ST. PETERSBURG, Florida —
Polk County sheriff's deputies arrested Philip Ray Greaves II hundreds of miles away from Florida at his home in Pueblo, Colorado, and charged him with violating Florida's obscenity law.
Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said his office was able to arrest Greaves on Florida charges because Greaves sold and mailed his book, "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct," directly to undercover Polk deputies. Judd says Greaves even signed the book.
"He very proudly sold us his personal copy," Judd told the Associated Press. "I was outraged by the content. It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."
Laurie Shorter, spokeswoman for the Pueblo County Sheriff's Department, said Greaves would be held in the county jail on the Florida charge. He was being booked Monday morning and it was unclear if he has an attorney. Judd said Greaves could be in Florida as early as Monday night.
"If he will waive extradition, it's my goal for him to eat processed turkey on Christmas Day in the Polk County Jail," Judd said.
Denver attorney David Lane, who has handled several high-profile free speech cases, said Florida could have a hard time extraditing Greaves. He is entitled to a hearing where he can argue he should not be sent there to face charges.
"The main question is whether what he's accused of in Florida would be a crime in Colorado," Lane said. "Obviously, it's not a crime in Colorado because he hasn't been arrested here."
Writs of extradition — the paperwork necessary to send somebody to another state — are routinely signed by Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a former Denver district attorney. But Lane, who is not affiliated with this case, said it involves a different set of issues.
"Most of other extradition cases present clear-cut cases, the defendant was dealing drugs in that other state or some other crime that is also illegal here," Lane said.
Ritter's spokesman, Evan Dreyer, did not immediately return a message.
Greaves has no criminal record, but his self-published book of advice on how to make sexual encounters with children safe caused a flap when it showed up on Amazon in November. The book was later removed from the site.
Judd, known throughout Florida as a crusader against child predators, said he was incensed when he heard about the book and that no one had arrested Greaves for selling it.
NBC News
Polk County sheriff's deputies arrested Philip Ray Greaves II (right) hundreds of miles away from Florida at his home in Pueblo, Colorado, and charged him with violating Florida's obscenity law.
"What's wrong with a society that has gotten to the point that we can't arrest child pornographers and child molesters who write a book about how to rape a child?" Judd said.
The book included first-person descriptions of sexual encounters, purportedly written from a child's point of view.
Greaves argues in the book that pedophiles are misunderstood, as the word literally means to love a child. He adds that it is only a crime to act on sexual impulses toward children, and offers advice that purportedly allows pedophiles to abide by the law.
Judd said he and his detectives got Greaves to sell the book to them for $50; he sent it through the mail and told officers it was his last copy.
"If we can get jurisdiction ... we're coming after you," Judd said. "There's nothing in the world more important than our children."
Greaves is being charged with distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.
-AP
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