Plan B Forum

NC sex offender gets prison for Facebook request

WENTWORTH, N.C. (AP) — A convicted North Carolina sex offender is going back to jail after deputies say he sent a Facebook friend request to one of his victims.

Investigators say 36-year-old Victor Gaston of Reidsville was sentenced to at least five and a half years in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to one count of using social media as a sex offender.

Deputies say Gaston sent the request July 4, despite having been ordered to have no contact with the victim. Officers said he had been using Facebook for about two weeks.

Gaston has been a registered sex offender since 2003. State prison records show he was released from prison in 2003 after serving nearly two years [ ] for taking indecent liberties with a child.

http://news.yahoo.com/nc-sex-offender-g ... 31221.html

Future MENSA candidate?

Five and a half years for a "friend" request? Are you shitting me?

His last recorded offense was in 2001. That's TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO, my friend.

Couldn't the police have just visited his house and told him not to do that?

Throwing this guy in prison for any length of time - let alone 5-1/2 years - is about the dumbest fucking think I've heard this week. If this isn't an 8th Amendment violation, I don't know what is.

If he breaks the "no contact" order and gets away with it where does it end Dave?
Would you prefer to wait until he took "indecent liberties" with another child?

Personally I'm all for nipping these things in the bud. If that is the sentence set out for breaking the "no contact" order then that's what he deserves.
Facebook just happens to be the method of contact. If he'd cut letters from newspaper saying, "Can I be your friend?", stuck them to paper and mailed it to the victim we wouldn't be having this discussion. The use of Facebook simply raises the absurdity level a little and makes it seem, to some, more of a trivial offence.

I'm truly dumbfounded by your attitude Dave...

What do you think about the original, obscenely short "nearly two year sentence" for the taking "taking indecent liberties with a child" conviction?

That was what outraged me, about this....

So you think that when someone who engages in this behavior contacts his victim, in violation of the law, that the penalty should be being told, "don't do that again"

Would you say the same of a rapist who has been released from prison and contacts his victim?

A sexual predator trying to contact his victim is; in any way, shape, manner or form, stalking. ...which is why it's illegal, if you violate that restrictive order.

I'm not sure what "indecent liberties" means. If it means, "locked the kid up in a house and forcibly raped him/her for a week," then 5-1/2 years in the slammer is an appropriate reaction.

But it seems to me that if 2 years was an appropriate punishment for the original offense - and by definition it was - then a sentence that is three times a severe for a "friend request" is preposterous.

Is any sense of proportion unacceptable?

LJ, if you think 5 years is a rational sentence for this, then I can only presume you would favor the death penalty for what the Penn State coach did.

Right?

"21-3503. Indecent liberties with a child.

(a) Indecent liberties with a child is engaging in any of the following acts with a child who is 14 or more years of age but less than 16 years of age:

Any lewd fondling or touching of the person of either the child or the offender, done or submitted to with the intent to arouse or to satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the offender, or both; or
soliciting the child to engage in any lewd fondling or touching of the person of another with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of the child, the offender or another.

(b) It shall be a defense to a prosecution of indecent liberties with a child as described in subsection (a)(1) that the child was married to the accused at the time of the offense.

(c) Indecent liberties with a child is a severity level 5, person felony*."

*That's the same level as Aggravated battery conviction.

"locked the kid up in a house and forcibly raped him/her for a week," then 5-1/2 years in the slammer is an appropriate reaction.

Actually, for the crime you described, that would be way too short...

if 2 years was an appropriate punishment for the original offense - and by definition it was

Really Dave? You've never once, not a single time, ever seen a case where you thought that a sentence handed by a judge was "inappropriate?" Either too harsh or to lenient? Never?

If so, you have way more faith in the infallibility of our Jurists than I do....

LJ, if you think 5 years is a rational sentence for this, then I can only presume you would favor the death penalty for what the Penn State coach did.

Right?

Wrong.

I only support the death penalty for murderers and traitors. (And obviously one can be a traitor and be convicted of crimes other than treason...like espionage...and still appropriately face execution)

In the Sandusky case, I would support his being sentenced to the maximum allowed by law on every charge he is convicted of, to be served consecutively....

If that results in a 400 year sentence, so be it....

I would also not favor his serving his time in a Super Max facility...

In Super Max, you spend the vast majority of your time in isolation....

I would want Mr. Sandusky to serve his sentence in a facility where he would have ample opportunity to get to know his dorm mates....

I am only hypothesizing, but . . . it is likely the two years previously served were part of a longer, largely suspended sentence, and that the violation of the probation condition that he have no contact with his victim(s) resulted in revocation as well as the new charge.

Even if that's not the case, the sentence for the new offense would be considered by the Judge in light of his record and the context. In my experience most Judges take violations of no contact with victims prohibitions VERY seriously. It's reasonable to assume the contact was unwanted, else it would not have come to the attention of law enforcement.

I have no problem assuming the Judge's reasoning in issuing that sentence was sound, unless some substantial evidence to the contrary is offered.

Again, hypothesizing, but it's likely he will not serve the full 5 years before becoming eligible for release.

OK. If the 5-1/2 years includes a number of years tacked on due to a previously suspended sentence, that is significantly different from 5-1/2 years for an unwanted contact. But that's your supposition and I suppose it's rational to assume that the reporter was trying to make the story shocking rather than informative.

Still, 2 years for the crime described above with a 14-16 year old seems entirely appropriate.

If it is in fact 5-1/2 years for attempting to re-connect with the original victim, it is crazy as fuck. There are homicides that do not result in that severe a sentence. And that definitely does fuck up the life of the victim.

dgs49 wrote:If it is in fact 5-1/2 years for attempting to re-connect with the original victim, it is crazy as fuck. There are homicides that do not result in that severe a sentence. And that definitely does fuck up the life of the victim.

That bolded bit is what you should be calling crazy as fuck.

bigskygal wrote:It's reasonable to assume the contact was unwanted, else it would not have come to the attention of law enforcement.

Good point, it was probably the original victim that reported this contact to police. How else would law enforcement have known? Facebook doesn't publicly share friend requests.