Man Arrested After Hooking Up With 13-Year-Old RuneScape Bride

[Booze Zombie]

That is absolutely disgusting.

I mean, people still play Runescape?

Heuyaaa... I see wa' yu' did thar!

Seriously, though... sounds like this guy was a serious kind of lonely, though I could be very wrong as I don't have any context, being but a reader of news.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

People don't seem to realize that it doesn't matter how many charges you land on someone, you can only stack up crimes such as homicide in court. Otherwise its usually dulled down to an average based off of what charges he's found guilty of. In his case even with all his crimes the max he can go to jail is something like... 20 years unless the state's law differs.


My guess is he'll get about 7-14 years unless said child starts saying that it wasn't consensual. Course, I'm sorry but this kid sounds like a complete idiot, and I'm pretty sure it was consensual.

 

[Always_Remain]

But who is creepier?

The Man or The Girl?

You decide.

 

[Ethman91]

I know I'm not letting my daughter play runescape...

 

[Anarchemitis]

Somehow I think the wedding was not officiated by a Justice or Priest. The vast majority of them aren't interested in video games. Therefore the marriage could not be recognized by the Church or the State.

 

[Kortney]

At 13 she knew what she was doing, people need to stop thinking that teens don't know what the hell they are doing. Yes its bad that the guy took advantage of her, but who's to say she didn't use the guy to get cool stuff. She got a phone from him, and the only reason it caught on was because the mother (whom works 3 jobs) found out she had a phone.

So chances are the girl used the guy to get stuff because she don't get much as her mom works 3 jobs and probably makes barely enough to support herself and her kid. Since there was no mention of a father and the fact she is working 3 jobs means that the girl is most likely from a broken home(meaning its not all lollipop's and rainbows).

But the way things are in todays society the dude will have one of two things happen, either made an example of (most likely) or get like 10 years probation. As for the girl, I believe she knew what she was doing, she got stuff from him and in return he got sex.

Exactly what I was thinking. Okay, maybe not exactly but the first part is. I don't see why a thirteen year old can't have the brainpower to understand what sex is and knowingly consent to it. I mean, she's most likely watched porn quite a few times(name one thirteen year old who hasn't) and knows what sex is and probably knows the joys of it(well, now she does). But seriously, they had sex 3 times. This means that either she was raped thrice and no one noticed, or she consented to it. I'm guessing she said "yes" to his sex. Doesn't matter what he looks like, hormones are going crazy at that age. Now, if she regrets it and will have psychological damage for the rest of her life, then sure, he can be charged. But if she consented and doesn't regret having her friends worship her for having sex[CITATION NEEDED] then I don't see the problem other than the parents didn't monitor their child.

It doesn't matter if she enjoyed it or not. She cannot legally consent to sex. Also, this man has committed a crime either way. It's very easy to manipulate the mind of a thirteen year old and exploiting them for sex is always wrong and always illegal regardless of whether or not the thirteen year old liked it.

Is the thirteen year old incredibly stupid for doing this? Yes. But adults have a legal duty not to (statutory or otherwise rape children. This man deserves gaol time.

 

[RMcD94]

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You can't, but they do anyway. When you're under 18 in the US, you can't do anything. It doesn't matter how mature you are, or how much consent you gave, you are still a minor and, according to US law, unable to make rational decisions for yourself.

I understand that, but laws are not absolute. The only reason ageism laws is not because there's some arbitrary line that you suddenly cross to be mature, but because we have no form of test to determine whether someone is mature, and if we did we would lack the resources to test people on an individual scale.

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You have summed up a fair amount of my argument in less than 30 paragraphs. I give you the Lifetime Achievement Award For Making What I Say Take Up Less Bandwidth. Congratulations.

But... really, age doesn't really gauge one's mental abilities. For example, the college students I meet playing Call of Duty: Black Ops have the maturity of an embryo. While the 7 year old girl split-screening with me speaks like a fully grown woman. Also, has the mouth of a sailor. XD

I'm very glad I could do that for you, it is often difficult to express our opinions succinctly or coherently.

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You don't think it's likely they had sex every time?

Well you my friend have obviously never had hot kinky under-aged sex with minors.

