A Sedgwick County jury began deliberations Friday in the trial of former Garden Plain football coach Todd Puetz.

After 31/2 days of testimony, the jury deliberated for just over two hours before adjourning for the weekend.

Among the evidence sent to the jury room are audio recordings of several calls that Puetz made to a telephone that was being answered by an undercover police detective posing as a 15-year-old runaway prostitute.

Puetz is charged with felony counts of electronic solicitation of a child, attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child and attempted criminal sodomy. The charges grew out of an undercover police sting operation that targeted men willing to pay for sex with underage girls.

The operation was conducted in a house in the 15100 block of West Kellogg after a detective posing as a girl named Rissa placed an ad in the escorts section of the backpage.com website in October 2011. Puetz was one of seven men who answered the ad and were arrested in the sting.

District Judge Ben Burgess included an entrapment instruction in the information he sent to the jury room. The instruction said a defendant should be found not guilty if he was induced by police to commit a crime he had no predisposition of committing.

Entrapment is not a defense, the instruction said, in a case where a defendant was predisposed to committing a crime and police only offered him an opportunity to do so.

The ad placed by the detective included a notice that said the poster was 18 years old, but the detective told Puetz on his first call that she was only 15.

“That’s pretty young,” Puetz is heard saying on the tape.

“Well, it’s not like I’m 5,” the detective told him.

“Where are you located at?” Puetz asked.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Jason Edwards discounted Puetz’s claim that he suspected all along that the person claiming to be a teenage runaway was really a police officer.

“Either that’s a 15-year-old girl or a cop pretending to be a 15-year-old girl,” Edwards said. “Either way, why would you consider having conversation? But he does.”

Assistant District Attorney Shannon Wilson, who helped prosecute the case, told the jury that the sting operation was a good-faith attempt by police to take a proactive approach to combating the sexual exploitation of underage girls.

“You know there is a seedy underworld in our community,” she told the jury. “You also know that Todd Puetz chose to be part of that underworld.”

Wilson asked the jury not to seriously consider an entrapment defense.

“They did not go looking for him,” she said. “He called them. If he doesn’t call them, we are not here today.”

In his closing argument, defense lawyer Dan Monnat argued that the sting operation was a trap that ensnared anyone who happened to wander into it.

He reminded the jury of 10 character witnesses who testified that Puetz’s character and reputation were beyond question. Several said Puetz has often been around teenage girls and was never suspected of having improper feelings for them.

Monnat told the jury that before he was arrested, police had never considered Puetz to be a potential child sex molester. Despite all the publicity surrounding the case, Monnat said, no teenage girls have come forward to say that Puetz behaved improperly around them.

“Did any real 15-year-old teenager or child come forward to say that Todd had ever done anything like this before?” he asked.

Monnat said entrapment was a legitimate defense in this case.

“He had no previous disposition to be interested in 15-year-olds,” he said.

Deliberations are scheduled to resume Monday.

Read Article at Kansas.com

Kansas.com – By Hurst Laviana

Former Garden Plain football coach Todd Puetz told a Sedgwick County jury Wednesday that he wasn’t looking for sex when he went to a house where undercover police officers were posing as underage prostitutes.

“I was going there to try to help them out,” he told the jury. “I would’ve given them the money I had, and I would have called police.”

Puetz was one of seven men arrested in October 2011 during a police sting operation that targeted men willing to pay to have sex with underage girls.

He is charged with felony counts of electronic solicitation of a child, attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child and attempted criminal sodomy.

“Did you electronically solicit anyone you believed to be less than 16 years of age?” defense lawyer Dan Monnat asked.

“No,” Puetz replied.

“Did you attempt to take indecent liberties or commit sodomy with anyone you believed to be under 16 years of age?”

“No.”

The state’s case against Puetz was based primarily on the testimony of Wichita police Detective Jennifer Wright, who posed as a 15-year-old girl during the operation.

She told the jury that Puetz replied to an ad she placed in the escort section of the backpage.com Internet website. After a series of phone calls, she testified, Puetz was arrested on Oct. 22, 2011, after he arrived at a house in the 15100 block of West Kellogg where the sting operation was being conducted.

Puetz told the jury that he turned to massage therapy to alleviate anxieties that were caused in part by being the coach of a winning football program that won a state title in 2007.

