State v. Mr. L (DMC No. 18119) – (2 Counts) Felony Aggravated Luring of a Minor for Sexual Exploitation (with a Felony Prior), (5 Counts) Luring of a Minor for Sexual Exploitation, and (1 Count) Felony Furnishing Harmful or Obscene Materials to a Minor – Reduced to 1 Count of Luring (with Zero Additional Days in Custody Added to his Prior Existing Felony Sentence) Pinal County Superior Court (Case No. CR2018-02936)
Mr. L had various Prior Felony Convictions for Sex Offenses, and had been to Prison three separate times. While he was serving his Sentence in California for his last Conviction, he was charged with an incident in Pinal County that occurred prior to him going into the California Prison. In the Arizona situation, an Undercover Detective was using the website ChatAvenue.com, specifically in the “teen room” which had rules that the users had to be between the ages of 16 to 19 only. After the Undercover Detective posed as a 14-year-old girl and struck up a conversation with Mr. L, they began discussing sex acts. The Undercover Detective then had Mr. L resume the conversation on the Kik platform.
The Undercover Detective had Mr. L send over photos of his genitalia, but they did not include his face. Mr. L asked for a photo of the alleged girl, and she sent a Google link and put it in Dropbox. When asked why he hadn’t opened the link to look at the picture, Mr. L eventually stated, “that’s a shortened URL, it expands to a site that’s used to record people’s IP, so either you’re trying to get my IP or you have serious malware on your phone, neither is good”. Based on the existing conversations, the Undercover Detective had used “Sniffer software” that returned an IP address out of Germany. Clearly, this had gone through the “Onion Router”. At this time, the Detectives subpoenaed Kik and got the IP history of the account. It traced back to Mr. L. Ultimately, the Silicon Valley ICAC Task Force brought a case against Mr. L. Mr. L was serving time in California on a different case, when the Arizona case activated.
Due to the crossover between the cases, and the fact that he was already serving time in California, we Negotiated a Deal to where he pled to a single count of Luring, which added No Additional Days in Jail or Prison to his current Sentence. If they had instead decided to proceed by way of Trial, this would have been a fourth offense, and could have placed him in Prison for the Rest of His Life.