Sorry you got banned for that comment. It was quite obviously meant humourously. Appears to be a number of bans which I don't understand, but hey, that's what we get for investing in a moderation by the few as opposed to a moderation by the many (something similar to a like/dislike thing).

Edit:

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It doesn't matter if she enjoyed it or not. She cannot legally consent to sex. Also, this man has committed a crime either way. It's very easy to manipulate the mind of a thirteen year old and exploiting them for sex is always wrong and always illegal regardless of whether or not the thirteen year old liked it.

Is the thirteen year old incredibly stupid for doing this? Yes. But adults have a legal duty not to (statutory or otherwise rape children. This man deserves gaol time.

Yeah, sorry to spoil your happy to go lucky mood there, but without even bothering to think about any time period other than the present, it's still not always illegal. Pretty much every country has separate rules for minor-minor sex (normally something like 2 years either way), and if an adult could exploit her, so could a minor. And then of course, we can simply look to places like Spain, were the age of consent is 13.

And if we were to look in the past you'd see that while such things as age of voting has decreased (30, 21, 18, 16, etc), the age of consent was quite consistently between 12-16 for much of the existence of such a law until very recently.

Onset of puberty as the age of consent? in some jurisdictions there is no fixed age of consent. Instead, sex is allowed with people who are sexually mature. In females it usually means passing menarche. Such jurisdictions include Yemen, but only in marriage, the states of Nayarit and Querétaro in (Mexico) and Bolivia.

This is the kind of law I believe it should be.

Anyway, simply because you believe it's always wrong, and it's always illegal does not make it always wrong, or always illegal (and indeed it's very arrogant to presume it does), and I would like also to suggest that you should not lift your morals from a law book.

Edit 2: Okay, can I please request something? To everyone in this thread, stop mixing laws and morals, and age and maturity. They are not related (well maybe vaguely).

If you have a problem with the law being broken, you say, I do not approve of this because this breaks the law. You would not bring up her immaturity (because it's perfectly legal to have sex with someone who acts immature if they've lived for X years, you would comment on that if you were arguing morally), you comment on the fact that she is 3 years below the legal age of consent.

If you have a problem with him taking advantage of someone who you believe is immature then say that. Please will you stop say that your problem is with her age (unless you are doing the law thing). If you are any form of consistent it's fucking irrelevant what age she is. If she's an immature 20 year old, then it should still be wrong to take advantage of her.

Seriously people, laws are not morals. Morals are not laws.

Edit 3 (I should just post these separately):

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It doesn't matter if she's seen porn, that's not a good excuse. She's still to young to understand the ramifications.

You ask her if she thought about being pregnant? Her future? What if she got aids?

Did she contemplate using a condom or did he have to think of that.

Did she realise it could break?

Did she understand she could fuck over her entire life?

For a phone. A 13 year old is barely a teenager, she has no thoughts of worst case scenarios.

To her, sex is a thing. To her, sex could be a way of obtaining things in life, wich it shouldn't be considered, as the path that leads to involves waiting on the corners of streets waiting for cars to pull up.

Just as you can know that a plane can fly, doesn't mean you understand how it does so.

She's still way to young to understand the ramifications of her actions and that's why this shit is ilegal.

The hell is wrong with you people? Thinking she knew full well what she was doing. Hell, by promising her gifts it was like offering candy to a little kid.

To her, she probably never thought for one second that this could go wrong, unless she was caught.

Not quite sure what your education system is like, but I was taught that stuff at age 10, in Primary 7. I'd like to point out that at 13 years there are many people who are sexually active with their peers (I don't know about USA laws, but in a number of places that's legal, or you won't get convicted for it), and that him being older seems to have no relevance to your argument.

In some U.S. states a lower age applies when the age gap between partners is small, or when the older partner is below a certain age (usually 18 or 21).
It is illegal for an American citizen or resident to have sex in another country with someone aged under 16, unless the age difference is less than 4 years, in which case the minimum age is 12.

