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Matt Long: Hey, everybody. This is Matt Long with Skeptical Mystics. And on this episode, I sit down with another criminal defense attorney. We both specialize in child and intimacy crimes, and we're both dads. We talk about the realities of those crimes and the recent CNN article about the rape academy. We also provide just a little bit of advice and tips for parents to help keep their children safe and protected and to empower them to tell if they ever find themselves in a situation where they're being hurt. Knowledge is power, especially as it relates to our kids. Aaron Reed: Sup Aaron? How you doing? Matt Long: I'm good. We have a Aaron Reed: weird job. We do. I would agree with that. Matt Long: I mean, you see people at their worst, at their weirdest. Yeah. And that includes, I'm gonna say civilians, regular people, but police. Yeah. Prosecutors, judges. You see, especially in some of the cases that we handle, it's an interesting peek into humanity. Aaron Reed: It is. There's a lot of different dynamics and different cases and different people, different personalities, and it all kind of intersects, and you have to manage all that. It's very demanding, but rewarding Matt Long: job. I Aaron Reed: wouldn't do anything else, to be honest with you. Matt Long: But I brought you in because I've been in the child and intimacy crimes Aaron Reed: Yep. Matt Long: World for, man, twenty some twenty some years now. And it's a different area, and you're another another attorney who works in that area. Aaron Reed: It's not an area of the law that's for everybody. Matt Long: Right. Aaron Reed: It really isn't. And to do it at the level that I think we do it at, that you do it at, that the people that we know do it at, it takes a lot. Yeah. It does. Matt Long: And give us your firm name. Aaron Reed: So I work Katz and Reed. We're based in the Biltmore area, kinda not far from your office here, probably four or five miles from your office here on 16th Street, just off the 51, and me and Duane Katz have been partners now for four years. Matt Long: Uh-huh. Aaron Reed: And then he hired me back as an employee back in 2018. Matt Long: So, Aaron Reed: yeah, I've known him for a while Matt Long: now. Yeah, and Long and Simmons, been doing this for ten years in private practice, but before that I was a prosecutor and worked in sex crimes, child crimes, computer crimes. There was a transition and the idea of, always ask the question, right? Yeah. Well, how do you do what you do? And so I wanna pose that question to you. Do you get that question a lot? How is it that you represent the worst of the worst? Aaron Reed: Yeah, how does it impact? Various forms that question is something that I think every defense attorney's had at some point, but to me I always tell people the same thing, that my job is to police the police. My job is to try to find the truth in a given situation, whatever that might be. And my job is to help a person accused of a crime navigate the system. And that's what our country has allowed to happen. And if you're charged with a crime, if another person's charged with a crime, would you wanna navigate that by yourself? Would you wanna do that alone facing a government that has endless resources? Would you wanna do that or would you want help? And that's how I always like to answer that question because people, they like to ask it sometimes in a condescending way. You're kind of a scummy guy for representing scumbags, but at the end of the day everybody's a human. Everybody deserves their rights, they deserve to have someone there to help navigate those rights, and that's what I do. Mhmm. Period. Matt Long: You know, was talking to someone the other day, they asked me about, oh, so you're on the other side now. I said, guess that's one way to look at it, but I don't really view that because there's just evidence. Aaron Reed: Right. Matt Long: There's not really the state's evidence or defense evidence, there's just evidence. Aaron Reed: Something that happened. Matt Long: And you're doing the same thing, making the same analysis. As a defense attorney, you can't just sling bullshit. Yeah. And if you sling, if you try to sling bullshit, if you try to just Aaron Reed: lie Yeah, or I don't. Matt Long: You lose credibility and that's not gonna help anyone. So you gotta make the right arguments. Aaron Reed: You gotta make the right arguments. You have to be knowledgeable enough to find them, right? To make But I like that, what you said. