Accosting a minor is charged under MCL 750.145a, and it is one of the few Michigan felonies where a person can be convicted without any child ever having been involved. That single feature drives almost everything about how these cases are investigated, charged, and defended.
This page covers the statute itself. For the wider charge landscape — including internet solicitation and how the two statutes stack — see solicitation of a minor. For how undercover operations are run and challenged, see sting operations and entrapment.
What the Prosecutor Has to Prove
To convict under MCL 750.145a, the state must establish that you:
- accosted, enticed, or solicited
- a child under 16 — or an individual you believed was a child under 16
- with the intent to induce or force that person
- to commit a proscribed act — an immoral act, sexual intercourse, an act of gross indecency, or any other act of depravity or delinquency.
Notice where the weight sits. The offense is complete at the point of the request combined with the intent. No meeting has to occur. No physical contact has to occur. Nothing has to actually happen at all.
Why “There Was No Real Child” Is Not a Defense
The statute reaches anyone accused of soliciting “an individual whom he or she believes is a child less than 16 years of age,” and says the offense applies “regardless of whether the person knows the individual is a child or knows the actual age of the child.” The Legislature wrote undercover operations directly into the text.
Michigan case law points the same direction. In People v. Thousand, 465 Mich 149 (2001) — a case that began with a deputy posing online as a 14-year-old girl — the Michigan Supreme Court held that impossibility, whether factual or legal, is not a defense to an attempt charge in Michigan.
So the defense is almost never “the child was fake.” It is a fight over intent and over what was actually said.
The Penalties, and How They Multiply
- MCL 750.145a — a felony punishable by up to 4 years in prison, a fine of up to $4,000, or both. Under the sentencing guidelines it is a Class F offense against a person.
- MCL 750.145b — with one or more prior convictions under 145a, the maximum rises to 10 years and a $10,000 fine. The prosecutor must list the priors on the complaint and information, and the court determines them without a jury at or before sentencing.
- MCL 750.145d — if a computer, phone, or the internet was used to communicate, this separate charge applies. Because 145a carries a 4-year maximum, it falls in the tier punishable by up to 10 years and a $5,000 fine — more than double the underlying offense. The court may also order that term served consecutively to the sentence for the underlying charge.
A single chat conversation, in other words, routinely produces two felonies with a combined exposure far beyond the four years most people expect when they read the accosting statute alone.
Registration Is Often the Real Sentence
A conviction under MCL 750.145a is a Tier II offense under Michigan's Sex Offenders Registration Act (MCL 28.722(t)(i)). Tier II means 25 years on the registry, with in-person verification twice a year.
For most clients this outweighs the jail exposure. Twenty-five years of public registration shapes where you can live, what work you can hold, and what your family's life looks like. Any resolution that does not account for registry consequences is not a real resolution — which is why charge-bargaining toward a non-registrable offense is frequently the central objective, not an afterthought.
Where These Cases Are Actually Won
- Intent. Crude, offensive, or sexual talk is not the same as a request made with intent to induce a specific proscribed act. The state has to prove the purpose behind the words, and conversations are often far more ambiguous than the excerpt in the police report suggests.
- The complete log, not the excerpt. Charging decisions are often built on selected passages. The full conversation — including who steered it, who escalated, and how many times the subject was changed — regularly reads differently than the summary.
- Who was at the keyboard. An account, an IP address, and a device are not a person. Shared computers, shared homes, and shared credentials matter.
- Belief about age. The state must prove you believed you were dealing with someone under 16. Profiles stating an adult age, age-verification gates on the platform, and explicit statements in the chat are all relevant.
- Entrapment. Where the operation crossed the line, this is a separate pretrial fight — covered on the sting operations page.
If You Are Under Investigation
These cases usually surface before charges are filed — a phone call from a detective, a search warrant for a device, a request to “come in and clear this up.” That is the moment representation matters most, and the moment people most often talk themselves into a charge. You are not required to explain yourself, and you should not. See what your Miranda rights actually protect.
Attorney Shawn Haff defends accosting, solicitation, and internet-based allegations throughout West Michigan. Call 616-438-6719 for a confidential free consultation, available 24/7.
Related Accosting a Minor Pages
- Solicitation of a minor — the full charge overview.
- Sting operations and entrapment
- Criminal sexual conduct (CSC)