12-Color
12 The News-Press
June 19, 2014
Man convicted of luring details `painful road’ Ronald Lewis says he’s being punished for something that wasn’t ‘real’
For Lakewood resident Ronald Laroy Lewis, the term “Internet crimes against children” didn’t mean much before April 10. “Then Kayla happened,” Lewis said. “Nightmare. Biggest nightmare yet.” Lewis, 34, was arrested on April 11, 2013 and charged with one count of Internet sexual exploitation of a child and Internet luring of a child, one day after a Douglas County investigator responded to a Craigslist ad that he posted saying he was looking for a “barely legal” woman for sex. “Kayla” was the persona designed by a Douglas County Sheriff’s Office investigator to nab predators online. She responded to the ad with a simple “hello” and told him that she was 14 years old in subsequent
messages. He was convicted on April 16 of this year. “Prosecutors pointed and gestured at me, like I deserved to be put away for life,” he said. “All for something that wasn’t real in the first place.” Lewis, a Denver-based Libertarian activist and author, said the case against him was based on “typos and lies” and “theories and beliefs.” A court news release said he posted the ad on April 10, 2013, the same day that investigators contacted him pretending to be a 14-year-old girl, but Lewis said he posted it at least a month before. Suffering from a “deep” depression and an aching loneliness, Lewis claimed he was desperate for female companionship, aggressively posting and responding to Craigslist ads, sometimes with explicit photos of himself. But Lewis, using an app called Wickr that wipes messages after a certain time period, claimed that he never pursued underage females online. On Craigslist, he said it was not uncommon for people to misrep-
resent themselves — a man pretending to be a woman or a user lying about their age — and said he never believed “Kayla” was actually 14-years-old. He admits that he had never encountered an older woman pretending to be 14, and that he continued a sexual conversation with the investigator after hearing the age on the second message. “The prosecution essentially told the jury my pain wasn’t real, that I was a monster after little ol’ Kayla,” Lewis said. “Sure. I’d really throw my life away over a 14-yearold.” When asked why he continued the conversation after knowing the girl’s age, Lewis said “the picture said they weren’t. The conversation said the same. My irrational mind.” Prosecutors alleged that Lewis offered “Kayla” sex, condoms and marijuana and provided directions to his home and a photo of his genitalia, but Lewis disputes the marijuana offering and said he never provided his actual address. More than anything, Lewis claimed that he never solicited sex from a minor during
the past 17 years using the Internet. “One issue for me here is the construct of laws in society. I never imagined myself in this position ever,” Lewis said. “There are men right now one step away from falling into another trap. They’re devastated and starved for attention, sex, everything.” Douglas County prosecutor Gary Dawson, not speaking specifically about Lewis’ case, said that the majority of ICAC defendants are “outliers.” “The vast majority of citizens do the right thing (when confronted by an investigator pretending to be a teenager),” Dawson said. Lewis is scheduled to be sentenced June 27. He wonders where investigators were when he disengaged chatting with teenagers online in the past and said the process, from arrest to conviction, was “a painful road.” “I have gone my entire life without issue,” Lewis said. “This matter is my deepest regret.”
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beating down my door to get my position. There are times that I have to get up and take a walk because I just watched an infant being raped.”
and inducement to prove they were entrapped in an ICAC case. He said entrapment is “rarely successful,” calling it “a peculiar defense because the defendant is saying that I committed the crime but I did it because the government induced me to do it.” “Think about this, the government has to implant in your head that it’s a pretty good idea to have sex with kids,” Clancy said. “Investigators are just giving these guys what they think is an opportunity to do what they want to do with kids.” Cronce called the idea of entrapment “absurd.” “We’re not on the other end of the computer, holding a gun to their head,” the detective said. “These are sexually-explicit conversations. We also do not come up with the need. Entrapment means you give the person no other option but to act.” The detective said that during these online stings, suspects always believe they are speaking to someone “well under the age of 18” and it’s always the suspect that asks to meet.
Gary Dawson, who is a part of the special victims unit. Most don’t have a criminal history and, thanks to shows like “To Catch a Predator,” are aware that law enforcement are fishing for pedophiles online, he said. “That’s the scary part, they have a good idea there’s an investigator out there,” Dawson said. “That speaks to how dangerous those kind of offenders can be — that they’re not dissuaded by that kind of risk. They still move forward with it anyway because they’re set on it.” In luring cases, Cronce said that investigators don’t “lead the conversation” and only respond to the suspects, typically men, that she chats with online. She called it “gratifying” when prosecutors earn a conviction. “All of these guys demonstrate that these guys aren’t living in a fantasy world,” Clancy said. “I think the vast number of people caught up in these things are people who are predisposed. Is it unsavory? I’ll let other people make that call. What I do think is important is that persons who have this type of fantasy should be caught, punished and allow children to be children. “There’s just so many of them. It’s everywhere.”
By Hannah Garcia
Special to Colorado Community Media
Continued from Page 1
“Hand over fist, I download child pornography all day long,” Cronce said. “Sadly, I can make a Class-3 felony case in less than five minutes.” Cronce views nearly everything she downloads while making a child pornography case, which usually elicits an “it-wasan-accident” defense from perpetrators, she said. But browser history and hard drive content typically dispel any believable defense, she said. “The way I look at it, if they have to endure it, I can stand to watch it (in the process of making a case),” she said, calling it a “memorialization of their sexual abuse.” By law, anything pornographic involving someone under the age of 18 constitutes child pornography. Cronce said parents should be wary of letting children have too much freedom online and with their phones, because “sexting” fodder sometimes comes up in her cases. After nine years of working these kinds of cases, Cronce said her motto is still the same: “Let’s go get ‘em.” “I will work them as long as they will let me,” Cronce said. “It’s not like people are
A changing landscape Although Cronce and investigators like her around the country find most perpetrators on classifieds sites like Craigslist or Backpage, law professor Tom Clancy said an ever-diversifying electronic arsenal is impacting ICAC investigations. Clancy is a law professor at the University of Mississippi and director of the National Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law. As director, he created the institute’s Cyber Crime Initiative, which helps state governments with training and model programs designed to attack computer-based crimes. “Law enforcement’s challenges are multiplied because they (predators) are mobile,” Clancy said, citing apps that allow users to wipe data and an increasing ability for parents to screen their children’s media usage. “All that does is add to the available points of contact,” Clancy said.
An `absurd’ defense As a legal defense, Clancy said a defendant has to prove a lack of predisposition
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`Allow children to be children’
It’s not uncommon for defendants to show up to a designated meeting area with condoms and “other things” when they believe they are meeting a child for sex, according to Douglas County prosecutor
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