By Sharon Turco
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Local defense attorneys are questioning the constitutionality of Ohio's importuning law, but Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judges say their arguments aren't valid.

The latest blow to defense attorneys came Tuesday when Judge David Davis ruled the law constitutional after hearing arguments in the case of Otis Ketron.

It's the fourth such ruling in Common Pleas Court in a month.

Ketron, an Independence city councilman, was indicted in March on five charges of importuning. He is accused of using his work computer at Procter & Gamble to solicit sex from a Hamilton County sheriff's detective who was posing as a 15-year-old girl.

Ketron's attorney, James Perry, filed a motion saying the importuning law is unconstitutional.

He says there is no crime because a child was not victimized and that his client did not actually meet or have sex with a victim.

"There is no danger to a child's physical or psychological well-being because there is no child," Perry argued.

Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Brad Greenberg said all speech is not constitutionally protected.

He pointed to similar undercover stings - such as officers posing as customers to catch prostitutes - or someone making threats on the telephone as examples of speech that is not protected by the Constitution.

"The importuning law is designated to protect children on the Internet," said Davis, echoing a ruling made in another importuning case by Judge Fred Nelson.

It is not unconstitutional, Davis ruled.

The state's importuning law makes it a crime for anyone over age 18 to use a computer or phone to solicit sex from a child. In 2001 the Legislature amended the law to make the crime a felony and to specifically allow police to go undercover online.

Changes to the law also call for anyone convicted of importuning to be deemed a sexually oriented offender, allowing law enforcement officers to track where they're living.

A task force of detectives from the sheriff's office and the Cincinnati Police Department pose as teenage girls on the Internet, then bust men who solicit sex from them.

Since January 2002, the task force has arrested 23 men in the stings.

Fifteen have been convicted. One committed suicide while awaiting trial and seven cases, including Ketron's, are pending.

Ketron, 48, is scheduled to return to court July 23.

E-mail sturco@enquirer.com