As the comments section to this post shows, at least one person did not believe longtime CHP official Stephen Robert Deck was guilty of trying to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met online.
“You know, everyone makes mistakes,” Teresa writes in her comment posted at 9:49 this morning. “This guy is not a pedaphile [sic]. He
wanted to get caught. He knew it was a sting. He was depressed and
looking for anyway out. I have know [sic] him for 22 years and I can tell you
he is not a child molester. I know how it all sounds but are we not
suppose [sic] to be innocent uintil [sic] proven guilty. . . . He deserves a chance. He
made a mistake, a big mistake, and he is very very sorry for what he
talked about, because he really did not do anything with anyone. . . . God
bless you, Steve. You are in our prayers and we love you.”
A seven-man, five-woman jury in Santa Ana saw things differently, convicting the 54-year-old Oceanside resident hours later of attempted lewd act on a child.
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R. Scott Moxley introduced readers to Deck in March 2006, about
three weeks after the longtime CHP lieutenant was snared by Laguna Beach
police and Perverted-Justice.com–a non-profit organization aimed at protecting
children from Internet sexual predators–for allegedly trying to have sex with someone he met online he believed to be a 13-year-old girl. The “girl” was actually an undercover officer who waited for Deck at a Laguna Beach park.
He had driven 45 miles for a rendezvous, bringing along several condoms, a digital camera and a piece of
key lime pie.
Deck could get up to four years in prison at his
Jan. 22 sentencing in Santa Ana and be forced to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.The Orange County Register reports the former lawman was
handcuffed and taken into custody after the jury handed down its verdict.
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.