ATLANTA — Prosecutors want the the Supreme Court to preserve a tactic used in capturing adults who seek to solicit sex from children online.
On Monday they asked the seven justices to overturn a decision by the Court of Appeals that sided with Dennis Cosmo, a man convicted in 2012 of online child solicitation in northwest Georgia’s Catoosa County. The Appeals Court agreed with Cosmo’s lawyer who argued that the man never had contact with a child and so couldn’t be convicted under the wording of Georgia’s law at the time.
The Legislature has since changed the law to include indirect attempts at solicitation. The new wording took effect last year.
Cosmo had replied to a Craigslist ad placed by a multiple-agency task force led by the FBI posing as “Amber,” the fictitious mother of girls ages 14 and nine.
Cosmo exchanged several e-mails with Amber, who had offered herself and daughters for various sex acts for money. He confirmed a date over the phone with a woman posing as the mother and was arrested when he showed up.
The case is important because the task force used the tactics in other cases across North Georgia and other police used similar tactics throughout the state, according to Assistant District Attorney Alan Norton.
via Georgia high court asked to uphold tactic to capture sex predators | The Augusta Chronicle.
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