Rep. Steve Tanner advances bill to extend online enticement protections to 16- and 17-year-olds

Rep. Steve Tanner (District 13) told the committee House Bill 541 would modify the online enticement statute (recorded in the hearing as "eighteen-fifteen oh 9 A") to protect 16- and 17-year-olds from online enticement and to preserve a 5-year age-gap carve-out so that a perpetrator must be five years older than the victim for a prosecution when the victim is 16 or 17. Tanner said the measure does not increase penalties but extends protection for a class of minors not currently covered. "All that this bill... is to get a group, a class of people, protected that are not currently protected," he told the committee.

Deputy Attorney General James Hawes, an ICAC prosecutor, testified on behalf of the Attorney General's office as neutral and explained the 5-year rule follows common statutory precedent (so-called Romeo and Juliet provisions). Hawes cited compiled data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children saying roughly 59 percent of recorded online enticement cases involved children under 15 and roughly 41 percent involved those aged 16 and 17, and he referenced increases in online enticement reports. Neil Urigg of the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police testified in support, saying the change ‘‘sets that up’’ to make enforcement simpler by mirroring the existing 5-year window used in related statutes. A committee member moved to send HB 541 to the House floor with a due-pass recommendation; the motion passed by voice vote.