How Seeking Sex on Craigslist Landed a Married Man in Jail

The sound of a gavel proclaiming a verdict is the sound that changes a man’s life forever. Scott Verbout’s life flipped upside down once he was convicted as a sex offender by the courts of Pinal County, Arizona, where Maricopa is located.

It all started out with an ad on Craigslist.org. Some adults use this site to find new vehicles, appliances or jobs. However, Craigslist has a seamy side: a section of ads people post looking for casual sex. In this instance, Verbout, a married man with a 19-year-old daughter, said he used Craigslist’s casual encounters ads as a way to use up free time and find a companion to talk to.

Verbout suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome that has symptoms of social isolation, anger and depression. It was much easier for Verbout to communicate through technology than real life and this is why the communication through ads began.

For years, Verbout used this as a way of internet chatting without any problems, until one day, a police officer claiming to be a “14-year-old girl” messaged him back on one of his ads.   

The exchange of emails continued for a period of several weeks with no knowledge of the “14-year-old girl” being a police officer. Towards the end, Verbout said he thought the right thing to do was to cut things off with the girl, and do it in person.

A time and date was set for the two to meet at a park in Pinal County. Verbout was asked to bring a Diet Dr. Pepper and a bag of Sour Skittles by the officer. Verbout chose not to bring these items because he was not going there to make a good impression.  

Verbout stated clearly many times that he never intended to have sexual relations with a “14-year-old girl.”

The day Verbout was arrested, he had intended to go to the park and meet the faux juvenile girl to break things off. After driving around, he was unable to find the park. Verbout then proceeded with his normal schedule, which was work at that time.

As he was driving to work, a police officer followed him and eventually turned on his lights. When Vercout pulled over, the officer stated that a suspicious vehicle had been called in around the area that matched the description of his car.

The officer questioned him and asked what he was doing. Verbout responded, “I was supposed to meet someone, but I have changed my mind and I am headed to work.” The police officer then instructed Verbout to get out of the car. Verbout was arrested right there.

He spent two nights in jail after being arrested by the police in Pinal County.  

Press reports at the time described details in the criminal complaint against then-49-year-old Verbout. It said he titled his Craig’s List ad with, “Young Ladies, wanna f*** an OLDER GUY who knows what he's doing?” He was also accused of using very explicit language, describing sex acts he wished to partake, and sent the “14-year-old” pictures of his genitalia.

Shortly after his arrest, he lost his job as a copy editor at a local newspaper.

After many court dates, Verbout had the option of taking a plea deal or going to trial. If he had gone to trial and lost, he would have had to spend a mandatory of five years in prison. After consideration, Verbout pled guilty to one count of luring a minor, and one count of aggravated luring of a minor.

With the plea deal, Verbout is now a convicted felon and on the sex offender registry for life. He was sentenced to lifetime probation, but may be able to be released from probation after 10 years.

What Verbout didn’t know before accepting the deal was he would have to take mandatory psychological evaluations and polygraph tests, as well as renew his driver’s license every year.

Now, it has been three years since his conviction, and Verbout wants his story to be noticed by the public. He feels the police entrapped him and goaded him into doing something he never would have done otherwise.

He said, “The thing is, if I had actively perused someone who is underage then I could see being treated more harshly. But, in my case, I placed a legal ad on an adult website. I was not looking for anyone underage. It did surprise me when I got that response from this person claiming to be underage. Looking back, I should have never engaged in the chats with this person. The person who turned out being a police officer was the one who engaged me in the chat to begin with. It’s not something I ever imagined would destroy my life.”

Verbout clarified many points in his book in an interview with LIVE!

The Interview

Q. What is your end goal for this book?

A. “What I would like to do with this book is have my conviction thrown out completely. I am hoping that the way to do that would be to get enough publicity with my book and enough people can join in and help me out and maybe contact the county attorney office where I was convicted (Pinal County), and, hopefully, make them take another look at my case and decide that it should be thrown out.”

Q. Has there been any success to lessen the probation?

A. “I have found it difficult. I have contacted several lawyers, including the one who defended me in the case, but, other than that, I have contacted around a dozen other lawyers. They all say that, in cases like these, it is supposedly lifetime probation. According to my plea agreement, you can petition to get off probation after 10 years.”

Q. Do you feel like if your lawyer would have explained the guilty plea more in detail, would you have taken the chance to go to trial?