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, we go against each other. Whatever the adversarial nature of it is, but the goal for everybody, regardless of who you are, is to figure out what happened. And if you can't do that as a defense attorney, or if you don't have the wherewithal to do that as a prosecutor, or the ethical backbone to do it as a prosecutor, then you shouldn't be doing it. Oh. And you, as a former prosecutor, you've had to navigate a lot of different types of cases, types of crimes, types of things, and child and intimacy crimes are something that you've had a lot of experience with, and you've gotten to see how it operates from both sides and how prosecutors should probably behave in certain situations, and how they shouldn't. Matt Long: And as you were saying, know, you're there to challenge police, but I identify, people ask me, actually a defense attorney, was in court, and they said, Are you a prosecutor? I said, No, I'm the opposite. They said, Oh, are you a defense attorney? I said, No, that's not the opposite. I said, I'm a prosecutor hunter. Aaron Reed: I like Matt Long: that. I'm looking That's at what they've done improperly, unfairly, incompletely. And it's the same thing with police because prosecutors are an extension Aaron Reed: Yeah, adjacent. Matt Long: Of what the police investigation Aaron Reed: And Matt Long: when the allegations are so serious, the truth doesn't matter. Sometimes that seems to be the case. Aaron Reed: I would say more than sometimes. And, you know. Matt Long: That Aaron Reed: can't Which is scary. Matt Long: That can't be the way. No. It just can't be the way. Aaron Reed: That's not the way the system's designed to be. Matt Long: I wanna talk a little bit about child and intimacy crimes in the news today. Aaron Reed: Sure. Matt Long: And did you see the CNN article that came out? Aaron Reed: Yeah. The Rape Academy. Yeah. I did. I read that. I was very, first of all it was interesting that CNN infiltrated that the way I that they thought that was kind of interesting. Matt Long: Yeah, what jumped out to you? Aaron Reed: Well, see me, I think the fact number one, the scope, the worldwide nature of that kind of thing, and the discussions behind it, but it is a weird intersection between going too far and having this fetish and trying to figure out what's over the line and what's not. And I don't think those are always very clear. I think it's difficult for investigators to probably find those answers in those kinds of cases, in those kinds of contexts. But yeah, thought that was very interesting. I know you had read that article as well. What did you think about Well, Matt Long: first of all, that it highlighted something that we deal with a lot, which is Telegram. Yeah. Is that Telegram is an app where there's a group of people we'll get on, and it's something that we are seeing a lot of crimes happening on the app. Aaron Reed: That encrypted kind of thing. Matt Long: Yeah, and what it is is you got a lot of people who will, they'll come onto these, what becomes like this group message chat room, essentially. Yeah. A lot of contraband images are being shared on that. So child pornography, you know, other Aaron Reed: Voyeurism things, Yeah. Also Matt Long: Upskirting, voyeurism, surreptitious videoing. In order to gain access to those groups, you have to provide your own images. Right. They either have Aaron Reed: to Pay to play. Matt Long: That's right. They either have to create them, or find them, or get them somewhere, so they are trafficking in contraband images. Yeah. And so I thought it was it was it was important and good to highlight that stuff because I I do presentations to families and and and organizations and people, and that's one of the things I tell people just to look out for is Telegram and those types of things. Aaron Reed: Yeah, a lot of those apps are, they can be used for a lot of good reasons, lot of good things, but just like anything else, all the way from Snapchat to Instagram to anything else, a lot of it's being used in bad ways. And the more advanced they get, these apps get, I feel like the easier it is for these kinds of things to happen, and like I said, the global scale of it, the guys in Poland, the guys in Italy, Russia, all these different places that they're all coming together in this closed world that they can traffic all the things that they have created or maybe gotten or obtained as a currency and help learn and teach each other how to do it. Matt Long: How commit crimes and how to engage in crimes. I get people coming to me often and they'll say, they're worried that could I be, could just contraband and child pornography just appear? Will I just will it just get shared with me? And and I told him that's it's possible, but that's not Aaron Reed: really It's rare. Matt Long: It's not how the world Aaron Reed: works. Yeah. I I would be It's Matt Long: kinda like the every time Halloween comes around and they say, oh, look out for people who are gonna be putting weed gummies out at hand. Well, that's expensive stuff and people who like their drugs don't give their drugs out. So they're not usually doing that. Aaron Reed: That's a good point. It's kind of A the same lot of marijuana for the neighborhood. Matt Long: People aren't really looking to share these images just with, just And so what I tell them is, is it is pretty easy to avoid that stuff. Yeah. However, there are these groups that go in, there might be fetish groups, that something can be shared without you wanting to, intending to. And if that happens, back out, report it. Don't want that stuff on your phone, on your start, so that was interesting about the report or the CNN article, but I don't know that it provided as much. It seemed a little sensational, seemed a little Yeah. And then the other part that just struck me was this red herring of when they were saying that there was this website, and I'm not gonna give it out, but it's a .com that is a commercial pornography Well known. It's one of the older, one of the