Jace Hambrick worked as an apprentice laborer during the week, renovating homes around Vancouver, Wash., and at a neighborhood gas station on weekends. Much of the rest of his life was online. He was hard-core, amassing a collection of more than 200 games. People told him it wasn’t smart to be so cut off from reality, but his internet life felt rich. As a dungeon master in Dungeons & Dragons, he controlled other players’ destinies. As a video warrior, he was known online by his nom de guerre and was constantly messaging fellow gamers, particularly his best friend, Simon. Though the two had never met in person, over the last few years they paired up as teammates playing Rainbow Six Siege and Rocket League and grew close.
At 20, Hambrick was still living at home with his mother to save money for college, where he hoped to study game design. He was a voracious reader who could knock off a 1,000-page fantasy novel in two days. People liked him; he made them laugh. When he and his mother lived in places that had board-game clubs, he was a regular. And his kindness could be surprising. He would spend a morning handing out sandwiches to the hungry.
The problem, he knew, was that he was a nerd. Sometimes he was too open with people. As a boy, he took medication for A.D.H.D. His mother, Kathleen, describes him affectionately as her “introverted, sensitive, immature, coddled, nerdy son.” They are very close. She would prod him to get out more, but he wasn’t someone who could meet women at a bar. Online, it was different. Starting when he was 18, a few times a month, he clicked through the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist, looking for sex. There were so many listings, but when he tried messaging, it was rare to get a response. If people did respond, they often went dark after a few emails.
Users had to certify that they were 18 or older, but at the time Craigslist didn’t verify users’ age. People described their appearance in personal ads, then sent photos that didn’t match. Some seemed to enjoy role playing. He once replied to a post describing an attractive 21-year-old, but when he arrived at the address she gave him, an old man answered the door. He got out of there fast. Every once in a while, it worked out: In the past few years, he had sex with five or six women he met this way.
One Friday after work in February 2017, Hambrick came across a Casual Encounters “w4m” (woman searching for man) post that seemed meant for him.
“Jus gamer gurl sittin’ home on sunny day,” it read. “we can chat as long as im not lvling!”
Hambrick emailed back. “Sounds like fun. What game you playin?”
“i am HOOKED on ALIEN ISOLATION,” Gamer Gurl replied.
“forget sex,” Hambrick wrote. “Let me come watch I haven’t gottn that one yet,” adding that he was 20. Fifteen minutes later, Gamer Gurl replied that she was 13.
Hambrick was confused. “why did you post an ad in craigslist if your 13? You mean 23?”
She asked for his cellphone number and they switched to texting, exchanging photos. Gamer Gurl was beautiful, he thought, if he wasn’t being pranked: Big eyes, cute white cap, soft smile, gazing up at the camera serenely with a really nice set of headphones. (...)
Was this an elaborate game? Again she claimed to be 13. The photo seemed to tell a different story, and the gaming chair she was seated in looked too expensive for a kid. She used slang a 13-year-old probably wouldn’t know, like “FTP” — “[expletive] the police” — that originated in ’80s hip-hop. The vulgarities and snide tone seemed too adult. Her texts were full of “lol”s. Was she an immature teenager? Or a sly adult?
Her driving directions seemed too specific for 13.
Hambrick texted that he would be driving a red Prius — his mother’s — and Gamer Gurl replied she would be wearing a gray sweatshirt and ripped jeans.
It was a 20-minute drive to the house in suburban Vancouver. After stopping for condoms, he arrived at 7 p.m., three and a half hours after their first emails. She came to the door just as she’d said, in torn jeans and gray sweatshirt, as beautiful as her photo. She didn’t look 13 at all, more like she was in her 20s.
“You made it,” she called out and waved for him to follow, court documents would later show. When he got inside, she disappeared down a hallway. Suddenly two police officers wearing bulletproof vests appeared from a back room, ordered him to lie on the floor and handcuffed him.
“What’s going on?” Hambrick asked.
“We’re gonna advise you you’re under arrest.”
“OK, why?” he said.
“We’ll explain it all in just a moment,” one of the officers answered.
“Is it possible I could talk to my mom?” he later asked.
“That’s not possible right now.”
Since 2015, nearly 300 men in cities and towns across Washington State have been arrested in online-predator stings, most of them run by the State Patrol and code-named Operation Net Nanny. The men range in age from 17 to 77, though about a quarter are 25 or younger. As many as two dozen have been rounded up in a single sting and charged with attempted rape of a child, as Jace Hambrick was, even though no actual children were involved. The emails and texts offering sex are written by undercover officers. The “girls” in the photos are not 13. They are police officers, typically the youngest women on the force.
For law enforcement, stings are an efficient way to make high-profile felony arrests and secure convictions. In June 2016, John Garden, a State Patrol detective, emailed a fellow trooper about joining him on a sting in Spokane. “See if you can come play” and “chat some guys in,” he wrote, according to a court filing. The conviction rate in cases that go to trial is about 95 percent, though most don’t get that far. There is such shame associated with a sex crime, let alone a child sex crime, that a majority of the defendants plead guilty rather than face a jury. At least five of the men have committed suicide, including a 66-year-old caught in the same operation as Hambrick who then fled to California. As the police there moved to make the arrest, the man shot himself in the head.
