Sexual Relationship With A Minor, Theft Of Services And Destruction Of Evidence Nets Police Officer One-Year Prison Sentence
from the and-that's-quite-possibly-not-the-worst-thing-about-the-situation dept
There are multiple levels of effed-upness in this story but we'll start from the top.Cincinnati police officer Darrell Beavers appears to have used his power and position to effect and perpetuate a sexual relationship with a minor. This went far beyond simply relying on the innate "trustworthiness" of the position.
Beavers, a Cincinnati police officer since 2002, set up a scheme, using his job as a police officer as bait, to send and receive 650 sexually explicit photos and texts with a minor and destroying an incriminating [police] cell phone once he knew he was being investigated.Add to this the use of his position to coerce a local landlord into handing him over an apartment to use for his sexual trysts -- free of charge -- by claiming he was setting up a department "substation" to "fight crime in the area."
Once Beavers, 45, had the apartment, it was adorned with an official Cincinnati Police logo as well as beds, bedding, personal lubricants, pornographic videos and a police-owned night-vision camera to record events that were happening in the dark.Beavers is now an ex-officer and has been sentenced to prison. Thanks to a friendly plea deal and a recent law change, he will be facing a maximum of one year behind bars. That seems awfully low considering Beavers committed a sexual offense, destroyed evidence and falsely procured an apartment to be used solely to commit illegal acts with a minor.
But that's not the only thing screwed up about this. Cue Beavers' attorney, Carl Lewis:
Beavers' attorney, Carl Lewis, believed the incident was a one-time "lapse of judgment" of an otherwise upstanding, respected police officer, husband, father of three and football and basketball coach.No. A "one-time lapse of judgment" is having sex with an underage person by accident (or possibly on purpose) ONE TIME, and then NEVER DOING IT AGAIN. It is not stealing an apartment to use as a sex pad, sending and receiving 650 texts/photos over a period of three months, and then destroying evidence when investigators start closing in.
"He said if this same activity had occurred with his daughter with another police officer, he would be angry, he would be upset," Lewis said of Beavers.
All the follow-up comment about Beavers being "upset" means is that his moral compass is as flexible as anybody's. Double standards are distressingly common. They are not, however, indicators of latent "goodness."
On to the next level of effed-upness.
A theft in office charge that would have resulted in Beavers losing any police pension was dropped as part of the plea deal.Beavers will do some time, most likely return to his current employer (an oil pipeline) and his $70,000 salary, and still draw a pension when he hits retirement age.
Even more layers:
Beavers also fears the humiliation of being labeled a sexual predator, having to report his address for the next 15 years to the sheriff in the county where he will live.Well, gee, former Officer Beavers. That sucks. But that's what the system requires of other sex offenders, including the ones that don't have access to favorable plea bargains and a taxpayer-funded pension to fall back on. Don't forget, the list of sexual predators also tends to include teens who had consensual sex [statutory rape] and teens who passed around sexual photos of other teens [sexting] -- teens who begin their trip through the "justice system" accompanied by officers like yourself. So, try to keep that chin up, Darrell.
And there's still more. This wasn't the only so-called "substation" under police officer control.
[Detective] Schofield noted police also found a previous fake substation in West Price Hill and wanted to ask Beavers about it but he refused.So, there will be more indictments in the future?
"It was their belief," Lewis said of police investigators, "that there are other Cincinnati police officers (who) have used, were using the so-called substations for other activity other than police work."
Cincinnati said they aren't investigating possible involvement by other officers.Apparently, one officer being (minimally) punished is enough. Everything else can simply be ignored, for morale's sake... or whatever. It wouldn't do to have the Cincinnati PD portrayed by the media as a bunch of amoral jerks strong-arming landlords into providing them with rent-free crash pads from which to pursue their illicit aims.
By all other accounts, Beavers appeared to be an exemplary officer. But he used his position to take advantage of a 17-year-old member of the Cincinnati Police Explorer program. Even if the sexual contact was consensual, it was still illegal. Everything else he did -- destroy evidence, commandeer an apartment -- was far outside any legal or moral gray area. In the end, he'll serve less than a year and enjoy a full pension. Other officers who may have abused their power or simply looked away while Beavers took advantage of his will emerge from this incident unscathed. And if they aren't held accountable, there will be no reason for them to alter future behavior.
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Filed Under: darrell beavers, destruction of evidence, police, punishment
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Re:
*at least* subject to what others are subject to, if not more punishment, er, rehabilitation MORE than most for violating a sworn oath/trust ?
that is the tradeoff: you are GIVEN enormous power and latitude over policing, with almost ZERO consequences for even murder; you are SUPPOSED to suffer draconian punishments when you violate that fiduciary duty, when you use your powers/office for personal profit/benefit...
