'The Pedophile's Guide' Author Phillip R. Greaves Arrested

In November, AP reported that Amazon.com was selling a self-published guide for pedophiles. A day later, the book, titled "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct," disappeared from Amazon's online shelves.

Now, the book's author, Phillip R. Greaves, has been arrested in Colorado for violating Florida state obscenity laws, reports Central Flordia News 13.

According to the Polk Country sheriff's office in Florida, Internet Crimes Division detectives contacted Greaves at his Colorado home and requested a copy of "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure." Greaves allegedly sent a signed copy to the Polk County deputies.

The transaction led to Greaves's arrest on December 20, writes CFNews13.

Greaves faces third-degree felony charges for "distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors," according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Comments

[Madbunny]

08:41 PM on 12/22/2010

Great, now all we need is the Mutaween, then we'll be complete.

[Sarah Helm]

05:25 PM on 12/22/2010

I cannot tell you how excited I was to get my new Kindle for Christmas. I hadn't heard about this pedophile thing yet. I actually laughed when a co-worker told me about it thinking it too absurd to be true. I was wrong. I have since sent Amazon a nasty email, told them I was returning my Kindle un-opened and plan to write the reason why in large black marker on the box. I have already pulled all my credit cards off the account. As soon as I recieve the money back for the Kindle I will close the account and never return to Amazon again. It will be a major inconvenience as I have bought on Amazon for years but how can a person stomach buying from such a company? Hasn't anyone heard of John Locke's Harm principal? This, without a doubt, is intended to cause harm. Can we stop protecting the people who harm children for two seconds? It's clear that it does nothing to help the children. I am sick of hearing about rights when they want to hurt children! What is wrong with these people?

[Old Claudius]

10:43 PM on 12/23/2010

I recommend two sources for books that are better than Amazon.Com, Sara Helm. They are:

AbeBooks.com and

BookFinder.com.

Both support independent booksellers, providing them outlet (even Amazon sells through BookFinder).

They sell predominantly in print, which is a universal format, and encourage recycling, and, when a printed book is no longer recyclable, it is readily bio-degradable. Printed books also do not use batteries, and contribute the chemicals of those to landfills and wherever people throw them away "because they're just little")

For e-books you can read on your computer (you don't need a proprietary format Kindle device) check out Project Gutenberg, and Google.

[tomcat214]

01:29 PM on 12/22/2010

Hold it, folks.
Do we seriously want any level of government deciding which words can be put on paper and which cannot? As vile as this book seems to be, do we really want to go there? Cuz that IS where this is headed. Shredding the Bill of Rights is not going to protect our children.

Amazon did the responsible thing by choosing to pull the book. That is private enterprise making a sound business decision.

That being said, this guy is tempting fate and definitely needs to look both ways before crossing the street.

[boomer7391]

11:02 AM on 12/22/2010

Yes we all think it's sick. But....as defined by law, words and illustrations do not constitute child porn...if we start throwing people in jail for indefensible immoral and immoral behavior we'd have to jail half the republicans. So really, not sure which is more evil, this sicko's deviance or Florida thinking it's the country's morality police.

[PMJ79]

06:17 AM on 12/23/2010

So you 're okay with this Guide for Pedophiles because it would really stick it to The Man?

good grief!

[boomer7391]

07:40 AM on 12/23/2010

Really ? Did I say that? From, "yes we all think it's sick" you come away with me being "okay" with it? Really? Good grief back at ya dude/dudette/whatever. What I'm ok with is a first amendment and that means having to tolerate 'GOD H8TS F*GS" signs at my countrymen's funerals and sick muthas who write how to diddle pamphlets. What I'm NOT "okay" with is the "man" setting someone up for arrest and loss of liberty because we find their thinking repugnant. What I find more disgusting is how folks like you are perfectly ok with the thought police entrapping folks. Because that road is really slippery and you really don't want to go down it if you have any familiarity with history. But apparently you do.

[Jeremy Frasier]

10:45 PM on 12/21/2010

Personally I think this guy is sick, but shouldn't we be holding the publishers and Amazon responsible for selling it? I hate to be in a position to defend someone like this, but if a Police agency contacts an author, and requests a book that they know would break a state law, then arrests the person for sending it, isn't that entrapment?

