Man on trial for trying to meet girl on MySpace

Prosecutors allege that Mohd Nafiz Imtiaz drove from Los Angeles to Thousand Oaks for the sole purpose of meeting the 15-year-old girl he met in an Internet chat room in February and having sex with her.
The 24-year-old Imtiaz is on trial at Ventura County Superior Court on charges of having contact with a minor with the intent to commit a sexual offense, a felony.
Prosecutor Howard Wise told jurors during opening statements Friday that evidence will show Imtiaz was “eager” to have sex with a girl he knew as Amanda and had seen in a photo on MySpace.
What Imtiaz didn’t know was that he was actually chatting with Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Detective Anthony Aguirre, who is trained and hunts down sexual predators in cyberspace who are on the prowl for minors.
Wise said the photograph of the 15-year-old girl used by detectives was that of an undercover adult female deputy.
Wise said Imtiaz called the female deputy who Imtiaz believed was the 15-year-old he was chatting with and talked about meeting her.
During two chat sessions on Feb. 4 and 11 on the Internet, Wise said, Imtiaz used very graphic description to indicate what he wanted to do.
Imtiaz encouraged the decoy 15-year-old to sneak out of the house and go to a motel with him.
Wise read portions of many messages like: “You just give me a call as soon as your mom goes out” and “I want you in my life ur young and I can manage that.”
Wise said Imtiaz was arrested by Aguirre when he went to Conejo Creek Park in Thousand Oaks to meet the girl.
Imtiaz’s lawyer, Patrick E. Clancy, of Walnut Creek, told jurors during his opening statements his client is a part of a cyberspace world of pretend and fantasy where there is a lot of “masquerading” and lies everywhere.
“People lie about who they are,” he said, adding that this is all part of the cyberspace game.
Clancy said his client until recently lived in Bangladesh and is studying computers in Santa Monica.
Clancy said the chat room became a source of entertainment and his client never believed he was chatting or talking to a girl who posted confusing information about her age on MySpace.
He said it was Aguirre who wanted to set up the meeting, citing his message: “So do you ever come to Thousand Oaks.”
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/apr/03/man-on-trial-for-trying-to-meet-girl-on-myspace/