EXCEPT, that *isn't* how it happens most of the time, there are NO consequences; why shouldn't this li'l piggy think he should go scot-free too ? ? ?
i have ZERO doubt this was a widespread 'game' by MANY officers, with MOST knowing *something* about it... i would bet dollars to donut holes (about the same price, actually) they were passing around videos of their conquests...
AND all the rest of the thin blue line of liars don't say a fucking thing; they are either complicit, or it would lead to shit they *were* complicit in, or they all have shit on each other, or they are scared...
doesn't matter why, the point is they enable the continuation of the deep corruption of the system...
wasn't it less than a week ago, where some donut-eater was offering some sort of lame 'rebuttal' to the 'kops are not your friend' meme, er, true-life story, and his obviously unself-aware rant was talking about how much military-style training they had, how they had to practice shoot so much, how they needed all these war toys to keep the babies safe...
('we had to flashbang the baby in order to save it'... FUCKERS! ! ! )
his whole false article of faith, is that the way to 'deal with' the public he is SUPPOSED TO BE 'protecting and serving', is to get more violent, more deadly, more threatening, more invasive, more feared and hated...
here is the linchpin: it does NOT MATTER what us 99% want our police to be, it is what EMPIRE wants the police to be; and what they want are subservient, unquestioning, head-cracking goons who beat the people Empire points at...
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Re:
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Befudled
Am I reading that right? The Cincinnati police have branded personal lubricants and pornographic materials? Do they have a shopping cart on their website?
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Re: Befudled
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That should have been, at the very least, a yellow alert right there; why are they trying to use it to demonstrate his good character?
As I've said before on here, too many adults seem to have very fuzzy memories of high school. For those of you who don't, think back for a moment. There are good kids and bad kids at every school, but where did you find the biggest concentration of thugs, bullies, and entitled teen sociopaths who think they ought to be treated like royalty and everyone else is beneath them?
If you answered "the football and basketball teams," congratulations! You still remember what high school was like!
A lot of that is a cultural problem, but a lot more of it is directly abetted by the coaches, who actively work to ensure their players can continue to play, and win, no matter what they might have done to disqualify themselves... and not just academically. This builds up a culture of active shielding from accountability that is rampant in the NFL and even worse in the NBA, with far higher rates of serious, violent crimes among these athletes than the societal average. But it doesn't start when you make it to the big leagues; the same problems are endemic to college and high school sports.
So yeah, this "fine upstanding guy" was a part of this disgusting and corrupt system, where he could easily use his influence as a policeman to help take the heat off of star players who did stuff they never should have done? No surprise there.
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Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
His familly deserve to be identified and their names and images should be Streisened forever.
Darrell Beavers and his wife and children should be outed on social networks and their profiles should be associated with a cop having abused his trust.
Darrell Beavers burn in hell with your family!
Nice that we don't have a stupid right to be forgotten.
Under the crazy EU law, it would be illegal to repeat the fact that Darrell Beavers is a convicted criminal.
I hope not he gets raped and tortured in prison more than he deserves.
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Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
Is this a satire post?
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Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
So handing out fliers branding him a pedophile would land you some handy defamation charges, and since you're probably not a cop, you'd end up in jail far, far longer than he'll spend over them.
Also, that crazy EU judgement (not a law!) would not protect Beavers either. Criminal convictions of this nature would remain in the public interest. Hell, some EU countries have sex registry requirements themselves (The UK does, not sure about others.)
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Re: Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
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Re: Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
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Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
on the other, this is exactly what happens in most cases
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Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
and in the afterlife
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Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
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At least…
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Re: At least…
no, i'm betting *someone* along the line of this little game that i have NO DOUBT was a lot more widespread, was a higher-up or politico or some other bigwig who got the whole thing squelched so it didn't reveal their role in the scandal...
if it were a regular citizen, this would have been salacious headline/teevee 'news' dominating fodder for months...
but since it probably got too close to some bigwigs slimey doings, it was partially spiked...
(and, yes, i know, spel czech, you really want me to spell slime-y 'slimy'... but i hate that, you've taken out the slime in 'slimy', so i spell it 'slimey', thank you very much for your otherwise useless concern, shitty spel czech)
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Other legal consequences
Giving a false answer to such a question may be a federal crime
And even more deserved, Darrell Beavers as a convicted felon is stripped of Second Amendment rights.
He can't own, possess or buy any weapon due to federal prohibitions on gun ownership by felons.
Nice.
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Re: Other legal consequences
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Re: Other legal consequences
And because truth is an absolute defense to an action for defamation it can never be defamation to repeat that Darrell Beavers was a cop who was convicted of abusing a minor.
Darrell Beavers is a strong argument against any right to be forgotten.
Under the laws of some less than free nations, you could not legally repeat the fact 10, 20 or 50 years after the final conviction.
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Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
It's ordinary practice to ask the family of suspects intrusive questions in case there are other uncovered crimes.