old Been around for a long time. Been around since the internet's been around, Yeah. And it does allow uploads of videos. Right. And it is very, some depraved, some fetish, some kink, and it has a lot of paraphilia's in there, but it was a little conflated with as if that website was the rape academy. Right. Like the ground zero thing. Right. Where people are going to that website to learn how to commit crimes. Aaron Reed: Correct. Yeah. That's that's not what That Matt Long: wasn't what they were saying. They were saying that the people who are committing crimes may use that site to upload Upload videos. But Correct. And those are Aaron Reed: Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of these websites, a lot of very well known, very commercialized pornographic websites all have a lot of different categories and they border on these kinds of things. I agree with you. I didn't like the attack of that website just for people uploading them. People are gonna do things that are questionable on these sites just like they do on non pornographic sites, just like they do in everything else. And it's up to those sites to monitor and do what they can to discourage those kinds of uploads. But yeah, think the bigger issue is more along the telegram and those kinds of applications that would allow that to be shared in an open universe. Matt Long: Look, you're a parent, it's important to be aware of the monitoring kids' online behaviors and that. The one thing is being exposed to that type of graphic material. There's red flags and there's problems. There's 100 concerns with that. So it's good to be aware of that, but I don't think it's helpful to present that as if that's the The root cause. That's right. Yeah, That I thing exists. Aaron Reed: Correct. Matt Long: Again, it's harder to get access to it. It's good to shine a light on things, you know. Absolutely. Because the misperception is because we're defense attorneys that somehow that means we're pro criminal or pro crime. Aaron Reed: Yeah, like we don't care about crimes being committed or which is the most ridiculous thing I Matt Long: would Right, what we really care about is police overreach. Yes. Police incompetence, police negligence, prosecutor abuse of discretion and overreach, and ensuring that this system that really is designed to take away the liberty of someone is truly operating the way it's supposed to. Aaron Reed: That's right. Matt Long: But it's not vigilante justice or these types of things and so Aaron Reed: We're not out there making excuses for people doing bad things. Matt Long: Right, pro crime, pro criminal. That's just Yeah. The But again, these types of crimes, sex crimes, child crimes, intimacy crimes, what are some of the things that you've seen that makes you comfortable working in this area? Aaron Reed: So I think that's a great question, because not a lot of lawyers are, and the ones that say they are, some of them might not be as comfortable as they think they are, but for me it's all about there's a situation, there's something that happened, and I want to make sure that the truth of that matter comes out, and I want to, and you have to be comfortable if you're going to trial on these kinds of cases, have to be comfortable talking about subject matter that is difficult and images to see that are difficult images to see, and you have to be comfortable at least acknowledging them. You don't have to be comfortable with them, And I think most lawyers would tell you they go and do an evidence viewing of CSAM material. They're not all that excited about going and doing it, Matt Long: but The CSAM is what? Aaron Reed: The child sexual abuse Abuse material. Right, so in other words, like child pornography, and that's not a great part of my job, but it's a necessary part of my job, and I'm willing to go do that to make sure that the government says that they have child pornography. I need to verify it, or that this victim come forward and says, Yeah, was sexually assaulted by this guy. Okay, I need to make sure that it actually happened. Not saying don't take people at their word, but from a defense attorney standpoint, we can't really do that. We demand evidence, like you said. We want the evidence, we want these investigations to be airtight, and if it is, and it turns out that our client did do something wrong, then they're gonna pay for it. And that's the way the systems work. And for me, I don't get emotional about handling specific kinds of cases because I feel like I can do it based on my mindset. And I try to stay in that frame of mind while I handle these cases, but knowing the material and the subject matter is, it's touchy and it's difficult. Matt Long: Yeah, I tell people, I'm like a surgeon. Yeah. You know, it's blood, guts, but you have to be clinical And in I understand we live in a world now where, one of the concerns I have, or why it is easy to do the job, is number one, false allegations do exist. Aaron Reed: Yeah, they do. Matt Long: It just does happen. Aaron Reed: It's a reality. Matt Long: And now too often, we're getting police who prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an allegation happened. Aaron Reed: Right. Matt Long: And then they start. Right. Or they prove beyond a reason, or prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an