Thanks to television shows and other sources, people often have the idea that Internet sex crimes are really based in trickery. They think of men posing as young girls in chat rooms, for example, and then meeting up with other children without revealing their identity.
However, some sources have claimed that this perception is fairly wrong. In most of these cases, it’s claimed, the online crimes look nothing like that. Instead, the crimes are more related to statutory rape.
The idea here is that the teens and children who are drawn into these relationships do know the people they’re talking to, at least in the sense that they’ve met them online and both parties have been honest about their ages, genders and the like. They are not trying to trick anyone or arrange a meeting with a teen who will be surprised to find out who was on the other end of the chat window.
Instead, these people will try to become close with the teens. They will build relationships and then try to seduce them to get them to agree to sexual acts despite the age difference. Only when the teens agree will they actually meet up.
In many ways, these are the same tactics that would be used if the two met in real life. The Internet is being used less as a way to deceive people and more as a simple way to meet people who may be easily seduced.
If you’ve been accused of committing a crime like this, you must know your rights and you need to understand all of your legal options in North Carolina.
Source: UNH, “Internet,” accessed May. 29, 2015