Kansas City, Kansas police have arrested a Kansas man after he advertised on Craigslist, trying to sell a two year old girl for sex to undercover police officers. Zachary Taylor Garrett, 22, was arrested and charged with attempted rape of a child under 14, as well as aggravated endangerment of a child, and indecent liberties with a child. No court date has been set and Garrett is being held on $500,000 bail.
The ad appeared on Craigslist despite the site’s insistence that it is cleaning up it’s act. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart criticized Craigslist recently:
“It makes me wonder, do they really think I’m sort of stupid, some bobblehead who will think they changed it? They seem to insist on being cute and playing games (and) it’s getting old.”
“They are so thinly disguised, the real question is how they are permitted to be there if, in fact, the site is doing the screening and policing that they said they will do,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.
Dan Gallagher, Dart’s attorney in his lawsuit, said it is impossible to read many of the ads without concluding they are solicitations for prostitution — such as ones he’s seen from women who offer escort services for as little as 15 minutes.
“They (Craigslist) go to great lengths to say this is just a site so that people can meet one another to fulfill their romantic aspirations,” he said. “I don’t think having an escort for 15 minutes is a fulfillment of romantic aspirations.”
Not only that, Gallagher said, the ads are becoming more obvious prostitution solicitations than they were even before “adult services” replaced “erotic services.”
He said the euphemism for payment with phrases such as “150 roses” or “200 diamonds” that detectives monitoring the site once saw are disappearing.