investigation occurred. Yeah. But not that that investigation actually tells you Aaron Reed: about something. Did it yield the results? Matt Long: Right, did it? Yeah. And I understand that it can be, at least in today's age, it's controversial to even say, well, let's challenge what that complaining witness said. And yet, there are a couple different types of false allegations. Right? There are the malicious false allegations. Right. And then there are the erroneous false allegations. And have you seen those in your work? Aaron Reed: I have, I've seen both. And for me personally, the ones that are malicious tend to be the ones that we go to trial on. Those tend to be the cases where if we can get the evidence that we can prove a person is lying and we have a reason to kind of point the finger and say, hey, we know this isn't true. Versus other cases where maybe something did happen, maybe their brain's a little foggy, maybe they were drugged and they don't remember everything, they remember something did occur that they don't consent to, or something along those lines. Those ones do happen, and those ones are, you have to be careful, because you don't know, number one, what they went through, right? So you have to know where to push, know where to get the information, know how to get the information, but you also have to be aware that you're still doing a job for your client and trying to figure out what really happened. And I know there's a lot of attorneys out there that would pretty much take an allegation at face value. Like you said, the allegation, and we didn't really do an investigation, but hey, we have this allegation and this person said this, so let's wrap it all up and charge them. But not every attorney thinks along the lines like you and demands that kind of proof, and that's partly why I take these cases, but they are difficult. The ones where there are more accidentals or a gray area, those can be very difficult to navigate. And as a prosecutor, you're a prosecutor. What would, if you had something like that, where it wasn't a malicious thing, how would you handle notifying the victim, going through that? Matt Long: Yeah, it's, language is behavior. Aaron Reed: Sure, yeah, Matt Long: I agree. And so one of the things we do, whether we're defense or prosecutors, is trying to get specific with language. And so too often you get people who use either loaded language or you know, over overstated language. Conclusory language, right? Legal question. Yeah. I was raped. Okay, if we stop there, a person may have an idea of exactly what that means. Aaron Reed: Right, sure. Matt Long: And then you say, okay, tell me about that. And I've seen recently a couple situations where the person who was accused of a rape, when you looked at, when both were interviewed separately, they both gave almost the same description of what happened. Interesting. And it's that they were both in agreement about a particular sex act was going to occur, and that's oral sex. Okay. And then, in this case, the complaining witness, it happened to be female, was asked, okay, tell, you said rape, tell me about that. And then they described that the guy finished somewhere that wasn't expected, and that wasn't agreed on. Sure. And so there, this was person who absolutely felt degraded. Yeah. Violated. Aaron Reed: Right. Matt Long: And that what happened to her body in that context was non consensual. But that's a very different concept than, he forced himself on me and forced his penis in my Right, Aaron Reed: yeah. Forced oral sex versus this is what we agreed to, up to a certain point. Matt Long: Up this point. Aaron Reed: That's right. Matt Long: Yeah. And the kid, the young man in that situation was just really kind of beside himself, because he's saying, Aaron Reed: Oh yeah. Matt Long: I didn't force it was, this was consensual. Understood it was consensual, as I've talked to a number of people, some cops and other people would say, when you use some of these words, and if you've been exposed to, it really does go to, I think our society's lack of sexual knowledge, education, and these things. Some people are overly exposed, and some people aren't, but if you don't have a shared idea or understanding of a sex act, then you could say these words, and just have completely different Aaron Reed: Yeah, different meanings, different Concepts. Matt Long: Yeah, that's interesting. Years ago I was involved in the Kavanaugh hearings, and was doing some analysis in that. It was interesting because what she described, she described freezing. And sometimes if the person freezes, that might be misinterpreted as giving consent. And so it can exist where a person is genuinely, strongly experiencing a crime, a violation of the body, and the person on the other side is not aware that that's what's happening. For example, these are complicated issue, they're sensitive issues, but that's where you genuinely say, yeah, I believe that you experienced something, and I believe you experienced this. Yeah. But that doesn't mean that person had that same mental state. Aaron Reed: The perception Matt Long: Had that of same knowledge. Yeah, that's a good point. And though, that's where the devil's in the details, is when you do dig because into it becomes