Here we present the typed copy of Shawn L. Thompson's statement. Shawn's hand-written letter can be viewed as a .PDF file by clicking here. This file has been posted here on July 06, 2011 but was written at an earlier date. Mr. Shawn Thompson wants you to know that the detective who chatted with him had posted 19-year-old profiles of herself to sites like Facebook, with a photo that obviously portrayed a person older than 13. Shawn says this detective is creating crimes and criminals out of thin air! Shawn Thompson is a father of two, with prior service in the U.S. Army.
To Scott Orr,
I am Shawn Thompson and I am one of many prisoners in the Yavapai County Detention Center after having been arrested as part of an unlawful "sting operation" designed to create criminals out of innocent men. This targeting of innocent men is led by Sheriff's Detective Pam Edgerton who sets up a false identity posing as a 19 yr. old on various adult web sites. She posts her 19 yr. old's profile on social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Plenty Of Fish, Tagged, and several other sites. Most of these sites require their users to verify that they are at least 18 years old. So she states that she is 19 years old on her profile and posts a picture.
Once she makes contact with an innocent target she quickly starts making suggestive and very explicit sexual comments and switches the chat forum over to Yahoo (which has no age verification) and then announces that she is actually a 13 year old pretending to be a 19 year old. The innocent target of the sting has no way of knowing which story is true. Is she really 19 or only 13? In fact, both identities are entirely false. There is no 13 year old and there is no 19 year old. There is only the detective trying to lure innocent men into committing a crime which, without her zealous efforts, would never have occurred. She has created a crime and a criminal out of thin air!
Several of the men here attempted to meet with the unknown girl to verify her age and were arrested at the meeting site. I refused her suggestion of a meeting unless she could verify her age to my satisfaction. When she would not verify her age I told her, "I do not need the drama" and stopped the chats and deleted all of the chat files on my PC. Four days later I was arrested at my home. The sheriffs then bragged to the press about having captured another dangerous child predator.
In most of these cases the sheriffs obtain a search warrant to search the victim's PC. But in one case here of one of the eight currently waiting trial or a plea for entrapment, Chad M. requested evidence [through] his lawyer from the P.C. [held] in evidence. But [Chad] was told that his messages on "Plenty Of Fish" that justified his case were mysteriously "deleted." And not by him. The Baptist minister in Phoenix who committed suicide rather than to endure what we are presently going through here is an example of the type of "criminals" the sheriffs are currently targeting.
I have no previous criminal record and have been a law abiding citizen who proudly serves in the Army. I have a wife, two children, and an aging mother who are dependent on me for their care and support.
We desperately need your help in bringing the true facts of these immoral sting operations to the attention of the Public. The sheriffs are not capturing dangerous child predators as they proudly claim.
Shawn L. Thompson
Showing posts with label webcam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label webcam. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Jeff Balys Says She Had 36-Year Old Boyfriend
Here we present the typed copy of Jeffrey Balys' statement. Jeff's hand-written letter can be viewed as a .PDF file by clicking here. This file has been posted here on June 21, 2011 but was written at an earlier date. Mr. Jeffrey Balys wants you to know that the person who chatted with him had a 36-year old boyfriend, so there is no way he believed she was only 13. Jeff also asks you to consider why would punishment for his victimless crime be far more harsh, by several orders of magnitude, than sexual offenses that have actually been consummated by repeat offenders against actual victims?
I am a respectful decent 45 year old man and I have lived in Arizona for most of my life. Over the years here in Arizona I have owned and operated two businesses and before this all happened I worked as a project manager for trade shows traveling all over the world. I used to volunteer as a teacher for troubled youths teaching things like horse back riding. I worked with many troubled kids including a girl that was cutting herself as a result from being molested by her mother's boyfriend. While working with her and guiding her I was able to get her to stop cutting herself and become one of the volunteers helping other troubled youths. I had a good idea of what she was going through because I was molested as a young kid too.
