Firefighter Pleads Guilty in Sex Sting

A Montgomery County firefighter pleaded guilty Monday to soliciting sex over the Internet, a lesser offense than what he was originally charged with, prompting a judge to again question whether a long-running police sting operation is netting true sexual deviants.

Seventeen men originally were charged with solicitation of a minor, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Six of the cases have been settled, and those men pleaded guilty to misdemeanor solicitation with no age factor, meaning they did not plead guilty to trying to hire a minor, according to Montgomery court records.

Only one received jail time -- seven days -- and at least five were sentenced in a way that could allow them to expunge the matter from their records.

Montgomery detectives began the sting in March by posting an ad on Craigslist offering sex. Men who responded were directed to another Web site, where an undercover officer advertised herself as a 16-year-old girl, according to police. Vice detectives also phoned, e-mailed and sent text messages to the respondents, again presenting themselves as 16, according to police.

But after the initial arrests, lawyers for some of the men asserted that their clients initially responded to someone they thought was an adult. Circuit Judge Terrence McGann, who has handled at least two of the cases, indicated from the bench Monday that he shared the concerns.

The enticement "wasn't like: 'I'm a high school cheerleader and I'm trying to make a couple extra bucks,' " McGann said of the case of Lt. Wayne A. Mothershead, a member of the county fire department for more than 20 years. "What bothered the court is the way it was targeted."

Capt. Paul Starks, a police spokesman, noted that the men have pleaded guilty to trying to pay for sex. He said that detectives acted "appropriately, ethically and within the law," and that the sting helped educate county residents.

Montgomery State's Attorney John McCarthy said that before the men pleaded guilty to adult solicitation, they underwent sex-offender evaluations to determine whether they were a threat to children.

"We haven't had any that raised a red flag for us," said Karla Smith, head of the Family Violence Division of the state's attorney's office.

When sentencing a different suspect in August, McGann, known among defense lawyers and prosecutors for fashioning long sentences, said he was not entirely comfortable with the case. At that hearing, the judge described a 56-year-old suspect as someone who appeared to be interested in paying for adult sex.

"There's no deviant behavior on the part of the defendant that's been manifested in any way in this case before me," McGann said. "There's absolutely no indication that this gentleman was preying upon someone that was too young, not of age, and someone that the court would interpret, or society would find, to be a perversion. If it were, it would be a completely different case."

Many of the men arrested in the sting have families. The August case before McGann was such a case, but the judge said it was not a factor in his sentencing decision.

"I won't comment on his marriage," McGann said. "It's kind of bizarre. I don't think this was therapeutic for it."

McGann sentenced the 56-year-old to "probation before judgment," meaning that the man does not have a conviction on his record.

In Monday's case, Mothershead's lawyer, Rebecca Nitkin, was able to present a police incident report that cast doubt on whether the undercover officer said she was 16 when talking to Mothershead. Although Mothershead indicated that he heard her say she was 16, police wrote, "the recorded conversations do not reflect this."

"I'm ashamed to be here, your honor," Mothershead told McGann, choking back tears. "I hope I never land in your courtroom again. I promise you I won't."