Local
D.C. police target gay men in online sting
Effort called unfair as cop uses drugs, ‘perv boy’ to entice users; at least 20 arrested
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said she is aware of the sting and supports it through the department’s participation in an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia has alleged that D.C. police and the U.S. Attorney’s office have unfairly targeted gay men in an Internet sting operation seeking to arrest men who “entice” or “persuade” juveniles for sex.
In a little noticed brief filed in federal court last May, Assistant Public Defender for D.C. Jonathan Jeffress said that with full approval from the U.S. Attorney’s office, a D.C. police detective posing undercover as an adult gay man has targeted gay men for sex-with-minor arrests on adult gay websites that have “no history or reputation as locations where minors go online.”
The brief was filed under Jeffress’ name along with the name of A.J. Kramer, the Federal Public Defender for D.C., who is responsible for managing a staff of public defender attorneys that represent indigent clients before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Jeffress told the Blade that among the sites targeted in the sting are Gay.com, BarebackRT.com, and SexPigs.com, which are widely known as dating and sex hookup sites for adult gay men. He said he knows of at least 20 arrests of gay men in the sting operation in which the undercover detective met the men through these websites.
These figures are far lower than the actual numbers of arrests through this sting, Jeffress said, because many of the arrested men likely retain private attorneys and their cases don’t pass through the Federal Public Defender’s office.
William Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said that since 2005, his office has prosecuted 68 cases “in which defendants were arrested in investigations in which an undercover officer poses as an adult pedophile who has access to a child (girl or boy).” He said that of the 68 cases, “about half involved defendants attempting to exploit boys and about half involved defendants attempting to exploit girls.”
Miller cited a court brief filed by the government in opposition to the Federal Public Defender’s brief, which disputes the allegations made by the public defender, calling them “baseless.” The government brief says the allegations and legal arguments made by the Federal Public Defender are not supported by past court decisions that upheld the legality of similar sting operations in other jurisdictions.
Jeffress, however, noted that a federal judge in D.C. supported the Federal Public Defender’s arguments last month when he acquitted a gay male defendant ensnared in one the sting arrests.
Jeffress said D.C. police Det. Timothy Palchak has made nearly all of the arrests in the sting operation.
According to court records and police charging documents, the undercover detective posts a profile on one of the websites indicating his interest in meeting someone for sex, describing himself as 40 years old, “athletic,” 6-feet-2 inches tall, 200-209 pounds, and “versatile.” In at least one case, he described himself as a “no limit perv” into taboos, including “yng,” meaning young people.
Court records show the detective informs those who respond to his posting through emails or instant messages using known code words or abbreviations that he’s into drugs, including crystal meth, and invites the men to his place for sex with him.
A police charging document for one of the cases says the detective mentioned to one of the men responding to his profile that he has available to him a 12-year-old “perv boy” who “loves” to be penetrated in anal sex.
Police and prosecutors have said in court papers the “boy” is fictitious and that the men targeted in the sting have never been in contact with an actual juvenile or with the fictitious boy — only with the detective posing as an adult who claims to have access to the boy.
In his court brief, Jeffress said many of the men arrested in the sting are heavy drug users, including crystal meth addicts, and have consented to engaging in sex with the detective and the juvenile for the purpose of “going along” with the detective, who they think is a willing adult sex partner, as a means of obtaining drugs.
“Instead of apprehending the Internet predator who is actively seeking children online — such as the kind of defendant one sees time after time in the cases from other districts — the U.S. Attorney’s Office is instead arresting gay men interacting in adults-only chat rooms that have no history or reputation as locations where minors go online,” Jeffress said in his brief.
“Moreover, instead of arresting individuals who have attempted to persuade minors, the arrests are of defendants who have been persuaded by the UC [undercover detective] to meet him and the fictitious minor for drugs and sex,” the brief says.
