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3D-Printed Gun Activist Cody Wilson Charged With Sexual Assault, Misses Flight Back From Taiwan
3-D Printed Gun Promoter, Cody Wilson, Is Charged With Sexual Assault of Child (archive)
Cody Wilson, whose push to post blueprints for 3-D printed guns online has made him a key figure in the national gun control debate, was charged on Wednesday with sexually assaulting a child in Texas.
But law enforcement officers said they were having trouble finding Mr. Wilson, who missed a flight back to the United States from Taipei, Taiwan, his last known location. During a news conference on Wednesday, Cmdr. Troy Officer of the Austin Police Department said that a warrant had been filed for Mr. Wilson's arrest and that local detectives were working with national and international partners to find him.
Mr. Wilson, 30, is accused of having sex with a 16-year-old girl at a hotel in Austin on Aug. 15 and paying her $500 in cash, according to an affidavit filed in Travis County. The girl told the police that she had met Mr. Wilson through the website SugarDaddyMeet.com, where he was using the screen name "Sanjuro," the affidavit says.
[...] She and Mr. Wilson, who identified himself to the girl, exchanged phone numbers and then continued messaging each other, sharing at least one explicit photo apiece, according to the affidavit. During one conversation, Mr. Wilson described himself as a "big deal," the affidavit says.
[...] Neither Mr. Wilson nor his lawyer in the sexual assault case responded to a request for comment. The Austin police said a friend of the victim had told Mr. Wilson before he left for Taiwan that he was under investigation.
Taiwan does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.
Looks like someone else will have to take on the job of defending file sharing in court.
Previously: [Updated] Defense Distributed Releasing Gun Plans, President Trump "Looking Into" It
Federal Judge Imposes Preliminary Injunction Against Defense Distributed's DEFCAD
3D Gun File Downloads Blocked; Selling Begins Instead
3-D gun entrepreneur Cody Wilson accused of paying for sex with underage girl, authorities say
From the Washington Post come this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/09/19/d-gun-entrepreneur-cody-wilson-accused-paying-sex-with-underage-girl-authorities-say/?utm_term=.492c764a26d9
Cody Wilson, a 3-D gunmaker who has become embroiled in a national debate about "downloadable" firearms, has been accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl, according to court documents.
Authorities said Wilson, 30, paid the teenager $500 for sex in a hotel last month in Austin after the two met on a dating website, according to an arrest warrant affidavit that was filed Wednesday in district court in Travis County, Tex. Wilson faces a charge of sexual assault, a second-degree felony, according to the court documents.
A spokeswoman with the Austin Police Department said Wilson has not been arrested. It is unclear why authorities are charging him with sexual assault and whether he has an attorney.
I submit this story because it has to do with certain rights. Not who is right.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday September 21 2018, @11:51AM (4 children)
Definitely sounds like a setup. Look, the guy is an idiot for hiring a prostitute, especially since he knows that he has a lot of political enemies. That said, consider:
What prostitute recounts her business transactions to a counselor? If she did that, every single client would get busted, seeing as how prostitution is illegal in Texas. Also another comment points out, she isn't an "enslaved" kid if she has a counselor. The whole counselor bit is fishy as hell.
She got paid $500 for less than an hour of her time. That's a hell of a rate. If she has a client who pays that kind of money, she's even less likely to rat him out.
Finally, she's on a site that requires participants to be legal adults. She apparently proved to the site that she was 19, in her correspondence she claimed to be 19, she almost certainly had fake ID to prove that she was 19. "Mens rea" (intent) is supposed to be required for most criminal prosecutions. If Cody Wilson genuinely thought she was an adult, then he is not guilty of statutory rape, it's really that simple.
Really, it smells like a setup. It doesn't even have to be a setup by the authorities - it could be some private group. Regardless, by choosing a crime involving underage girls and sex, they ensure that no one will dare come to his defense.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @02:44PM
Well, that's the thing -- for most criminal prosecutions. In Texas, sex with under-17 is a strict liability felony.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @02:54PM
So the guy bought a tart online. Which means the transaction was know to pretty much everybody since the 4th doesn't apply to digital communications.
So the question for the counseler is: "Who came to you and instructed you to come forward and what leverage did they have?"
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday September 21 2018, @06:13PM (1 child)
Definitely sounds like a setup. Look, the guy is an idiot for hiring a prostitute,
So, OTHER than committing the crime, what did he do wrong?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @08:26PM
It's all about characterization and demonizing someone. Look, I don't think the guy is the greatest person ever, but there are keywords and hot buttons to press when you want to make something look potentially far more heinous than it was. If he legitimately thought was meeting a 19 year old and can prove it, his only crime is soliciting a prostitute which many people believe should be legal anyway. If they can claim he sought out a child he becomes a pedophile (which a 17 year old does not exactly fit into, but only in the case of trying to find every possible thing you can to hurt someone). Pedophile brings out all the special bleeding hearts... even in prison it gets horrible treatment from the other inmates. This isn't to minimize the severity of pedophilia. That's a truly horrible crime. It's also a handy tool to make the public hate someone without having to provide real proof.