Carlton Early Griner, the registered sex offender who thought he was hooking up for sex with an underage girl but had actually met an undercover Huntington Beach police officer posing as one on craigslist, was sentenced Friday to three years in state prison.
The 56-year-old Garden Grove resident pleaded guilty to felony counts each of contacting a child with intent to commit a lewd act, meeting a minor with intent to engage in lewd conduct and attempted lewd act upon a child under 14 years old.
Besides the prison time, Griner must now register as a sex offender for life in California, as he had in Iowa for his prior conviction of possessing child pornography there.
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A former Weekly ugly police mugshot of the week model …
Carlton Earl Griner Stung by HB Cops' craigslist Sting and Having Ugliest Mugshot of the Week
… Griner posted a cragislist ad seeking a sex partner in January and went on to exchange sexually explicit emails with the 13-year-old girl/undercover cop. He made arrangements to meet her Jan. 9 at a shopping center, but arrived to find Huntington Beach officers there to arrest him.
His lifetime registration as a sex offender bars him from county parks and parks in 14 Orange County cities that have enacted Child Safety Zones.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.