The victim, a middle-school student who had run away from home, posted on social media (Twitter) looking for 'someone to let me stay over,' and the defendant approached her after seeing the post. Under the pretext of providing food and lodging, he got the victim into his car, took her to his home, and repeatedly subjected her to sexual remarks, molestation, and intercourse. The defendant exploited the victim's immature judgment and desperate circumstances to make sexual advances, and pressured her psychologically with explicit remarks such as 'Don't you like sexual stuff?' and 'Have you ever masturbated?' To conceal the offenses, he made the victim turn off her phone and use a spare handset of his own, and repeatedly changed locations to evade GPS tracking, circumstances that showed advance planning. The court found that the defendant's conduct was not a consensual relationship but a grave sex crime in which he lured a minor through calculated and despicable means and kept her for an extended period. As a result, the defendant was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, ordered to complete a sexual violence treatment program, and barred for five years from employment at institutions serving children and juveniles and at welfare facilities for persons with disabilities.

At the time of the offenses, our client was in a state of extreme anxiety and confusion, having been kept by the defendant for an extended period cut off from the outside world. To prevent the crimes from being distorted into a 'consensual relationship' merely because the victim was a runaway, I built a strategy from the outset that emphasized the victim's status as a minor and the defendant's premeditation. I submitted an opinion brief presenting objective evidence of the defendant's carefully engineered scheme, including his repeated remarks and conduct, his manipulation of the victim's phone, and his efforts to evade GPS tracking, and the court judged the case to be a structural sex crime rather than a mere unlawful act. I also arranged a referral to a counseling agency to help the victim regain psychological stability, focusing not only on legal punishment but on creating an environment for recovery. In sex crime cases, I do not aim solely for a heavy sentence. I pursue a strategy of responsibility to the very end, so that the victim's return to daily life and the protection of her rights are achieved together. In particular, I would stress once again that any settlement in a sex crime case must be reached with the assistance of an attorney; a victim who deals with it alone may have to accept an unfavorable result.