepared to appear and testify if they requested.
Based upon our immediate intervention, the Detective was unable to obtain further corroboration of identity or a crime, and he cleared the case as “inactive”.