Retired Officer Charged with Sex Crimes Against Minors
A 53-year-old retired California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer faces multiple sex crime charges after allegedly using a social networking site to contact children. According to The Daily Breeze, the Burbank man was arrested the morning of April 29. Officials say he allegedly identified himself as a teenage girl on Tagged.com to meet an 11-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl. He was charged with two counts each of possession of child pornography, contact with a minor for sexual offense, and sending harmful matter to a minor. He retired from the CHP in 2012.
You do not have to make physical contact with a minor to face serious sex crime charges in California. For example, you can face misdemeanor or felony charges for “sexting” a minor, or for sending a minor harmful material with the intention of seducing him or her.
It is important to understand what type of material is considered harmful matter under California law. Under Penal Code Section 313 (a), “Harmful matter means matter, taken as a whole, which to the average person, applying contemporary statewide standards, appeals to the prurient interest, and is matter which, taken as a whole, depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct and which, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”
