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Showing posts from November, 2021

Serial Sex Offender Gets Probation

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     A gross miscarriage of justice. That's the only way to describe what happened on November 12th, 2021. Cody Kozicki's is a case I have been reporting on all year. He was arrested in November 2019 for sending pictures of his genitals to three elementary school children after school officials refused to intervene when he sent similar unsolicited pictures to dozens of girls between the ages of 11 and 17. He jumped bond four times over the course of these two years, meaning he faced a combined total of seven felony charges that could have put him in prison for 34.5 years. He pleaded guilty to two of these felonies and ultimately could have been put in prison for nearly a decade.      Instead, he received 90 days in jail, which he had already served when he was unable to make bail for the bond jumping charges, followed by eight years of probation. It's not all bad news. He will spend the rest of the decade on probation with two years in prison hanging over his head if he vio

Men Arrested Across The Country After Being Exposed By Online Predator Hunters

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     I often hear law enforcement and established sex crime prevention advocates say that "vigilante" groups dedicated to exposing child sex predators do more harm than good, that they make it harder for law enforcement to prosecute these crimes. In some cases, that is obviously true: poorly-trained people more concerned with clicks and making fools of themselves can generate no good. However, I also believe that, if it is done correctly, there is a lot of room for these groups and individuals; the fact that they are able to expose thousands of men and women across the country shows that there is a huge void in law enforcement's capability to train, equip, and deploy officers capable of putting in the hours to stop these crimes. I think of not just Perverted Justice, which boasted nearly 625 convictions between 2005 and 2015, but POP Squad, Anxiety War, CC Unit, and dozens of other efforts that have resulted in hundreds of arrests and convictions since then.      This pas

Michigan Man, Woman Each Get 35 Years In Prison For Child Sex Trafficking

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     Sheriff Chris Swanson is running the largest state-level effort to combat human trafficking in the history of the United States. There have been other large efforts, including by groups of authorities working in the Central Valley of California, in Kentucky, and in Central Florida as we speak as well as past efforts by then-Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo as well as Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox. Cox's effort led to the arrests of over 200 men for soliciting sex from children online over the course of a number of years.     Over the course of the last 30 months, Swanson's GHOST team (Genesee Human Oppression Strike Team) in Flint, Michigan, has arrested 140 people for human trafficking, putting him on track to far surpass the record Cox had set in the same state. Chris Swanson started the team in Genesee County with the goal of spreading it statewide. He has succeeded, expanding to include stings in the Upper Peninsula as well as neighboring Shiawassee County. S