‘Dateline NBC’ Sting Raises Questions About Online-Solicitation-of-a-Minor Law

But spokeswoman says TV show does not anticipate changing its reports in wake of assistant DA’s suicide

Article
John Council and Brenda Sapino Jeffreys
Texas Lawyer
November 15, 2006

When police officers knocked on the door of the Terrell, Texas, home of Louis W. “Bill” Conradt Jr. to serve him with warrants in connection with an online-solicitation-of-a-minor case, the experienced prosecutor didn’t answer.

After working for more than two decades enforcing the Texas Penal Code, Conradt likely knew that the law that had brought the officers to his door was one of the strongest of its kind in the nation — a statute that would eliminate any defense he could offer in a courtroom.

With a “Dateline NBC” camera crew outside Conradt’s house, police entered the premises on Nov. 5. That’s when Conradt used a gun to kill himself, according to Murphy, Texas, Police Department Sgt. Snow Robertson.

Robertson alleges Conradt, a 56-year-old Rockwall County assistant district attorney who previously had served as Kaufman County’s elected DA, had exchanged sexual electronic messages with a person he believed to be a 13-year-old boy. The boy was actually an adult posing as a child. The adult worked with Perverted Justice, an organization that has gained national attention recently for outing adults who allegedly engage in sexual conversations in Internet chat rooms with people they believe are children.

Perverted Justice members pose as kids in chat rooms and wait to be contacted by adults. Often after adults attempt to set up meetings to engage in sex with people they believe are children, the group names the individuals on its Web site, notifying the adults’ employers and family members.

More recently, Perverted Justice has worked with “Dateline” on the televised series “To Catch a Predator.” The program shows adults who arrive at pre-arranged locations believing they are about to have sex with a child. “Dateline NBC” also works with police officers who arrest the targets on camera after a “Dateline” reporter interviews the adults. “Dateline,” Perverted Justice and the police recently completed a sting operation in Murphy.

Robertson says Conradt did not go to the prearranged location, which was a house in Murphy.

He says the police were attempting to deliver a search warrant and an arrest warrant on Conradt when he shot himself.

Robertson says at least 23 individuals from around Texas were arrested in the Murphy sting.

Williamson County, Texas, District Attorney John Bradley did not know Conradt, but he says a state law that went into effect on Sept. 1, 2005, makes felony convictions against defendants who solicit children online almost a certainty.

“Any prosecutor would know not only that the law makes it much easier to prosecute these cases but eliminates many of the defenses,” says Bradley, who has taught a class for state prosecutors on how to try online predator cases.

According to the online-solicitation-of-a-minor law, §33.021 of the Texas Penal Code, it is a second-degree felony to communicate in a sexually explicit manner with a person the actor believes to be under the age of 14. The law also eliminates most of the common defenses to online-solicitation-of-a-minor charges, including that no meeting ever took place between the adult and child; that the actor did not intend for a meeting to take place; or that the actor was engaged in a fantasy at the time of the offense.

The law is one of the only Texas felonies that doesn’t require the state to prove that the defendant committed an “overt act” — that the person made a move to commit a crime, says Phillip Robertson, a Dallas criminal defense attorney who has represented people accused of online sexual crimes. The law goes too far in that it criminalizes the thoughts people have, he says.

“It just guts any defense that you have if you were just role playing. It really allows the police to come and testify about what your intentions were when you know what your intentions were,” Robertson says. “I think you need to have an overt act.”

But Fred Moss, a criminal law professor at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, disagrees with Robertson. The act of typing on a computer keyboard is the overt act, he says. The online-solicitation-of-a-minor law is preventative in nature, he adds.

“This is just another example of how the law is pushing back to allow law enforcement to jump in and prevent a crime from occurring,” Moss says.

But combine that tough law with an unusual sting operation, and it should give prosecutors cause for concern, Bradley says.

“Here was two outside entities — one is Perverted Justice and the other is “Dateline.” And each of those entities has different missions and objectives than law enforcement,” Bradley says. “And they certainly have done a great deal toward assisting and prosecuting these investigations. But it may be time to look at the ethical and legal guidelines to make sure their involvement is not inappropriately influencing these investigations.”

Prosecutors are limited in what they can say or release about criminal investigations to ensure the integrity of their cases — limitations that do not apply to the press or groups such as Perverted Justice, Bradley says.

“I don’t know what impact their involvement had on this guy’s suicide. … I’m not trying to defend what he did or say what his punishment should have been. The circumstances ought to cause people to pause and think about how we structure these things.”

OVERT ACTS

Collin County District Attorney John Roach says his office will evaluate the evidence collected by the Murphy Police Department and present it to a grand jury for possible indictment of the individuals who were arrested in the sting.