The brief adds, “[A]s the government is fully aware, the defendants in these cases are often struggling with meth use, and are therefore agreeing to the UC’s propositions not because they are pedophiles but because they are compulsive and exceedingly susceptible to the power of the UC’s suggestions, particularly on sexual matters. These defendants are also powerfully motivated by the UC’s dangling of meth as a ‘carrot’ to reward their travel to the meeting place.”
By meeting place, Jeffress was referring to a place that Det. Palchak arranges for the men targeted in the sting to meet him and the fictitious juvenile for sex and drugs. The targeted men are arrested immediately or shortly after they arrive at the designated meeting place, court records show.
Jeffress’ brief, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, called on a federal judge to dismiss a charge against a Canadian gay man ensnared in the sting in March 2011 during his visit to D.C. on the way home from Fort Lauderdale. Police and prosecutors charged Ivan Nitschke, 47, under a federal anti-pedophile statute that calls for a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in jail and a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The statute, referred to in court documents as 18 U.S. Code, Sec. 2422(b), is aimed at apprehending online predators who seek out sex with minors.
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg agreed to a pre-trial defense motion to dismiss that charge against Nitschke last May. Following a non-jury trial last month, Boasberg found Nitschke not-guilty on a separate charge of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
Boasberg ordered Nitschke released from jail, where he had been held without bail since his arrest on March 24, 2011.
The brief says Nitschke, an admitted methamphetamine addict, was arrested after he responded to a posting by Det. Palchak on BarebackRT.com.
In delivering his verdict in the Nitschke case, Judge Boasberg said he found the defendant, who testified at the trial, to be credible and honest in admitting to his addiction to crystal meth and being into promiscuous sex with multiple adult partners during his visit to D.C.
Boasberg said the defense proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Nitschke was not a pedophile and his stated agreement to join the undercover detective in a sexual encounter with the fictitious 12-year-old boy was motivated by his desire to obtain drugs from the detective posing as an adult sex partner.
“So at the end of the day, for all these reasons, in this case I strongly question the government, whether the government has even met the preponderance standard here,” Boasberg said from the bench. “And I thus have no hesitation in pronouncing a verdict of not guilty for the defendant.”
Miller, the spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney in D.C., said his office has no comment on the verdict in the Nitschke case.
He said the arrests in the sting have been part of a joint effort between the U.S. Attorney’s office, D.C. police, and the FBI through the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which he said places a high priority on combating the sexual exploitation of minors.
“When the task force learns that pedophiles are using otherwise legitimate websites to seek out children to exploit, it does not hesitate to use those sites to identify these criminals,” Miller said in a statement to the Blade. “Our office has no interest in targeting those seeking out consensual adult relationships, but remains committed to identifying and stopping those individuals who are intent on sexually exploiting children.”
He said that of the 68 “sting” cases prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. since 2005, 66 of the defendants were convicted, one case was dismissed, and just one defendant, Nitschke, was acquitted by a judge. Miller did not break down these numbers between the defendants that pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain offer and those, if any, who were convicted in a trial.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, when asked about the sting, told the Blade she is aware of it and supports it through the department’s participation in an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force created by the U.S. Department of Justice. The FBI is also a participant in the Task Force.
“The goal of the unit is to protect children against predators,” Lanier said, in referring to a D.C. police Internet Crimes Against Children unit to which Det. Palchak is assigned. “The group that is targeted is pedophiles,” she said. “Anyone that agrees to have sex with a child should be arrested and prosecuted.”
Lanier said Palchak and the ICAC unit “looks at several websites and does not target any one in particular…No one website is targeted,” she told the Blade in an email.
In a police charging document against Nitschke, Det. Palchak said that Nitschke initiated a private email chat with the detective in response to the detective’s profile on the website, which has since been identified as BareBackRT.com. In one of his messages, Palchak said he was getting off work at 3 p.m. “and meeting my lil perv boy that I met over the summer for a few hours. He is young so if that is not your thing we can hook up after he leaves.”
