Thursday, October 29, 2009

Edward Oberwise - MySpace Predator - Gets 20 years

When arrested he was wearing a shirt that read "Real Men of Genius."



A convicted sex offender got an earful from a judge for his apparent lack of remorse before being sentenced Wednesday.

Edward Oberwise, 40, of Seminole, was sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by 10 years of sexual offender probation.

According to prosecutors, Oberwise met a 12-year-old girl on MySpace and invited her to meet him.

The 12-year-old and her 14-year-old friend snuck out of their Lithia home in the middle of the night in January of 2008.

Oberwise drove them to a nearby parking lot where they had a sexual encounter. But when he returned to meet them again a few days later deputies were waiting instead. The arrest was captured on video.

Oberwise was arrested and later convicted of the crimes.

After some prodding from the judge, Oberwise apologized in court.

"I just need to say to the court how sorry I am, you know, I mean, that's basically it," Oberwise said. "Look, I've got a family. I've got a kid. I've got a job. My employer's here."
"You know what sir? You might have thought about that before you tried to pull this off," said Judge Wayne Timmerman. "You went there prowling. Looking for something. Predator is the word Mr. Duran uses. And it's really not misplaced in this case. And you got what you wanted. The problem is you got caught. I think you're sorry. But I think you're sorry you got caught."
The mother of one of the victims made a statement on behalf of her daughter.

"What I witnessed that night is something I will never forget. And the memory will stay with me for the rest of my life. I had just turned 14 years old and had never been exposed to anything like that in my life," she read. "Still to this day I had nightmares about what happened."

Timmerman said he was tempted to give Oberwise the maximum sentence of 75 years in prison, but instead stuck with the sentence the attorneys agreed upon.

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