On the day of his arrest, he said, he drove to Lyons for a volleyball tournament and stopped at a junior college football game in Hutchinson on the way back. He said his wife and most of their seven children were attending a wedding in El Dorado that day.

Puetz said he turned to backpage.com when he got home that night to find someone who could give him a massage. He told Monnat that he called several numbers listed in ads. He said there was nothing special in the ad placed by Wright.

“It was just the next one in line,” he said.

The trial is being held in the courtroom of District Judge Ben Burgess.

A juror in the case was allowed to remain on the jury panel Wednesday despite the fact that a nephew of his was arrested this week in Indiana under circumstances similar to those faced by Puetz.

The juror said he learned Tuesday night that a nephew who works as a teacher and basketball coach in Indiana was arrested Monday night on indecent liberties charges.

Burgess ruled that the juror could remain on the case after he assured Burgess and lawyers on both sides that the arrest would not influence his decision in the trial.

“I don’t think that it’ll affect my decision at all,” he said outside the presence of the other jurors. “I just thought you should know.”

Of the seven men arrested in the sting, prosecutors dismissed charges against one, and another was found not guilty by a jury. Four of the defendants are awaiting trial.

Read Article at Kansas.com

The Wichita Eagle – By Hurst Laviana

Former Garden Plain football coach Todd Puetz was not trying to solicit sex from a 15-year-old girl when he was arrested in 2011 but was instead trying to help two young runaways who said they needed money, a defense lawyer told a jury Tuesday.

“Todd only intended to help them by giving them what money he had,” Dan Monnat told the jury. “The evidence will show that Todd is a flawed human being, but he is not a flawed human being who is guilty of the child sex crimes he’s accused of here today. Todd Puetz never had any interest in underage girls.”

Monnat’s comments came during the opening statement at Puetz’s trial on charges of electronic solicitation, attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child and attempted criminal sodomy.

Prosecutors said Puetz was one of seven men arrested in October 2011 during a police sting operation that targeted men willing to pay to have sex with underage girls.

Assistant District Attorney Shannon Wilson told the jury in her opening statement that the operation was set up by the Wichita-Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Child Unit to combat child sex trafficking.

Investigators set up in a government-owned house in the 15100 block of West Kellogg and placed an ad in the escort section of the backpage.com Internet website. The operation was conducted on Oct. 21 and Oct. 22, 2011.

“They were not prepared for the response they got,” Wilson said. “They were overwhelmed.”

Puetz called the number at 8:06 p.m. on Oct. 22 and was arrested shortly before 10 p.m. when he showed up at the house after several other phone calls, Wilson said.

She offered a synopsis of the first conversation between Puetz and undercover Wichita police Detective Jennifer Wright, who was posing as a 15-year-old girl.

Puetz: “How much for an hour?”

Wright: “$120.”

Puetz: “Are you 18?”

Wright: “I’m 15.”

Puetz: “That’s pretty young.”

Wright: “Well, it’s not like I’m 5.”

Puetz: “You’re not a cop are you?”

Wright: “No I am not a cop.”

Monnat told the jury that Puetz began suffering from depression, anxiety and panic attacks after his father died in 2008. He ended up taking two prescription drugs, Monnat said, but was worried about becoming over dependent on the medication. Puetz eventually turned to massage therapy to ease his anxieties, Monnat said.

Shorty before his arrest, Monnat said, Garden Plain lost its first football game of the season, and Puetz was afraid that another loss would keep the team out of the state playoffs. Puetz was worried that that could cost him his job, Monnat said.

Monnat said that by this time, Puetz had learned that some massage therapists in Wichita offered sexual favors for an additional cost. He said Puetz occasionally took advantage of those offers. On the night of his arrest, Monnat said, Puetz had a sexual encounter with such a therapist who claimed to be 24 but was probably around 30.

“Todd Puetz never had any interest in underage girls,” Monnat said. “Todd Puetz is guilty of being unfaithful to his family. Todd Puetz is not guilty of the sex crimes he’s accused of in this case”.

The trial is being held in the courtroom of District Judge Ben Burgess and is expected to last about a week.