There are a number of sick people out there including white supremacy, crazy militants, books explaining how to make bombs. But these books would not be out there if a publisher did not want to make money from it. I believe in the 1st amendment, and unfortunately that will and can include hearing and reading things that disgust us on a personal level, but I still cannot justify any publication that relates to the subject of molesting children. But what the Florida police did was wrong. It seems to me that the 1st amendment is what we make of it. We are suppose to have the right to say anything, but an American citizen can be arrested for even just speaking a threat against the POTUS, shouldn't that be covered under free speech as well (not that I am justifying that either, just using it as an example). No one is saying this guy does not have the right to write anything he wants, but a publisher should be held responsible for what it puts out there.

[waldopepper]

01:06 AM on 12/22/2010

"..but shouldn't we be holding the publishers and Amazon responsibl­e for selling it?"

Definitely NOT! For this would be like holding Internet Service Providers, and websites (forums and Huffington spring to mind) responsible for what their members post.

Depending on the content of the book he may or may not be convicted. As despicable as the subject of the book is it may be protected speech.

Just because I/We find fault with the book does not mean it should be prohibited speech. Freedom of speech is threatened on many fronts, and I for one am going to move cautiously when it comes to taking anyone's right to expression away.

[Skaterx999]

12:58 PM on 12/22/2010

Noooo, not really. When you sell a book the site, like Amazon, can (and in this case has to know) the specific content of the book. ISPs can't monitor the ever changing and innumerable content of everything that's transmitted using their service. Awful analogy. Amazon knew damn well that this guy was selling a guide for pedobears and didn't care because they are amoral, not because they share the same limitations as ISPs.

[PMJ79]

06:18 AM on 12/23/2010

Waldo, what you are saying amounts to an endorsement of pedophilia. Do you realize that?

[GoodRead]

02:31 PM on 12/21/2010

First, most of the comments here are about the book which I thinkn is off point. I think the point of the HuffPo article has more to do with the actions of Florida targeting a citizen of Colorado for criminal prosecution. Has Colorado charged the author for sending his book out of the state? No. Florida ordered the book to come into Florida and is prosecuting for a state crime. How many of us are familiar with all the laws of all the states?

"Greaves faces third-degree felony charges for "distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors,"

I wonder, would the "distribution" aspect of the law not have to originate in the state that has the law against the distribution? Greaves' distribution activity took place in Colorado, not Florida. Further, on the big assumption it was sent via USPS, is the federal government not complicit?

I have not read the book and I have not read any of the other books mentioned in many of these comments but if those books are as they have been described in these comments, I do not see a legal difference between what is readily available at national chain booksellers and Mr. Greaves book.

What I do see, is political grandstanding.

[tamparob]

04:57 AM on 12/22/2010

Grady Judd is typical of law enforcement in Florida. Any opportunity to further their career and get their backward way of thinking in front of a TV camera is not to be ignored. He is nothing but a republican politician with a badge. Period.

[glockman]

08:58 AM on 12/22/2010

Clearly you know nothing of the inner workings of the Polk SO, or Grady Judd. You simply see a man on TV doing pressers, and that is the basis for your entire characterization.

And to apply that to all law enforcement in Florida demonstrates a clear lack of intelligent thinking.

[Existentialist]

11:41 AM on 12/21/2010

I haven't read Mr. Greaves's book and don't want to, but let's take a look at what can be purchased in any Barnes and Noble in America and ask exactly how his book is 'worse': Nabokov's Lolita (the self-exculpating narrative of a proud pedophile); Sade's 120 Days of Sodom (descriptions of torture, rape, and just about anything else one would care to imagine--or not); Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story (gay classic that opens with an explicit description of teenage anal sex); Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (explicit descriptions of underage sexuality); Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (just about every imaginable form of human sexuality, consensual and otherwise); William Burroughs' Naked Lunch (a Sadeian phantasmagoria of sex and death); Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (an elderly man is attracted to an underage boy). The list could continue indefinitely. If Greaves's book is successfully prosecuted, all of the above acknowledged 'classics' will be equally liable. Welcome to the 1950s. I can't believe we're having this argument yet AGAIN!

