Brazen Young Facebook Pimpette Nabbed By Police After She Bragged About Her Crimes On Facebook

from the like? dept

I’m always amazed at how often social media plays a role in the attempted exploits of dumb criminals. Whether it’s posing with the merchandise they recently stole, posting a video of the crime itself, or sharing the police’s bulletin seeking their arrest, our idiot bad guys just seem to love posting dumb stuff to Facebook in particular. But even correcting for a younger criminal, it’s difficult not to judge someone unbelievably stupid in the era of online surveillance when they elect to run their underage prostitution ring on Facebook and coordinate their illicit business via Facebook’s messaging app. Yet, that’s apparently exactly what a young seventeen-year-old girl did, along with her partners.

At least one act of prostitution took place, police said, leading to the arrest of John Michael Mosher, 21, who reportedly paid $40 and a bottle of liquor to have sex with a 15-year-old girl, the newspaper reported. Police said the ring came to light after four students confided to Venice High School administrators. The Sarasota High student and at least one other student concocted the business plan over the summer to prostitute other teenagers for payments of money and alcohol, according to police documents.

“Why pimp out old hoes when I have fresh young hoes I can give up for money?” the Sarasota High student wrote in one Facebook exchange to a business partner, adding, “As long as I’m getting paid I’m trafficking all these (expletive deleted).”

And why bother trying to hide this kind of conversation about illicit dealings when you can discuss your “hoes” over a text-based social media chat application that’s part of a website the average person is informed enough to distrust as a matter of privacy? It takes the supremely uninformed to think that these kinds of messages are secure, never mind that putting them in text in the first place ensures that the conversations can be reproduced at a later date. Like, say, when other students in the school that knew what was going on decided to turn against our would-be criminal mastermind.

Worse yet, it appears that all the coordinating for these deals was likewise done via Facebook.

Students told officers that the Sarasota High student coordinated at least three prostitution deals — including the one with the 15-year-old — by using Facebook private messaging.

See, it may be called “private” messaging, but that doesn’t mean those messages can’t be used to put you in prison. On the other hand, it’s nice to see our dumb criminals are starting their act at a younger age, I guess. Keeps them off the streets earlier, I suppose.

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Comments on “Brazen Young Facebook Pimpette Nabbed By Police After She Bragged About Her Crimes On Facebook”

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29 Comments
David says:

Re: Victimless crime

Well, there is an age of consent for a reason (an age threshold beyond there are limits to exploiting stupidity possibly leaving permanent scars), so “victimless” is something one cannot really guess at even assuming this had not blown into publicity.

But once everybody is dragged through the courts, there will be victims, and society is set up in a manner where this was predictable.

There is enough of a potential market for underage girls and enough of possible exploitation with permanent consequences for the involved and their ability to make their own life choices later on that graded criminalization seems like the lesser evil than “letting things run their course” in which the tables are tilted against the systematically weaker party.

Julian Calaby (profile) says:

Re: Victimless crime

The facts of the case are:

1. A 15 year old and 21 year old had sex.

I believe the age of consent is either 16 or 18, so the 21yo will be prosecuted as a rapist regardless of the actual details of the case. The law says that he’s a rapist, therefore he’ll be tried as one. The law also says that the 15yo is a victim in this particular crime.

2. $40 and a bottle of alcohol changed hands explicitly to purchase this encounter.

That’s prostitution: sex happened + payment. The 15yo being a minor makes this child prostitution which I believe is seriously illegal. Again, the 15yo will be explicitly named as the victim. If the 17yo so much as was given a sip from the bottle, she profited from it, so therefore she’ll be named an accomplice or pimp or whatever and get fingered for child sex trafficking or something similar.

Now I’m sure that what happened is that all three were acquaintances and:
– the 15yo wanted a sexual experience
– the 21yo was happy to oblige
– the 17yo set it up as she’d done with some other acquaintances
– the 21yo gave the cash and booze as a thank-you gift
and finally
– the 17yo made a joke on Facebook about it

However the law is pretty explicit about stuff like this and as far as it’s concerned, everyone’s done something wrong so everyone’s going to get dragged through the courts here.

Anonymous Coward says:

Victimless crime

Then prosecute for the statutory rape and prove it in court.

But if both parties are legally speaking allowed to have sex, I fail to see what’s wrong with the transaction because it includes money for sex or a third party arranging the exchange.

If Lis and Joe can have sex, because both are above 15, there is no victim, whether or not money is involved.

Chronno S. Trigger (profile) says:

Re: Re: Victimless crime

Calling it trafficking and it being trafficking are two different things. It’s like someone calling themselves “Original Gangster” but they’re not walking around in suits with Tommy guns in violin cases. This person was obviously not that intelligent, she probably didn’t understand what human trafficking is.

Anonymous Coward says:

Victimless crime

So what, even if the actors were above the age of consent for having sex, the nanny state would still try to suppress the business.

Prostitution in itself is a victimless crime except where rape, violence and other acts of coercion inhibit tfree consent.

Since rape, violence and threats are already illegal, a prostitution law makes mno sense — except in situation where the state can already prosecute for other crimes.

The only remaining justification for a prostitution ban is an effort to suppress the commercialization of sex which is no legitimate state interest.

Chronno S. Trigger (profile) says:

Re: Victimless crime

“The only remaining justification for a prostitution ban is an effort to suppress the commercialization of sex…”

How much does the porn industry make a year? Isn’t it one of the largest industries in the world? Yeah, sex has been commercialized. There is no legitimate justification.

John Fenderson (profile) says:

Re: Re: Victimless crime

Agreed. I have never understood, even a little, why prostitution itself is a crime. I don’t see any difference between being a prostitute and being employed in any other field: in all cases, we are exchanging the use of our bodies for money.

When minors or coercion are involved, the equation changes, as it should. This, too, is no different than with any other line of work and has nothing to do with prostitution specifically.

btr1701 (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Victimless crime

I have never understood, even a little, why prostitution itself
> is a crime. I don’t see any difference between being a prostitute
> and being employed in any other field: in all cases, we are
> exchanging the use of our bodies for money.

Indeed. And all the evils that the anti-prostitution folks always cite in defense of these laws (violence against the girls, violence against the johns, drug use, spread of disease, etc.) all go away once it’s legalized. One only needs to look at the legal brothels in Nevada to see that. All those bad things only happen because it’s illegal.

Anonymous Coward says:

They're kids!

This is one of my least favorite stories I’ve ever read on TechDirt. The comments are pretty predictable, but one thing I cannot appreciate is the snarky attitude to this situation. This is a kid. Heck, all of them are kids when you come down to it. This is not a ‘criminal mastermind’ and these plans were obviously not hatched with Oceans 11 precision or forethought. Maybe it’s the fact that I had friends who previously attended those schools that sets me off, but damn. You should try another title “Young girl and boy do something stupid, get caught, and are punished.” Worthless clickbait.

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