In his charging document, Palchak quotes Nitschke as responding, “Hey bud…said I was into that in my first message…fuck yeah…how old is he?” Palchak responded that the boy had not yet turned 13 and added that the boy was very “cool, vers and freaky” and “loves to be fucked and bred,” the charging document says.
It says Nitschke responded, “…yeah…into all that…and ready to join in.”
In explaining his not-guilty verdict for Nitschke, Judge Boasberg said this type of dialogue, standing alone, suggested Nitschke may have been interested in sex with the fictitious boy. But the judge said the preponderance of evidence established a “context” showing that Nitschke was not into sex with minors and that his overarching aim was to seek out drugs from the detective.
Boasberg noted that evidence submitted by the defense showed that he had been in online chats with half-a-dozen or more other men during the days prior to his online meeting with Det. Palchak. In all of those exchanges the defendants’ interest was sex with people around his age and drugs, not sex with a juvenile, Boasberg said in his lengthy verdict, which has been transcribed.
“[H]is actions show that meeting Detective Palchak is something he is barely interested in,” Boasberg said in explaining his verdict. “If you look at his actions, not what he said in the chat, but what he did,” said the judge, “it just doesn’t show someone who is interested in sex with children.”
It could not be immediately determined whether the U.S. Attorney’s office has asked Det. Palchak to change his tactics in communicating with men on the gay adult websites as a means of carrying out the sting operation following Boasberg’s not-guilty verdict in the Nitschke case.
The concerns raised by the Federal Public Defender about the possible targeting of gay men in a child-sex sting come at a time when LGBT activists have complained that the U.S. Attorney’s office has lowered charges in plea bargain arrangements for people arrested for committing violent crimes against LGBT people, especially transgender women, during the past several years.
Jeffress said the Federal Public Defender’s office has represented about a dozen gay men arrested in the sting operation whom the undercover detective met through various adult gay websites. He said he knows of at least 10 more arrests made through online contact between the detective and the defendants, with at least some through Gay.com.
In his court brief, Jeffress said prosecutors in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office typically charge the men arrested in the sting under 18 U.S. Code 2422(b), which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison, as a way to intimidate them into pleading guilty to a lower charge.
The lower charge often consists of a federal statute outlawing traveling in interstate or foreign commerce “for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with another person.” That statute carries no minimum sentence and includes a maximum sentence of 30 years. Jeffress’ brief says in most cases, judges follow federal sentencing guidelines, which call for sentences for first offenders of between 46 and 57 months in jail.
The brief says the action by the men ensnared in the sting does not appear to meet the threshold for an arrest under the more severe charge, 18 U.S. Code 2422(b), which states, “Whoever, using the mail or any facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce … knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual who has not attained the age of 18 years, to engage in prostitution or any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not less than 10 years and or for life.”
District of Columbia
GLAA releases ratings for 18 candidates running for D.C. mayor, Council, AG
Mayoral contender Janeese Lewis Geroge among those receiving highest score
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, a Democrat, is among just four candidates to receive the highest rating score of +10 from GLAA D.C. who are competing in the city’s June 16 primary election.
GLAA, formally known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has rated candidates for public office in D.C. since the 1970s. It rated 18 of the 36 candidates on this year’s primary ballot for mayor, D.C. Council, and D.C. attorney general based on its policy of only rating candidates who return a GLAA questionnaire asking for their positions on a wide range of issues, most of which are not LGBTQ-specific.
Among the candidates who did not return the questionnaire and thus did not receive a rating, according to GLAA, was Democratic mayoral contender Kenyan McDuffie, who along with Lewis George, is considered by political observers to be one of the two leading mayoral candidates running in the Democratic primary.
