A Los Angeles Superior Court judge just ruled that the Long Beach Police Department discriminated against gay men by ensnaring them in a homophobic sex sting operation.
Rory Moroney filed a lawsuit against the police department after he was charged with lewd conduct and indecent exposure in October 2014 when an undercover male officer lured him into the restroom at a public park then coaxed him into masturbating, only to arrest him as soon as he did.
Related: Long Beach Police Accused Of Illegally Targeting Gay Man In Bathroom Sex Sting
Moroney pleaded not guilty to the charges, which, if he were convicted, could have landed him on the sex offender for the rest of his life. Then he hired Bruce Nickerson, also known as the Gloria Allred of lewd conduct cases and police sting operations targeting gay men, to represent him in court. And it looks like that was a wise move, because Judge Halim Dhanidina invalidated Moroney’s arrest on Friday, ruling that the LBPD’s tactics were “tantamount to discrimination” and “indicative of animus toward homosexuals.”
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“The presence and tactics of the decoy officers actually caused the crimes to occur,” Dhanidina said.
Prosecutors had tried arguing that the LBPD had based its policing tactics on citizen complaints about lewd conduct in men’s public restrooms, but Dhanidin was not convinced. In his ruling, he said the department failed to provide any evidence of such complaints and that officers had “intentionally targeted men who engaged in homosexual sex” simply because they were homosexual.
Related: Sexy Gladiator Sues The City Of San Diego For Arresting Him For Being “Too Sexy”
In a statement, the LBPD called the ruling “unexpected,” but promised to evaluate how it responds to complaints of lewd conduct in the future.
“We are 100 percent committed to civil rights and equality for all people, including the LGBTQ community,” Police Chief Robert Luna said. “Our department has many openly gay and lesbian employees who are a critical part of our team.”
After the ruling, Nickerson told press the case “should send a message to police in the rest of California not to do these kinds of ridiculous, silly, sting operations.”
As for Moroney, he’s just glad to have the whole thing behind him. As he left the courthouse Friday, he told reporters: “It was really hard to come out and be the voice, but I had to do it because I believe that Long Beach is discriminating against gay men.”
Related: Most Warm Sands Sex Sting Defendants Will Plead Guilty (But Avoid Sex Offender Scarlet Letter)
h/t: LA Times
Stache
Cool. Really have come a long ways since the police did these kind of stings regularity and unopposed.
Billy Budd
Now THIS will teach them a lesson.
Juanjo
I have been an attorney for over 30 years and the one thing I have noticed is the cops never really learn until they get spanked hard. They always will go for the low hanging fruit every time. Easy arrests with generally low risk to the cop always jack up the statistics for the department and make them look like they are doing something productive. The fact is that it is illegal to have sex in public but it is also a fact that straight couples and gay couples have been hooking up in public as long as there has been a public place to hook up in.
Gay men should not be having sex in public restrooms. It is never a good idea for a number of reasons – it is unsanitary, the men who tend to go to these places are often not very safe in the practices and some very unsavory characters tend to hang out and prey on the people engaged in this sort of activity. And of course there is nothing more annoying than to go in to a restroom really needing to use a stall and have a couple of queens in there superglued to the toilet seat waiting each other out.
That being said the cops are notorious for using hot young cops dressed provocatively to go around cruising spots and entice men into committing an illegal act – exposing themselves publicly or actually having sex. Legally there is a fine line here and the cops have to convince someone to cross it. It is entirely legal to go up to a hot guy or woman and ask that person if they want to go back to your place and look at your etchings or listen to Barbara Streisand recordings. It is equally legal to ask them to adjourn to a nearby hotel room and engage in some hot sweaty sex. There are numerous court opinions on that subject. So the cop has to get the person to do something illegal in public.
And this is where some, in fact many, cops cross the line. They rub their crotch, the unzip their pants, they tell the person to touch their crotch, they ask him to expose himself etc. The law says the cop cannot provoke or coerce the illegal behavior but if the person does it on his own with no urging from the cop then he can be arrested. It is a fine legal distinction but it goes to the basis of our law – the act must be completely volitional on the part of the accused and not because of directions he received from a law enforcement agent.
natriley
An important civil rights decision that spot lights the grave abuses in the sex offender registration procedures. But the flower on the cake is the Judge. He’s a Muslim who undoubtedly has profound reason for protecting civil liberties.
Jaroslaw
Juanjo – love the pun – the police go after the low hanging fruit….I agree with everything you’ve said, including these mostly innocuous “sex” crimes boost their stats. How sad of the police use lonely men to accomplish this. And it is disparate treatment – how right the judge was to rule against them. But finally I must say I learned in junior high or maybe earlier, that I’m not attractive and if a nice looking guy comes on to me, they have ulterior motives. Is this so difficult to figure out?
batesmotel
People have sex and have been having sex since the beginning of time. They also have sex in public or in their cars. They need to leave them alone unless they’re of course doing it near a place where kids are or out in the middle of a busy street.
JamJewel
@Juanjo: A little off topic but: Yeah! We had a cop up here in the boonies of western NJ who would present himself exposed to young men he would pull over who had just left a str8 bar in the wee hours of the morning. Some reported him, and he was arrested and kicked off the force, but I’ve always wondered how many went after the tease which, you have to admit, was a novel approach. The pub in the story BTW is on a main street in the middle of the town, not on some out-of-the-way highway. http://www.nj.com/sussex-county/index.ssf/2014/11/newton_cop_accused_of_exposing_himself_to_male_motorists_during_traffic_stops.html
joeyty
Stay away from California.
dgsea06
Juanjo, et al, is ENTRAPMENT illegal? Legal? Entrapment is certainly practiced by more than police, etc. But only by government “officials” and certainly to bolster their “effectiveness”.
