Minor Sending Simulated Pornography to Our Minor Daughter

[Mr. Knowitall]

Check with your carrier about blocking the boyfriend's number / email from calling or sending messages.

[bcdudley]

We have no idea who the parents are. All we know is the kids first name and his phone number. The school will not help citing privacy laws and our daughter refuses to tell us.

I do not want to take the phone away because that is the only way I have of monitoring her while she is at school. It has gps on it so I can track her location and I get a copy of every text message. If we take that away, she will find other means of communicating that we cannot monitor. I cannot monitor her friends cell phones or school email. As far as she knows now, the phone is the easiest communication method so that is what she uses.

I can block the kids calls and texts with the monitoring software I have installed, but they will find other ways to communicate. .

[Mr. Knowitall]

Basically, then, the root of the problem is that your daughter won't behave and you don't want to impose the type of consequences upon her that might change her behavior.

[bcdudley]

That is true. I guess sexual predators have a free pass these days. The solution seems to be take her out of school and lock her in a dungeon until she is 18.

[cbg]

Well, no, they don't. The problem is not that nothing can be done, but that you are not willing to take the intermediate steps or accept the fact that the law is not going to immediately lock him away on your say-so.

[Dogmatique]

In other words...MITIGATE the problem yourself.

You have a responsibility to parent your child.

[cdwjava]

If the images are such that they do not violate any state laws, what is it that you want the police to do? They cannot create a law because you do not like the action that is taking place. The most they could do - if they knew how to get a hold of the kid - is to ask him to stop contacting your daughter. If they do not know where he lives, then unlike on TV they cannot generally magically find out where he lives through some super secret computer system. To find out who he is and where he lives if the information is not publicly available, they would need a subpoena or a search warrant. The only problem is, no crime means no subpoena or warrant is possible.

And since this does not seem to be criminal in nature, they may not be willing to go through the effort of tracking him down at school simply to ask that he voluntarily stop talking to your daughter.

Until he actively encourages your daughter to be out of your control and she runs away or does some delinquent act with his encouragement, there may be little that can legally be done.

Here is another idea rather than taking away the phone since that seems to be off the table. Get her one of those cheap phones at Wal-Mart or elsewhere and disable texting. Then, move her computer to the living room and put a password on it so that only you can log her in. That way she can still do homework but not have freedom to chat, go to Facebook, or do whatever else so many kids do nowadays.

The solution here is largely your responsibility. You need to take some affirmative action with regards to your daughter disobeying you. Until Romeo crosses the legal boundary, all the wishing in the world is not going to make his words and defiant punk attitude criminal.

[bcdudley]

I just got through going over the logs from last night on the text messages. The conversation was pretty intense and was enough to push us over the edge for taking the phone away. The conversation was very colorful and descriptive. Also, the boy sent over pictures of his gentiles from start to finish of him pleasuring himself. His face is clearly visible. Our daughter only sent back pictures of her face, but nothing showing her with her clothes off.

The text logs from this morning show he was trying to get her to skip school and go off somewhere with her. The texts were not specific where. She left school for about an hour during lunch and some other class. It also showed her listening to music and youtube during class.

We have confronted our daughter and told her she will not get the phone back until we feel like we can trust her and she earns it back. Until then, she can use the pay phones at school.
When / If she does get it back, All numbers except ours and other family will be blocked. Also all web pages and apps will be blocked so it can only be used as a phone for calling us.

I also plan to go to the other boys house and give them the transcripts of all the communication that has taken place over the last couple days. We have his address from our daughter.

What I am concerned with is that this is now child pornography. I would prefer to let the kids parents know before getting the police involved, but at the same time I do not want to go over there and be arrested for possession. I clearly have the logs showing he sent it and from the picture it is evident that he took the picture himself.

My intention is to let the parents know that if I ever catch him speaking to her again, I will turn the pictures and logs over to the police and ask to have him labeled as a sex offender as well as prosecuted to the fullest extent.

Is this something that is ok to do, or a really bad idea.


Edit in response to CDWJAVA: We took her computer privileges away long ago. She does still have a computer, but everything she does is monitored by a key stroke logger and a program that takes a screenshot every 30 seconds. I also setup the firewall to block her computer from going to any social networking sites or gaming sites that allow chatting. I have the computer locked down very tight. I am a Network Security Engineer by trade so that is something that is pretty easy to do.

[lurkertom]

Yes, he stepped over the line. You should definitely involve the police at this point, without hesitation. The police will let the soon-to-be-sex-offender's parents know what is going on. If you were to threaten action against them without police involvement, it could be construed as blackmail and/or hurt your case later if young romeo escalated his attempts to win your daughter's heart. It is obvious he does not believe that you will protect your loved ones or that there are serious consequences to his actions.

[bcdudley]

Just got back from his parents house. Got your message afterwards, but the parents were very appreciative. I gave them a copy of the transscripts and his mother was in tears. I told them I was not going to do anything yet, but if there was any further contact,I would get the police involved. After talking to her, I am certain that I did the right thing. At the time I got there, only his mother was there. His father called me about 15 minutes after I got home apologising and letting me know that it would be handled. His parents seemed like very nice and concerned parents.

I did not threaten anything at all but just approached her as a concerned parent trying to help her out. She demanded to see his cell phone and for him to produce the images. Of course he would not produce them, but she did take his cell phone away and told him he was never getting it back. She also said she was selling his laptop and xbox.

I am pretty sure that this is over.

Thanks.