Cheyenne O’Connor (24) posed online as a teenage girl to expose the crimes of 19-year-old Alecsandru-Moise Buta.
The Romanian hotel worker had contacted a young girl on the anonymous chat room Antichat in late March last year before he engaged in sexual chat and asked if the teenager was ‘horny’.
When the conversation turned sexual, the girl told her mother who in turn told Miss O’Connor.
Miss O’Connor took over the chat – unbeknown to Buta – and within days the defendant had sent explicit messages and images of himself and arranged a meeting at the Waterfront.
Dozens of the messages have been passed to the JEP. In some Buta asks the ‘girl’ if she wants to have sex, if she’s a virgin and if she’ll send explicit images to him.
Buta, of Maison St Louis, St Saviour, was arrested after Miss O’Connor went down to the Waterfront meeting, took covert pictures of him and shared the images as well as the messages with the police.
Buta later admitted to one count of attempted sexual grooming and was sentenced in the Magistrate’s Court to 180 hours’ community service and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.
In court, Advocate James Bell, defending Buta, warned that the criminal justice system was ‘getting into dangerous territory where someone is luring someone else into an online trap’.
Miss O’Connor claimed when she first contacted the police an officer ‘threatened to have me arrested’ but that a second officer was ‘helpful’.
She added: ‘The police advised me not to do it again but it was not my intention to ever do this, it just happened. But to be honest, I caught someone who might have hurt a child. It would be something I would think about carrying on.’
Miss O’Connor added that the experience had opened her eyes to a hidden world of sex crime in Jersey.
‘I knew that these sorts of men existed but it surprised me how young he was. You think these people are all old men,’ she said.
‘I saved everything on my phone. I have got about 50 screenshots with seven to eight messages on each. He sent me pictures of his face and other things.
‘The sentence is a joke. If you punch someone in town you could get two years in prison. In court they were saying he was young and he had not done it before, well you have to start somewhere.’
Advocate Bell said in court that Buta had made a serious error of judgment and was a first-time offender.
The lawyer also pointed out that there was no other evidence that the defendant had a sexual interest in children and he had been in age-appropriate relationships in the past.
Relief Magistrate David Le Cornu said: ‘This is an extremely serious offence that would normally attract a custodial sentence.’
Messages between Buta and the ‘vigilante’ (as sent):
Buta: I can go to jail if I will have sex with you, you know that ? I’m 19 yr old.
Ms O’Connor: Why if where together
Buta: I’ll be in jail… And I don’t want that.
Ms O’Connor: I don’t want you to go to jail
Buta: You’re too younf. Young*. Well… how can we do ? Can you send me more photos
Ms O’Connor: I don’t want to send pictures I sent you one already and I want to make friends. It doesn’t matter
Buta: Well… do you want t have sex with me or no ? Tell me… We can do it tomorrow.
Buta: Are you coming alone… right?
Ms O’Connor: Year are you?
Buta: Sure (smiley face emoticon) I’m still prayin’ for you to come alone. I’m a little bit scared because you are underage.
Ms O’Connor: Why wouldn’t I I don’t want you to be in trouble
Buta: I’ll be in big trouble if I touch you and somebody will know
