Jurors told a judge Friday that they were deadlocked in the trial of a 24-year-old Los Angeles man accused of driving to Thousand Oaks with the intention of having sex with a 15-year-old girl he met in an Internet chat room.
The man actually was chatting with a sheriff’s detective, who arrested him.
The jury foreman told Superior Court Judge Harry Walsh that the vote was nine in favor of a not-guilty verdict and three in favor of a guilty verdict.
The judge declared a mistrial and scheduled a hearing June 12 to determine whether the defendant, Mohd Nafiz Imtiaz, will be retried.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Howard Wise said in an interview that he doesn’t know yet whether the district attorney will seek to try the case again. Wise said he had “great respect” for the jury’s decision.
Wise and Imtiaz’s lawyer, Patrick E. Clancy, met with jurors after the trial to discuss the case.
Clancy said jurors told him they believed Imtiaz didn’t really expect to have sex and assumed the person he was chatting with wasn’t really 15. Clancy described his client as a shy college student who uses the Internet as fantasy entertainment because he is bored and has few friends.
Wise said jurors told him that authorities should still continue doing Internet stings to find pedophiles prowling cyberspace for minors.
“That’s a lesson I’ll take back, and we’ll continue doing that,” said Wise.
Imtiaz was charged with having contact with a minor with the intent to commit a sexual offense, a felony.
During opening statements in the trial, Wise said Imtiaz was eager to have sex with a girl he knew as Amanda. Wise said the defendant met the girl through a chat room at Yahoo.com in February and gave a graphic description of actions he wanted to take with her.
Imtiaz was directed to see her photo on MySpace. Wise said the photograph of the supposedly 15-year-old girl actually was a photo of an adult undercover female deputy, and in reality, Imtiaz was chatting with sheriff’s Detective Anthony Aguirre.
Imtiaz encouraged the fictitious 15-year-old to sneak out of the house and go to a motel with him, Wise said.
Aguirre arrested Imtiaz when he went to Conejo Creek Park in Thousand Oaks to meet the girl.
Clancy, of Walnut Creek, told jurors his client was part of a cyberspace fantasy world with a lot of “masquerading” and lies. Clancy said his client is studying computers in Santa Monica.
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/apr/11/jury-deadlocked-in-internet-sex-trial/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The jury on this case are crazy, how dare them.
Post a Comment