Overseas ERP consequences A friend of mine is worried about a certain thing he did a couple of months ago. Assume he lied about his age when he was 17 (now 18), and did erotic roleplay (ERP) with another individual who also lied about their age, and claimed to be over 18. This friend of mine lives in an overseas country, for example, Turkey while the other person lives in the US. My friend asked for their age multiple times, and asked for their birthday to confirm and actually got confirmation that they were an adult (no actual IDs were sent). There were no actual, real life pictures sent or received. Just drawings and chatting. Could my friend get into trouble for something he did when he was also a minor? Could he be arrested when he visits the US? Thank you.
This is unlikely to give rise to criminal charges in the U.S., if the bare bone facts of the question are all that is involved. It does not count as child pornography. But possible offenses might include contributing to the delinquency of a minor (a minor misdemeanor), or perhaps enticing a minor to travel in interstate commerce for sex, neither of which are likely to come up in a case where no travel occurs until both parties are adults. The potential offenses, unlike child pornography offenses themselves, would generally include defense for good faith mistakes regarding age. The situation in Turkey could be more serious. While I can't identify a particular offense, if the participants were of the same sex, even though homosexuality is not outright banned in Turkey, as it is in many predominantly Islamic countries, this could be characterized as an &quot;offense against public morality&quot; in Turkey. In either a same sex or opposite sex circumstance, it might be characterized in Turkey as some form of illegal seduction, or perhaps as some implicit form of blasphemy. Even if it didn't give rise to criminal charges, it might also be used as a basis for severe parental discipline, or as a basis for finding that someone lacked &quot;good character&quot; in a civil context, in either country. Of course, unless the interaction is known, identified with real people, and brought to the attention of law enforcement, nothing would happen.
According to a blog post (written by a lawyer who actually has had multiple people ask about that), it depends on several things. The gist is that they're not getting away with this "brilliant plan" unless they take so many steps to make it look legitimate that it will, in fact, become a legitimate porn production enterprise — in which case, why bother with the ruse in the first place? To find you guilty of prostitution, a jury would have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that you were guilty of prostitution and not just making porn. But putting a camera in the room doesn't necessarily make it First-Amendment-protected porn; sometimes it just means you're giving them evidence of your crime. Since juries can differ, there's not really a bright line. But some things look bad to judges and juries. If the director is also doing sexual acts in the film, that looks bad. If he's also never directed or acted in porn before, that looks bad. If a person in the film is paying for the "actresses" instead of getting paid for "acting", that looks very bad; see United States v. Roeder, 526 F.2d 736, 737 (10th Cir. 1975). Having an actual script, on the other hand, may look good. Keep in mind that if the film is not just pornographic but actually obscene, obscenity laws could still apply even if you convince them it isn't prostitution. The First Amendment does not protect obscene materials. Additionally, if you claim it's porn, you will need to properly keep records of the names (and all former names/aliases) and dates of birth of your "actors" and "actresses", unless you want to be guilty of a federal felony. This includes making a copy of their photo ID. The records must also made available for inspection by the Attorney General and his inspectors for a minimum of 20 hours per week, with no advance notice given by them. Is everyone involved really going to be OK with all of this - especially since the law specifically notes that the records may be used as evidence in a federal obscenity prosecution?
It is almost certainly illegal. I was unable to find UK provisions but the penalties for stealing an Australian passport are 10 years imprisonment or a fine of up to 1,000 penalty units (at time of writing a penalty unit was $170 so, $170,000) (Section 32(4) of the Australian Passports Act 2005). Under this law, the crime is knowingly having it in your possession when you know it isn't yours. Obviously, normal familial relationships would not be prosecuted (i.e. one member of the family carrying all the family's passports). Certainly, if the true owner asked for it and the possessor refused, that would trigger the crime. Furthermore, it is completely pointless - all the original owner has to do is report it stolen and apply for another one.
It's almost certainly violating the company's rules, and yes, you can get into trouble for that (in the sense of an internal disciplinary matter). Whether it's a criminal hacking will depend on a) what you did; b) where you are ... but I wouldn't rule that possibility out.
&quot;Age of consent&quot; is a legal meme that refers indirectly to different criminal statutes, for example in Missouri under MO Rev Stat § 566.034, A person commits the offense of statutory rape in the second degree if being twenty-one years of age or older, he or she has sexual intercourse with another person who is less than seventeen years of age §023 also states that &quot;It shall be an affirmative defense to prosecutions under sections 566.032, 566.034, 566.062, 566.064, and 566.071, that the defendant was married to the victim at the time of the offense&quot;. MO Rev Stat §451.090 allows marriage with parental permission to those aged 16 and 17 (by prohibiting licensing of marriage to those younger) No recorder shall issue a license authorizing the marriage of any male or female under sixteen years of age nor shall a license be issued authorizing the marriage of any male or female twenty-one years of age or older to a male or female under eighteen years of age. Combining these legal parts, you get the result that a man may marry and impregnate a woman whom he could not legally have intercourse with (irrespective of pregnancy) were they not married. It just depends on what the specific law says.
