PUEBLO, Colo. | A Colorado man who wrote a how-to guide for pedophiles was arrested Monday and sent to Florida to face obscenity charges, after deputies there ordered a copy of the book that has generated online outrage.
Officers arrested Phillip R. Greaves II at his home in Pueblo on a warrant that charges him with violating Florida’s obscenity law. During a brief court appearance, Mr. Greaves waived his right to fight extradition and was transferred to Polk County, Fla.
The Pueblo County Sheriff’s Department declined to release any details of Mr. Greaves’ transfer.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said he claimed jurisdiction because Mr. Greaves sold and mailed his book directly to undercover deputies, who had written the author a letter requesting a copy. Sheriff Judd said Mr. Greaves even signed the book.
“I was outraged by the content,” Sheriff Judd told the Associated Press. “It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children … . You just can’t believe how absolutely disgusting it was.”
The self-published book - “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct” - caused a flap when it showed up on Amazon in November. The book was later removed from the site.
Mr. Greaves, who has no criminal record, writes in the book that pedophiles are misunderstood, as the word literally means to love a child. He adds it is only a crime to act on sexual impulses toward children, and offers advice that purportedly allows pedophiles to abide by the law.
Sheriff Judd said he was incensed when he heard about the book and that no one had arrested Mr. Greaves for selling it. The book, Sheriff Judd said, included first-person descriptions of sexual encounters, purportedly written from a child’s point of view.
“What’s wrong with a society that has gotten to the point that we can’t arrest child pornographers and child molesters who write a book about how to rape a child?” said Sheriff Judd, who keeps a Bible on his desk and is known throughout Florida as a crusader against child predators.
Florida’ obscenity law - a third-degree felony - prohibits the “distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.”
Legal experts questioned whether Mr. Greaves’ right to free speech would come into play if there’s a trial. If prosecutors can charge Mr. Greaves for shipping his book, they ask, what would prevent booksellers from facing prosecution for selling Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” a novel about a pedophile?
“As bad as this book may be, the charge opens a very big Pandora’s box,” said Dennis J. Kenney, a former police officer in Polk County and a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “The charge sounds to me like a significant overreach.”
Mr. Greaves was among a group of prisoners who made brief appearances before District Court Judge David Crockenberg in Pueblo on Monday, all of them represented by the same public defender. He was the only one not wearing a striped prison uniform although his wrists were handcuffed in front of him.
Dressed in a cream-colored T-shirt and khaki pants, Mr. Greaves said he understood the extradition process. When Judge Crockenberg asked him whether he understood he would be taken to Florida, Mr. Greaves responded, “That is correct, your honor.”
Sheriff Judd said his undercover detectives got Mr. Greaves to mail the book to them for $50; he told officers it was his last copy.
“If we can get jurisdiction … we’re coming after you,” Sheriff Judd said. “There’s nothing in the world more important than our children.”
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