Miss America and Online Predators: Could there be a legal issue in favor of the Men?

In this article on Yahoo!, Miss America Lauren Nelson helped police and America's Most Wanted to nab online predators. With police assistance, 20 year old Nelson sent pictures of herself as a teenager and told men online she was 14. Some guys said she was too young and some decided to meet with her (she said she was skipping school to meet them). She stood on the porch and when a guy showed up, she took him inside and then left him to the police and the host of the TV show.

My question is this: Could there be a legal challenge to this scenario?

Ok, I not in favor of online predators and thus want to make sure they don't get off on a technicality. So it makes me wonder, what will they charge these guys with? It is accepted (and all over the news) of sting operations where police pose as young girls to talk to men. So guys could think Miss America was lying simply because she was online. (How old am I? Only people who know me can answer that, but I could be a teenager, a 20-something, or even a 70 year old guy.)

Now, after setting up a meeting, the guy gets out and sees a young woman. Now, I don't know about you, but I am fairly certain I can tell the difference between a 14 year old girl and a 20 year old woman. Thus, if the guys followed her into the house, was there a crime committed? Now, if instead of Nelson it was an actual 14 year old girl, yes, I would say the guy is busted. But I don't think I could say the same thing in this case. Actually, the men might be able to go after Nelson and the cops.

How could I say that? Well, think of this scenario. A 15 year old kid goes to buy a pack of cigarettes, calls a convenience store, and says he wants some smokes. The clerk says bring in an ID and the store will sell them. So the kid comes in, shows a fake ID, and gets denied cigarettes when the clerk figures out the ID is bad. Now who gets in trouble? The kid right. So if a guy thinks a girl could be lying, saying she is younger, and then meets her and realizes she is of age, did he really commit a crime by going in the house or would the girl be guilty of lying and entrapment? That is the tough question.

Now, so you know, I hope this argument doesn't hold in court. But then again, you would think the cops might have someone who would ask these kind of questions before they tried a sting operation. Remember the old story about the criminal mastermind who would bring in the dumbest guy he could find, tell him the plan, and then see if the dumb guy could see through it. If he could, then so could the police, and the plan was worthless.