Originally Posted by
Firebug4
I would bet that all 93 have or will be successfully prosecuted. Those were Federal arrests by HSI agents. That means the AUSA's office was heavily involved and would not have procured the arrest warrants unless they intended to prosecute and were 100% sure they could win.
That is how Federal prosecutors keep their conviction rates so high. It just does not work the way state and locals do. It is very rare that a Federal LEO will make a criminal arrest based solely on probable cause. In most cases, the case has been presented to the AUSA for acceptance way before the arrest is made. For state and locals, very often it works the opposite way the arrest is made and then it is presented to the DA for prosecution. The DA then decides whether to proceed or not.
FB
I agree with this. Ordinarily, it would be easy for these cases to fall apart if they are based on the testimony of troubled underage prostitutes who may not be able or willing to travel to the US to testify, or who could be bought off, or who could be susceptible to claims that their testimony is financially motivated.
In many cases, the sex tourists are dumb enough to confess to the crime by saying "Oh sure, I had sex with that girl, but I thought she was 18." Those are the cases that get prosecuted. Then you just have to prove that the girl in question was under 18, and it's more or less case closed.
That is what happened here. Two girls reported to Homeland Security that they had sex with an American guy in January in a park and that they friended him on Facebook. Agents looked at their Facebook accounts, identified the guy from their Facebook friends list, confirmed from travel records that he was there in the DR in January. Then they stopped him months later as he was leaving for his next trip to the DR and asked him about his activities, and he confirmed having sex with girls in a park on his last trip. Here is a copy of the criminal complaint:
http://freepdfhosting.com/9cc02aac9b.pdf
The purpose of my post is not to advise sex tourists how to beat the rap, but I will mention again that answering questions from law enforcement agents at any time, without consulting a lawyer first, is unwise, even if you think you've done nothing wrong. It is exceptionally stupid to do so after the agents have read your Miranda warnings, which should be a pretty good tip off that you are in a bit of trouble. If he had kept his mouth shut the case against him would be very difficult to prove. Friending hookers on Facebook using your real name is also probably a bad practice, underage or not.