Over the past year though I have been experiencing very rough times. I lost my house I owned and lived in for 25 years and my job I had for over 10 years. I was forced to move out of my house in Tempe and move to Cordes Lakes for living arrangements. Being at a severe low in my life and in a deep depression I spent a lot of time on the computer. I wanted a friend, someone to chat with when I needed. "Conveniently" I had met and started chatting with Detective Edgerton over 3 years ago. Because of my untreated severe ADHD I have a hard time getting anyone to chat with me for any length of time, but Detective Edgerton would always chat as long as it became of a sexual nature at one point or another. If we didn't discuss something sexual or me coming to meet her she would lose interest and not chat with me. The only thing I ever wanted was someone to chat with and she didn't act like any 13 year old I've ever come across. Over the 3 years of chatting with her it became a normal thing for her to talk about her 36 year old boyfriend and how they would perform oral sex on each other. From the time I lived in Tempe to the time I only lived 30 minutes away from her in Cordes Lakes she would continually try and talk me into meeting her in person, but I only wanted someone to chat with and wasn't interested in meeting her or anyone else. Also during all this time she asked me more times than I can count if I would send her some nude pics or movies of myself. She even went as far as begging me to send something, anything, as long as it was nude.
Detective Edgerton had stopped talking/chatting with me for a long time. By chance I had decided to write her and popped up on her screen. She said (later in her own words) she had not been doing internet crime, that she didn't have the time for them, and she had given up on trapping me. Once I popped up on her screen again she finally after 3-1/2 years got me to use my new web cam that was my first time using it. I was only giving in to her begging and pleading and doing what she asked, what she wanted me to do in order to keep chatting. I never wanted or intended to chat with a 13 year old girl nor did she even seem like any 13 year old I've ever met.
How is anyone supposed to know someone's true age on the internet where most people lie about who they really are? Why doesn't Yahoo protect us from things like this as other chat web sites do, why isn't there safeguards or warnings to tell us about things like this and what can happen? From my understanding, some of the other guys caught up in this were on adult web sites when they met her and she lured them to Yahoo. How can she be allowed to do that? Why does she lure everyone to Yahoo and she starts chats on adult web sites but then won't continue chatting with them there? Oh, and why are all my first chats missing from over 3 years ago and newer, and why are the chats missing from the guys' chats on the adult web sites where she lured them to Yahoo?
The only thing us men have done was get sucked into detective Edgerton's misguided, unfair trap, where her only intention was to get law abiding citizens to commit serious felonies. It's fair to state that if it weren't for Detective Edgerton's trap, none of these crimes would have been committed and none of us would be here. I believe none of us have been in any serious and none of us have ever touched a child inappropriately nor did any of us intend to. I am not a sex predator or child molester nor would I ever be one, yet I am sentenced to 5 years "Flat" time in prison, plus I have lifetime probation.
I will be 51 years old, labeled as a sex offender, I will have lost all my belongings, my place to live (mobile home), my car, having no place to live trying to find a job. Also I'll have to pay various fees and fines, about $450 per month for the duration of my probation which is my lifetime. There are numerous stipulations such as what time I can go to the store and never being able to go to the park or movies. I won't even be able to travel, which was my current employment. Now that I realize the full implications of what I was doing, I am truly ashamed of my actions and very grateful there wasn't a real 13 year old on the other end at the computer, but should I have to pay for that the rest of my life? Is this the crime that deserves a punishment of 1st degree murder or something of that magnitude? Is this really something that should ruin my life (literally the rest of my life) and the rest of the guys that are in here for falling into the same trap? The only thing I ever wanted was to have a friend to chat with online.
According to USA Today, 40% of our teens are sexting and chatting online, looking to meet older guys, so if that's what I was looking for I would assume it would be fairly easy to find an underage girl, but I didn't, I only wanted to chat. Even Detective Edgerton said in her own words that she knew I was never going to come meet with her. She said I didn't give the normal lines a sex predator would and she couldn't believe how honest I was, even shocked that my screen name was a real person and my actual address and phone number were correct and real.
