Shapiro

FACTS

Jane Doe met defendant in an Internet chat room a few weeks before her 15th birthday, shortly after starting high school. The school was a boarding school in Indiana and she was “horribly home sick.” She had two solaces; one was her participation in volleyball at school, the other was that she, in her words, “met somebody that I felt I could really talk to and relate a little bit and they seemed to care, . . . .” Defendant identified himself as Todd Christopher Elliott and claimed he was only two or three years older than her. He claimed to be living in Huntington Beach with an uncle. Early in the relationship he sent photographs of a young man that he claimed were of him. In reality, his name is Mark Irving Shapiro and he was approximately 59 years old at the time. Jane Doe told defendant her real age. Initially, they would chat a few times per week, talking about all aspects of their life. He claimed to run track and expressed an interest in the Wizard of Oz. Their conversations were not initially sexual. They would send each other little gifts in the mail, including, in one instance, him sending her flowers, and in another instance her sending him a drawing of him. They…