Renee Rosenow

I am an avid watcher of the television show “To Catch a Predator,” which appears on Dateline NBC every now and then. The basis of the show is to catch online sexual predators by posing as underage girls on chat sites, and setting up meetings with older men who plan on having a sexual encounter. When the men show up at the house they are met by the host of the show, Chris Hansen, and after a little TV time, they are escorted to a police car. At this point I usually wag my finger at the TV screen and say, “Not this time buddy.” However, these types of men aren’t always brought to justice.

Recently, according to an Associated Press article, a Wisconsin Court of Appeals overturned the conviction of a Wisconsin man who had a sexually explicit conversation with an investigator who was posing as an eighth grade girl. Originally, the man was found guilty of using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime and he was sentenced to six months in jail. However, the judgment was overturned because apparently there was not enough evidence to prove intent. I beg to differ.

The man was fully aware that he was talking to an eighth grade girl, and I assume that he also knew that he himself was 50 years old. Unless he is giving her advice about getting older, or warning her about the dangers of sexual predators, I don’t think he has much reason to be talking to her. The Internet has plenty of chat rooms for people his age.

The man even admitted to having at least two sexual encounters with adult women whom he met off the Internet. That may not be the best way to go about doing things, but at least it’s legal. The fact that he found himself chatting with what he presumed to be an eighth grade girl was not an accident. And with his prior history of “making connections” through chatting, what do you think he was planning on doing with this girl? Baking cookies? Unlikely.

The conversation that the man had with the eighth grade girl (the investigator) was recorded, and there was no mention of fun foods like cookies. However, there was plenty of mention of sex. The man asked if she liked sex, what her sexual experience was and specifically “what would you do for me?” If that isn’t enough, the man then used his webcam to show the girl that he didn’t have any shirt on.

I prefer to chat with my shirt on.

All of this information was registered in the case, and the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decided there wasn’t enough evidence of intent to have sex with the underage girl. The judge ruled that the man would have had to buy condoms or visit the house of the girl.

Are you kidding me? Do you think he was asking her all those questions about sex because he was just curious? I doubt it very much.

So what if he didn’t buy condoms? Maybe that makes this case even worse. Maybe he was planning on having unprotected sex with the minor. Does not buying condoms really make this man innocent?

And the fact that he didn’t drive to her house means nothing. It may just have been because they charged him with the crime too early. It was the investigator who ended the conversation, not the man.

In my opinion, had they continued to have conversations with this man, they would have eventually been able to arrest him with proof of valid intent.

However, this was not the case. The original judgment was reversed, and the case was dismissed. And for what? This whole investigation may have taught him a lesson for now, but it also may have just been a lesson to be more careful next time he tries it. I just hope that next time he isn’t so lucky.

Buonauro is a junior print journalism major and guest columnist for The Spectator.