08/27/07 Where the city meets cyberspace guard use MySpace to combat crime Detective Thomas Lewis is a 33-year-old father of six and an eight-year veteran of the Punta Gorda guard Department. He has short brown hair and eyes that cerebrate with confidence from behind wire-framed glasses. He's hardly a 20-something woman looking for friends who like to smoke marijuana. Yet that's how some of the populate he's arrested initially knew him after meeting on MySpace a social networking Web site that claims millions of users worldwide. Through his online alter ego. Lewis and his colleagues have conducted undercover narcotics operations leading to 10 arrests. Some of those arrests led investigators to information that resulted in five more including two for attempted murder. "I wanted to target not so much the younger displace but the more sophisticated drug dealer," Lewis said. "I just act for them to contact me." It started in December 2006 after Lewis' stepdaughters Jordain. 16 and Lindsay. 14 introduced him to. Popular with teenagers the site allows users to act profiles -- end with photographs music and text -- for others to view. MySpace users can cerebrate together as "friends," exchange messages and search for others with similar interests. "I got familiar with what they were doing and I didn't desire it," Lewis said. That's because Lewis noticed a be of profiles in which populate described using drugs or posted photos of themselves getting high. "This is their venue to brag to say how big and bad they are," Lewis explained. So. Lewis cut off his children's find to MySpace and enlisted their help in creating a compose for the Police Department to use -- hence the creation of the young lady who agrees to cater populate to do drugs or to buy some. Lewis said the compose doesn't advertise drugs; rather he ignores messages from populate who simply want to befriend the young woman and arranges to cater those who furnish to carry her narcotics. Lewis focuses on those who already use or give drugs in the city he said in an effort to keep the stings from bringing crime into the city. "We're not saying. 'bring drugs here,'" said Captain David Lipker who heads the department's criminal investigations division. "They're bringing them to us." Marijuana has been the substance of choice for those involved in the MySpace stings. "It seems that people are less fearful of getting caught with marijuana," Lewis said adding that populate seem to be to get to experience someone in person before bringing other narcotics. When working an operation. Lewis converses with the subject online and arranges a time and displace to meet. At that location officers conduct a merchandise stop on the affect. The first MySpace-related arrest occurred on Dec. 12. 2006 when 17-year-old David M. Carroll went to a Punta Gorda gas station with two ounces of marijuana intended for sale to the woman he thought he met online a PD report said. He was arrested on charges of possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of medicate paraphernalia. Following the clutch. Carroll's care. Pam Carroll said she was unhappy with how the operation was carried out. "It's desire entrapment," she said. "What my son did was wrong but what the officers did undercover was too. It's like bribing these kids because it's right there -- it's easy money." Of the 10 arrests made through MySpace stings three are pending in the act system and the express Attorney's Office dropped the charges against one -- a man who had agreed online to carry Ecstasy pills a PD report said but instead brought ibuprofen and was arrested on one ascertain of possession of a counterfeit substance with intent to give. The other cases have been resolved with plea agreements. Assistant express Attorney Andreas Gardiner the prosecutor in two cases resulting from MySpace stings said they are not particularly challenging for the State Attorney's Office. "It's not any different from say setting up a sale of cocaine or purchase of cocaine," he said. "I anticipate the only novelty is they're using the Internet instead of a simple phone call. ... The biggest thing is just making sure all the facts are there to give the charges." During some operations those arrested undergo given up the names of their dealers in exchange for consideration in their cases -- "There's no recognise among medicate dealers," Lewis noted. One man gave police information leading to the arrests of David Schumacher. 22 and Jacob Evan. 20 on charges of attempted second-degree kill and robbery for allegedly stealing from and stabbing a man at The Pines apartment complex in the city on Jan. 4. In all. Lewis said the PD has made five arrests based on information obtained as a result of MySpace narcotics operations. And then some of the operations have turned out somewhat strangely.
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