Collin County DA Still Won't Prosecute Perverts

For the last couple of years, NBC has been doing a continuing series of programs, where they team up with the organization called Perverted Justice and local police agencies to apprehend on-line child molesters. This organizational trio has caught scores of perverts on film as they show up to commit their crimes, and it has resulted in the conviction of these criminals all over this country -- except in Texas.

Last year, NBC and Perverted Justice came to Collin county (just north of Dallas) and teamed up with the police department in Murphy. The people from Perverted Justice posed as a teenager on-line and were hit on by many perverts. Over twenty of these perverts actually went to Murphy, thinking they were going to have sex with an underage girl. NBC caught their visit on camera, and the Murphy police department arrested these criminals and charged them.

A reasonable person would think these criminals would have been prosecuted and sent to prison. After all, this is what had happened in all the other places where this "sting" had been done. But evidently Collin county doesn't mind these child molesters coming to their county to commit their crimes -- or at least their District Attorney doesn't.

District Attorney John Roach (picture above) dropped the charges for all 23 of the perverts arrested. He didn't prosecute a single one! He came up with several reasons for this, and all of them turned out to be false.

First, he said that Perverted Justice members wouldn't testify. Not true. The members of Perverted Justice said they would be happy to testify, but were never asked. Then he said he didn't have juristiction because the computer servers were not in Collin county. Again, not true. All of the computer conversations went through a server located in Collin County.

NBC talked with a Travis county prosecutor to see if there was something different about Texas law that would prevent these prosecutions. There isn't. He told them that the minute these men entered Collin county, that gave juristiction to Collin county prosecutors. He also said that even without the witnesses or computer records, the NBC films alone would have been sufficient to prosecute the criminals.

Now D.A. Roach has gone on ABC's 20/20 program trying to defend his inexplicable actions. His newest reason for turning the perverts loose is because NBC controlled the sting and not the Murphy police. This is his weakest excuse yet. The police were involved every step of the way, and nothing happened without their permission and participation.

The truth of the matter is that there is no good reason for these men to not be prosecuted. The only reason they weren't is because D.A. Roach didn't want to prosecute them. Only he knows why he didn't prosecute, because there are no legal reasons barring these prosecutions.

I can't believe the good people of Collin county really want child molesters coming to their county to commit their crimes. They need to remember Roach's ridiculous refusal to prosecute when the next election rolls around. They deserve a prosecutor who will take these criminals to court when they are caught.