Sexual talk or conduct involving kids of any age is dangerous in Colorado. Police frequently pose as kids online and elicit sexual conversation, only to lead you into the commission of a crime. Internet Sexual Exploitation of a Child, C.R.S. 18-3-405.4, is a perfect example. You might be minding your own business in a Yahoo Romance chat room, and a person strikes up a conversation with you. As your conversation develops, if you ultimately invite a person less than 15 years of age to touch or expose their own or another’s intimate parts, or ask them to observe your intimate parts (i.e. you send a picture of your intimate parts), police will arrest and charge you. What seems like a private and confidential exchange is recorded and used as evidence against you in Douglas, Arapahoe and Adams County. Internet Sexual Exploitation of a Child is a class 4 felony in Colorado, and a sex offense. With a conviction, people are required to register as a sex offender and complete the onerous SOMB sex treatment.
C.R.S. 18-6-403, Sexual Exploitation of a Child, is a close cousin of Internet Sexual Exploitation of a Child, and involves any child less than 18 years old (versus 15 for the above crime). It can be charged as a class 6, class 4 or class 3 felony in Denver, Jefferson or Broomfield County. This crime generally involves the creation, distribution, or possession of child nudity (child porn). Mere possession of a few images of a child all the way up to 17 years of age, would be the class six felony version. As the number of images increases, or as the involvement in creating the images (or video) increases, so does the severity of the charge, resulting in either a class four or class three felony. While Sexual Exploitation of a Child often involves the internet and websites like Limewire, it does not have to.
I wanted to write and warn our blog readers of the serious consequences of discussing sex with a child, sending images to a child, or receiving images from a child. We even had a juvenile charged with Sexual Exploitation of a Child after a classmate sent him a nude picture of herself. He did not ask for the image, but was charged anyway. This just illustrates how Police in Larimer and Weld County are quick to arrest.
If you are caught in an internet sting or entrapped into criminal conduct like Internet Sexual Exploitation of a Child, be smart, exercise your right to remain silent (don’t talk to police), and call the experienced Sexual Exploitation lawyers at 303-731-0719. Together, we can protect your future.