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Website Shuts Down Teen Section After Sexual Assault of Muskego Boy

Waukesha man who was caught assaulting 13-year-old boy, met him on Skout.com, which has since decided to no longer cater to minors.

 

A meet-up site with a teen community section has decided to suspend access to its teenage users after one too many connections ended up in sexual assaults of minors.

The most recent involved 21-year-old Daniel R. Schmidt of Waukesha, who posed as a 16-year-old on the forum. He arranged to pick up a 13-year-old boy in Muskego, who had sent pictures of his naked genitals to Schmidt and the two eventually arranged to meet, according to the criminal complaint.

"We know how much Skout means to our teen community, and, at Skout, our community means everything to us," Skout CEO Christian Wiklund wrote in a blog post. "For now, we believe that there’s only one thing we can do: until we can design better protections, we are temporarily shutting down the under-18 community." 

Response to the blog and the suspension of the site were overwhelmingly negative, as commenters felt cut off from people they hoped to get to know without any advance notice.

"We are extremely sorry about this, but we don't believe we have any other choice. We will not compromise the safety of our community, and right now, our concerns are too significant to simply stand by and do nothing," Wiklund added. 

The other cases involved a 37-year-old Ohio man charged with raping a 13-year-old girl he met while posing as a teenager on skout.com, and a missing 12-year-old California girl found with a 24-year-old man after her mother found skout.com messages on the girl's cellphone.

Schmidt is facing second-degree sexual assault charges after he was spotted with the teenager at Hales Corners park on June 2. A woman who was walking her dog nearby called police, who then confronted the two as they were leaving the park.

Schmidt is free on $5,000 bond while awaiting trial. If convicted, he faces up to 40 years in prison and $100,000 in fines.

Related Topics: Sexual Assault
Do you think it's possible for any website to keep underage (17 and under) users off of its forums? Tell us in the comments.

Cat

9:18 am on Thursday, June 14, 2012

He is out on bail he isn't being held any longer. FYI

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Amy Gilgenbach

9:46 am on Thursday, June 14, 2012

Cat, thanks for the tip. I'll update the article.

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swtlbrunette

5:42 pm on Thursday, June 14, 2012

he should be locked up in jail. just saying...

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Keith Brady

9:23 pm on Saturday, June 16, 2012

No doubt he'll do time, given the overwhelming evidence against him.

Are you suggesting that he should be denied bail entirely? For a charge of statutory rape? That seems excessive in the extreme.

swtlbrunette

3:47 am on Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Keith,
If you knew about the information that was brought to light today would you say the same thing? If you dont know what Im talking about look on fox 6 or ay milwaukee bsed news station. I am not saying that he should be denied bail, but watch, for this "sexual assult of a child" charge he may get 4 years.

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