No Felony, Week in Jail, 3 years probation for Trying to Meet Child

 In July 2024 the Washington County Sheriff's department in part with East Metro Sex Trafficking Task Force, Stillwater PD, Cottage Grove PD and other agencies conducted a sting to catch child predators seeking sex with children. The sting was held from an apartment building in Stillwater. Police posted a

real enough looking ad on local sex meetup pages of an AI generated model fully clothed.  An under cover female police officer would receive calls and texts from child predators. The officer was fully transparent that the age of the child was 16 years old yet the child predators proceeded to arrange the payment and meet up location and time to meet.  Police are careful to let the child predator dictate the path of the crime so they are not accused of entrapment. 

According to the criminal complaint, police reported that a man named  Lee Soua of Maplewood DOB 7/3/1998, responded to the police ad to have sex with a 16 year old child. He was reported to have arrived with $200 cash, 2 condoms, and the phone that was discovered to have the incriminating communications with the under cover police officer. Once in police custody he was reported to have admitted he knew the person he wanted to meet for sex was only 16 years old. Within a year he was convicted of Prostitution-Actor Hires or Agrees to Hire and Reasonably Believes Under 18 but at least 16

Unfortunately the sentencing guidelines are extremely weak for child sex crimes. Lee Soua was ordered to serve just 7 days in Jail, 3 years of probation, and a $50 fine. Worst of all is, if he completes his sentence and punishments without incident he will have the Felony count removed from his record and have it downgraded to a misdemeanor.  This is possible with Minnesota's stay of imposition deal weak prosecutors and judges give. His registration as a sex offender will also likely fall off too. Not that it matters, the 20,000 convicted sex offenders in MN are posted on a private database just for police. Only 300 of the 20,000 sex offenders are "bad enough" to be on a small public database. So while the law says the punishment can be "imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both" it almost never happens because the weak sentencing guidelines. The guidelines are written by our legislators. With one party in control of the legislator the guidelines have gone unchanged and this one democrat party is to blame. 

 According to a public safety tool by the nationally active child advocacy group Protect.org, Washington County ranks last in the metro and 50th in the state for strength of prosecution of child exploitation according to the non-partisan site. See the detailed data, for over ten years, the safety tool shows about any of the 87 counties in MN at https://protect.org/safetytool/      

See some of the many cases in the last several years of those convicted of supposedly harsh 1st or 2nd degree rape from Washington County:

Homicidal Rapist in Forest Lake Found With Child Porn Who Self Recorded Rape Now Convicted, Only 4 years  

Only 30 Days in Jail and Probation for Child Molester Who Had Sex with Lake Elmo Child 

Only a Year in Jail for Man who Gang Raped 14 Year Old Child in Woodbury

Man Who Repeatedly Raped a Child in Oakdale, Raped another Child While on Probation and Will be Out in 2 Years 

No Mandated Jail time for Convicted St Paul Park Man who Sexually Assaulted a Child  

Man Who Gang Raped Woodbury Child Only Gets 5 years Probation and 10 Months Prison 

Only 3.5 Years for Man Who Held Down & Raped Bayport Child While Taunting Her 

In Minnesota, left wing law makers and prosecutors believe child rapists can be "rehabilitated," do not need to be monitored, and can become good members of society. The evidence is the fact only several hundred of the over 20,000 convicted rapists in Minnesota are confined in prison. Most only do a couple years and then are released without further monitoring. More information here:

Watchdog Review of Each of the Fifty States Sex Offender Laws Finds Minnesota Ranked the Most Unsafe  

If you hope to see any law change, continue to contact law makers.

Find your legislator here: https://www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/districtfinder

It's clear that just because a child rapist is charged or convicted, doesn't mean justice will be served after sentencing if convicted. Therefore, if the punishment for ALL criminal sexual conduct crimes is raised than weak charges and convictions will be stronger. With the raised bar there won't be such a thing as an outrageous plea deal to lesser rape charges or a weak sentence.

Tell legislators to also make the sex offender list public like nearly every other State in the Country does. All but MN, DC, and Maine have public lists. Maine only has 2,700 sex offenders in their state though. Compared to over 20,000 in MN. 

*In no way do we wish harm to the convicted sex offenders outside the judgement of the law. Posting each criminal's data allows the public to decide from the evidence if they appreciate knowing such data. Such as what these sex offender's last known address is. No representation is made that the individuals listed here are currently on the state's offenders registry. All names presented here were gathered at a past date. Some persons listed might no longer be registered offenders and others might have been added. Some addresses or other data might no longer be current. Owners of Washington County Watchdog assume no responsibility (and expressly disclaim responsibility) for updating this site to keep information current or to ensure the accuracy or completeness of any posted information. All data was only accurate at the time of posting per Government sources provided. Accordingly, you should confirm the accuracy and completeness of all posted information before making any decision related to any data presented on this site. The information on this web site is made available solely to protect the public. Anyone who uses this information to commit a crime or to harass an offender or his or her family is subject to criminal prosecution and civil liability. Message us if you can verify us of an address or change in data.  Washington County Watchdog is not responsible for the accuracy of the content shared, refer to our linked government sources.