The Virginian-Pilot
©
CHESAPEAKE
When a Chesapeake woman saw an ad on Craigslist soliciting teenage girls in mid-July, she decided to pretend to be one.
She got what she considered incriminating responses and contacted the authorities, said Chesapeake Maj. Tracy Branch. That led to the arrest of a 42-year-old Portsmouth man on Thursday.
The Police Department's special victims and computer crimes unit documented the correspondence - described by Branch as illicit - and later confiscated computer equipment they say belonged to the man who placed the ad on the popular trading Web site.
Police charged William Russell Geister of the 90 block of Cushing St. with using a communications system to facilitate certain offenses involving children, a felony. More charges are pending.
"She started corresponding with him as if she was a teenage girl," Branch said. "This is the first time that I know that we've ever had this happen."
Hampton Roads police departments have used Craigslist in recent years to target certain illegal activities, particularly prostitution. Chesapeake police arrested three women in March after they used the Web site to advertise.
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one for the supreme court
although the Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal for law enforcement to pretend to be someone they're not in the performance of their duties to avoid entrapment this person was obviously not acting in an official capacity to our knowledge. if Chesapeake somehow manages to get a conviction on this charge given the fact that the female involved was in fact an adult the High court will someday be ruling on that conviction as well.
this lady is lucky
if you're dealing with the kind of person who would post such an ad, chances are pretty good things won't turn out well for you when you decide you want to pretend to be a cop all on your own.
Huh?
She didn't "pretend to be a cop". She pretended to be a teenager, apparently. And things apparently turned out well for her, for society, and not so good for the suspect. Which is very good. As a policeman myself, I applaud what she did. If we had more citizens like this, there would be more criminals behind bars.
HEAR! HEAR!
Well said justadude!!
I couldn't agree with you more. This private citizen employed a non-violent means of dealing with someone that is obviously a violent individual. Although I rarely scour Craig's List, I probably would have done the same thing (had I seen it)!
that's how CL is supposed to work
The site is supposed to be "self-policing" and if more users actually cared it could really work.
when
you know, when are people going to realize that if when you use craigslist for illegal purposes, you WILL get caught, just like this guy and the same said for the prostitution rings, and selling drugs and the other weirdo that serial killer guy and on and on....I hope he catches two charges one for his crime and the other just for being scum....."and thats all I have to say about that"