Odd stories from Tennessee
A judge has again refused to send a 69 year-old man with congestive heart failure to jail for selling guns to undercover ATF agents.
I’m not defending the pedophile, but I find this strange:
Former Knoxville resident Gregory Alec Phillips pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court at Knoxville to “engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places.”
That’s really a crime on the books?
And, Tennessee’s AG shut down one of those work from home scams:
Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers has shut down a work-at-home scheme after his office received complaints from more than 300 people.
Three Nashville residents agreed Tuesday to permanently shut down two businesses that promised participants thousands of dollars per week for stuffing envelopes at home.
And, finally, a kid gets attacked by a raccoon.
May 19th, 2005 at 11:57 am
Yeah, those laws are aimed squarely at what he did — the Thai kiddie sex tours. The law essentially says that you can’t go overseas to do something that would be illegal here. In other words, you can’t go to Derkaderkastan where rape is legal to rape women, and you can’t go to GingGoGow to have sex with 10 year olds.
May 19th, 2005 at 11:58 am
Unless you are a UN Peacekeeper, of course.
May 19th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
Good snark, Phelps. Now, since Congress has evidently decided that American jurisdiction doesn’t stop at the border where American citizens are concerned, how do we get non-American [1] UN personnel within our jurisdiction,
[1] That’s different from “un-American UN personnel”, which pretty much goes without saying…
May 21st, 2005 at 11:01 am
In addition to the extra-jurisdictional sex laws, there the whole Cuban goods prohibition, which applies to U.S. subjects even when not in the U.S.
May 22nd, 2005 at 12:16 pm
I’d be interested in seeing the statute itself. My guess is that it does not make it illegal to have legal sex in Derkaderkastan, only to commit acts that are illegal both here and in Derkaderkastan, where enforcement is much spottier in Derkaderkastan. I’m pretty sure that’s how most of the sex tourism works.
May 23rd, 2005 at 1:28 am
Fraid not, Xlrq.
According to the Cambodian sex crime website, age of consent there is 15. That means that an American that travels there to bed down a 17 year old is not breaking the law in Cambodia, but he can be nailed when he comes back to the US (no pun intended.) As I read it, IANAL, so on and so forth.
May 23rd, 2005 at 1:30 pm
Phelps, you’re right about the scope of the statute but wrong about your specific example. It doesn’t say any sexual act with a person under 18; it says any act with a person under 18 which would qualify as a crime under 18 U.S.C. Ch. 109A if committed on the high seas or under the territories. The only age-related violations under that chapter appear under 18 U.S.C. 2241(c) and 18 U.S.C. 2243, both of which fix the age of consent at a whopping 12.
Make no mistake about it. This Phillips guy didn’t go to Derkaderkastan to have consensual sex with a 17 year old. He went there to rape one. Or, if you prefer, to have “consensual” relations with an 11-year old.