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Mann Crosses the Line
Roger Weiner was arrested at a Mississippi gas station for violating the Mann Act, an arcane law prohibiting transport of women across state lines for “immoral purposes.” This is stupid. It should be repealed. “Immoral purposes?” Who decides what is immoral? If you think rape, murder, and slavery are immoral, then we’ve already got laws that take care of that. However, Weiner appears to have been arrested for using the Internet to meet women.
FBI agents claim to have received a tip that Weiner was downloading child pornography from a website called sugardaddyforme.com.
When the child porn tip didn’t pan out, agents spent hours posing as prostitutes (was that part of your job requirement, officer?) in chat rooms, attempting to get Weiner to agree to pay them to make an 80-mile trip from Memphis to his home in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Weiner refused, at one point stating flatly that there’s “a difference between a sugar baby and a hooker, and I’m not interested in a hooker.”
One agent posting as “Mary” claimed to be in Memphis and repeatedly offered to drive to see Weiner for a sex-for-pay rendezvous. Weiner again refused. After several attempts, Mary told Weiner she was driving to Mobile, Alabama, would be passing through Clarksdale, and suggested they get together. Weiner finally agreed. At the last minute, Mary called to say she had no intention of going to Mobile and was actually coming solely to see Weiner— a requirement to trigger the Mann Act. When Weiner drove to the gas station to meet her, he was ambushed by a team of FBI agents.
In August, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers nearly threw out the charges against Weiner. The records showed that Mary was never actually in Memphis; she had been propositioning Weiner from Mississippi and thus never crossed state lines. Biggers questioned the zeal with which federal agents tried to induce Weiner to commit a federal crime, saying, “You’ve come a long way from the purpose of this statute.”
At this time, the government still plans to try Weiner.
Lineage: Reason