March 18, 2013 at 4:02 p.m.
Internet crime task force investigation leads to 17 arrests
Benjamin Lahti, 24, of Ironwood Mich., was arrested March 12 in the parking lot of a Minocqua restaurant where he was allegedly attempting to meet up with a 15-year-old girl he was communicating with online.
According to the criminal complaint, an investigator with the Door County Sheriff's Department working as part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Wisconsin Task Force posed as the 15-year-old girl and responded to a Craigslist ad posted by Lahti seeking sex.
The complaint states that the two exchanged messages online and eventually Lahti communicated via text message and phone with another deputy posing as the 15-year-old girl. At one point, Lahti sent an explicit photo of himself, according to the complaint.
Investigators led Lahti to the restaurant where he was expecting to meet the 15-year-old girl.
Upon having contact with law enforcement, Lahti claimed he wasn't meeting the girl for sex. He said he suspected it was an adult he was talking to, and wanted to meet the girl to see if she was actually 15. Lahti told law enforcement that "as soon as he saw the squad car, he knew he was in trouble."
In an interview at the Minocqua Police Department, Lahti told officers he is on probation for larceny and "gets really bored in Michigan."
According to the complaint, the Door County Sheriff's Department investigators were focusing their efforts on Craigslist ads posted for the Wausau and northern Wisconsin areas, primarily under the category "casual encounters."
Two days after his arrest, Lahti was formally charged in Oneida County Circuit Court with two felony counts, using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime and exposing a child to harmful material. The two charges carry a maximum penalty of more than 40 years in prison. Lahti is also charged with a misdemeanor count of possession of drug paraphernalia related to a smoking pipe found in a police search of his vehicle.
In addition to Lahti, investigators arrested six men in the Madison area, six men in Green Bay, and one each from Wausau, Kenosha, Appleton and Shawano.
A $10,000 cash bond was initially set for Lahti but a judge later reduced it to $2,100, which Lahti posted Monday. Conditions of his bond include no Internet use and no unsupervised contact with females under the age of 18.
Lahti is scheduled for a preliminary hearing March 25.
Kyle Rogers may be reached at [email protected].
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