Can our State/County really afford this? Totally ruining lives like mine, making me dependent on state assistance, unable to find employment and limiting me to this county, not being able to travel and look for work. Why is it a life sentence to chat about sex or send pics to a minor but it's not a crime to go meet them? How can one call what I did "luring a minor" when it was Detective Edgerton that contacted me and lured me?
Why is it in Yavapai County that sex offenders for this type of crime get 2 to 3 times more prison and probation time then anywhere else, even more than Maricopa County? I don't understand how in Yavapai County, where a 24 year old man has molested a 4-year old baby three times but only gets 85% of five years and only five years probation and it involved an actual real live victim? Oh, and he doesn't have to wear a GPS tracking device as I do, for life? How is it that a 25-year old man can have sex with a 14-year old girl giving her a permanent disease plus he's a repeat offender and only gets five years with an option to serve six with no probation? I have seen it over and over in here (Yavapai County Jail) where men with actual real victims, that have really harmed a child, and get less time/punishment than me. And I have never harmed a child in my life. I only want to be treated fairly, receiving the appropriate punishment for a victimless crime. Should my family and I be totally destroyed for life, not to mention the cost to our community, for an unconstitutional trap with no actual victim or anyone being harmed? Do we really want a society/community that hands out punishments like this for victimless crimes? Do people want to live in a community known for that, what kind of justice system is that?
The harshness and unjust punishments for unconstitutional traps and the cost that goes into these, is that what our county/community wants? My bet, and I'm positive most don't even know about it yet ... I only want a true and just punishment for my crime an not be pushed into the sentence I got because I was facing 84 years in prison, another unreal punishment.
Sincerely,
Jeff Balys
I am a respectful decent 45 year old man and I have lived in Arizona for most of my life. Over the years here in Arizona I have owned and operated two businesses and before this all happened I worked as a project manager for trade shows traveling all over the world. I used to volunteer as a teacher for troubled youths teaching things like horse back riding. I worked with many troubled kids including a girl that was cutting herself as a result from being molested by her mother's boyfriend. While working with her and guiding her I was able to get her to stop cutting herself and become one of the volunteers helping other troubled youths. I had a good idea of what she was going through because I was molested as a young kid too.
Over the past year though I have been experiencing very rough times. I lost my house I owned and lived in for 25 years and my job I had for over 10 years. I was forced to move out of my house in Tempe and move to Cordes Lakes for living arrangements. Being at a severe low in my life and in a deep depression I spent a lot of time on the computer. I wanted a friend, someone to chat with when I needed. "Conveniently" I had met and started chatting with Detective Edgerton over 3 years ago. Because of my untreated severe ADHD I have a hard time getting anyone to chat with me for any length of time, but Detective Edgerton would always chat as long as it became of a sexual nature at one point or another. If we didn't discuss something sexual or me coming to meet her she would lose interest and not chat with me. The only thing I ever wanted was someone to chat with and she didn't act like any 13 year old I've ever come across. Over the 3 years of chatting with her it became a normal thing for her to talk about her 36 year old boyfriend and how they would perform oral sex on each other. From the time I lived in Tempe to the time I only lived 30 minutes away from her in Cordes Lakes she would continually try and talk me into meeting her in person, but I only wanted someone to chat with and wasn't interested in meeting her or anyone else. Also during all this time she asked me more times than I can count if I would send her some nude pics or movies of myself. She even went as far as begging me to send something, anything, as long as it was nude.
Detective Edgerton had stopped talking/chatting with me for a long time. By chance I had decided to write her and popped up on her screen. She said (later in her own words) she had not been doing internet crime, that she didn't have the time for them, and she had given up on trapping me. Once I popped up on her screen again she finally after 3-1/2 years got me to use my new web cam that was my first time using it. I was only giving in to her begging and pleading and doing what she asked, what she wanted me to do in order to keep chatting. I never wanted or intended to chat with a 13 year old girl nor did she even seem like any 13 year old I've ever met.