a question of, okay, did he do something? Did they do something? Aaron Reed: Gotta parse out what is the wrong act. Matt Long: Exactly, and it has to, or, you know, if you can't give specifics about where or Not necessarily time. Time isn't isn't really a factor, or it's not necessarily an element in Arizona, but Yeah. You know, a specific act, for example. Well it happened a number of times, well what's it? Yeah, what happened? Now you gotta get to the specifics, versus a person will say, okay, it was close to Christmas time, and I was wearing these clothes, it happened in this place. Now you've got contacts, here's the act that happens. And that just, again, seems cruel sometimes to force that articulation, and that's why victims don't like coming and don't wanna come forward, and why going through the very forensic process is hell. Aaron Reed: Especially if it's done right. Right. Matt Long: Yeah. Well, if it's done right, then the police won't just rely on the complaining witness's statement. Right. They'll go get corroborating evidence to build a wall of evidence around them that then makes what we do. Aaron Reed: Difficult. Matt Long: Really difficult. Aaron Reed: Very hard. Matt Long: And, but when the police don't do that, that's when they fail both sides. Correct. Because due process is about identifying evidence, obtaining it, and presenting it. Yep. And if the police don't do that, then they fail the accused, they And fail the complaining that's why I it's really doing, there's not really both sides, you're doing the same thing. Yeah. Either you've given me an inroad to be able to attack, or you've, and you've built that wall of evidence around that person, or you've not, and if you do that, you're failing both, including the accused. Aaron Reed: And I think that is the best way of looking at that kind of situation, these kinds of cases, because so many times I've been asked, or people comment, or people just in general public, oh, that lawyer got that rapist off, or whatever, well, did see what happened? Did you see the investigation? Were you a party to the investigation? Do you know the facts? And when you don't, of course, like you said, people like to make conclusory statements, they like to make these statements that says, okay, I was raped, or no, you let that person off, that defense attorney got that person off. Well, you don't know the context about what happened. You don't know that the officers had every opportunity to get all the details from the victim in a variety of ways. And I know it's not easy, but if you approach victims that happened, that something happened to them, and you break it down into the smallest details, and you go point by point, and if it takes ten hours, takes ten hours. If it takes four or five different sessions, it takes four or five different sessions, but you have to get the details out that matter so that the police can do their job, so that the prosecutor can do their job, so that we can't do ours. Right. And the people don't understand it that way. They don't see it that way, and I'm glad you mentioned that, because that to me is how it should work. And when it works that way, then the victims get justice, the officers look like heroes, the prosecutors look like heroes because they're putting bad people away, and we're just the guys that were there doing what we can to help, and none of it really made, you know, we didn't do anything to get that client off. Right. That's what people don't understand, Matt Long: In addition to being trial attorneys, and I think one of the reasons why we're sitting here together, is because we have personal relationships, we know each other, we like golf, we like, but we're also two dads. Yeah. And I guess one of the reasons here is to educate people about the real world of child and intimacy crimes, and also hopefully, that people that listen to us, and have access to us, well, maybe they can be in a better position for having listened to us than if not. Because my goal in doing this, is not just to educate people, but hopefully provide material into the world, that would put us out of business. Sure. For us to be out of business, that means these types of crimes aren't being committed anymore. Aaron Reed: Yep. Matt Long: And that's certainly what I wanna see. Aaron Reed: I mean, it's a better place, right? The world would be a better place. Matt Long: We do DUIs, we do vehicular cases. I'd love for there to not be DUIs and Death and gore and bad stuff, yeah. Work in tragedy, we work in the tragic crimes. We do. And so, to that end, and I know we're motivated by that, is I wanna talk a little bit about some tools or some techniques that we've learned for families to help protect yourselves, help prevent abuse from happening. Knowing that if we can't prevent abuse, one of the things that we wanna encourage is that people do have the power and the ability to tell, to tell someone. You know, we were talking before this a little bit, this idea of, you know, as parents, what do you do to your kids? And so I guess from an older father to a younger father, let me offer one some Aaron Reed: Please, I learned mine are three years old and one. Right. Matt Long: Mine are 27 and 20 Yeah. The first thing we teach is, well, first of all, as kids in our home, you