An analysis of court records in Washington State stings, as well as interviews with police and prosecutors, reveals that most of the men arrested have no felony record. A strong predictor of predatory behavior is an obsession with child pornography, but at the time of their arrest, according to the State Patrol, 89 percent have none in their possession and 92 percent have no history of violent crime. They are nonetheless sentenced, on average, to more than six years in prison with no chance of parole, according to my analysis of the 271 arrests I was able to confirm. (State police calculate the average is just over five years.) Once released, the men are listed on the state’s sex-offender registry for at least 10 years — and often for life. Almost all were caught up in Operation Net Nanny, although the sting in which Hambrick was arrested was a joint venture between the State Patrol and the Vancouver police.
The men caught in these cases can wind up serving more time than men who are convicted of sexually assaulting and raping actual children. While there are no statistics comparing sentencing among different states in such predator stings, Washington’s criminal code has some particularly draconian provisions that result in unusually lengthy sentences. The legal standard for making an arrest in police stings is not high. Washington law allows undercover officers to use “deception, trickery or artifice.” They can fake sympathy or friendship. The police need only demonstrate that their target took a “substantial step” toward meeting the undercover officer. (...)
In a December 2015 email to his superiors, a state police captain, Roger Wilbur, wrote why they should do more stings: “Plea bargains start at 10 years in prison. Compared to other criminal cases that can take a year or longer, may result in a few years in prison, costs hundreds of man-hours and still only result in a single arrest, this is a significant return on investment. Mathematically, it only costs $2,500 per arrest during this operation! Considering the high level of potential offense, there is a meager investment that pays huge dividends.”
Yet most men caught in these raids pose a low risk to the public, according to Dr. Richard Packard, a past president of the Washington State chapter of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, and Dr. Michael O’Connell, a member of the state’s sex-offender policy board, who have examined about three dozen men arrested in cyberstings around the state. They say that relatively few — maybe 15 percent of men they saw — pose a moderate to high risk. Many have addiction problems, suffer from depression or anxiety, are autistic or are, as O’Connell described them to me, simply “pathetic, lonely people.” He went on: “Some are in marriages where things aren’t going great. They’re socially inept, but this is the way of having sex and having a relationship. They’re just stupid and making not very well thought out decisions. They weren’t looking for kids, but there was this one ad that caught their attention.” And a sizable percentage of those arrested are themselves in their late teens and early 20s and may, according to current scientific research, exercise poor judgment because the regions of the brain that control risk taking are not yet fully developed.
by Michael Winerip, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Jess T. Dugan for The New York Times
At 20, Hambrick was still living at home with his mother to save money for college, where he hoped to study game design. He was a voracious reader who could knock off a 1,000-page fantasy novel in two days. People liked him; he made them laugh. When he and his mother lived in places that had board-game clubs, he was a regular. And his kindness could be surprising. He would spend a morning handing out sandwiches to the hungry.The problem, he knew, was that he was a nerd. Sometimes he was too open with people. As a boy, he took medication for A.D.H.D. His mother, Kathleen, describes him affectionately as her “introverted, sensitive, immature, coddled, nerdy son.” They are very close. She would prod him to get out more, but he wasn’t someone who could meet women at a bar. Online, it was different. Starting when he was 18, a few times a month, he clicked through the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist, looking for sex. There were so many listings, but when he tried messaging, it was rare to get a response. If people did respond, they often went dark after a few emails.
Users had to certify that they were 18 or older, but at the time Craigslist didn’t verify users’ age. People described their appearance in personal ads, then sent photos that didn’t match. Some seemed to enjoy role playing. He once replied to a post describing an attractive 21-year-old, but when he arrived at the address she gave him, an old man answered the door. He got out of there fast. Every once in a while, it worked out: In the past few years, he had sex with five or six women he met this way.
One Friday after work in February 2017, Hambrick came across a Casual Encounters “w4m” (woman searching for man) post that seemed meant for him.
“Jus gamer gurl sittin’ home on sunny day,” it read. “we can chat as long as im not lvling!”
Hambrick emailed back. “Sounds like fun. What game you playin?”
“i am HOOKED on ALIEN ISOLATION,” Gamer Gurl replied.
“forget sex,” Hambrick wrote. “Let me come watch I haven’t gottn that one yet,” adding that he was 20. Fifteen minutes later, Gamer Gurl replied that she was 13.
Hambrick was confused. “why did you post an ad in craigslist if your 13? You mean 23?”
She asked for his cellphone number and they switched to texting, exchanging photos. Gamer Gurl was beautiful, he thought, if he wasn’t being pranked: Big eyes, cute white cap, soft smile, gazing up at the camera serenely with a really nice set of headphones. (...)
