What you should do if you have been sexually harassed at work
Every sexual harassment case is different, but these tips can help if you want to take action.
USA TODAY
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has dismissed a sex crime charge brought by Phoenix police against Buckeye Union High School Principal Joseph Kinney, citing a lack of evidence and no reasonable prospect of conviction.
A spokesman for the agency said that to convict a person of luring a minor for the purpose of sexual exploitation, proof must be provided that the person knew or should have known that the person they were communicating with was a minor. Kinney was communicating with an undercover agent, not an actual minor, and the photo of the young girl the investigator provided was not enough to prove that Kinney believed he was communicating with a minor, the spokesman said.
“Although the crime of luring can be committed when a suspect communicates with an undercover agent, there must be evidence that the suspect believes he or she is directing his or her communications to a minor,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
To prove their case, prosecutors would also need evidence, not available in this case, that shows that a “suspect had the intention of engaging in sexual acts with a minor,” the statement said.
“The undercover agent and the suspect were not in the same state, and the investigative steps normally taken to prove this intent in court were not taken in this case,” the agency’s statement said.
A Phoenix police spokesman said in a statement Monday that detectives were still processing evidence and that new information would be forwarded to prosecutors.
Court documents describe sexually explicit text conversation
According to court documents, an FBI task force that investigates internet crimes involving children began investigating Kinney on July 22, when an undercover agent posing as a 12-year-old girl on the anonymous social media app Whisper received a response from a user named “Macabre Pure” after she posted about how bored she was and asked what she should do.
According to the documents, the user suggested the girl take off her clothes and said he didn’t mind her age since the agent claimed she was only 12. According to the records, the agent sent Kinney a photo of a clothed young girl, to which Kinney responded with two full-body photos of herself in clothes.
According to the documents, Kinney and the undercover agent continued their conversation, with the agent saying she was in Oregon visiting her grandmother and was bored. According to the documents, Kinney responded that he would like to “save” her and perform various sexual acts on her. Kinney asked the agent posing as the girl to also send him nude photos of herself, to which the agent said she did not send any such photos, but sent another photo showing a young girl in clothing.
According to the records, the conversation continued on July 23, when Kinney told the agent he was at work. The conversation ended when the agent asked him if he had a fun job.
According to the documents, police obtained a subpoena for Whisper to provide subscriber information for the Macabre Pure account and provided IP addresses linked to Cox Communications and Verizon accounts registered to Kinney. On an undisclosed date, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Kinney’s Goodyear home.
According to the documents, police stopped Kinney west of Elliot and San Miguel streets in Goodyear around 7:18 a.m. on Sept. 3. Police seized Kinney’s phone, and a forensic analysis revealed that the Whisper app had been installed but deleted.
According to the records, police took Kinney to his home and questioned him in a Phoenix Police Department cruiser parked outside the home. Kinney told police he used Whisper on his phone and liked that it “seemed like fantasy and was anonymous.”
The documents state that Kinney said he spoke to several girls on Whisper who told him they were underage, but he assumed they were all adults and were role-playing. Kinney recalled speaking to one girl who claimed she was nine years old, but he believed she was an adult because the picture she sent him looked older than a girl of that age, the documents state.
Kinney also recalled sexualized conversations with a girl who claimed to be 12 years old, but reiterated that he thought she was an adult and that it was merely “role play and fantasy chat,” the documents say.
The Buckeye Union High School District board of directors voted unanimously to terminate Kinney’s employment at a meeting Monday, Superintendent Steve Beebe said.
Kinney could not be reached for comment.
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