A Lake City, Florida, man who was recently arrested in a child-sex sting operation is claiming that he was entrapped by police and further that he believed he was setting up a date with an adult, not a minor.

The 48-year-old was recently arrested on a sex crimes charge for allegedly soliciting sex with a minor. His arrest was among 22 others apprehended as a part of Operation Tail Feather, an investigation of both the Alachua County Sheriff's Office and the Gainesville Police Department.

The man was arrested for allegedly attempting to solicit sex with an 11-year-old through a Craigslist advertisement. But he has maintained that he was trying to set up a date with an adult woman, and that he has met 10 to 15 adult women off of websites in the past. He says he was duped by authorities into unknowingly soliciting a minor.

Gainesville Law Enforcement often use undercover investigations to arrest people for drug, organized crime and prostitution charges, and it is becoming increasingly common to use such methods to catch alleged sex predators.

However, an undercover investigation can be called entrapment if authorities lure someone into something that he or she would not have done had they not been lured. It is sometimes a very thin line.

Police stings similar to Operation Tail Feather have been held up in court; however entrapment has worked as a defense for other crimes in Florida in the past.

The Gainesville Sun cites the case of a young man who was asked to get marijuana for a very beautiful woman in North Central Florida. It was deemed entrapment because a judge agreed that the young man would not have brought marijuana to anyone under normal circumstances. He was doing it only because the undercover operative looked like supermodel--he was entrapped.

Very often, a criminal defense comes down to evidentiary issues such as this.

Source: Gainesville Sun, "Man arrested in child-sex sting says he was entrapped," Cindy Swirko, Feb. 16, 2012