Look up “Entrapment” in a law dictionary. Words to the effect of “enticing someone to do that which they would not normally otherwise do”. If it’s for money, thats Prostitution-a totally different conversation.
Meanwhile, there was probably an murder, assault, battery, rape, all that jazz going on down the street, but it’s simply easier to entrap a guy in the restroom. OH! Long Beach! So close to San Diego-ISSA (Daryl) lives on.
So far away from the city in which I was born.
The Tower of Power
@Juanjo: While I agree that police entrapment is a legal problem that needs to be dealt with by the courts, I do not share your sympathy for these men.
It is very hard for me to have sympathy for people who do unabashedly stupid things, and there is no question having sexual relations in a public washroom is idiotic.
What do they think is going to happen if they have sexual relations in a public washroom and why do they think it is a safe and secure place when dozens of people enter the room on a regular basis?
98% of women would never do something like this and it is further proof that women are the more evolved sex on many matters.
I have had sex with people I’ve met in public places before but only after agreeing to go to a hot-pillow motel together. That’s what they are for and there is no intelligent reason to have sex in a lavatory.
OzJosh
@batesmotel: The fact that it’s always gone on doesn’t make it right or safe or admirable. It was more understandable and defensible in the days when there were few other ways of meeting men, and there was more of a social stigma to homosexuality. But in the era of gay bars, grindr and relative acceptance there is really no excuse for such behaviour. Yes, yes, it’s an illicit thrill for some. But they need to find other was of getting their thrills that don’t impinge on the rights of others – gay, straight, adult, child – to use a public bathroom without a bunch of selfish queens turning it into a cruising ground. And we’ve all seen the kind of behaviour that takes hold in popular beats when cruisers come to regard it as their exclusive stamping ground. Moreover, an arrest is not the worst that can happen. You’re far more likely to be bashed or robbed. It’s just not very smart.
Brian
It takes two to tango. You shouldn’t be having sex in public restrooms regardless of whether someone has “seduced” you into it. Take responsibility for your horniness and go get a private room.
At the same time, I must admit that I have a problem with police entrapmente. A male police officer allegedly lures a man into a public restroom for sexual reasons. Does the LAPD also hire female police officers to lure men into public restrooms for sexual reasons? One wonders.
The Tower of Power
@Brian: Police entrapment is unconstitutional itself. The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant was predisposed to commit a crime prior to any contact with government agents in order to overcome entrapment defense.
The Tower of Power
@Brian: There is no statute defining what constitutes “entrapment” either. Entrapment is defined by common law, which means it is determined by court opinions which create precedent and are binding on future decisions. Common law comes from interpretation by judges, so the standard on what is entrapment will vary based on the judges who sit on the courts.
strix1
I agree with @dgsea06 the LBPD set up this sting, meanwhile who knows what other serious crimes they could have been solving or investigating. There is always going to be those certain places where you know it happens but you just look the other way…it’s illegal, yes, if you lawbreakers are just respectful of the general public when you are doing your thang and toss your wrappers in the trash when you are done, everything will be okay.:P
Evji108
There is a long way to go on this kind of discriminatory activity. These kind of ridiculous sting operations are still standard practice in many, many communities across our country. Flirting with and making sexual overtures with men in public places where gay men are known to congregate are fundamentally dishonest and discriminatory. Imagine if they had women making sexual overtures and exposing themselves to straight men and then arresting them when they responded. All these sting operations against gay men depend upon the shame of exposure in order to be successful. Once we stand up and publicly defend ourselves against this kind of illegal police activity, we are going to continue to win. The police win when we are afraid to stand up for our rights. Gay men are no longer the easy targets they once were.
DCguy
1. They didn’t observe and arrest, they pushed the incident to happen. So Entrapment.
2. They weren’t conducting similar stings in any female frequented areas. (Gender Bias)
3. They claimed that citizens complained but couldn’t provide any proof (False testimony in an official situation is typically called Perjury).
4. They were depending upon shame and embarassment to keep the men they arrested from suing so felt free to engage in illegal or at least against proper procedural behavior. They didn’t realize that it isn’t the 1950’s and somebody was going to sue.
The police will continue to do it, get busted one more time, the chief will get fired and THEN they will probably stop.
jamessavik
@Stache:
Actually you can be sure that this is still going on all over the country.
They may have cleaned it up in California but there are forty-nine more states and some of them in South are very bad about institutional gay bashing.
If you noticed conviction of this “crime” would get a person registered as a sex offender. There are parts of the country where the cops use this like a legal club on gay people.
GayEGO
What? This is outrageous for the Long Beach Police to target us normal gay people! Marriage Equality is the law of the land and why is it that people who are suppose to protect us are in legal departments such as police and Republican legislators. We are taxpaying American citizens who are part of our society and are to be treated as such!
Spike
And figures LB’s big gay opportunistic gay Mayor, Bobby Garcia, has no comment.
What an embarrassment.
tricky ricky
he still whipped his dick out! he should have known better.
michael1961
Everything old is new again:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/05/theater-review-the-twentiethcentury-way-at-boston-court-performing-arts-center.html