get to think the thoughts that you think and the feelings that you feel. We kinda emphasize that. Okay. Always get to tell me about the things that you think and the feelings that you feel. Aaron Reed: I like that. Matt Long: But then in addition to that, we teach the difference between a secret and a surprise. And what we say is that there should never be a secret that is permanent. That know, that there aren't secrets, they're only surprises. And surprises are something that everybody gets to experience eventually. Right. And that there should never be a secret that isn't eventually known by the other parent, by another adult, by the other brother and sister. Right. Eventually, everybody is going to learn about this thing, and it's gonna be a surprise, not a secret. Yeah. And so we distinguish between those things. Secrets are only temporary. Like I said, and then we say, let's just talk about in terms of surprises. Sure. And that right away, just we don't have secrets in home. Right? And, oh, but we're gonna buy this thing for mom for her birthday or for mother's day. Aaron Reed: Right. Matt Long: Let's not tell her about what we bought her. Gonna be a surprise that everybody Aaron Reed: Eventually gets she'll learn it. Share Matt Long: Right. And very quickly, it's gonna be really difficult for another adult to come in and tell them, now this is a secret. Because they're gonna be programmed at that point. We don't keep, I don't keep secrets from my mom and dad. Everybody gets to learn eventually. Yeah. And if that kid learns those types of things, that's gonna be a kid who's less likely to be targeted by somebody who wants to do them harm. Aaron Reed: Yeah. Yeah. So God forbid if they are, they have the structure and the power to tell someone about it. Matt Long: That's it. Aaron Reed: Which is extremely powerful. It is not easy to talk about these things with people, but having a go to group of people, whether it's your parents, your siblings, everyone should be able to talk to somebody without fear of judgment or whatever it might be. I think having that is something for children is vital. They need to be able to tell you what's on their mind without you trying to, without you reacting as a parent in a negative way. Especially if it's some that they're struggling with. That's right. They gotta be able to trust their parents or the people that are closest to them. Matt Long: Yeah. This is the first of hopefully many conversations we're gonna on these topics, and along with always providing resources to families. Because at the end of the day, yeah, we're trial attorneys, we're criminal defense attorneys, but we're just dads Interested in the well-being of our children and other people's children. That includes not just children, but people. Yeah. Who are need to be protected from the government, from police, and have their rights advanced. So if you have questions, if you have concerns, if you are in need of help with somebody that's navigated this waters, give one of us a call. Aaron Reed with Cates and Reed. Aaron Reed: Yeah, on the door as of this year. Matt Long: And Matt Long with Long and Simmons. One of us will help you. Yeah. And we even work together to make sure that we can get the best information to people and represent what is real. Because what is real the area of crime, sometimes complicated. I'm not sure often what's true, because often what's true is Aaron Reed: Can be tough to find. Matt Long: Yeah. But we can get to what's real. Aaron Reed: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Matt Long: And so that's, that's, that's what we do. Well, more soon. Aaron Reed: Absolutely. Thanks for Matt Long: having me. Thanks friend.
Psyche — Greek for soul, mind, the interior life of a person.
Nautes — Greek for sailor.
The Psychonaut explores the interior through actual experience and earns their knowledge only through the return, the application, and the confirmation. Inner-space is as equally endless & mysterious as outer-space.
Life-CAHST.com - A team of Teachers, Practitioners, Facilitators and Specialists of the Law, Investigations, Child Development, Education, Language & Music built to help a person safely navigate reality: What it is to be Human. We combine Evidence & Experience to find Authenticity & Artistry.
Combatting Abuse, Harm Stress & Threats to Life to Care Actually, Honestly, Scientifically & Tactically in Life.
Kristin is a Teacher, Yoga Investigator & Human Development Specialist
Matt is a Child Justice Advocate Criminal Law Scholar & Trial Attorney
Carli is an Educator, Interior Dialogue Facilitator & Forensics Expert
PIETY & NERVOUS SYSTEM WARNING - SOMETIMES WE USE RUDE WORDS! Topics include Drugs, Sex, Death & Violence and also Abuse, Neglect, Abandonment & Betrayal. We explore and explain all human experiences, especially those that impact the mind of a child.
We use raw and vivid imagery and choose words that explore what is real - forensically.
More at lifeCAHST.com & SkepticalMystics.com
Hey, everybody. This is Matt Long with Skeptical Mystics. And on this episode, I sit down with another criminal defense attorney. We both specialize in child and intimacy crimes, and we're both dads. We talk about the realities of those crimes and the recent CNN article about the rape academy.