Was this an elaborate game? Again she claimed to be 13. The photo seemed to tell a different story, and the gaming chair she was seated in looked too expensive for a kid. She used slang a 13-year-old probably wouldn’t know, like “FTP” — “[expletive] the police” — that originated in ’80s hip-hop. The vulgarities and snide tone seemed too adult. Her texts were full of “lol”s. Was she an immature teenager? Or a sly adult?
Her driving directions seemed too specific for 13.
Hambrick texted that he would be driving a red Prius — his mother’s — and Gamer Gurl replied she would be wearing a gray sweatshirt and ripped jeans.
It was a 20-minute drive to the house in suburban Vancouver. After stopping for condoms, he arrived at 7 p.m., three and a half hours after their first emails. She came to the door just as she’d said, in torn jeans and gray sweatshirt, as beautiful as her photo. She didn’t look 13 at all, more like she was in her 20s.
“You made it,” she called out and waved for him to follow, court documents would later show. When he got inside, she disappeared down a hallway. Suddenly two police officers wearing bulletproof vests appeared from a back room, ordered him to lie on the floor and handcuffed him.
“What’s going on?” Hambrick asked.
“We’re gonna advise you you’re under arrest.”
“OK, why?” he said.
“We’ll explain it all in just a moment,” one of the officers answered.
“Is it possible I could talk to my mom?” he later asked.
“That’s not possible right now.”
Since 2015, nearly 300 men in cities and towns across Washington State have been arrested in online-predator stings, most of them run by the State Patrol and code-named Operation Net Nanny. The men range in age from 17 to 77, though about a quarter are 25 or younger. As many as two dozen have been rounded up in a single sting and charged with attempted rape of a child, as Jace Hambrick was, even though no actual children were involved. The emails and texts offering sex are written by undercover officers. The “girls” in the photos are not 13. They are police officers, typically the youngest women on the force.
For law enforcement, stings are an efficient way to make high-profile felony arrests and secure convictions. In June 2016, John Garden, a State Patrol detective, emailed a fellow trooper about joining him on a sting in Spokane. “See if you can come play” and “chat some guys in,” he wrote, according to a court filing. The conviction rate in cases that go to trial is about 95 percent, though most don’t get that far. There is such shame associated with a sex crime, let alone a child sex crime, that a majority of the defendants plead guilty rather than face a jury. At least five of the men have committed suicide, including a 66-year-old caught in the same operation as Hambrick who then fled to California. As the police there moved to make the arrest, the man shot himself in the head.
An analysis of court records in Washington State stings, as well as interviews with police and prosecutors, reveals that most of the men arrested have no felony record. A strong predictor of predatory behavior is an obsession with child pornography, but at the time of their arrest, according to the State Patrol, 89 percent have none in their possession and 92 percent have no history of violent crime. They are nonetheless sentenced, on average, to more than six years in prison with no chance of parole, according to my analysis of the 271 arrests I was able to confirm. (State police calculate the average is just over five years.) Once released, the men are listed on the state’s sex-offender registry for at least 10 years — and often for life. Almost all were caught up in Operation Net Nanny, although the sting in which Hambrick was arrested was a joint venture between the State Patrol and the Vancouver police.
The men caught in these cases can wind up serving more time than men who are convicted of sexually assaulting and raping actual children. While there are no statistics comparing sentencing among different states in such predator stings, Washington’s criminal code has some particularly draconian provisions that result in unusually lengthy sentences. The legal standard for making an arrest in police stings is not high. Washington law allows undercover officers to use “deception, trickery or artifice.” They can fake sympathy or friendship. The police need only demonstrate that their target took a “substantial step” toward meeting the undercover officer. (...)
In a December 2015 email to his superiors, a state police captain, Roger Wilbur, wrote why they should do more stings: “Plea bargains start at 10 years in prison. Compared to other criminal cases that can take a year or longer, may result in a few years in prison, costs hundreds of man-hours and still only result in a single arrest, this is a significant return on investment. Mathematically, it only costs $2,500 per arrest during this operation! Considering the high level of potential offense, there is a meager investment that pays huge dividends.”
Yet most men caught in these raids pose a low risk to the public, according to Dr. Richard Packard, a past president of the Washington State chapter of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, and Dr. Michael O’Connell, a member of the state’s sex-offender policy board, who have examined about three dozen men arrested in cyberstings around the state. They say that relatively few — maybe 15 percent of men they saw — pose a moderate to high risk. Many have addiction problems, suffer from depression or anxiety, are autistic or are, as O’Connell described them to me, simply “pathetic, lonely people.” He went on: “Some are in marriages where things aren’t going great. They’re socially inept, but this is the way of having sex and having a relationship. They’re just stupid and making not very well thought out decisions. They weren’t looking for kids, but there was this one ad that caught their attention.” And a sizable percentage of those arrested are themselves in their late teens and early 20s and may, according to current scientific research, exercise poor judgment because the regions of the brain that control risk taking are not yet fully developed.
Image: Jess T. Dugan for The New York Times