Since the law only requires solicitation, “it’s just a question of establishing the idea that these were the persons on the computers,” Roach says.

Roach says the Murphy Police Department notified his office about a week ago about the sting, but the DA’s office was not involved in it. He says it remains to be seen if the presence of the television cameras will have an impact on possible prosecutions.

“Our position is this about these kinds of things: We are in the law enforcement business, not show business,” Roach says.

In a written statement, “Dateline NBC” says there was no contact between Conradt and the television program at any point in the Murphy sting. “Dateline NBC” spokeswoman Jenny Tartikoff says a date has not been set to broadcast the Murphy sting. “Dateline” does not anticipate changing how it reports stings in the wake of Conradt’s death, she says.

Many of the individuals arrested in the sting were taken into custody when they went to a house in Murphy, presumably to meet the youth they had been chatting with on the Internet, Robertson says.

Conradt did not go to the house, Robertson says. He says a “Dateline” crew was outside Conradt’s house on Nov. 5 while police were attempting to serve him with the warrants.

Conradt’s boss, Rockwall County Criminal District Attorney Galen Ray Sumrow, says the arrest could have been handled more appropriately.

“This guy comes to work every morning at about 7:30. They could have arrested him in the parking lot,” Sumrow says. “I question the methodology they used. The question that comes to mind: Were they really doing it for law enforcement purposes, or were they doing it for reality TV?”

A representative from Perverted Justice, who responded in writing to e-mail questions, says this is the first time a case — in the hundreds of cases the group has been involved in — resulted in a suicide as police attempted to serve an arrest warrant.

“I don’t think our role in this had anything to do with Conradt’s decision — he chose to solicit a child, and he chose to end his life,” says Xavier Von Erck, director of operations for Perverted Justice. “We just find it disappointing that he will now not be convicted in a court of law to serve time.”

Von Erck says that no investigation the organization has been involved with has had a negative impact on a criminal prosecution.

“No prosecutor that has worked with us has gone away unpleased. No law enforcement that has worked with us have gone away unpleased. Law enforcement that works with us knows what we’re about, which is specialized investigations into this sort of crime,” Von Erck says.

“Everything we do prior to arrest is shown and poured over by law enforcement,” Von Erck says. “If they don’t like the evidence we gather, the individual isn’t … arrested.”

Houston’s Steven Rocket Rosen is another criminal defense attorney who has big problems with the Texas online-solicitation-of-a-minor law. Rosen argues that the 14-month-old law infringes on an individual’s First Amendment rights in his own home.

“It’s truly, truly unconstitutional. It’s an invasion of our First Amendment rights. What I fear are juries failing to understand our greatest rights in the world,” he says.

In Rosen’s view, there should be a legal difference between fantasy and the “real intent” to engage in solicitation of a minor. But the online-solicitation-of-a-minor law doesn’t recognize that.

Rosen, of the Law Offices of Steven Rocket Rosen, says he is defending three individuals, one in Fort Bend County and two in Harris County, from online-solicitation-of-a-minor charges. One of his clients may spurn a plea bargain and go to trial, potentially providing Rosen with an opportunity to fight the untested law in an appellate court. However, beyond the constitutional issue, Rosen concedes the law provides little means of defense.

“The worst part of this whole thing — obviously being convicted of a felony is bad — but when you become a registered sex offender for the rest of your life, if you have a family and you have children, what a disservice,” Rosen says. “You can’t take your kids to the zoo. You can’t have your kids’ friends come over.”

BELIEFS

Sumrow, the Rockwall County DA, says he and everyone in his office is numb about the news of Conradt’s death and what led up to it.

“If the allegations are true, we are certainly blindsided by it,” says Sumrow, the Rockwall County DA for 21 years.

Sumrow says Conradt, who worked for him as chief felony prosecutor since 2004, was a fair but vigorous prosecutor. “He certainly believed in what he did,” says Sumrow.

Conradt was the DA in Kaufman County for 22 years, until he mounted an unsuccessful run for district judge in 2002.

Taryn Davis, who worked in the Kaufman County DA’s office from 1995 until 2000, says she’s “absolutely stunned” about the circumstances of the death of a man she admired.

“He was a good guy, and obviously I don’t know I can tell you that with these allegations looming over his death,” Davis says. “He was a brilliant man. I don’t know. I don’t believe the allegations, first of all. I don’t believe he would ever harm anyone.”

Davis, a solo practitioner in Kaufman, says she wishes he had reached out to friends for help.

She says, “He did so many good things as a prosecutor and as a person, and the bad part about all of this is I’m afraid he will be known for that last day and not the rest.”