How is anyone supposed to know someone's true age on the internet where most people lie about who they really are? Why doesn't Yahoo protect us from things like this as other chat web sites do, why isn't there safeguards or warnings to tell us about things like this and what can happen? From my understanding, some of the other guys caught up in this were on adult web sites when they met her and she lured them to Yahoo. How can she be allowed to do that? Why does she lure everyone to Yahoo and she starts chats on adult web sites but then won't continue chatting with them there? Oh, and why are all my first chats missing from over 3 years ago and newer, and why are the chats missing from the guys' chats on the adult web sites where she lured them to Yahoo?
The only thing us men have done was get sucked into detective Edgerton's misguided, unfair trap, where her only intention was to get law abiding citizens to commit serious felonies. It's fair to state that if it weren't for Detective Edgerton's trap, none of these crimes would have been committed and none of us would be here. I believe none of us have been in any serious and none of us have ever touched a child inappropriately nor did any of us intend to. I am not a sex predator or child molester nor would I ever be one, yet I am sentenced to 5 years "Flat" time in prison, plus I have lifetime probation.
I will be 51 years old, labeled as a sex offender, I will have lost all my belongings, my place to live (mobile home), my car, having no place to live trying to find a job. Also I'll have to pay various fees and fines, about $450 per month for the duration of my probation which is my lifetime. There are numerous stipulations such as what time I can go to the store and never being able to go to the park or movies. I won't even be able to travel, which was my current employment. Now that I realize the full implications of what I was doing, I am truly ashamed of my actions and very grateful there wasn't a real 13 year old on the other end at the computer, but should I have to pay for that the rest of my life? Is this the crime that deserves a punishment of 1st degree murder or something of that magnitude? Is this really something that should ruin my life (literally the rest of my life) and the rest of the guys that are in here for falling into the same trap? The only thing I ever wanted was to have a friend to chat with online.
According to USA Today, 40% of our teens are sexting and chatting online, looking to meet older guys, so if that's what I was looking for I would assume it would be fairly easy to find an underage girl, but I didn't, I only wanted to chat. Even Detective Edgerton said in her own words that she knew I was never going to come meet with her. She said I didn't give the normal lines a sex predator would and she couldn't believe how honest I was, even shocked that my screen name was a real person and my actual address and phone number were correct and real.
Can our State/County really afford this? Totally ruining lives like mine, making me dependent on state assistance, unable to find employment and limiting me to this county, not being able to travel and look for work. Why is it a life sentence to chat about sex or send pics to a minor but it's not a crime to go meet them? How can one call what I did "luring a minor" when it was Detective Edgerton that contacted me and lured me?
Why is it in Yavapai County that sex offenders for this type of crime get 2 to 3 times more prison and probation time then anywhere else, even more than Maricopa County? I don't understand how in Yavapai County, where a 24 year old man has molested a 4-year old baby three times but only gets 85% of five years and only five years probation and it involved an actual real live victim? Oh, and he doesn't have to wear a GPS tracking device as I do, for life? How is it that a 25-year old man can have sex with a 14-year old girl giving her a permanent disease plus he's a repeat offender and only gets five years with an option to serve six with no probation? I have seen it over and over in here (Yavapai County Jail) where men with actual real victims, that have really harmed a child, and get less time/punishment than me. And I have never harmed a child in my life. I only want to be treated fairly, receiving the appropriate punishment for a victimless crime. Should my family and I be totally destroyed for life, not to mention the cost to our community, for an unconstitutional trap with no actual victim or anyone being harmed? Do we really want a society/community that hands out punishments like this for victimless crimes? Do people want to live in a community known for that, what kind of justice system is that?
The harshness and unjust punishments for unconstitutional traps and the cost that goes into these, is that what our county/community wants? My bet, and I'm positive most don't even know about it yet ... I only want a true and just punishment for my crime an not be pushed into the sentence I got because I was facing 84 years in prison, another unreal punishment.