GLAA President Benjamin Brooks said that when the McDuffie campaign learned that GLAA announced it had released its candidate ratings and McDuffie was not rated because a questionnaire from him was not received a McDuffie campaign worker contacted GLAA. Brooks said the campaign worker told him they didn’t initially believe they received the questionnaire but they discovered this week that it landed in the spam folder of the campaign’s email account.
Brooks told the Washington Blade he informed the campaign worker it was too late for GLAA to issue a rating for McDuffie since the submission deadline for all candidates had passed. But he said GLAA will allow McDuffie to submit a completed questionnaire that it will post on its website along with the questionnaire responses of the other candidates who submitted them to GLAA.
McDuffie’s campaign in a statement to the Blade said the GLAA questionnaire “had gone to a spam folder tied to a campaign email address and was never seen by the campaign.”
“Kenyan McDuffie has long been proud of his record of standing with DC’s LGBTQ+ community,” reads the statement. “He has completed the GLAA questionnaire in every election since his first campaign and, in 2022, earned one of the top two ratings among candidates for the two at-large Council seats that election cycle.”
“Kenyan remains committed to fighting for equality, dignity, safety, and opportunity for LGBTQ+ residents across all eight wards, and our campaign welcomes the opportunity to continue engaging with GLAA and the LGBTQ+ community throughout this race,” it continues.
Lewis George and McDuffie, who each have long records of support for the LGBTQ community, are among a total of eight candidates running for mayor on the June 16 primary ballot: seven Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate. In addition to Lewis George, GLAA rated just two other mayoral candidates. Rini Sampath, a Democrat who self identifies as queer, received a +6.5 rating, and Ernest E. Johnson, also a Democrat, received a +4.5 rating
Under the GLAA rating system, candidate ratings range from a +10, the highest score, to a -10, the lowest possible score. In its ratings for the June 16 primary, the lowest score issued was +4.5. GLAA said in a statement that each of the 18 candidates it rated expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues in their questionnaire responses, indicating that the overall rating scores reflect the candidates’ positions on mostly non-LGBTQ-specific issues.
The three other candidates who received a +10 GLAA rating are each running as Democrats for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat. They include gay candidate Miguel Trindade Deramo; Aparna Raj, who identifies as bisexual; and LGBTQ ally Rashida Brown. The only other Ward 1 candidate rated by GLAA is LGBTQ ally Terry Lynch, who received a +5.5 rating.
Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker, the Council’s only gay member who is facing two opponents in the Democratic primary, received a +7 GLAA rating. The two challengers did not return the questionnaire and were not rated.
“In seven out of 10 of our priorities, every candidate indicated agreement,” GLAA said in its statement to the Washington Blade in referring to the candidates it rated. “Total consensus on core issues signals that whomever is elected to Council and mayor, we should expect to hold our elected officials accountable to our goals of protecting home rule, resisting federal overreach, advancing transgender healthcare rights, and eliminating chronic homelessness in the District,” the statement says.
“While candidates agree on the basics, they distinguish themselves in the depth and creativity in their responses, and their record on the issues,” according to the statement, which adds that candidates’ full questionnaire responses and ratings can be accessed on the GLAA website, glaa.org.
Like past election years, GLAA does not rate candidates running for the D.C. Congressional Delegate seat or the so-called “shadow” U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate seats.
With the exception of one question asking about transgender rights, none of the other nine of the 10 questionnaire questions are LGBTQ-specific. But most of the questions mention that LGBTQ people are impacted by the issues being raised, such as affordable housing, federal government intrusion into D.C. home rule, and access to healthcare and public benefits for low-income residents.
One of the questions asks candidates if they support decriminalization of sex work in D.C. among consenting adults, which GLAA supports. Lewis George is among the candidates who said they do not support sex work decriminalization at this time. The other two mayoral candidates that GLAA rated, Sampath and Johnson, said they support sex work decriminalization.
