The deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday for trying to seduce someone he thought was a 14 year old girl over the Internet. However, it wasn’t a 14 year old girl, but a Polk County, Fla., sheriff’s deputy.
The Associated Press reports that Brian J. Doyle, 55, of Silver Spring, Md., was arrested on seven counts of use of a computer to seduce a child and 16 counts of transmitting harmful material to a minor.
Doyle will be placed on administrative leave Wednesday. Homeland Security press secretary Russ Knocke, Doyle’s boss, told the AP: “We take these allegations very seriously, and we will cooperate fully with the ongoing investigation.”
The sheriff’s office has accused Doyle of sending hardcore pornography to the nonexistent 14 year old, having sexually explicit conversations with the nonexistent girl, and giving the nonexistent girl his office and wireless phone numbers.
“This investigation shows that the long arm of the law can reach anyone, anywhere, anytime, who tries to harm our youth,” Polk County sheriff Grady Judd told the AP. “There is no question that Doyle believed that he was having these disgusting, obscene discussions, online and on the phone, with a young girl. His conduct is vile and inexcusable.”
Now that is exactly the problem. In this country you can go to prison on child sex offenses for propositioning a full-grown adult, as long as you believed it was a child. There doesn’t have to be any actual victim.
Now it’s certainly true enough that we should do something about people who prey on children. But doing what the Polk County sheriff’s office is doing amounts to no less than thought crime. Under their version of the law, it’s illegal to think about having sex with a child.
As much as it bothers me that someone this high up in the federal government likes having sex with children, it bothers me even more that anyone can go to prison for nothing more than the thoughts inside his head. For that’s all Doyle has done. He only thought about sex with children. There were no actual children involved.
What will it be a crime to think about next?
Update: It looks like the sheriff took this opportunity to get himself some face time on national television, giving interviews to CNN and FOX News.
Update April 5: Doyle is refusing extradition to Florida. He is being held on a fugitive warrant in Montgomery County (Md.) Detention Center and has an extradition hearing set for May 4th.
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tj
Apr 05, 2006
no actual children involved, but there was an actual person. so he WAS actually committing a crime, just not with a minor. wait, that means it wasn’t a crime. HAHAHAHA … i’d never thought of it that way. his defense should be “i knew it wasn’t a 14-year-old all along, prove i didn’t.”
cyberotter
Apr 05, 2006
Reading this story I was reminded of something funny I saw from the DHS a few years ago. I thought you might enjoy it also.
Jeff
Apr 05, 2006
Yeah. Your absolutely right! This is just some jack boot thug harrassing an innocent pedifile. How did anyone come up with a stupid idea like locking up the sick bastard before he screws up a bunch of childrens lives. If we keep putting children above rapists and pedifiles we might as well just burn the constitution. I have no doubt that the founding fathers would have been distraught to hear of such thought policing. All we really have to do is wait for the preditors to victimize real children and then wait the 20 or so years for the kid to recover enough of their self worth to report it and then we can lock up the old man 5 years before he is dead and well after he can achieve an erection. That would be much more just.
Apr 05, 2006
Adrift at Sea » More of the Same
Steverinokofolot
Apr 05, 2006
On Jeff’s behalf, I have applied to the Department for an Emergency Spelling Lesson Grant (ESLG)!
Jason
Apr 06, 2006
I have trouble wrapping my head around your logic with this Michael. It doesn’t matter who was on the other end.
I always tell myself (and others) that “What if’s are stupid because it wasn’t the situation”, but this is a case in which it’s pretty bad.
Sure, it was one grown male and another, but the pre-tenses were different.
These WERE NOT just a simple man’s thoughts.
These were HIS ACTIONS.
He DID actively solicit, he DID attempt closer and closer contact (amusing misuse of company materials!).
I do truely believe that it is valid charges because actions did occur. This was not just ‘a man’s thoughts’. He carried this out, he tried. Too bad (for him) that he chose the wrong “kid” to screw with (semi-literal).
Michael Hampton
Apr 06, 2006
Misuse of government resources aside, for now, he stands accused of e-mailing pornography to, and having phone sex with, a 14 year old who, it turns out, isn’t 14 at all, but way over 18. They arrested him long before any meeting might have been set up.
It seems that in Florida, you can’t send porn to, or have phone sex with, someone who’s over 18, if that person lies and tells you they’re underage.
It’s a dangerous precedent to set. You could run your own “sting” operation and get virtually anybody accused of saying lewd things to a minor, even when there’s no minor around.
Jason
Apr 06, 2006
I do see what you mean, I do see the possibility, but I do also believe that, while possible, it’s on the far side of the extremes of unlikelyhood.
I would like to know if they have any evidence of past contact with another individual, however.
There’s a difference between two people lying, and 1 person as the subject of a sting operation.
Crush
Apr 15, 2006
This is the same sheriff who got Chris Wilson for posting the photos of iraqi war casulties on his forum.
Full Story here
Nov 19, 2006
Former Homeland Security press aide sentenced to prison - Homeland Stupidity
FED-UP,MOTHER@#$%
Nov 22, 2006
It used to be common in U.S.,
to marry girls of thirteen
and up.There was no age limit
on marriage.
This is nothing but fascist police thuggery.
It sure is.
And crime fills the void where
freedom once existed