If a predator is found to have used the internet to sexually pursue someone calling him\/herself a child \u2013 even if that person is actually a detective \u2013 this is punishable by imprisonment.
\nThis is an area of enforcement that has seen a great deal of new attention and allocation of resources in the past 5 years. Many agencies have full time officers that sit at computers all day and night, trolling the chat rooms, personals listings (FaceBook, Backpage, etc) looking for anyone who is interested in illicit sex, particularly with children. The offenses range from attempting to lure or entice a child for sexual purposes to sending harmful materials (nude pics) to someone who you believe to be a child. The fact that there turns out to be no child but rather a 35-year-old detective, is not a defense.<\/p>\n
Knowing possession of child pornography is also a serious offense committed entirely over the internet. If the police find 25 images of child pornography on your computer, you can be charged with 25 separate felonies, each punishable for up to 5 years in prison. An image that has been \u201cDeleted\u201d on your computer is not gone. It is merely in a registry of your computer where you cannot recall that image. The police have special forensic software that permits them to go into these deleted file registries and recover the images. You can be charged with possession of the images even though you have no way to retrieve them. The questions is whether you intentionally viewed them before deleting them. This area of the law is more complicated than you might suspect.<\/p>\n