[goboinouterspace]

12:11 PM on 12/21/2010

Nabokov's Lolita is hardly a do-it-yourself manual.

[Existentialist]

12:34 PM on 12/21/2010

Actually, any book that describes anything can be read as a "do-it-yourself manual," so Lolita could in fact be considered one. And when it was originally written, it was unpublishable in America for exactly that reason.

[Skaterx999]

01:21 PM on 12/22/2010

You're dense. This is a manual, it is labeled as a manual and sold as such. The author is clearly attempting to give assistance to other pedobears and while you may think it is a small distinction it is NOT. There's a world of difference between a novel describing the military experience and a military field manual.

[sarnold51]

09:52 AM on 12/21/2010

Click the links above to get the full story. You didn't really think that Huffington Post was going to put the full story in did you?

*snip*

Investigators said the book contained graphic stories describing sex acts involving adults and minors.

Officials requested a warrant and made an arrest Monday. Greaves has no other connection to Florida.

Judd said Greaves could be extradited to Polk County as soon as today. Even if Greaves were to fight extradition, Judd said he likely would be brought to Polk County within 30-60 days.

Amazon pulled the book off its website earlier this year after an online boycott against the book led by a Lakeland woman.

"He wrote this book specifically to teach people how to molest and rape children,'' Judd said. "You cannot engage in or depict children in a harmful light.

[calltoaction]

09:44 AM on 12/21/2010

which book is next?

[redseraph]

08:52 AM on 12/21/2010

I know Nobakov's 'Lolita' has been mentioned before, and it's pretty explicit at times. But even worse is the works of de Sade. His works have been censored off and on for over 300 years, but you can go to a local bookstore and pick up his works. I haven't read this 'guide book' that Greaves wrote, but there is no way it can be worse than the works of Marquis de Sade.

[redseraph]

09:21 AM on 12/21/2010

(correction)
*over 200 years

[suds mcduff]

10:07 PM on 12/21/2010

Yup, ptetty vile stuff there....

[LeBelAge]

07:35 AM on 12/21/2010

He didn't just write any book. His book endangers the lives of minors. No one has a Constitutional Right to exploit minors or teach others how to do it. Children's Rights trump any arguments about Freedom of Speech, which has never been seen as 100% absolute.

The Florida police didn't entrap him. They didn't convince him to write the book and publish it on Amazon. It was already on-line.

Community standards via the internet cross state lines.

[skyshoes]

06:28 AM on 12/21/2010

I live in Central Florida. There are entire communities infiltrated with released pedophiles This way they have room in the jails for kids who get arrested for pot and other non violent crimes... Move along, nothing to see here.

[fishnetdiver]

05:34 AM on 12/21/2010

sounds like entrapment.
did any copies sell thru Amazon and if so were the people who packaged them arrested?
not remotely a fan of pedos but this smells.

[LeBelAge]

07:36 AM on 12/21/2010

It smells like Justice.

[the crustybastard]

03:55 PM on 12/21/2010

Entrapment would be law enforcement tricking the author into writing the book.

[rjhuntington]

05:15 AM on 12/21/2010

I think those deputies in Florida ought to face charges for seeking out child porn and ordering something they consider obscene in violation of their own laws.

[LeBelAge]

07:37 AM on 12/21/2010

How do you think crime prevention works?

[Old Claudius]

10:46 PM on 12/22/2010

Do you think crime prevention works, LeBellAge?

What effect do you think law enforcement engaging in criminal activities, excusing themselves with "It's to prevent crime." has on criminality and crime prevention?

Do lynch-mobs prevent crime?

Do vigilantes prevent crime?

Do sheriffs, and others in law enforcement, prevent crimes when they engage in vigilante activities?

Have you noticed criminal activity lessening as law enforcement has been going more and more cowboy? Do we have fewer shoot-outs today than in the 1950's and '60's?

[the crustybastard]

03:56 PM on 12/21/2010

Um, really?

[taddles]

04:41 AM on 12/21/2010

"Greaves faces third-degree felony charges for "distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors,"

Good luck with this one, this is pretty strait up 1st amendment stuff, you know, the stuff the teabaggers claim they are all about.