Feb 01, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

A Richmond resident was sentenced to jail time Jan. 10 but released soon after for stealing money and credit cards from men he hooked up with in Arlington.

Shawn Boyd, 36, was sentenced at the Arlington County General District Court to 12 months in jail and 10 months probation. Since he had already served jail time while awaiting his trial, he was released on the same day he was sentenced.

Boyd served his time in the Arlington County Detention Facility. As part of a plea bargain, Boyd pleaded guilty to petty larceny and failure to appear in court in September 2005.
   
Boyd stole a credit card from an Arlington resident on Feb. 15, 2005. He also stole less than $200 from another Arlington resident on March 19, 2005.

Officer Loreann Grimes, team coordinator for the Arlington County Police Department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, said Boyd had been hooking up with men he met online and stealing their money and credit cards afterward.

“It came to light because people in the chat rooms were talking about this guy,” she said. “They were saying, ‘Hey, better watch out for this guy,’ because he had a couple of different names and a couple of different profiles on the Internet.”

The Arlington Police GLLU started looking into the cases in May 2005. Boyd’s case was one of the first that Arlington GLLU investigated, Grimes said.

Police suspect Boyd is involved in similar crimes in Washington and Maryland, Grimes said. Boyd was prosecuted in Arlington because the cases there were the only cases that could be proven because victims were willing to press charges, she said.

Boyd agreed to a plea bargain with the prosecutors in exchange for the dismissal of a charge of credit card theft, Grimes said.

Arlington public defender Edward Gains, Boyd’s attorney, said he would not comment on the case.

Sgt. Brett Parson, the head of the liaison units for Washington Metro police, said he could not say whether Boyd was being investigated for similar crimes in Washington.

“We are familiar with Shawn Boyd and the case in Virginia and we are looking at cases here in the District of Colombia that are similar in nature,” he said.

Parson said Washington police have been communicating with Virginia authorities regarding Boyd in the D.C. investigation.

Boyd’s crimes are not unique and Washington police have seen a growing number of crimes related to gay men meeting each other for hookups online, Parson said.

In 2001, there were a handful of cases related to online hook ups. Now the GLLU is investigating “dozens and dozens” of them each year, Parson said.

These crimes are underreported because the victims are often too embarrassed to come forward, Parson said.

He advises gay men to meet Internet acquaintances in public first and inform a friend of whereabouts prior to a meeting.