What is Grooming Under Illinois Law? Combs Waterkotte attorneys Christopher Combs and Joshua Boardman discuss everything you need to know about Illinois sex crime charges, including sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape, and more.
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Interview Transcript
Scott Michael Dunn: What is grooming under Illinois law?
Joshua Boardman: Yes, so in Illinois, it’s kind of an interesting law actually. So, you can be charged with grooming through sexual communications. The statute itself is the purpose of the communication to elicit some form of sexual gratification or sexual response. And so, you can be charged criminally for grooming if you have been expressly told that someone was underage, but also there is a line in the statute that says for what you believe to be someone that is underage. So, I mean even if you communicating in this day and age with AI, people do that all the time and, for whatever reason, this AI bot or chatbot—or now it’s being utilized by law enforcement as in their sting operations—but we have clients that are being charged that have been charged just through communications with where there is no victim, but the question that the state’s attorney has to present to the jury and the answer that they are seeking is that the defendant knew or believed that that person was underage. It doesn’t. So, I’ve heard judges call it a victimless crime. Because it’s not a real person, but it’s just based on what the defendant believes—
Dunn: —whenever the intention.
Boardman: Yes.
Christopher Combs: Whereas in Missouri, it’s more so kind of what you see with Chris Hansen on To Catch a Predator. You take an overt act to go meet someone in a hotel room or things of that nature, and you show up and surprise, surprise it’s law enforcement. The grooming thing is a very unique issue to Illinois, and that’s why I had Josh answer that question.
Boardman: Yes, Illinois does not require that you get in your vehicle and go try to effectuate some sort of meet-up. It can be based on the conversation alone.
Dunn: Really?
Boardman: Yes.
Combs: So, that’s kind of the stark difference I was mentioning.
Dunn: That’s a stark difference between Missouri and Illinois.
