Minor solicitation charges against Chris Harrell, a one-time chairman of Tulare’s Board of Public Utilities and former candidate for Tulare City Council, have been dismissed after almost four years of court proceedings.
He was charged with one count of meeting a minor for lewd purposes and one count of contact with a minor for a sexual offense in a “To Catch a Predator”-style sting operation conducted by the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office in October 2020.
Harrell was alleged in court documents to have contacted a 17-year-old decoy profile on Grindr – a dating/hookup app primarily for men seeking other men – and to have discussed sexual acts before attempting to meet at a location where he was arrested.
Judge Nathan Leedy granted a motion for dismissal in June on the grounds that the sheriff’s office failed to preserve evidence that could have bolstered Harrell’s defense. Prosecutors argued unsuccessfully that the requested evidence – documentation of the decoy profile’s creation – was unrelated to the issue at hand.
“On June 4, 2024, the court dismissed all charges over the People’s objection. At issue was the lack of preservation of certain evidence by the investigating agency. Our office argued the evidence itself was not relevant to the charged crime when considering the entirety of evidence presented at the preliminary hearing. While we disagree with the court’s decision, we respect the finality of the findings,” a statement from the Tulare County District Attorney’s office to the Valley Voice read.
Officials from the sheriff’s department stated that the dismissal was not due to any evidentiary concerns, but due to a “procedural technicality.”
“Sheriff Boudreaux adamantly disagrees with the court’s decision to dismiss the case. Had the Sheriff’s Office been notified of the court’s ruling in June 2024, it would have petitioned the District Attorney’s Office to file an appeal,” a statement from the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office read.
“The case was not dismissed due to the mishandling of evidence. But due to a procedural technicality, which we believe was irrelevant to the case, the Sheriff’s Office strongly believes, had this case been appealed, the ruling would have been overturned,” it continued.
Harrell said he was happy to see the case put behind him.
“I’m just glad to be able to move on with my life now. This has not just taken up four years of my life — in a lot of instances I’ve lost four years of my life, as far as different aspects go,” he told the Voice. “I won’t get those four years back, but I’m not looking backwards anymore, I’m looking forward.”
Documenting a decoy, allegations of bias
In the sting, detectives created fake profiles on Facebook and Grindr. Operational documents show that two Facebook decoys were created: one profile for a 12 year old girl, and one profile for a 14 year old girl.
The documents lay out plans to create Grindr decoy profiles, but do not specify ages for them. Court records show that detectives arrested men for attempting to meet with male decoys aged 14, 15, and 17.
In Harrell’s case, messages filed with the court show that the decoy said he would “turn 18 in 2 months.”
Detectives didn’t save screenshots of the creation of the Grindr accounts, or the profiles after creation – only the actual conversation. Harrell’s attorney Mark W. Coleman said the screenshots would have been crucial to Harrell’s defense that he believed he was initially chatting with an adult.
“In this case, it was obvious that the dummy biographical data and image were exculpatory as it would show that not only did police give Mr. Harrell reason to believe that the decoy account belonged to an individual over 18 years of age, but that Mr. Harrell so believed this to be true,” the motion to dismiss reads.
Coleman told the Voice that the age disparity – a 17-year-old male in Harrell’s case vs 12 and 14 year-old girls on Facebook – was evidence that detectives targeted gay men differently than heterosexuals.
“They had been creating Facebook profiles for heterosexual males of young girls, 12 and 13 years old. Their operational plan called for the creation of the heterosexual profiles with 12 and 13 year old girls, and then proceeded on with the sting, which I don’t necessarily have any qualms with,” Coleman said.
“When they did the gay men – they created profiles of adults, to initiate the communications. They had a picture of an adult, they had an age that was an adult on an adults-only website, in order to subscribe you had to be over the age of 18, either way you had to be over the age of 18.”
The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office has denied any allegations of discrimination in this case.
“The undercover operation was never discriminatory towards anyone, which was clearly outlined by the court’s denial of the Defense’s original motion. Sheriff Boudreaux stands by the investigation and will continue to investigate anyone attempting to do harm to the children of Tulare County,” a statement to the Voice for this article reads.
Harrell declined to comment on the sting, or if he felt it was discriminatory.
Harrell’s next steps
Harrell said he has had ample time to reflect and that he wanted to make himself “the best person he possibly can.”
“With this, it was one thing — I mean, literally the very next day, I decided to take that approach.. I’ve had four years of going inward and self-reflection. I didn’t want to, after all was said and done, want this to be a wasted opportunity for myself in order for myself to become better,” he said. “In that respect, I’m fortunate that I’ve had that amount of time to do that — it’d have been nice if it wasn’t four years, but being able to have that time to look forward and see — be able to learn more about yourself, but about other people, too.”
Before his arrest, he was the director of the Tulare Historical Museum, and he says he is still working to preserve Tulare’s history as the Citizens Historic Preservation Ad-Hoc Committee.
He said he recently presented to the Tulare City Council at the October 1 meeting, he said.
“I’ve been working and fortunate enough to work with the city on a volunteer basis during the past year now, things of that nature. That, along with other stuff, is what I’m just gonna go ahead and continue to do,” he said.
“For me that’s something that is never going to stop, whether I’m living here or another community or what have you,” he said. “Throughout this whole time, that’s something I’ve still been able to do, and tried to be able to do – I haven’t been able to in some respects but I’ve been able to continue in other respects, too.”
Impact on other cases?
Although Harrell’s case has been dismissed, another man arrested in the 2020 sting, David Safrazian, still has an open case pending in the Tulare County Superior Court and set for a jury trial in December. His attorneys made a similar claim of homophobia in their response.
Safrazian was similarly alleged to have contacted a 17-year-old male decoy, and hired San Carlos-based Bruce Nickerson – nicknamed the “toilet lawyer” for his work in public exposure and lewd conduct sting operations – as part of his defense.
“As far as the suspects were concerned, they aren’t concerned with men who are interested in 17 year old ladies. Even though – you want to take a look at the national news, that seems to be fairly prevalent all over the country. You don’t find public gays getting caught with underage people – but you’ll sure as hell find a lot of politicians getting caught with underage girls — 16, 17 years old,” Nickerson told the Voice in 2021.
A statement from Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux to the Voice in 2021 forcefully denied any claims of homophobia.
“I am offended and deeply saddened that anyone would make allegations that the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office would target members of the LGBTQ community. I, along with the women and men of the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office, have great respect, as well as friendships, within our LGBTQ community. Our focus is on those people who prey upon the innocence of our children,” Boudreaux said.
A suspect’s sexual orientation is irrelevant to the department’s work targeting “those individuals who are going after children and teenagers in our county,” the statement added.