Columbus man convicted in online predator sting claimed he knew officer wasn’t 15
The family of a local man convicted and sentenced in a Camden County, Ga., online child sex predator sting that used a Columbus detective for bait is arguing he knew he wasn’t meeting a 15-year-old girl for sex, because he’d seen the officer here and had looked her up on Facebook.
The detective was in her 30s, a prosecutor said, but that didn’t matter because 34-year-old Kevin Chad Hardy of Columbus believed he was exchanging emails with a stepfather who was offering him sex with a teen if Hardy met them in Woodbine, Ga.
And Hardy did, said Assistant District Attorney Rocky Bridges of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit: Hardy arrived at the rendezvous with booze and condoms, before he was arrested.
After a two-day trial, a Camden County jury found him guilty Tuesday of attempted child molestation and of violating the Computer or Electronic Pornography and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. Judge Robert Guy Jr. sentenced him to five years in prison followed by 15 years on probation.
When the district attorney’s office sent out a news release Thursday on the verdict, the Columbus detective involved in the case, Amanda Hogan, posted links to it on a Columbus Facebook group.
That raised the ire of Columbus attorney Christopher Breault, Hardy’s half-brother. He sat through the trial and bitterly complained that the undercover officer pretending to be the stepfather sent Hardy two photographs of Hogan, and no one viewing them would believe Hogan was 15.
During the sting called “Operation Slumber Party,” Hardy was arrested in Woodbine in February 2018, when he was visiting relatives in nearby Brunswick. He responded to an ad on what at the time was called the “casual encounters” section of the website Craigslist.
“That’s something that he did every now and then,” Breault said.
The ad purported to be from a couple wanting to meet someone for sex. Hardy responded to the ad via email, authorities said.
During the ensuing exchange, he was sent Hogan’s photo. “He thought that the woman in the picture looked familiar,” said Breault, who claims Hardy thought so because he frequently attends a nephew’s ball games, and had seen Hogan at the ballfield.
Breault said Hardy’s computer data showed he twice had searched for Hogan on Facebook in the past two years, before he responded to the Craigslist ad.
According to Breault and Hardy’s defense attorney at trial, Stacey Jackson, Hogan was 32-years-old in the first photo Hardy got. When told only once that the female he would meet was 15, he asked for a second photo.
In the second photo, Hogan was 36 years old, according to trial testimony.
Looking at the images, Hardy couldn’t believe she was 15, Breault said.
Similar defense
The same issue arose in the Columbus trial of an Auburn, Ala., man who in 2017 was charged in an online predator sting here.
The 26-year-old was among 21 men arrested in November 2017 during “Operation Hidden Guardian,” in which agents posing as children online had more than 600 exchanges with people on social media and chat rooms.
Those who took the bait and traveled to a north Columbus home expecting to meet an underage girl were arrested at the door.
When the Auburn suspect went to trial in February 2018, his attorney successfully argued he never believed he was communicating with a minor. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent posing as a 14-year-old was 26. She had sent him a photograph, and he had talked to her on the phone.
“You’re not really 14, right?” the suspect had asked on a recorded phone call, adding, “I don’t want to get into trouble.”
He was indicted on the federal offense of attempted online enticement of a minor. At the end of a three-day trial, the jury acquitted him in 90 minutes.
Hardy in his emails never challenged Hogan’s purported age, investigators said. He had no phone conversation with Hogan because he is deaf and communicates through sign language. During his trial, he testified through an interpreter.
“I just thought it was grossly unfair,” Breault said of the sting.
Authorities say they can’t use photographs of actual children in such operations, because that act alone would be victimizing a child. They can try only to make an adult look the target age. “Some people look younger than they are,” said Columbus Police Maj. J.D. Hawk.
What Hardy claimed he believed, after his arrest, is immaterial, investigators said: He was told the girl was 15, and followed through on the invitation to meet her. The initial rendezvous was supposed to be a gas station, but he got a message claiming his hosts’ car broke down, so he proceeded to a house undercover officers were using.
That was enough to make the case, and enough for the jury to convict, said Bridges, the Camden County prosecutor. “The jury heard all the evidence,” he said, and Jackson mounted a strong defense on Hardy’s behalf.
Hardy was told he was meeting a 15-year-old, and Hogan’s age, now 37, does not matter, Bridges said.
“The actual age is not relevant or material to the crime itself,” Bridges said.
Hardy will file motions seeking a new trial. After he serves his prison time he must register as a sex offender and have no contact with minors, prosecutors said.
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 4:56 PM.