Meet 51 y/o Michael Doherty (that’s his U.S. Marshall mug shot below)….
MD is a former youth sports coach from Cedar Park, Texas, who traveled to a hotel in Lake Mary, Florida earlier this month, armed with a “Disney dress” for a 10 y/o girl, believing that he was meeting said 10 y/o girl and her father for sex – but who was instead hauled away in cuffs as part of a police internet sting operation.
Undercover federal agents first messaged MD in March, 2015 after determining that he had posted an online advertisement saying that he enjoyed incestuous sexual relationships. MD thought that he was messaging with a man who was having sex with his 10 y/o daughter. In his responses to the “father” MD said that he had sexually abused four (4) children between the ages of eight (8) and twelve (12) within the last three (3) years. MD sent nude photos of himself for the father to show to his daughter and said that he wanted to watch him abuse the young girl over Skype. In late March, MD and the “father” began discussing a meeting so that MD could watch the man abuse his daughter in person, and they agreed to meet on April 8, 2015 when MD was traveling to the area for business.
Ahead of the meeting MD told the “father” that he was having second thoughts: “I told myself I would never do that again, yet here I am about to.” And so he did, as on April 8th MD drove from Miami to Lake Mary, stopping to buy the undisclosed Disney character dress along the way. MD and the father, er the undercover agent, met at a hotel where MD was promptly arrested. MD reportedly claimed that he had wanted to meet up with the man to confront him about the abuse and did not intend to meet with the girl. MD reportedly stated that it would have been “hypocritical” for him to report the father’s behavior so, instead, he decided to speak to the warped man about it face-to-face. MD also allegedly acknowledged to cops that he had been writing stories online about having sex with children for about a decade. MD is being held in the Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford, FL without bail and faces up to life behind bars if he is convicted of attempted sexual enticement of a minor. MD is now “Disney on Ice”, er “On Ice in Disney”…
Memo to Michael Doherty: You are a child predator, not a very clever one at that, and what you got caught doing is, frankly, inexcusable. That said, and based upon the reports that I read, you compounded your problems by attempting to talk your way out of your situation. That said…
Memo to MD (& the Folks): There is a time and a place and a means to tell your story to the cops, and it is almost never by you, in the moment and at the scene. If you get popped, for anything, anywhere, at anytime, then you will almost certainly be doing yourself a favor by INVOKING and waiting for your skilled and experienced criminal defense lawyer to determine the logistics, and the linguistics, of disclosing your version of events.
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Top notch, very skilled, and highly attentive. Mr. Haber is a fantastic criminal defense attorney. 
- Thanks again. You are second to none when it comes to defending your clients. For that, I thank you
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