Buckeye School principal accused of luring
We learn more about an investigation that resulted in a Buckeye School principal being placed under administrative discipline. According to court documents, 42-year-old Joseph Kinney is accused of using a social media app called Whisper to talk to a teenager who was actually an undercover police officer.
BUCKEYE, Arizona. – The court documents we have received indicate that these are criminal offenses Principal of a West Valley High School is accused of having committed.
On September 3, we reported that the principal had been placed on leave until further notice. School district officials described this as a “police investigation into a personal matter unrelated to his work for the school or district.”
We now have a better picture of the allegations against the suspect.
Who is the suspect?
Court documents identified the suspect as 42-year-old Joseph L. Kinney.
According to our previous report, Kinney is the principal of Buckeye Union High School. As of Sept. 4, he was still listed as the school’s principal on the website, but Buckeye Union High School District officials announced Sept. 3 that the school’s current assistant principal, Kristin Koke, will assume principal duties.
What happened?
According to court documents, the case began as an FBI investigation that was later handed over to Phoenix police.
The investigation into the case began on July 22, according to investigators, when an undercover police officer in Oregon posed as a 12-year-old girl on a social media app called Whisper. Whisper is described as “an anonymous social media application that allows users to post messages, also called whispers, on the application and exchange messages with other users.”
“The undercover agent posted on Whisper, ‘I’m bored lol what should I do?'” part of the court documents say.
The agent, officials said, later received a response from a user they identified as Kinney, who told the user to “get comfortable in her bed” and take off her clothes. The agent, in the role of the teenager, then tells Kinney that she is only 12 years old and that the request is odd. Kinney responded, “I don’t mind your age.”
Other parts of the conversation between Kinney and the undercover agent detailed in court documents included discussions of sexual topics. Later investigations eventually linked the Whisper account to Kinney.
On Sept. 3, the FBI served a search warrant for Kinney’s Goodyear home, and that same day, Kinney was pulled over in a traffic stop. Investigators say a subsequent forensic analysis of Kinney’s iPhone revealed that the Whisper app was deleted at the time of the traffic stop.
Investigators say after Kinney Miranda He admitted to using Whisper on his phone and to speaking to “several women through Whisper who claimed to be underage.”
“(Kinney) said he never really believed they were underage and assumed they were all adults and were just engaging in fantasy chat and role-playing,” investigators wrote. “(Kinney) recalled one woman telling him she was nine years old, but she did not look like a nine-year-old in her photo, so he assumed she was an adult.”
According to the documents, Kinney later said he felt “stupid and ashamed of his choices” and said he would “never engage in sexual activity with a child.”
What is the suspect accused of?
According to court documents, Kinney is accused of seducing a minor for the purpose of sexual exploitation (ARS 13-3554).
A judge has set bail for Kinney at $60,000. If he posts bail, he will be required to submit to electronic monitoring and will be banned from all contact with minors and from accessing the Internet without exception.
Meanwhile, Kinney has a preliminary hearing scheduled for September 12.
