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'Sexting' Now The Same As Internet Luring In Colo.

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Jul 1, 2009 8:22 pm US/Mountain

'Sexting' Now The Same As Internet Luring In Colo.

Written by Andrea Lopez
Reporting
Andrea Lopez
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) ― A new law has gone into effect that makes it illegal to lure a child under the age of 15 by sending sexually explicit text messages or pictures through a cell phone. Internet luring previously just involved the use of a computer, but with the technological advances in cell phones, the law was amended.

"The problem was, Internet luring and Internet sexual exploitation was to be done online, and a lot of those people move from online and go straight to cell phones," said Mike Harris, a senior investigator with the First Judicial District Attorney's Office Child Sex Offender Internet Investigations Unit. "Internet luring was applicable because a lot of judicial judges didn't believe that a cell phone was a computer. So we cleaned up that language so Internet luring or Internet sexual exploitation can be done on the computer or a cell phone because technically nowadays cell phones are computers."

The Jefferson County District Attorney's office is also planning to reach out to students in schools this fall about the dangers of "sexting" -- a practice that involves sending sexually explicit text messages and pictures to each other through their cell phones. It's a growing practice, particularly between boyfriends and girlfriends. But possessing and distributing semi-naked or naked pictures of a person under the age of 18 is engaging in child pornography and it's illegal. Violators can face felony charges, and if convicted, are required to register as sex offenders.

"We can prosecute those cases," said District Attorney Scott Storey. "The intent of the statute really didn't contemplate the reckless activity of these kids. It more so contemplated what we'd seen for years, which is adults either enticing kids to disrobe and then using those images and sending them over the Internet; or the perpetrator disrobing and doing crude things over the Internet to kids -- that's sexual exploitation of a child. That was the original intent. Now we're seeing sexting cases which don't really fit the intent of the statue but which can technically be prosecuted under that statute."

Storey says they don't want to prosecute a large number of teenagers and have them register as sex offenders for what he says is reckless behavior. That's why he's treating each sexting situation on a case-by-case basis. His office is working to develop a six to nine month program that children will have to go through that educates them about boundaries if they're caught sexting.

They're also preparing educational brochures to distribute to schools, parents and kids in an outreach program that will launch this fall, complimenting the outreach they already do in schools to warn children about Internet predators. Storey says once a picture is out there, it could haunt someone for a long time. It could also be distributed over the Internet, or even in a school, if there's a bad breakup between a boyfriend and a girlfriend.

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