We are a group of men who were caught in a sting operation launched via twisted truths uttered by members of the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office in the year 2011. This is our story and our protest. Each of us has written a letter that was previously sent to Scott Orr, a reporter for the Prescott Daily Courier. The purpose of this blog is to present a copy of those written statements to the Public. These letters tell our story. We want the community of Prescott, Arizona and the surrounding Yavapai County to understand the facts of our cases. The liberty of a nation can only endure if its legal system maintains a high profile of justice.
Various newspapers in Arizona have printed the Sheriff's side of the case. One such story is shown here, at the Prescott Daily Courier. However, shouldn't cases be tried in Court, rather than in the public media? Detective Edgerton has had her say in the media; now we are having ours.
Detective Pam Edgerton created a 19-year old persona and then lurked in chat rooms, hoping to find somebody over the Internet who would be willing to chat with this adult-aged fake persona. When the online relationship advanced to the point where we made an appointment to meet the fake girl in person, Detective Edgerton delivered an under-age person to the meeting site, and thus the trap was sprung.
The detective claims that we "predators" believed that we were talking with an under-age person. But this is not true, as our personal statements posted herein will show.
The detective used sneaky under-handed methods to lure her victims into the entrapment. For example, she and the target often met on an Adult web site first, where the target obviously had no reason to believe that the female was under-age. But then the detective asked the target to move his chat session to a Yahoo screen instead. Conveniently, the Prosecution's case only mentions the Yahoo Chat evidence but no mention is made of the initial encounter on the Adult web site.
And then there is the matter of the harshness of the punishments handed down to these men who have never committed any crime against any child whereas other rapists and molesters of real victims get off with relatively light sentences elsewhere in Arizona.
Decide for yourself whether or not a terrible miscarriage of justice is currently underway in Yavapai County, Arizona.
Here is a quick list of each of man's hand-written statement in .PDF format:
1. Chad Martineau's hand-written statement.
The .PDF file is here.
2. Jeff Balys' hand-written statement.
The .PDF file is here.
3. Brad Binkley's hand-written statement.
The .PDF file is here.
4. William R. Adams' hand-written statement.
The .PDF file is here.
5. Shawn Thompson's hand-written statement.
The .PDF file is here.
6. Sam Bassett's hand-written statement.
The .PDF file is here.
