Michigan Sex Crime Attorneys Blog
A man answers an ad on an adult escort site. The profile lists the woman’s age as 20. He starts texting to set up a meeting. Several messages in, the person on the other end says she is actually 15. He questions it, even checks the phone number, then keeps talking and agrees to meet. Police arrest him at the door.
Was that the detection of a crime, or the creation of one?
That question is now before the Michigan Supreme Court, and how the justices answer it could affect every undercover online sting run in this state. The Court heard argument in January 2026, and a ruling is expected sometime before the term ends. For anyone charged out of an online operation like this, it is the Michigan case to watch.
The Case Behind the Question
The charges grew out of a GHOST Task Force operation, a multi-county effort that has run online stings since 2018. In April 2022, deputies from the Van Buren and Genesee County sheriff’s offices placed an ad on “Skip the Games,” a website the testimony described as an adult escort service. The site said it barred minors and required users to be at least 19, though it had no real age verification.
The ad itself presented an adult. It listed the “escort” as 20 years old, used photos of an undercover officer who was nearly 19, and included adult-oriented content. In other words, the operation started by advertising a legal transaction between adults.
What happened next is the heart of the dispute. According to the published Court of Appeals opinion, the man who answered did not bring up age. The decoy did. After some back-and-forth about meeting, the decoy asked whether he was “cool with younger chicks,” then said, “Ok cool cuz I’m 15.” His reply was, “Got to be 16.” He added that he was fine with her being older than 15 and wanted to role-play as 15. The decoy answered, “Sorry, I’m actually 15.” He also ran a reverse search of the decoy’s phone number, which came back registered to a 34-year-old woman. The conversation continued; the decoy steered it toward paid sex, and he eventually drove to the hotel, where he was arrested.
Those details matter, because they sit right on the line the Supreme Court is being asked to define.
The Charges, and Why “There Was No Real Child” Does Not End It
He was charged with one count of child sexually abusive activity, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime, and one count of accosting a child for immoral purposes. He later pleaded guilty to the accosting count and was allowed to challenge the entrapment ruling on appeal by delayed leave.
People are often stunned to learn the case did not fall apart simply because the “15-year-old” was an adult officer. Under Michigan’s accosting statute, MCL 750.145a, there need not be an actual child. What controls is whether the accused believed he was dealing with someone under 16 and acted with the required intent. That single feature is what makes these stings possible: police do not need a real minor, only a defendant who believes there is one.
The penalties are serious in their own right. Accosting a child for immoral purposes is a felony carrying up to 4 years in prison and a $4,000 fine for a first offense, with steeper exposure for repeat offenses. It is a Tier II offense under Michigan’s Sex Offenders Registration Act, which means 25 years on the public registry. The child sexually abusive activity charge and the computer counts carry their own separate penalties on top of that, and a computer count can be ordered to run consecutively at the judge’s discretion. For many people, the registry is the consequence that lasts longest, reshaping where they can work and live for decades.
How Michigan Defines Entrapment
Michigan does not use the federal “predisposition” approach many people expect. Our courts apply a modified objective test, as set out in People v. Johnson. The focus is on the police conduct, not on whether the defendant seems like the type to offend.
Under that test, a person is entrapped if either of two things is shown first: that the police engaged in conduct that would have induced a law-abiding person in similar circumstances to commit the crime. Second, that the police engaged in conduct so reprehensible it cannot be tolerated, regardless of its effect on this particular defendant. There is an important limit: merely allowing someone to break the law is not entrapment. The fight in these cases is almost always about which side of that line the operation falls on.
The objective test is not blind to the defendant’s situation. Michigan courts also weigh whether the accused was “ready and willing” to commit the offense, measured against how a normally law-abiding person would react in the same spot. That readiness-and-willingness piece is one of the questions the Supreme Court agreed to examine.
A few procedural points surprise people. Entrapment is decided by a judge, not a jury, at a separate evidentiary hearing modeled on the long-standing Walker hearing. And the burden rests on the defendant to prove entrapment by a preponderance of the evidence, which is the reverse of the usual posture, where the prosecution bears the burden. Raising the issue early and building a full record at that hearing is often where these cases are won or lost.
The “Escalation” Argument and the 12 Factors
When Michigan judges weigh the inducement prong, they consider 12 factors, including whether the government escalated the defendant’s criminal exposure and whether the defendant was already known to have committed the charged crime.
In this case, the trial court found that two of those factors actually favored the defense. There was no evidence he had a history of this conduct, and there was evidence that officers took steps that escalated the seriousness of the offense, moving an adult-escort solicitation into child-sex-crime territory. Even so, the court denied the motion, finding that the operation as a whole presented only an opportunity he chose to take. The Court of Appeals affirmed in a published opinion in October 2024. That tension, between a real escalation finding and a denial of relief, is part of what makes the case worth the Supreme Court’s attention.
What the Supreme Court Is Actually Deciding
It would be easy to read the headlines and assume the Court is about to outlaw stings. It is not. The justices took the case to resolve a genuine split in Michigan law over how entrapment rulings are reviewed on appeal.
One line of cases, following Johnson, says a trial court’s entrapment finding is reviewed for clear error, a deferential standard that is hard for a defendant to overcome. Another line, following People v. Fyda, says whether entrapment occurred is a question of law reviewed de novo, with no deference. The Court of Appeals tried to thread the two, reviewing the facts for clear error but the legal standards de novo. How the Supreme Court settles that question will shape how much room defense lawyers have to challenge these operations, and the decision will reach every pending online-sting case in the state.
What It Means If You Are Facing an Online-Sting Charge
A few practical points follow, and they matter whether someone assumes their case is hopeless or assumes it will resolve itself.
The exact words of the conversation are critical. Who first raised age, who pushed for the meeting, how often the decoy re-steered the chat, and what the accused said in response all bear directly on entrapment. Those facts usually live in the text logs, the call records, and the task force’s own materials, and a careful review of that record is where a defense begins.
Entrapment has to be raised the right way, at the right time. It is litigated at an evidentiary hearing, on the defendant’s burden, and a thin record there is hard to fix later. This is not a do-it-yourself issue.
And the moment of arrest is not the time to explain. Statements to investigators, and consent to search a phone, can do more damage than people expect. The safer path is to stay silent, ask for a lawyer, and let counsel test how the operation was built and run.
In the interest of full disclosure, Grabel & Associates represents the defendant in this appeal before the Michigan Supreme Court. Our firm defends people accused of sex crimes in courts across Michigan, including charges that come out of undercover sting operations. We examine how an investigation was actually conducted and raise entrapment and search issues wherever the record supports them. If you or someone you love is facing a charge like this, contact us for a confidential consultation.
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This blog post is provided by Grabel & Associates for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. It discusses a case currently pending before the Michigan Supreme Court and not yet decided; the law may change once the Court rules. Reading this does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you are facing criminal charges, consult a qualified attorney about your specific situation.