Complete Story
08/23/2017
OSAE Board Member Among Ohio Lawmakers Taking Stance Against Internet Predators
Tim Schaffer is committed to seeing internet predators face justice for their wrongdoing
A piece of legislation that would have increased penalties on internet predators got off to a lightning start last legislative session, but fizzled out in a Senate committee, is being reintroduced.
State Representatives Tim Schaffer, also a Board Member of the Ohio Society of Association Executives (OSAE), and Kent Smith introduced HB 405 just two days after a 15-year-old Ohio girl was rescued from a Missouri home on Dec. 1, 2015.
The man who kidnapped and raped her, Christopher Schroeder, met her online and convinced her to meet him in person. He took her back to a house in Missouri where he forced her to have sex with him and clean the home.
The bill introduced by Schaffer and Smith addresses a similar crime called importuning. That is where someone solicits a child on the internet. At least 10 people have been arrested in police stings of these kinds of solicitations. Many individuals busted for this sort of behavior receive probation.
Schaffer and Smith feel there should be mandatory minimum sentences for these felonies and that is what their bill sets forth to create.
Depending on the age of the victim, the convicted would have to be sentenced to a minimum of 6 months to a year in prison.
“These are folks that are not angels that we are sending away with this importuning crime and what we saw was far too many of them were pleading guilty to importuning and getting probation,” said Smith.
The original bill was introduced in December 2015, by February 2016 it had passed through the House of Representatives and was introduced in the Senate.
It was given two hearings in April, and then it just sat there with no movement until November, when it received another hearing.
A fourth hearing was held on December 7, 2016 more than a year after it was introduced, and that is where it ended its bid to become a law.
No vote was ever taken by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee to send it to the Senate floor for a final vote.
“The Senate in the last general assembly was looking at criminal justice reform and the terms of some sentencing reform,” said Smith. “This kinda falls out of that general scope.”
Schaffer and Smith are confident there is sufficient support for this legislation and are hoping for a better outcome this time around.
“Right now, we have internet predators who are lurking out there in the homes, in the family rooms and in the bedrooms of our kids and, often times, we don’t know it,” said Schaffer. “It’s something every family should be talking about and not taking lightly at all.”
