The attorney for the Cape Coral man accused of threatening girls as young as eleven on social meda to get their naked photos is speaking out ahead of his next court appearance.
Lucas Bales, 25, is facing more than 20 charges after the Polk County Sheriff's Office investigation revealed he was threatening them on the app, Kik.
The father of an 11-year-old girl went to deputies saying his daughter was being threatened.
According to the PCSO's arrest warrant, Bales told the girl he was going to post her home address online, asking strangers to rape her or set her house on fire if she didn't send him naked photos.
Here are some excerpts from the warrant:
"I'll post your address all over the internet begging people to rape you. Or you can be a good girl and obey me and stop asking questions."
"I just want live pics and Skype. That's not so bad."
"Why don't I just burn your house down when everyone is sleeping someone?"
These messages are considered threatening by the girl's father and the Polk County Sheriff's Office, which charged him with seven counts of written threats to kill or harm.
But Bales' attorney Joe Viacava sees it differently.
"I wouldn't call that a threat. But if we were all arrestede for what's in our head, we'd all be in prison," Viacava said.
He said he considers Bales' statements to be conditional threats, which he claims aren't considered threats in a court of law.
"What a conditional threat means is that you're going to do something if something else happens, and it's classic assault law, which means it's not a crime. A threat has to be objective, the person has to take it as a threat, and I have to mean it as a threat, and I have to have the ability to do it," Viacava told Four in Your Corner's Lisa Greenberg.
He believes the state could have trouble proving it was Bales behind the Kik username "Daddy," and if he knew it was an 11-year-old girl.
"What is going to be the difference between bad taste and just bad taste and bad taste, versus an illegal act where you're actually trying to do harm to a child?" Viacava said.
He said he thinks they have a solid defense.
"I would almost argue this as cartoonish. I mean, this is so over the top what i've read so far. It's totally in bad taste whether he said this or not, but at the end of the day as far as a crime goes, if we were all in jail for bad taste or things that come out of our mouth, we would literally all be in prison," Viacava said.
He said they won't know the final charges Bales will be facing until his arraignment, which should be happening within the next few weeks.
MORE: Cape Coral man arrested for child sextortion in Polk County