No. According to the Section 18 of the U.S. Code, § 2251: (a) Any person who employs, uses, persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any minor to engage in, or who has a minor assist any other person to engage in, or who transports any minor in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, with the intent that such minor engage in, any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such conduct or for the purpose of transmitting a live visual depiction of such conduct,shall be punished as provided under subsection (e) [...] and a minor is defined (Section 18 of the U.S. Code, § 2256) as "any person under the age of eighteen years". As such, you cannot be considered a pedophile. However, if you have sexual intercourses with animals, depending on the State laws on the matter, you might be charged with bestiality or similar offences.
Yes, "The offender will receive a criminal record." But, you ask, "How is this squared with s14(1) of the 2000 Act?" Well, you will note that it states that it "shall be deemed not to be a conviction for any purpose other than the purposes of the proceedings." The key here is "other than the purposes of the proceedings" which means that, although there is no further punishment for your crime, you have still been convicted officially and it will be noted (on your record) as per the proceedings, and may be brought up in any subsequent proceedings ( "and of any subsequent proceedings which may be taken against the offender under section 13 above." ). You will also note section 12(7): "Nothing in this section shall be construed as preventing a court, on discharging an offender absolutely or conditionally in respect of any offence, from making an order for costs against the offender or imposing any disqualification on him or from making in respect of the offence an order under section 130, 143 or 148 below (compensation orders, deprivation orders and restitution orders)." Which further shows that an absolute discharge is not an absolute pardon, and should not be thought of as such. Rather, "You are very much guilty, but of such a minor crime that the experience of a trial has probably been enough, so we'll let you go without additional punishment."
It is illegal to sell alcohol to a minor in Washington (RCW 66.44.270). The seller can get into various kinds of trouble, including losing their license, under liquor board regulations. However, as long as the establishment follows the rules for acceptable ID, they escape liability if in fact they sell alcohol to a minor: the license holder is legally allowed to accept an identification of the specific type. That is the sense in which this is required by law: the customer must have actually presented the identification, in order for the establishment to escape liability (RCW 66.20.210). Looking old enough is not the issue. It is legal to sell alcohol to a person who is over 21, and the law does not require presentation of identification as a condition for a sale. However, under RCW 66.20.180 a person is require to produce ID "upon request of any licensee, peace officer, or enforcement officer of the board". The legal risk attached to sales in an age-marginal situation is very high, and actual presentation of ID is required to escape liability by the establishment, so in that sense, it is "required by law". All requests to produce ID for liquor sales (at least in Washington, and leaving out deliveries which are governed by other laws) are driven by company policy. Typical policies are quite rational, being designed to protect the company's interest in not getting into a heap of trouble for an under-age sale. There is no law saying when you must ask, or when you are protected if you don't ask. Usually, store policy is to use "common sense" so that 90 year olds are not required to produce ID (they may be asked, jokingly). Non-compliance with RCW 66.20.180 carries no legal penalty, that is, there is nothing in the statute that says "if the customer doesn't...". The most obvious would be that the seller would refuse to sell, which the seller can arbitrarily do anyhow. There is no statutory penalty imposed on a licensee if they request ID of a person over 21 and the person fails / refuses to produce the ID. Obviously, the licensee cannot be punished if a customer fails to provide ID (and leaves), especially if they lost it. But the law "requires" them to provide an ID, with ne except "unless you leave / put the bottle back". Somewhat less obviously, if the legislature wants to, it can enact a provision that once a licensee requests ID, they are forbidden to sell alcohol to that customer until ID is provided. But there currently is no such law. "The law" also included regulations, such as WAC 314-17-105. This regulation is a chart, and the relevant entry is PERMIT: Failure to produce permit or identification upon request. See RCW 66.20.310 and 66.20.180. for which the 1st offense consequence is "5-day permit suspension OR $100 monetary option". This is a problematic regulation (potential lawsuit fodder), since it can be interpreted in a number of ways. The question is, of whom is the permit or identification predicated? Only the licensee has a permit, but customers and employees can both have identification. If we interpret this regulation as meaning "Failure by licensee or customer", then we arrive at the absurd conclusion that if a customer fails to produce ID on request, the establishment is fined. It is important to note that this regulation is under a chapter about server training, thus the regulation can only reasonably be interpreted as being about licensee providing identification.