No actual statistics. So it seems to me that you are arguing for a better education system. I agree, we should learn everything about sexual activity as soon as we hit puberty, it is much safer in every scenario. Not only will they be able to seek their peers to satisfy their sexual needs instead of older individuals who have already learned it, their sexual interactions will be a thousand fold safer than the blind experiments that are conducted without any teaching (lack of condom, etc).

Edit 9001: Also, consent =/= doing what is going to be good for you in the future. I could probably bring up millions of examples of someone WILLINGLY doing something they later regretted. And all of them would be above the legal age. Unless somebody here wants to tell me that as soon as we hit the arbitrary point decided by our government we all stop making mistakes?

 

[xyrafhoan]

I can't decide who's worse, the man or the girl. I remember when I was 13, you have an incredibly skewed perception of sex. You know there are consequences, but it's so easy to have an inflated opinion of yourself and your knowledge of any given subject. It's completely irrelevant as to whether or not this girl consented. There are laws. Even if the girl isn't aware of them, the man certainly did. It's impossible to avoid hearing about consent laws when crimes involving statutory rape occur so frequently. The man is taking advantage of a mentally immature girl. And while the girl may think she knows what she's doing, we all know that teenagers are capable of making incredibly stupid decisions. For every teen who can make rational decisions, there is another teenager who has a very poor concept of forward thinking and consequence.

Overall, disgusting behaviour from both an irresponsible girl who thought she was benefiting from this relationship, and a man who took advantage of her gullibility.

(Personally I believe your physical development is meaningless as a measure of whether or not your body is actually ready for sex. There is a significant mental investment in a sexual relationship and research has shown your ability to gauge risk is particularly bad until your late teens.)

 

[Skipper3]

Seemed like the girl was fine with it, with her casual texting and all. :\ Wonder if she is grounded forever now.

 

[spartan773]

well its good to see a return of the stamp and its so applicable here it also seems mandatory.
im am literally no-longer shocked and the pure bat-shit insane people out there.
hope this guy really suffers for this the sick-fuck.

i fear the news now my try to blame pedophillia on games now. well it was only a matter of time regardless

I partially agree with you.


also, Templars suck. Assassin's all the way!

 

[blankedboy]

Why the hell was a 54 year old guy playing Runescape anyway?
THATS messed up.

Looking for underage girls to fuck.
Also, I'm disappointed in both parties.

 

[DjinnFor]

To the original writer: Please be sure to preface accusations of particular criminal activity with the words "alleged" and/or "charged with" (or, alternatively, indicate who is alleging them, as you have done in some of your article). Failing to recognize that the presence of criminal charges does not necessitate guilt is a serious problem in journalism that puts many good people behind bars thanks to biased jurors (or the guilty pleas that inevitably result from the advice of lawyers concerned about rigged juries/judges). It also marks potentially innocent accused for life, creating a reputation amongst friends, family, and even strangers that is impossible to shake regardless of the result in court.

Note that all such occurrences of any criminal activity should be prefaced in this way. Doing this is a sign of honest journalism; this magazine has no right to criticize Fox News [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.263481-Fox-News-Says-Bulletstorm-Could-Make-You-a-Rapist], for example, when it makes mistakes like these. I apologize if this issue has been brought up in the thread yet.

Thank you.

Sample revision:

"No, it turns out that marrying a 13-year-old in RuneScape doesn't make it legal to have marital relations with her.

Relationships that start in MMOs and carry over into the real world aren't all that uncommon these days; that said, it's a bit more uncommon when they result in felony charges. 54-year-old John W. Phillips of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, is probably regretting ever signing up for RuneScape, as he's now being charged with a total of eleven felonies, including accosting a child for immoral purposes, sexual assault, using a computer to communicate with another person to commit a crime, and child sexually abusive activity.

Phillips, whose "only source of income comes from selling Magic: The Gathering game cards, " is currently in jail on charges that he traveled to Detroit three different times last year to have sex with a 13-year-old girl whom he met and wed in the MMO. According to Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, Phillips and the girl met in-game in 2010. The two then built a relationship via online chat.

Phillips apparently tried (unsuccessfully) to mail her a cell phone, so he came to Detroit to deliver the phone in person last February. The two allegedly had sex in a motel, and charges state that Phillips also had sex with her in his van and at her home. At some point, the two wed in RuneScape.

