A case-study in the potency of federal prosecution

This story from Maryland details the interesting and telling outcome in federal court for a defendant who had successfully challenged his state prosection for an alleged on-line sex offense:

Richard J. Moore created legal history when he successfully challenged a state law, arguing that a sex offender could not be convicted for soliciting an undercover officer masquerading as a young girl on the Internet.  Yesterday, the Howard County man paid a heavy price for his appellate victory.

Federal prosecutors took over the case, and a judge sentenced Moore to serve nearly 2 1/2 years in prison for traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor in July 2002…. U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg said in court yesterday that he would not sentence Moore to home confinement. Instead, Legg said, Moore deserved to be sentenced at the low end of the recommended sentencing guidelines — between 33 to 41 months in prison.

In court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Norman argued that Moore’s offense was a crime of violence, typical of the kind of sex offense investigators have found on the Internet. Norman said that under current law, the recommended sentencing guidelines for Moore would have been much harsher, carrying a mandatory minimum prison term of five years.  But Gage-Cohen countered that Moore had no idea when he decided to appeal his state conviction that he would prompt state officials to seek out federal prosecutors.

Moore addressed the judge toward the end of the 90-minute hearing, standing in front of a half-dozen members of his family and friends. “I assure you it was an aberration,” he told Legg, his voice breaking slightly.  He described his life since, a sorrowful life of divorce, job loss and banishment from the ability to parent his two sons.  “What I did was incredibly wrong,” Moore said, adding that as a 9-year-old he was sexually abused.  Still, he said, “I have no one to blame but myself.”

Legg declined to impose a sentence below the recommended sentencing guidelines.  “This is a very serious societal problem,” Legg said. “It’s also a very serious crime.” A stiff sentence for Moore, he added, would show others that federal courts treat sex offenders harshly, whether or not there was a “real” victim involved.