More Lives Sabotaged by National Faux-Sex-Trafficking Witch-Hunt
Prosecutors drop charges against men arrested in prostitution sting...after costing them their jobs by portraying them as sex traffickers.
"A Kearney man is no longer associated with the University of Nebraska at Kearney after being one of 12 men arrested last month in connection with sex trafficking," reported the Kearney Hub in August. That man, 42-year-old Cory Walcott, was chair of the Military Science Department at the University of Nebraska Kearney until he was busted in a highly-publicized national sting sold as way to stop child sexual exploitation.
But what was Walcott actually accused of? Answering an online ad purportedly posted by an adult woman willingly selling sex.
Walcott was originally arrested for solicitation after reaching out to the "sex worker," who was actually an undercover cop. Now, Nebraska law enforcement can't even sustain that charge. Prosecutors have now announced they are dropping the charge against Walcott and another man, Maurice Briggs, though they did not say why.
Their arrests were both part of the "National John Suppression Initiative," a series of nationwide sex stings coordinated by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart. Every few months, police departments across the country pose undercover as either sex workers or their clients, arrest a lot of adult men and women for things like prostitution and solicitation, then put out splashy press releases about all the "sex trafficking arrests" they've made.
These coordinated efforts to entrap people around the country lead to large initial arrest-counts, ensuring them prominent placement in U.S. media. But few outlets ask questions about specific charges, merely accepting police PR that these were predators arrested and not largely adult men and women trying to have consensual sex. Nor do many folks follow up on the results of these stings. If they did, it would become clear that the "National John Suppression Initiative" has naught to do with stopping sexual exploitation of minors.
Most efforts wind up as they did in Lincoln, Nebraksa—where initial headlines about the August bust announced "12 arrested in Nebraska for sex trafficking related crimes" and "Lincoln teacher among those arrested in sex-trafficking operation." But the ultimate arrest/rescue breakdown for Lincoln?
- no underage or adult sex-trafficking victims discovered
- no force, fraud, or coercion discovered
- four women, ages 23 to 36, charged with misdemeanor prostitution
- five men charged with misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution
- one man charged with felony solicitation of prostitution
- one man charged with marijuana possession
- charges dropped against Corey Walcott, who was arrested for solicitation of prostitution
- charges dropped for Maurice Briggs, who was arrested for pandering
Like Walcott, Dwain Borchers, 58, who had been a physical education teacher at Lincoln's Northeast High School since 1993, also lost his job a result of the police sting. Borchers was charged with misdemeanor solicitation for reaching out to an undercover officer posing as an adult sex worker.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
The war on sex took a lot of lessons from the war on drugs. Now that public sentiment is against the latter but completely in favor of the former, expect it to go in a lot of the same directions. I’m waiting for the cops to seize somebody’s house under asset forfeiture after they’re arrested for solicitation.
Stop giving them ideas!
they are already seizing cars . . .
five men charged with misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution
one man charged with felony solicitation of prostitution
What bumps you up from misdemeanor to felony solicitation? Hiring a really fat prostitute?
300 pounds sor similar to the FLA law that makes $300 grand theft.
I think it means they’ve been arrested/convicted for it multiple times. Progressive penalties for each, eventually it’s a felony.
prior solicitation charge
Ah, the DUI theory where somehow a previous instance makes the next instance MORE criminal.
Now you’ve complicated your crimes by not listening when they told you the first time.
The government operates on the theory that destroying jobs and lives of ever-more Americans can be a sustainable profit-bearing enterprise over the long term.
More and more, government officials seem to believe their purpose it to ruin people’s lives. I feel like the facade of righteousness is falling away and it’s really just becoming about the routine destruction of people’s lives. I genuinely don’t understand how these people sleep at night.
They’re sociopaths, that’s how. Just think of all of them as little Hillarys and you get the picture.
I wonder how much of that is informed by a retributive theory of justice. If the legal system were built on a foundation of harm reduction or restitution to victims or isolating and rehabilitating dangerous people rather than on righteously punishing infractions, would we see less zeal to prosecute and destroy than we do now?
Speaking of which, where’s he been since tapegate broke?
National John Citizen Suppression Initiative
Someone had to fix that.
Remember that whole “Presumption of Innocence” thing we used to have? That was awesome.
If people were truly innocent, then why would the cops arrest them?
charges dropped for Maurice Briggs, who was arrested for pandering
Pandering is an arrestable crime now? I know a lot of people in Hollywood and on Capitol Hill that should start reaching out to a lawyer, then.
About 25 years…. how long it took nannies to realize people were using the internet for fun and then find ways to shut it down. The whole sex trafficking thing is just another example of how fundies from both ends of the spectrum can find ways to work together to screw up peoples lives. Of course the modern media has gotten ever better at getting the panic on, in order to try and stay relevant despite being utterly devoid of intelligence and ethics.
“Did you grow up watching a lot – and I mean a lot – of Law & Order SVU? Are you self-righteous enough to think that you know what people should and should not do with their own bodies? Do you hate yourself so much that you would pretend to sell your body in order to arrest lonely men? Then join the Kearney Police Department! After a few years of ruining peoples lives you will turn into a fat, heartless slob, but your cocoon of self-righteousness will make it seem like you are a hero! Join today!”
From an evolutionary perspective, humans have two missions in life, to survive and to have sex.
We’ve agreed as a country that we need to publicly supply food, shelter, and some health care to those who can’t procure those for themselves. Shouldn’t we also provide publicly funded sex partners to those who can’t procure that for themselves?
And surely we shouldn’t stigmatize sex welfare recipients by requiring them to have sex with substandard partners. Just like taxes should be paid by the most wealthy, shouldn’t our sex services be provided by the most sexy?
More than that, compare HRC’s take on health care costs for women (pay the same, go to doctors more often, live 5 years longer) to the “sex premium”. Is it unfair that men (have to) pay more for sex? Is it a “blue tax”?
Have you seen how sex-trafficking is portrayed on the nightly tranche of propaganda known as prime time TV? Several times now I’ve seen the cute white girls packed into actual shipping containers. They were literally being shipped to some other country. The script writers take that “trafficking” thing literally.
Does anyone want to send *polite* letters to the reporter at the Kearney Hub who reported on the guy’s arrest, asking they a prominent UPDATE be printed on the Web page?
kim.schmidt@kearneyhub.com
or
news@kearneyhub.com
Someone should start a fund to sue any TV news program and newspaper that publishes these false allegations, then does not publish the accused’s exoneration with equal or greater vigor.
This is sadly ironic considering that the leaders of our two national political parties are hotly debating which has the worst sex offender history. One being accused of protecting a rapist and harassing victims, the other caught on tape bragging about committing sexual assault. There is clearly something amiss in our culture when it comes to sexuality.
I don’t know about you, but I can foresee some “interesting” legal action arising.
While coming to education, the technology has brought many advantages to students and as well as teachers. showbox For example, students can do their homework or assignment with ease and can complete it faster by using the Internet.