FLINT, MI — A former Genesee County Jail corrections officer has taken a plea after he was caught in a sex-trafficking sting by the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office GHOST operation.
Benjamin Reinhart, 24, appeared before Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Brian S. Pickell and pleaded guilty to one count of using a computer to commit a crime, punishable by up to seven years, and one count of misconduct in office, punishable by up to five years.
The plea would drop charges of child sexually abusive activity and children accosting for immoral purposes.
The plea includes a sentence agreement for no up-front jail time and a cap of six months on a jail tether, attorney Mike Manley said. Reinhart will be registered as a sex offender on the non-public record.
Reinhart was arrested and fired from his position with the Genesee County Sheriff’s Department in April after he allegedly exchanged messages with an undercover officer posing as a 15-year-old girl online, Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson said in an April 28 news briefing.
Related: Sheriff’s deputy arrested in Genesee County sex-trafficking sting
Reinhart allegedly sent 446 messages to the undercover officer he believed was a 15-year-old, 118 messages and six pictures of which he sent while on duty, Swanson said. He also allegedly sent “graphic pictures” and “almost demanded” the decoy to send pictures of themself in return.
But when Reinhart was asked to meet the decoy, he didn’t show up.
This was what differentiated Reinhart’s case from other GHOST cases, Manley said.
“He did not act upon it,” Manley said. “He did not appear. That was the main, driving force of this resolution and I do think it’s a fair resolution for both sides.”
The Genesee Human Oppression Strike Team, or GHOST, was started by former county Sheriff Robert Pickell to fight human trafficking in the area. Sting operations often involve undercover officers posing as underage victims.
Manley said Reinhart knew about the GHOST program.
“I think everyone knows about the GHOST program out there. I don’t think that that was the issue,” he said. “I think it’s just you get behind these phones, whether it’s social media, whether it’s on these sites, whether it’s meeting somebody and you would do or say things that you would never do personally or act upon. It’s quite the phenomenon we see when you’re able to not do it in person and I think it’s gotten a lot of people in trouble in many ways.”
People need to be careful about what they do on their phones, Manley said.
“Sometimes it looks make-believe and it seems make-believe, but the law doesn’t look at it like that and that gets you into a lot of trouble,” he said. “Hopefully this can be a warning sign to a lot of people out there that you have to be really careful about what you say or what you send over the internet.”
Reinhart is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 21.
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