Despite admonishing former state representative Kyle Tasker for his lack of judgment and noting that he lied about using Facebook to contact a 19-year-old girl, a judge rejected an attempt by prosecutors to add years onto his prison sentence.
At a hearing, prosecutors pointed to an electronic friend request that Tasker had made to the friend of a girl he was convicted of trying to lure into a sexual encounter when she was 14. The request was actually an attempt to contact the victim herself and therefore a violation of his sentencing order, they said. As a result, they filed a “motion to impose” Tasker’s full sentence, which could have forced him to serve another seven to 15 years in prison.
Tasker’s defense attorney Alan Cronheim countered that a request to a friend of the victim was not the same as an attempt to actively contact that victim, and that the sentences should stand as originally outlined by the court.
The judge agreed.
“The court finds that the State has failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant had the intent to engage in actual contact with the victim herself. He might have wished to establish some sort of real world relationship with the person he ‘friended.’”
Tasker was convicted in 2017 of sending encrypted, sexually explicit messages to the 14-year-old back in 2015 and 2016, and sentenced to three to seven years. But after completing a sex-offender treatment program, that sentence was reduced by six months. He also was given a seven- to 15-year sentence for selling marijuana at the State House, but that was suspended as long as he abided by certain conditions.
In April 2019, Tasker had served nearly three years of prison time for trying to lure the 14-year-old girl into a sexual encounter. He had been put on work release and was nearing parole.
On April 26 at 7:30 a.m. Tasker sent the friend request to the 19-year-old girl when he was out on work release. The girl immediately recognized the name on her screen, took a screenshot of her phone and alerted her father, who is a corrections officer. She did not accept the request.
The Department of Corrections investigated and Tasker first said his mother might have sent the request. He later admitted he sent the message and his work release was revoked. Prosecutors quickly moved to impose the rest of his suspended sentence.
However, even if Tasker was snooping around the internet trying to observe his victim’s social media profile, that’s not a direct violation of the no-contact order, Judge Andrew Schulman ruled.
“The defendant might have been hoping to view the victim’s Facebook page. That would be a pathological and very troubling goal, but it would not amount to contact in violation of the sentencing order,” Schulman wrote. “More accurately, at the very least, the sentencing documents do not prohibit defendant from looking at information the victim posts on the internet.”
Furthermore, Tasker was prohibited from using a computer when he was on minimum security release, but a violation of prison rules doesn’t automatically trigger the enforcement of suspended sentences. That’s usually done if a defendant fails to remain on good behavior by facing a new felony or misdemeanor charge or a serious motor vehicle infraction. None of that was at play in Tasker’s case, which the judge noted at the hearing.
“So I have a series of what I imagine we’ll refer to as serious breaches of prison rules, suggesting that since the time of his arrest, Mr. Tasker’s judgment has not improved one iota, sad to say,” Shulman said.
Tasker certainly isn’t out of the woods yet. The judge gave him a clear warning in his order.
“The defendant is warned that his serious lapses in judgment will be taken into consideration as relevant sentencing facts in the event that this case returns to the court for imposition of the sentence on other grounds,” Schulman wrote.