And what' s good enough for ordinary citizens is also well deserved for abusive cops.
Family of corrupt police officers should not get a better deal than families of drug dealers.
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team building activity
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Im all for a double standard
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Federal crime
This sounds like something the feds should prosecute.
Sending and receiving child pornography is also a federal crime.
The only additional requirement under the federal child pornography statute is a nexus to interstate commerce, but that's not difficult to prove.
Even if the offender and the victim are in the same
state, there is federal jurisdiction if the depictions have been sent over the internet.
Double jeopardy does not bar prosecution by the federal government even after a state guilty plea.
In theory if there was a will, the feds could prosecute Darrell Beavers for violation of federal statutes against child pornography and maybe obstruction of justice.
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Re:
Ten years incarceration with other criminals, and lifetime felon disenfranchisement and mandatory sex offender registration and residential living restrictions.
No right to keep or bear arms, name always on the sex offender registry and no right to live in any locality.
The amount of child pornographic depictions is staggering, and if the severity level was calculated under federal law, possession alone would net him a harsher plea bargain.
But he was not only knowingly possessing child pornography, he was solicitating an underage girl and trying to cover up the crime.
No federal prosecutor would offer a plea bargain of one year imprisonment for multiple acts of possession, solicitation and distribution of child pornography.
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Re: Re:
ISTR that in some US jurisdictions, there are rules which convert seconds of video into numbers of photos, IIRC one state uses 3 seconds of video to a "depiction", which would make 650 depictions around 32 minutes - which isn't really very long for a minimally-edited video of a sex session.
Actually, looking back at TFA, the 650 was the number of photos and texts he tried to destroy, so it is quite likely that a lot of those were texts which were potentially incriminating but not directly pornographic.
Also, remember that fictional sexual stories about an underage person are not CP in the US, although sending them to a minor is a different crime, so if they were cybering that isn't itself CP.
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Re:
After all, that's only marginally less than what happens to other sex offenders.
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Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
So no jail time but only a lawsuit even assuming (and that's unlikely) that calling a child pornographer pedophile would qualify as defamation.
In order for a statement to be defamatory, it must be provable false.
And if the plaintiff is a public figure even on a matter of public controversy, he must prove that the statement was either recklessly or knowingly False.
The term pedophilia is commonly used in connection with child pornography and sexual exploitation of minors, and calling someone who has been convicted of child pornography pedophile is therefore likely not defamatory.
However, calling him convicted child pornographer is a true statement of fact and is not even a close call.
Do you seriously think that anyone guilty of child pornography would file a lawsuit on the let's say dubious theory that Yes, I am a convicted child pornographer, but I'm not a pedophile?
You bet not.
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Re: Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
Don't get me wrong. I get it. This cop was and is a total scumbag. And yet, somehow, Mike's fine, passionate article was able to get that reality across without the writer making up lies, fudging facts or creatively reinventing common terms. Officer Beavers did enough horrible shit that there's no reason to stack the deck with extra crimes. I often see people stretching their case using misleading language, and then scoffing / laughing it off when called on their misrepresentations. It taints our cause (if our cause is justice, fairness and police accountability, instead of some junior Nancy Grace desire to jail everybody).
This casual disrespect for the terms you employ makes you sound irrational. It's the rhetoric equivalent of ALL CAPS or screaming at passersby. And like all rhetorical shortcuts, its use eventually spreads throughout the population and becomes modern English.
Getting back to the OP: I don't care what happens to the cop and his unnamed buddies - they deserve to fall hard instead of being rewarded with a blind eye or golden parachute. I do care about language. It’s about the next teenager prosecuted for sexting, forced onto a lifelong sex offender list... all because your words have ceased to mean what they pretend to mean.
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Re: Re: Re: pedophile?
The problem is the willingness of the DA to cut a sweet deal to save the effort of prosecution in this case. Was it favoritism? Leniency? Hiding dirty laundry? Would a non-cop get the same deal?
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Pension punishment
so to this end.
He Worked as a policeman for all those years, the police department needs to be punished for hiring him, so they still pay-out the pension, Cost deducted from its budget.
He Does Not Deserve the Pension, but treat his family as if he had died, the pension goes direct to the wife & children, if he ever returns to live with them again, that pension is docked $4 for each dollar he earns.
Consider The Victims of his crime, 1. the young female, the bent cop used his position of power to obtain Sex, The Police Department should compensate her out of it's budget because they hired the bent cop. 2. the owner of the flat, again compensated out of the police budget. 3. Public Trust in the police. don't see how any police department could restore this.
The Cop Got of Too Light for the severity of his crimes, Because his punishment only seems to address the Sex Crime itself, the crimes of tampering/destroying evidence and obtaining valuable considerations by deception indicate a dangerous pattern of behavior which undermines the policeman's entire history of Arrests.