*Note: this entire sentence is particularly suspect, since it begins with a statement of fact ("had sex in a motel"), and then augments it by saying "although charges also state...", which implies that the first statement has more factual basis behind it than the second statement. Neither are fact until proven in a court of law*

"They got married in the game," said sheriff's corporal Ray Johnson. "Maybe he thought that was legitimate in real life. It's not."

Authorities were alerted about the situation when the girl's mother (who "[works] two or three jobs and wasn't home for extended periods of time") found her daughter text-messaging on the phone Phillips had given her - highly suspicious since the girl wasn't supposed to have a phone.

Phillips allegedly led the authorities on a chase, eluding capture by visiting his father in New York and drastically altering his appearance. When he was arrested, he fought extradition from New York to Michigan without success; he was arraigned on January 13 and pretrial hearings starts this Thursday.

I've reported on this kind of situation often enough over the past few months that I shouldn't have to mention my personal feelings on the matter or just what a scumbag Phillips I believe this man to be. From the sound of the charges, he'll hopefully be going to be in jail for quite some time."

 

[Asehujiko]

It sounds like she gave her consent, so would it still be considered sexual assault? And why is a 54 year old playing Runescape?

Because it is a socially accepted norm that when an incident can be caused by either "PEDO IS RAPIN' MAH CHILD" and "teenagers do incredibly stupid things" to always blame the older party because anything else might be interpreted as you supporting people like Josef Fritzl by illiterate third parties.

Kind of like how telling people that speculative invoicing is bad results in a bunch of angry replies "YOU ARE PIRATE SCUM"

 

[DeathChairOfHell]

this is just fucking sick.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

How the hell did this happen? How could they initiate a relationship. When I played Runescape, the language filter was so strict and strange every five words were censored including "English" and "watch."

 

[LazyAza]

Man their are some sad sick people in the world. I mean theirs age difference and then theirs wtf. Even if she were 18 it'd still be effed up.

 

[Carnagath]

I've reported on this kind of situation often enough over the past few months that I shouldn't have to mention my personal feelings on the matter or just what a scumbag Phillips I believe this man to be. From the sound of the charges, he'll hopefully be going to be in jail for quite some time.

I am a bit torn myself. At 28 I would definitely not even consider having a sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl, because that's just fucked up and because I bear my cross of loneliness with surely insufferable fervor, but at 54? I cannot even imagine what that guy's life must be like, playing Runescape, selling MTG cards and being, from what I understand, without family or children of his own. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just taking a cautious step back, because I realise that this is something I can't comprehend and therefore cannot judge.

 

[ramboondiea]

i fear the news now my try to blame pedophillia on games now. well it was only a matter of time regardless

Actually...
See #1 (and the other six if you want a giggle/faceplam/etc.) [http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-top-7-most-insane-things-videogames-have-been-blamed-for/a-20110124134534830079/p-3]
.

well il be damned, the internet just got that little bit worst.

i highly doubt the internet in general will be blamed for pedophilia, probably just a sight that we don't talk about. also,it's good to see another templar on this site.

see now i was hoping for that then someone proved me so wrong (see the above link) and yeah we are everywhere it counts ha

It is good to have the seal back.

But... how is he a "sick fuck"? Seems consensual, she seems to have a brain and more or less capable of making up her mind so... doesn't really warrant the "sick fuck" label.

Plus, not Pedophilia. Probably not even Hebephilia, because it doesn't seem he has a primary attraction. He just liked her. :/

fine if you want to be pedantic about the semantics il refer to as hebephilia,but he still remains a "sick-Fuck" as he is a 50 something yeah old man having relations with a 13 yo child, this is wrong, as evident by they amount of disgust show towards this story and the fact its illegal aswel,
also do you know this child? as you are saying she was capable of making the choice and she was consenting? which unless your a mind-reader of sorts (which would be awesome bt) then that is a bold claim, but looking at the story it could very easily be inferred this man took advantage, the likes of buying her a cell phone is a great example of bribery (and in a sense grooming) also this child obviously isnt of right mind as she (alledgly il had) is having a relationship with someone 4 times her on age before she as even reached a reasonable age