Sincerely,
Jeff Balys
Monday, June 20, 2011
Chad Martineau Says She Had Membership to Adult Site
Here we present the typed copy of Chad Martineau's statement. Chad's hand-written letter can be viewed as a .PDF file by clicking here. This file has been posted here on June 20, 2011 but was written at an earlier date. Mr. Chad Alan Martineau wants you to know that the person who chatted with him at an adult web site was exactly that: an adult.
Mr. Scott Orr:
I am writing to express my disappointment in the sheriff's office and the judicial system in Yavapai County. I was recently pressured into pleading guilty to bogus charges because I was threatened with an extremely harsh sentence if I continued to proclaim my innocence. I accepted a plea agreement and pleaded guilty rather than face the threat of serving 15 years in prison. The tactic of using overly harsh sentences if cases are brought to trial is unjust and is preventing the tactics of the sheriffs from being brought to light in a public trial where they would surely be condemned.
I was imprisoned simply for having only one chat session with a sheriff's detective who initiated the online chatting while posing as a 19-year old female. At the time of the chat I was on an adult web site where participants are required to state that they are at least 18 years of age or older.
I have never had any interest in having any contact whatsoever with an underage girl and I was caught entirely off guard when the detective suddenly became a fictitious 13-year old instead of the 19-year old I had begun to chat with. I have no previous crimes of any kind and have never been arrested before. I am not a potential sexual predator and without this questionable "sting" operation no crime would have taken place. There was no 19 yr. old or a 13 yr. old so there was no victim. I am the only unfortunate victim in this operation designed to entrap innocent men.
The citizens of Yavapai County need to be informed about how our sheriffs, who complain of being under staffed and underfunded, are wasting precious resources to create crimes and criminals where none would otherwise exist. This misguided operation is not taking any actual predators off the street but is focusing on innocent men with no criminal history as their intended targets. There are no child victims to be saved by the sheriffs yet. These operations are destroying the lives of many innocent men.
Unfortunately the threat of harsh penalties are unfairly keeping these cases from being exposed in public trials where the citizens of Yavapai County might learn how misguided and unfair these schemes really are.
I am looking forward to meeting or speaking with you to share further facts and details about the life-destroying consequences of these entrapment operations.
-- CHAD MARTINEAU
Mr. Scott Orr:
I am writing to express my disappointment in the sheriff's office and the judicial system in Yavapai County. I was recently pressured into pleading guilty to bogus charges because I was threatened with an extremely harsh sentence if I continued to proclaim my innocence. I accepted a plea agreement and pleaded guilty rather than face the threat of serving 15 years in prison. The tactic of using overly harsh sentences if cases are brought to trial is unjust and is preventing the tactics of the sheriffs from being brought to light in a public trial where they would surely be condemned.
I was imprisoned simply for having only one chat session with a sheriff's detective who initiated the online chatting while posing as a 19-year old female. At the time of the chat I was on an adult web site where participants are required to state that they are at least 18 years of age or older.
I have never had any interest in having any contact whatsoever with an underage girl and I was caught entirely off guard when the detective suddenly became a fictitious 13-year old instead of the 19-year old I had begun to chat with. I have no previous crimes of any kind and have never been arrested before. I am not a potential sexual predator and without this questionable "sting" operation no crime would have taken place. There was no 19 yr. old or a 13 yr. old so there was no victim. I am the only unfortunate victim in this operation designed to entrap innocent men.
The citizens of Yavapai County need to be informed about how our sheriffs, who complain of being under staffed and underfunded, are wasting precious resources to create crimes and criminals where none would otherwise exist. This misguided operation is not taking any actual predators off the street but is focusing on innocent men with no criminal history as their intended targets. There are no child victims to be saved by the sheriffs yet. These operations are destroying the lives of many innocent men.
Unfortunately the threat of harsh penalties are unfairly keeping these cases from being exposed in public trials where the citizens of Yavapai County might learn how misguided and unfair these schemes really are.
I am looking forward to meeting or speaking with you to share further facts and details about the life-destroying consequences of these entrapment operations.
-- CHAD MARTINEAU
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