An Argentinian dishwasher has been jailed after a group of teenage vigilantes lured him into meeting who he thought was a 14-year-old boy for sex in Sydney.
Jorge Monasterio, 27, pleaded guilty to charges of procuring a child for unlawful sexual activity and travelling to meet a child groomed for sexual activity in Manly Court on Wednesday, and was given a 16-month sentence with a nine-month non-parole period.
Magistrate Lisa Stapleton described the actions of the 16-year-old vigilantes, who contacted him on the gay dating app Grindr while posing as a younger boy, as “reprehensible criminal behaviour” but convicted Monasterio because he had made a decision to continue contacting a person he believed was under 15, the Manly Daily reported.
“It was what some old-fashioned British movie might call a ‘honeytrap’,” Ms Stapleton said.
The court heard that after contacting one of the schoolboys on Grindr on January 20, Monasterio revealed in a Snapchat conversation that he was 27, and asked how old the teenager was. The teenager replied that he was “almost 15”, before the pair had a sexually explicit conversation and agreed to meet at a Starbucks the next day.
But when Monasterio arrived he was directed by text to public toilets where he was confronted by seven young males who surrounded him and threatened to send video of the Snapchat conversations to police.
When he asked how he could get out of it and offered money, the teenagers blackmailed him out of $1,000, according to police facts.
Monasterio’s lawyer described the vigilantes as a “hate group” targeting homosexual men, and said his client “feared for his life”.
The Argentinian kitchen hand, who is on a working holiday visa, filed an immediate appeal against the severity of the sentence and will face the Downing Centre District Court on September 16.
Three men were charged in February after NSW Police formed a task force to investigate a series of alleged assaults and robberies of homosexual men targeted in Grindr honey traps.
Four teenagers were also charged with assault and demanding money with menace.
A NSW Police spokesperson said at the time: “Police do not support vigilante behaviour as it is a risk to all involved and leads to unintended consequences – report matters to police.”