If we follow the Logic, it is possibly why he got off so light, why he was offered the plea-bargain. If convicted of tampering-destroying evidence, any number of people who were convicted on evidence that touches on this officer's involvement in the conviction is in question. As it should be, The Public only wants the guilty to be convicted, It is abhorrent when someone is falsely accused and jailed. When a citizen has their life robbed from them, the police involved must be held to account. Still this scum honored the Motto,
To Serve Himself and to Protect his Arse.
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Re: Pension punishment
there are a number of cruel individuals that want to punish this copper to the extent police in the US persecute ordinary
people, >>>
Come on,punish this sex criminal with the maximum allowable sentence under law and confine him under conditions the police itself defend as legal for small time drug dealers.
Are you seriously arguing that applying the rules for the commons to this crooked cop is cruelty?
Do you have any idea of the restrictions normal sex offenders are subject to after serving their sentence?
Ten years imprisonment is not unusual for CP distribution or solicitation.
Imagine what he would get if it was under federal law, and explain again why such a desire is cruel.
It's not cruel, it's the rules commons must obey.
And depriving a sex criminal of his state pension after due process of law is not depriving his family of anything to which they are entitled.
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Re: Re: Pension punishment
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Why Do You Have A Town Of 300 Residents...with 100 Police Officers?
I'm willing to pay them, just so I can call myself a policeman if it means I get a stack of 'Get Out of Jail Free' cards!
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Re: Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
I think AC's point is that if a cop can legally use child pornography and pedophilia to describe people guilty of even minor offenses, cops deserve the same when they get busted.
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Re:
Sending and receiving 650 child pornographic depictions is punishable by several years imprisonment under the parallel federal statute.
The article does not directly state if Beavers also filmed his sex acts with the minor, but if he did, and it can be proven, there is an additional crime of production of child pornography hanging over his head.
Note that there is no statute of limitation for child pornography under federal law, and that Beavers even after serving his state sentence can be prosecuted at any time until his physical death by the federal government.
The federal government usually does not go after small child pornography distributors or producers where state law is adequate, but there is no constitutional bar to federal prosecution and the DOJ might take an interest given the agravating circumstances.
The takeaway from this case is that carma is a bitch and that Beavers due to several nice pro-law enforcement rulings by the Supreme Court can never live in safety from federal prosecution.
(1) Due to the dual sovereignty limitation on double jeopardy, the federal government can prosecute him for the same conduct if doesn't like the state sentence.
(2) Because Beavers has admitted everything, and the evidence is now a matter of public record, the federal
government does not have to start from scratch.
It can build any federal case on the state's evidence and call the same witnesses to testify in the federal proceeding.
(3) A 'child' for the purpose of the child pornography law
is a person under the age of 18.
It doesn't matter if shhe was one day from her 18 year birthday, or that she was mature enough to say yes to the act.
(4) Beavers is a state sex offender and a convicted felon and that fact has some very surprising implications under federal law.
The crooked local machinery may shield him from the worst, but the federal government and other states regard convicted child pornographers very harshly.
One interesting legal consequence is that some private employers under federal contract ask job applicants about their prior convictions and that it's illegal to answer such a question falsely if the employer has a legal right to the correct answer.
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Re: Re: Re:
[limerick follows]
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Common Pleas Court Judge Ralph Winkler
It's a small community, so there may be more to the story than Judge Winkler's sudden empathy for a child pornographer and corrupt cop.
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Police Explorer program
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Oh, wait.........yeah, but, he's probably the only one, i mean have you ever heard of others in HISTORY
Oh, wait........but this is probably the last time it will ever happen, so lets keep doing what they say
FACEPALM
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Re: Darrell Beavers is a pedophile - yes that's true
But now it becomes interesting, because federal law defines child pornography -- namely possession, distribution and production broader than the age of consent for the physical act.
Whether or not the federal government ought have that power is a different issue, and I personally don't think it should, but fact is that pro-law enforcement interpretations of the law upheld by the Supreme Court have made life a hell for sex offenders.
it's simply horrific that a cop can get away with a slap for acts which would have brought years imprisonment for lesser people.
Regarding the quantity of the images, I am only relying on the newspaper account of the case.
It may well be that some of these do not meet the federal definition of CP, or that some of the material is only textual depictions.
However, a textual depiction of sex may also constitute obscenity, if it meets the Miller test, and person on person obscenity may also implicate federal law if the depiction has been transmitted in interstate or foreign commerce.
Ohio is usually not soft on obscenity, and if there was a will, I am sure they could nail this cop on more charges.
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Re: Common Pleas Court Judge Ralph Winkler
One only needs to advertise up to the election, that he let a child pornographer get off with a one year prison sentence.
And he can't sue because the statement is true, and truth is an absolute defense.
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