Justin was in Love...

[VXIII]

During an undercover marijuana sting at a South Florida school, a teenage boy began to fall for someone he thought was just another teenage girl.

But the boy's crush turned out to be an undercover police officer, who would later have him arrested for selling her marijuana she asked him to obtain for her.

The story featured on "This American Life" http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...i-did-for-loveon Feb. 10 led listeners through the secret operation that involved 18-year-old Justin Laboy, an honor student at Park Vista Community High School in Palm Beach, Fla., and a 25-year-old woman posing as a high school senior.

The operation resulted in a total of 31 arrests in three different Florida schools.

Now, Laboy is is enduring the consequences of his actions, including a felony charge that bars him from joining the military, something he wanted to do.

But some are calling the whole incident a clear case of entrapment. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-n...b_1277330.html

The teen is not the first to be caught in an undercover sting, nor the case the first to raise questions about tactics used in undercover police actions.

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In Brooklyn, New York, a 19-year-old student was charged with receiving stolen property after buying an iPhone from an undercover police officer in December.

The New York Police Department set up the operation to target people buying and selling stolen electronics, NBC New York reported. The sting led to 141 arrests, with Robert Tester among them.

But Tester said he was tricked into purchasing the phone after the undercover officer told him he needed money to feed his daughter for Christmas.

Police defend the arrest, but Tester is planning on filing a civil counter-suit against NYPD, according to the report.

In January, police arrested ten students at a Texas high school for selling prescription drugs and marijuana.

After the school district reached out to the police about the problem, an officer went undercover as a student, the Houston Chronicle reported.

But Tony Newman, director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance and a HuffPost blogger, questions whether these tactics are doing more harm than good in the war against drugs:

How do these cops look themselves in the mirror? Seducing 18-year-olds to fall in love or pretending to be friends and then tricking them into procuring small amounts of marijuana so they can charge them with felonies is beyond slimy and diametrically opposed to the officers' charge to "serve and protect."

What do you think? Leave your opinion in the comments section below.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1291823.html

[Rydo Larsson]

thats some shit straight out of a shitty movie lol but i dont agree with those "tactics" tbh.

[sugarfree irony]

I have no problem with this .

[Robynne]

I could see a kid who does everything by the book, and meet a girl they really like and do whatever she asks. This does sound like entrapment to me. Obviously he was asked to get her some, and he obliged. Had he just happened to be selling it to others, I could understand, but from what I have read (which isn't much) it sounds like entrapment.

[VAS1326]

I wonder if they had reason to target the people they did. If that's the case than I think I can agree with it.

However if they are randomly luring people into falling in love and then asking them to commit a crime that is just bullshit. Is the kid a drug dealer around there and they just needed evidence or was it a fishing trip to see who would bite. I mean if this kid never sold/bought pot before and only did it for love then he was set up because without the "girlfriend" asking him to commit the crime he probably would not have committed it on his own. I mean he's an honor student which makes me think he is not your run of the mill teenage pot head.

The good news for the boy is if it's his first offense the felony probably won't hinder him joining the military. My friend has more then one felony on her record from when she was a juvinelle and somehow with the help of her recruiter got them waived so she could join. So at least his life isn't completely ruined.

[Ninja0980]

Doubled edged sword for me. On one hand,this sounds like a clear case of entrapment where this kid was goaded into doing something he propably wouldn't have done otherwise.
On the other hand,I'm sorry but no person is worth it enough for me to risk my future or going to jail for. While he might have been goaded and charmed into it, at the end of the day,he was the one who made the choice knowing what was on the line,not her.

[DamagedGoods]

http://www.andrewdstine.com/blog-78/...ntrapment.aspx
From above link^ (It's a site for a Florida based attorney, I'm just going to assume the info is accurate)

Entrapment must include the three following tenants in order to have a not guilty verdict:
The idea for committing the crime must have come from the government agents and not originally from the person accused of the crime.
The government agents must have then persuaded the person into committing the crime (versus just giving him or her the idea to do so).
The person was not ready and willing to commit the crime before the government agent became involved.

My opinion might be different if I had more information, or could read the text logs, but this sure sounds like entrapment to me.

Was it the government agent's idea? Seems like it.

Did the government agent persuade him? Teenage boys are stupid, and will generally do whatever pretty girls ask. So I'm going to go ahead and say yes to this one as well.

Was he ready and willing to hand out marijuana without her encouragement? I frankly have no idea, but the answer to number 2 makes me highly suspicious. If they had lured him into selling marijuana to an ugly 30 year old man, I might be more willing to believe that he was.

Again. Teenage boys are incredibly stupid around pretty girls. They are QUITE likely to do shit they would never normally do.

Going to these lengths to make petty marijuana arrests is in imho an indefensible waste of government funds. I sure as hell wouldn't want to my taxes being used this way. If they were using cute cops to lure teenagers into telling them about abusive family members, I could get behind that.

I'm on the fence about the stolen stuff. Although if this is true:

But Tester said he was tricked into purchasing the phone after the undercover officer told him he needed money to feed his daughter for Christmas.

Then that is entrapment and an asshole move as well.