Man Exchanges Sexual Photos with 10 Year Old Girl In Cobb County

Interactions between a ten-year-old girl and Adam Srock allegedly began a month after his eighteenth birthday in April of last year. The Cobb County police warrant documents that they talked over a period of few weeks through Google Hangouts. This is also where the alleged photo swapping began. There is little to no information about how the conversations started between Srock and the girl. He bonded out for just over $27,000.00 after spending a few hours in Cobb County jail.

Crimes involving children, especially sex crimes involving children in Georgia, are taken very seriously. A conviction of a felony sex crime may include registering as a sex offender for life. If registered as a sex offender, there will be restrictions on where the registered sex offender can live and work.

As of right now, Srock is facing seven different felony counts. These include sexual exploitation of a child in Georgia and obscene internet contact with a child. To better understand what is considered obscene content we look to the Georgia Code. The Georgia Code (O.C.G.A. §16-12-80) defines certain material as obscene if it falls into any of the following areas:

• To the average person, applying contemporary community standards, taken as a whole, it predominately appeals to the prurient interest, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion
• The material taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value; and
• The material depicts or describes in a patently offensive, way sexual conduct.

According to the Computer or Electronic Pornography and Child Exploitation Prevention Act of 2007, a person has committed the offense of absence internet contact with a child if he has contact with a child using an internet service, and the contact involves any matter containing explicit verbal descriptions of sexually explicit nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse that is intended to arouse the sexual desire of either the child or the person. 

According to the Georgia Code (O.C.G.A. §16-12-100), “it is unlawful for any person knowingly to employ, use, persuade, induce, entice, or coerce any minor to engage in or assist any other person to engage in any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual medium depicting such conduct,” and “it is unlawful for any person knowingly to possess or control any material which depicts a minor or a portion of a minor's body engaged in any sexually explicit conduct.”

As outlined in the Georgia Code, sex crimes involving a child are mostly classified as felony offenses. If convicted, Srock is looking at five to twenty years of imprisonment and fines up to $100,000. In some instances, the offense will be knocked down to a misdemeanor if the offender is under the age of eighteen and the victim is fourteen years old. As I mentioned earlier, if you receive a conviction of a dangerous sexual offense in Georgia or of a sexual offense involving a child, you have to register as a sexual offender or a sexually dangerous predator in Georgia as of July 1, 1996. If you fail to register with the Registry, then you are guilty of yet another felony, and are facing one to thirty years in prison. 

In Berry v. State, the court held that knowing that the child is a minor is an element of the crime of sexual exploitation of a child. Berry v. State, 636 S.E.2d (Ga. App. 2006). The evidence in that case was insufficient to show that the minor Berry crudely photographed was under eighteen years of age. She did not appear at trial and the pictures only showed her nude lower half. Berry testified that she told him that she was 22-years-old although she was fifteen at the time. The jury agreed that a reasonable person would not have known her real age, and Berry was not convicted.

Although, this case is similar in that it allegedly deals with crude photographs of a minor, ten years old versus fifteen years old is a huge difference. If the allegations are true, Srock will have a difficult time convincing anyone that he did not know she was a minor. However, being accused of a crime does not mean someone is guilty of that crime. It also does not mean that every allegation is true. That's why hiring a top-rated Georgia Criminal Defense Attorney is so important. We can explore all potential defenses and make sure that a person who is accused of a crime is never assumed to be guilty. 

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Cases involving sex crimes are very complicated. If you or a loved one has been convicted of a sex crime or a sex crime involving a minor, it can be hard to reach out and get the help that you need. Contact a Georgia Criminal Defense Lawyer today.