Gilroy
– A 42-year-old Gilroy man pleaded not guilty Thursday to four
felony charges and denies accusations that he knowingly tried to
seduce a 13-year-old Santa Cruz County girl.
Gilroy – A 42-year-old Gilroy man pleaded not guilty Thursday to four felony charges and denies accusations that he knowingly tried to seduce a 13-year-old Santa Cruz County girl.
Jeffrey Smith met the girl on the Internet and exchanged sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages with her for seven months, Santa Cruz County sheriff’s detectives say. Sexual assault detective Ian Patrick said the messages, which are stored as evidence, clearly show Smith knew the girl was 13 and that he represented himself as being 28.
Smith’s private attorney, Peter Leeming of Santa Cruz, hasn’t finished reviewing police reports, but he said the girl’s representation of her age to Smith was more vague than detectives indicated.
“I don’t know how old he thought she was,” Leeming said, “but I do know that at one point she sent him a picture of someone else that she said was her, and said she was significantly older than she was.”
Meanwhile, Patrick said, Gilroy police or the FBI may take over an investigation into whether Smith was having similar correspondences with other underage girls from around the world. When Santa Cruz County deputies and Gilroy police searched Smith’s house at 995 Oak Brook Way, Patrick said they found evidence of sexually graphic computer chat with numerous other, possibly underage girls, plus pornographic pictures of girls who appeared to be minors.
Patrick said his sheriff’s office doesn’t have jurisdiction over the evidence from Smith’s home. Either Gilroy police or the FBI could look into future charges, depending on what a forensic search of Smith’s computer reveals.
Two months ago, the 13-year-old girl’s parents found graphic sexual messages from Smith that the girl saved on their home computer. They called the sheriff’s office, and detectives took over the girl’s side of the correspondence in order to obtain evidence.
According to Patrick, Smith agreed to meet who he thought was the girl for sex on Sept. 3 in Felton. But instead he found detectives who arrested him. He was released later that day on a $25,000 bail bond.
“This is a guy with no criminal history at all,” Leeming said. “He was basically responding to overtures that were entirely from the police.”
Smith is charged with three counts of distributing lewd material to a child under 14 and one count of committing a lewd act with a child under 14 – although the filed complaint clearly says he only “attempted” to have sex with the girl, according to Assistant DA Steve Moore..
