> She also told the undercover g-man that her real name was Zandra Ellis, confirmed she wanted BH killed, paid him $100 for the hit, and agreed to pay the remaining balance in $250 installments every two weeks
It looks like their form submission handler is being annoying, probably because it was being asked to store a database of murder requests.
In the day of free static hosting and insane amounts of otherwise free computing power, it's hard to believe it's "financially difficult" to serve web page and store what probably is a form submission per week at most.
Also from the website:
> I have purposefully refrained from accepting funds from any source to avoid any misinterpretation.
and in the next paragraph:
> [if you] feel inclined to contribute, you can do so by clicking the SUPPORT link
believe it or not, literacy is a skill. many has it and many more doesn't. not to mention, humour is difficult. so, never set you expectation too high.
common sense, credulity, and being able to place things in contexts, esp. ones you might not know, is also a skill, and arguably what this person was missing.
Like she was able to email and negotiate with the undercovers, she clearly had basic literacy.
If the parody was obvious, why isn’t being a customer also considered parody? If it was a real hitman site, presumably it would be illegal for the site owner and not just customers.
> why isn’t being a customer also considered parody
I'm pretty sure you can claim that in a court. However, making an offline appointment with a hitman and then making them an offer and even making a first down payment for the service is probably difficult to explain away as parody.
she was charged with "threatening communications over interstate commerce", if she had money for appeals court she'd probably walk free with a constitutionally questionable law like that
just because the feds never go after anyone with money with their weaker laws doesn't mean their laws represent legality or illegality. you just still might wind up in prison for being indicted and convicted of something illegal.
this changes when you're rich and your rights matter
if they indicted her with a conspiracy charge that could be stronger. but I've seen those get dropped on appeal too specifically with some kind of parody/fan fiction defense.
If the government agency running the honeypot went out and started badgering people into contracting hits. That would be entrapment, according to my understanding.
Probably not. Law enforcement regularly targets drug stings against individuals they think are dealers but can't yet prove. It's still just an offer the subject wanted to engage in.
It's only entrapment if you wouldn't have committed the crime otherwise. I think it's safe to say that, had Rentahitman.com not existed, she would still have tried to rent a hitman if she were able to do so.
But what would she find one? Go to the second result on Google?
Most people would never be able to find a real hitman since it would require taking very obvious risks to find a real hitman - and would just give up.
This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I’m backward as all get’out. I’ve never been very tough-on-crime, but if you genuinely hire a hit (murder) on somebody through a shady website, and agree on a contract, well, this is an act that seems indefensible.
The fact that it was a parody site seems amusing, but not defensible, since presumably she was not aware of the parody.
The whole part about her meeting the hitman at a Waffle House, and giving him a $100 down payment seals the deal. That's not LARPing. That's an overt act.
Probably never. Entrapment in US law is when the government creates the crime. Offering up the opportunity doesn’t create it, just catch those looking.
Maybe if they started heavily advertising it, sending spam to the same person continuously for months on end.
Even if an undercover cop asked you to hire a hitman and you say yes. Entrapment is more when you say “No” and the government agent keeps on begging you until you give in.
Ignoring the cases of entrapment for lesser crimes (I.e drug charges), I feel pretty okay with charging those that fall for a hit man (murder) honey pot. Am I backwards?
Yea, it’s unsavory, and in some way unfair, in an academic sort of sense. But don’t hire someone to murder someone else, under any circumstances. Right?
I recall a story of a young police woman who enticed an autistic highschool guy to buy drugs. He was arrested for that. If that's not entrapment, I don't know what is.
It talks about another sting operation with a female cop in the middle of the article. So I can forgive the mistakes in memory for an irrelevant detail.
At minimum, I'd expect that law enforcement would have to put significant amounts of advertisements of the services, along with persuasion to use them, for it to be considered entrapment. Just offering the service is not entrapment. There needs to be incitement.
It's not run by law enforcement. It's an individual who gets lots of "leads" most are obvious pranks --but he occasionally gets live ones. He forwards those on to local law enforcement, other times the FBI.
It is only entrapment when the government induces a normally law abiding person to commit a crime, generally with harassment or threats or other overbearing behavior.
Yeah I’m in awe that attempted murder only gets you 18 months at the federal level. For some reason we’ve decided that murder and attempted murder just aren’t that big a deal anymore.
Not the first idiot that falls for this website. If it were kids, I might forgive the ignorance and lack of common sense, but how are fully grown adults this naive and oblivious? It always boggles my mind.
The instances we know for certain about are on FBI recordings of organised crime meeting places and in the details confirmed confessionals of assassin plea deals.
It seems reasonable to conclude there are non-LEO assassins for hire that haven't yet been caught or recorded.
I suppose it has happened, but I agree with the point you're making. Unless you're really connected and know exactly WTF you're doing, there's probably about a 99.99% chance that the hitman you've hired will be an undercover agent.
A few years back there was a hilarious case of a guy who hired a hitman, and that hitman subcontracted to someone else... who did the same.... who did the same... x5. In the end the last guy was so cheap & bad that he got caught and the whole chain went down.
Please don't comment without reading the article. The article clearly states it is not a real website intended to actually connect killers with clients.
This person really tried to put a hit on layaway.