A. “I might have given it more consideration. The other thing my lawyer told me was, if I were to take my case to trial, I would have to pay him an additional $10,000 on top of the $15,000 I had already paid him to take my case in the first place. There was definitely the cost to consider, and I thought, if I had taken this to trial, a case like this with emails that were exchanged between someone I believed to be underage, it might get kind of ugly and embarrassing. I also didn’t want to put my family through that.”

Q. About how many emails were exchanged?

A. “I don’t know exactly how many were exchanged. The exchange went on for a period of several weeks, and, at the time, I was not looking for anyone underage. This person responded to my ad that I had placed, and I figured that this was maybe a curious young girl who maybe wanted to have some excitement and a sex chat with an older guy. I was thinking that maybe I was giving her something that she was looking for. Again, I was not actively seeking someone who was underage; they contacted me first.”

Q. The grand jury ended up indicting you on 10 counts all together. Was this due to the emails?

A. “Yes they were. There were several passages in the emails exchanged that were considered by the grand jury to be ‘trying to sexually exploit a child’. That was where the other counts came in.”

Q. At the time you were creating the ads, did you even have the knowledge that sting operations were a possibility?

A. “Well, I had heard about these kinds of sting operations before, but again, I never really thought that a police officer would be allowed to target a law-abiding citizen who had not done anything wrong and try to make them break the law.”

Q. Although you never got out of your car or brought the items that were requested, you were still arrested?

A. “A lot of people don’t believe me when I say this, but I never had any intention of following through and having sex with someone underage. I was specifically going to meet this person to say that I had gotten tired of these chats and that I wanted to move on. When I was thinking that it was a 14-year-old girl, I thought it would be really crushing if I were to blow her off over an email. I thought at least I would give her the opportunity to at least meet.”

Q. In the emails, had you been hinting that you wanted to break things off?

A. “I don’t recall if I ever hinted at that. For me, when I was chatting with these women online, it was to blow off steam and a fun thing for me to do. I never really hinted at following through with this stuff. For me, it was a fun way to pass the time. I do specifically remember when we set up the meeting; I was going to say, ‘Now you know that we are not having sex.’ Now, I didn’t say that, but I regret that and I should have said that. With these instances, if I got tired of chatting with these women, I would stop replying to them for a couple of days, which I did with this person, but the police officer would continue to email me.”

Q. During or after this event, did it ever cross your mind that your daughter could be in this situation?

A. “People have asked me that, and, in fact, my daughter even asked me that after this happened. At the time, I didn’t think of it in those terms. My daughter was 19 at the time. I did all of this, and of course, after I was arrested, she was very upset. It was only after my daughter had said that at 14 she was in eighth grade, and that’s when I realized what a stupid thing I did.”

Q. You talk about having Asperger’s throughout your book. You are hoping that it helps bring attention to the disease. How else would you like this brought to people’s attention?

A. “I would like to make this disease known. Asperger’s is something that is very hard to explain to people. I have a hard time dealing with people, and I sometimes get very defensive when people criticize me. Stuff just begins to build up inside and I have no real outlet at times. I am usually a very quiet and reserved person, and, if you didn’t know me, you would think that I would be the last person on earth to be a registered sex offender.”

In response to Verbout's claims on Asperger's, LIVE! referred to Dr. Flores, an expert on Asperger's who teaches special education courses at Angelo State University. He has about 16 years of experience in the field.

Flores said that people with Asperger's Syndrome "are very concerned at times with how others feel about them, and many individuals with Asperger's Syndrome find it difficult to make and maintain friendships. However, he said, "But I do need to stress that individuals with Asperger's differs from person to person, and although one individual may behave in one manner, someone with the same disorder may behave in a totally different way. This is why Autism is referred to as a spectrum."

Because of his disease and situation, Verbout said judges should take certain things into consideration, especially in regards to the sex offender registry.

Q. Do you want the entire sex offender registry abolished?

A. “I think that the registry needs to be looked at. A good reason to have the registry is for violent and serious sex offenders. For someone like me, who this is the first offense, and was entrapped and goaded into this situation, I think that it needs to be looked at. Some offenses should not be judged as harshly as others.”

Verbout’s book, Enduring Shame: A Sex Offender's Journey Through America's Legal System, is available for Kindle on Amazon for just $0.99. It is a short read, taking the average bookworm less than an afternoon to read.

While most will not be comfortable with Verbout’s decisions leading up to his arrest and conviction, it will provide insight into how our law enforcement agencies and courts pursue sex crimes against children, and how a married man, who otherwise obeyed our laws, made tragic decisions that ensnared him in the justice system.

For Verbout, he doesn't use the word "justice" to describe our criminal courts.