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So, I guess PJ cannot claim their "100% conviction" rate anymore, as if it was true in the first place?
08/16/2011
By PAUL PAYNE
A former Watsonville sailor caught in a nationally televised Petaluma child-sex sting five years ago was acquitted Tuesday by a Sonoma County judge who said there was insufficient evidence of lewd intent in online chats the man had with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl.
In dismissing the case against [name withheld], 26, Judge Arthur Wick also criticized the tactics used by Dateline NBC's “To Catch a Predator” and agents from the group, Perverted Justice, whom he suggested lacked credibility and engaged in entrapment.
“The axiom actions speak louder than words clearly does not apply in this case,” Wick said from the bench.
[name withheld] and his parents were ecstatic. The ex-Navy cook was kicked out of the military and spent about a year in jail after his 2006 arrest on a charge of attempting lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor.
“I'm ready to move on with my life,” he said outside the courtroom. “Hopefully the service will take me back.”
His mother, [mother name withheld], said she and her pediatrician husband spent more than $100,000 defending their son. She vowed to sue NBC producers and called the sting a “huge waste” of tax money.
“They made my son's life a living hell for five years,” she said.
A Dateline spokeswoman, Amy Lynn, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Wick's ruling came as the prosecution rested following six days of trial testimony. Jurors were expected to be dismissed this afternoon.
[name withheld]'s attorney, Stephen Turer, argued his client's online chats were innocuous and that he intended nothing other than “cuddling and watching movies” when he rode a bus 110 miles north to meet the girl in Petaluma.
