Woodland Hills attorney gets nine years in Internet sex sting

LOS ANGELES -- A Woodland Hills attorney convicted of a dozen counts, including attempted lewd acts on a child, that stemmed an Internet sex-crime sting was sentenced Friday to more than nine years in prison.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Curtis B. Rappe denied the defense's request for probation for David A. Cohn and ordered him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

The judge said Cohn focused on "prepubescent" girls who were from broken homes or had learning disabilities, and that he viewed the defendant as an "extreme danger to society."

Cohn was convicted last Nov. 24 of five counts of attempted showing or sending of harmful material to a minor, four counts of attempted lewd acts upon a child and one count each of attempting to contact a minor with the intent to commit a lewd act, possession or control of matter depicting a minor engaging in sexual conduct and arranging a meeting with a person believed to be a minor for a lewd purpose.

The case was filed after Cohn communicated in the summer of 2007 with an undercover FBI agent posing as a 13-year-old girl, according to Deputy District Attorney Susan Schwartz.

Cohn was arrested on July 22, 2008, by the FBI at his Woodland Hills home, but was released from jail soon afterward. He had been free on his own recognizance until the jury returned its verdict.

One of Cohn's attorneys, Patrick Clancy, told the judge his client "has denied that he ever met with any child," and that the

prosecution offered a 90-day jail term early on in the case, which his client turned down in an effort to save his law license.

Cohn also turned down another offer to plead to a misdemeanor count during the trial, according to the prosecutor.

"His efforts to explain his conduct were so disturbing that there is no way a misdemeanor offer would have been extended again," Schwartz said in describing Cohn's testimony during the trial. "He attempted to explain his course of conduct as a game that he had engaged in for years."

The State Bar of California lists Cohn as "not eligible to practice law" as a result of an interim suspension after his conviction, with one document noting that a request for summary disbarment will be filed "upon finality of this conviction."

Source: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_18061198?source=rss

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