Read Article at Kansas.com

The Wichita Eagle – By Hurst Laviana

Andrew Johnson from Salina is suing the fraternity he belonged to at the University of Kansas.  He says the frat provided unlimited access to alcohol to him and other underage members at Sigma Phi Epsilon.  Johnson was 18 at the time.

Johnson claims that after a drinking party two other underage frat brothers rammed his head into a concrete wall.   The lawsuit contends the injury left Johnson cognitively impaired and robbed him of the ability to smell.  He claims the fraternity is responsible.

“The injured student here contends that by rule, regulation, contract and Kansas law, the fraternity has a duty to prevent underage drinking at fraternity functions,” Wichita attorney Dan Monnat says.

Johnson admits in the suit that he had also been drinking.

We asked college students at Wichita State what they think about the lawsuit.

“We have the freedom to make our own choices, and if those hurt us it’s our responsibility,” Jon Brooks says.

Emily Tysick says, “I think it’s immature of him to sue his fraternity.  He made his decisions, and I just don’t think that’s right.”

But Monnat says the suit addresses a serious problem.

“Likely, the student is hoping the tide has changed–that the law and jurors are coming down harder on the ‘animal house’ antics of fraternity houses because they find real people get seriously injured.”

See video at KWCH

KWCH TV – by Jim Grawe

In the first case arising out of a sex-sting operation conducted in October 2011, a jury has found a Wichita man not guilty of any crime.

Kyle Miller was acquitted Wednesday in Sedgwick County District Court.

“It was obvious from the evidence, as is the risk in all sting operations, that an innocent man was entrapped in a government net that had simply been cast too wide,” said Trevor Riddle, Miller’s defense attorney.

In the sting, an undercover officer posed as an under-aged teen online. Police say they organized the special operation in response to an increase in human trafficking. Seven men were arrested, including Miller and popular Garden Plain football coach Todd Puetz.

Police were confident in the arrests. “In my mind, I believe these are good solid cases,” Captain Brent Allred said just days after the sting. But with Miller’s acquittal, now two of the seven men arrested in that sting are cleared. Charges against Reginald (Reggie) Shepard were dismissed at his preliminary hearing in January 2012.

In a press release to the media, Miller’s defense attorney suggested his client’s case showed how local, state, and federal investigators mishandled the sting.

“It was obvious from the evidence that the sting was operated carelessly, creating a great risk that innocent people like Kyle would be entrapped,” Riddle said.

Police, at the time of the sting, said the sting was uncharted territory. “We had never done one before so we had to put a lot of brain power in and hope that everything went smoothly,” Allred told reporters in 2011.

Lt. Doug Nolte says the Wichita Police Department will not comment on the sting or the court decisions right now because there are five other cases still pending. Todd Puetz is the next to have a jury trial. His trial is scheduled to begin in early April.

See video at KAKE

KAKE TV – By Jason Tarr

To the Editor: Re “Why Police Lie Under Oath,” by Michelle Alexander

To the Editor: Michelle Alexander suggests two explanations for why officers lie: because they can, and to increase arrests. I would like to suggest a third.

Our system openly embraces certain police lies, such as undercover lies and lies to induce confessions. Given that officers also lie under oath, one has to wonder: Does the acceptance of lying in the field have a spillover effect into the courtroom? Can an officer who is trained to live an undercover lie fairly be expected to turn off the duplicity spigot upon crossing the threshold into the courtroom?

While ending all investigative lies is probably an unrealistic goal, it may be time to question our reflexive assumption that these lies are “good” lies. If we can nudge the police toward a stronger culture of honesty in the field, then perhaps we can better rely on them to maintain honesty in the courtroom.

DANIEL E. MONNAT Wichita, Kan., Feb. 5, 2013

The writer is a lawyer.

Read Article at NYTimes.com.

Click to read Dan Monnat and Paige A. Nichols’ article, To Protect and Serve… And Lie? Why Even “Good” Police Lies are Bad for Kansas Justice.

To the Editor: Re “Why Police Lie Under Oath,” by Michelle Alexander

To the Editor: Michelle Alexander suggests two explanations for why officers lie: because they can, and to increase arrests. I would like to suggest a third.

Our system openly embraces certain police lies, such as undercover lies and lies to induce confessions. Given that officers also lie under oath, one has to wonder: Does the acceptance of lying in the field have a spillover effect into the courtroom? Can an officer who is trained to live an undercover lie fairly be expected to turn off the duplicity spigot upon crossing the threshold into the courtroom?