In the race for D.C. attorney general, GLAA issued a rating for just one of the three candidates running: Republican challenger Manuel Rivera, who received a +4.5 rating. Incumbent Democrat Brian Schwalb and Democratic challenger J.P. Szymkowicz were not rated because they didn’t return the questionnaire.
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), who is running unopposed in the primary, received a +6.5 rating. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who is facing three Democratic challengers in the primary and who is a longtime LGBTQ ally, received a +6.5 rating.
In the special election to fill the at-large D.C. Council seat vacated by the resignation of then-Independent Councilmember McDuffie to enable him to run for mayor as a Democrat, GLAA has rated two of the three Independent candidates competing for the seat. Elissa Silverman received a +5.75 rating, and Doni Crawford received a +5.6 rating.
Finally, in the At-Large D.C. Council race GLAA issued ratings for five of the 11 candidates running in the primary, each of whom are Democrats. Oye Owolewa received a +9; Lisa Raymond, +7.5; Dwight Davis, +6.5; Dyana N.M. Forester, +6; and Fred Hill, +6.6.
The full list of GLAA-rated candidates and their detailed questionnaire responses can be accessed at glaa.org.
Rehoboth Beach
From the Capitol to the coast: Rep. Sarah McBride shares Rehoboth favorites
As summer kicks off, Congresswoman Sarah McBride shares her favorite Rehoboth spots.
Each year for the past 19 years, the Washington Blade has kicked off the summer season with a quintessential tradition — a party in Rehoboth Beach. The annual celebration is well known among Blade readers as the unofficial start of summer and beach season. (This year’s event is May 15, 5-7 p.m. at Diego’s featuring remarks from Ashley Biden.)
Two weeks ago, the Blade sat down with Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, to discuss her first year in office. While reflecting on key milestones and challenges ahead, she also shared some of her favorite Rehoboth spots and what the beach town means to her.
“I love Rehoboth,” the state’s sole House member told the Blade, beaming from her office in the Longworth House Office Building. “I love Baltimore Avenue, and love going to Aqua and the Pines.”
Both Aqua and the Pines have long served as staples of Rehoboth’s LGBTQ community. From the Saturday night lines stretching down the street off the main drag to the Sunday tea dances, the venues have helped cement Rehoboth as one of the top LGBTQ beach destinations in the United States dating back to at least the 1940s, when LGBTQ federal workers would escape the pressures — and often prying eyes — of Washington for a queer haven along the Delaware coast.
While attitudes and the community itself have evolved over the decades, Rehoboth today can still feel like an extension of D.C. — only with more Speedos and sandy flip-flops. Conversations that begin in Washington about politics and nightlife often continue beachside, shifting from “What’s Bunker’s theme tonight?” to “Who’s DJing at Aqua?”
When asked where she likes to dine in town, McBride highlighted one longtime favorite while also teasing a new addition she’s eager to try.
“Drift Seafood and Raw Bar is one of my favorite restaurants,” she said. “I actually ran into a Rehoboth restaurateur the other day while I was at Longwood Gardens for the tulips — which were beautiful. The restaurateur just opened a new restaurant on the south end of Baltimore Avenue that I’m excited to try. It sounds like an Indian fusion restaurant.”
When asked whether she frequents Poodle Beach — the longtime LGBTQ section of the shoreline — McBride shared that she prefers a quieter stretch of sand a bit farther north of Rehoboth’s gay beach scene.
“I usually go to Deauville, which is just north. It’s right there in between the boardwalk and Gordon’s Pond and North Shores.”
Regardless of where she chooses to unwind from the pressures of Washington and Dover, McBride was clear about how much both Rehoboth and Delaware mean to her.
“I love Rehoboth. I love the restaurants there. This is the professional privilege of my lifetime, getting to represent Delaware.”
“One of the things that I love is seeing how much goodness there is in this state,” she shared. “I represent more people in the House of Representatives than any other representative. Unlike most members who represent exclusively urban, suburban, or rural districts, I represent all three. Delaware demographically looks like America.”