While ending all investigative lies is probably an unrealistic goal, it may be time to question our reflexive assumption that these lies are “good” lies. If we can nudge the police toward a stronger culture of honesty in the field, then perhaps we can better rely on them to maintain honesty in the courtroom.

DANIEL E. MONNAT
Wichita, Kan., Feb. 5, 2013

The writer is a lawyer.

Read Article on NYTimes.com.

Click to read Dan Monnat and Paige A. Nichols’ article, To Protect and Serve… And Lie? Why Even “Good” Police Lies are Bad for Kansas Justice.

DODGE CITY, Kan. — Four years after a girl’s death, there’s an arrest in case. Three year-old Natalie Pickle died in November 2008 in Dodge City.  At the time she was in the care of her mother’s boyfriend, Brock Cunningham.

Thursday afternoon, Cunningham was arrested and booked into the Ford County jail on suspicion of first degree murder and child abuse.  A sergeant at the jail tells Eyewitness News that Cunningham bonded out.  His bond was set at $75,000.

“The death of young Natalie Pickle over four years ago was a tragic loss,” said attorney Dan Monnat who represents Cunningham. “Brock had nothing to do with causing her death.  Brock tried to save Natalie’s life that night.  He has cooperated with law enforcement at the time of the investigation into Natalie’s death and told them he was innocent of any crime.  Today, again, Brock says he’s innocent and will proceed to jury trial unless these accusations are otherwise dismissed.”

When Natalie died, Cunningham told investigators Natalie fell off the bed. She died the following day.

Dodge City police ruled it a homicide.

In previous interviews with Eyewitness News, Natalie’s mother said doctors told them the injuries were too severe to be caused by a fall from a bed.

“He told us this looked like something from a fall from a five story building,” said mother Amanda Perry. “This isn’t something you see from a two foot bed.”

Eyewitness News has reached out to the Ford County attorney for more information.  Once details are available, we will bring them to you.

See video at KWCH

KWCH TV – By Kim Wilhelm






A 28-year-old Dodge City man has been arrested in the 2008 death of his girlfriend’s daughter.

The Dodge City Globe reports that Brock W. Cunningham was charged Thursday with first-degree murder and one count of felony child abuse in the death of 3-year-old Natalie Pickle. The child was severely injured in Dodge City on Nov. 19, 2008, and died the next day at a Wichita hospital.

The child was in Cunningham’s care while her mother was at work. The case has remained open since authorities ruled the child’s death a homicide in December 2008.

Ford County Attorney Natalie Randall says Cunningham was released on $75,000 bond Thursday, but released few other details Friday in a written statement: “The County Attorney’s Office wants justice for Natalie Pickle, and will decline to comment further until court proceedings have concluded.”

Dan Monnat, Cunningham’s lawyer, said Friday that Cunningham is innocent of the charges and “had nothing to do with causing her death.” He says Cunningham tried to save the child’s life that night and has cooperated with law enforcement during the investigation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

See video at KAKE

KAKE TV

WICHITA, Kansas – It’s a first of its kind in Kansas, according to Wichita attorney Dan Monnat.

The state of Kansas is demanding William Marotta of Topeka help support a lesbian couple’s three-year-old daughter.

In 2009, Marotta answered the couple’s ad on Craigslist for a sperm donor. He delivered the sperm to their house, which the couple inserted on their own. Marotta also signed away all parental rights. The problem is, he didn’t realize that state law still considers him the birth father and responsible for supporting the child since a physician wasn’t involved in the insemination.

“The statute itself was probably well-intended, inserting a physician in the middle of this as the only practical way to assure against false claims of artificial insemination,” Monnat says.

When the couple broke up, the one who mothered the child turned to the state for public assistance. She says the state compelled her to turn over the biological father’s name. Now, Marotta is fighting the state’s demand of $6,000 in child support. His attorneys set up a Facebook page to solicit donations for the legal fees, as they ask a judge to dismiss the case.

“The issue will be whether to follow the letter of the law or to carve out some kind of exception of the law based on the parties’ intent,” Monnat says.

See video at KWCH

KWCH 12 Eyewitness News – By Jim Grawe