She went on to say that representing a state whose demographics closely mirror the country as a whole gives her hope for the future — something that can at times feel elusive within the often-divisive halls of Congress.
“That means every day that I’m here, and every time Delawareans come to visit me, I get to see the full diversity of this country and this state on display. I get to see the goodness across that diversity, whether it’s diversity of identity or diversity of thought. It makes me even prouder to represent a state that time and time again judges candidates not based on their identities, but based on their ideals.”
She ended with a simple but hopeful message about her state and its people.
“Our politics are too often defined by hate. I’m glad Delaware and Delawareans are showing that a different kind of politics is possible.”
District of Columbia
Anti-LGBTQ violence prevention efforts highlighted at D.C. community fair
Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs organized May 8 event
Detailed advice on how LGBTQ people can avoid, defend themselves against, and prevent themselves and loved ones from becoming victims of violence, with a focus on domestic and intimate partner violence, was presented at a May 8 LGBTQIA+ Safety in Numbers Community Fair.
The event, organized by the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, included five workshop sessions and information tables set up by 14 LGBTQ-supportive organizations and D.C. government agencies or agency divisions, including the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s LGBT Liaison Unit and the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center.
Also playing a lead role in organizing the event was the D.C. LGBTQIA+ Violence Prevention and Response Team, or VPART, a coalition of D.C. officials and leaders of community-based organizations that work with the Office of LGBTQ Affairs.
The event was held in meeting space in the building where the Office of LGBTQ Affairs is located at 899 N. Capitol St., N.E.
The workshop topics included de-escalation training on healthy relationships, bystander intervention, self-defense training, violence prevention grants, and suicide prevention.
“This will be a public safety and violence prevention event where community partners will educate attendees on various methods of violence intervention and trauma-informed practices,” according to a statement released by the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs prior to the start of the event.
The statement adds, “We will have live demos, interactive games, and workshops focused on strategies for self-defense, protecting vulnerable communities, increasing access to mental health resources, providing tools for recognizing domestic violence/intimate partner violence signs in intimate relationships, and assistance for substance abuse.”
Sonya Joseph, associate director of engagement for the Office of LGBTQ Affairs, told the Washington Blade that studies have shown rates of domestic or intimate partner violence are higher in the LGBTQ community than in the community at large.
“Domestic violence and intimate partner violence are two very big prevalent issues in the LGBTQ community,” she said, adding that some of the workshops at the event would be providing “training on healthy relationships and how to recognize and prevent intimate partner violence and the signs of it.”
About 35 to 40 people attended the workshop sessions.
Experts specializing in violence impacting the LGBTQ community have said domestic violence refers to violence among people in domestic relationships that can include spouses but also siblings, parents, cousins, and other relatives. Intimate partner violence, according to the experts, refers to violence perpetuated by a partner in a romantic or dating relationship.
These D.C. based organizations or agencies that participated in the LGBTQIA+ Safety in Numbers event, and which can be contacted for assistance, include:
• Defend Yourself
• DC LGBTQ+ Community Center
• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
• Joseph’s House
• Us Helping Us, People into Living, Inc.
• MCSR (formerly known as Men Can Stop Rape)
• MPD LGBT Liaison Unit
• Volunteer Legal Advocates
• DC SAFE
• Destination Tomorrow
• D.C. Office of Victims Services and Justice Grants
• Life Enhancement Services
• ONYX Therapy Group
• U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C.
Jason Collins dies at 47
Polish government to recognize same-sex marriages from EU countries
America’s broken pipeline of mental healthcare for trans youth
GLAA releases ratings for 18 candidates running for D.C. mayor, Council, AG
Blade finalist for D.C. Society of Professional Journalists awards
Maren Morris to headline Capital Pride Concert
Va. Supreme Court invalidates Democrat-backed redistricting plan
Celebrate Pride in Lost River, a slice of rural heaven
Learn more about queer love