Matt Long:We also provide just a little bit of advice and tips for parents to help keep their children safe and protected and to empower them to tell if they ever find themselves in a situation where they're being hurt. Knowledge is power, especially as it relates to our kids.
Aaron Reed:Sup Aaron? How you doing?
Matt Long:I'm good. We have a
Aaron Reed:weird job. We do. I would agree with that.
Matt Long:I mean, you see people at their worst, at their weirdest. Yeah. And that includes, I'm gonna say civilians, regular people, but police. Yeah. Prosecutors, judges.
Matt Long:You see, especially in some of the cases that we handle, it's an interesting peek into humanity.
Aaron Reed:It is. There's a lot of different dynamics and different cases and different people, different personalities, and it all kind of intersects, and you have to manage all that. It's very demanding, but rewarding
Matt Long:job. I
Aaron Reed:wouldn't do anything else, to be honest with you.
Matt Long:But I brought you in because I've been in the child and intimacy crimes
Aaron Reed:Yep.
Matt Long:World for, man, twenty some twenty some years now. And it's a different area, and you're another another attorney who works in that area.
Aaron Reed:It's not an area of the law that's for everybody.
Matt Long:Right.
Aaron Reed:It really isn't. And to do it at the level that I think we do it at, that you do it at, that the people that we know do it at, it takes a lot. Yeah. It does.
Matt Long:And give us your firm name.
Aaron Reed:So I work Katz and Reed. We're based in the Biltmore area, kinda not far from your office here, probably four or five miles from your office here on 16th Street, just off the 51, and me and Duane Katz have been partners now for four years.
Matt Long:Uh-huh.
Aaron Reed:And then he hired me back as an employee back in 2018.
Matt Long:So,
Aaron Reed:yeah, I've known him for a while
Matt Long:now. Yeah, and Long and Simmons, been doing this for ten years in private practice, but before that I was a prosecutor and worked in sex crimes, child crimes, computer crimes. There was a transition and the idea of, always ask the question, right? Yeah. Well, how do you do what you do?
Matt Long:And so I wanna pose that question to you. Do you get that question a lot? How is it that you represent the worst of the worst?
Aaron Reed:Yeah, how does it impact? Various forms that question is something that I think every defense attorney's had at some point, but to me I always tell people the same thing, that my job is to police the police. My job is to try to find the truth in a given situation, whatever that might be. And my job is to help a person accused of a crime navigate the system. And that's what our country has allowed to happen.
Aaron Reed:And if you're charged with a crime, if another person's charged with a crime, would you wanna navigate that by yourself? Would you wanna do that alone facing a government that has endless resources? Would you wanna do that or would you want help? And that's how I always like to answer that question because people, they like to ask it sometimes in a condescending way. You're kind of a scummy guy for representing scumbags, but at the end of the day everybody's a human.
Aaron Reed:Everybody deserves their rights, they deserve to have someone there to help navigate those rights, and that's what I do. Mhmm. Period.
Matt Long:You know, was talking to someone the other day, they asked me about, oh, so you're on the other side now. I said, guess that's one way to look at it, but I don't really view that because there's just evidence.
Aaron Reed:Right.
Matt Long:There's not really the state's evidence or defense evidence, there's just evidence.
Aaron Reed:Something that happened.
Matt Long:And you're doing the same thing, making the same analysis. As a defense attorney, you can't just sling bullshit. Yeah. And if you sling, if you try to sling bullshit, if you try to just
Aaron Reed:lie Yeah, or I don't.
Matt Long:You lose credibility and that's not gonna help anyone. So you gotta make the right arguments.
Aaron Reed:You gotta make the right arguments. You have to be knowledgeable enough to find them, right? To make But I like that, what you said. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, we go against each other. Whatever the adversarial nature of it is, but the goal for everybody, regardless of who you are, is to figure out what happened.
Aaron Reed:And if you can't do that as a defense attorney, or if you don't have the wherewithal to do that as a prosecutor, or the ethical backbone to do it as a prosecutor, then you shouldn't be doing it. Oh. And you, as a former prosecutor, you've had to navigate a lot of different types of cases, types of crimes, types of things, and child and intimacy crimes are something that you've had a lot of experience with, and you've gotten to see how it operates from both sides and how prosecutors should probably behave in certain situations, and how they shouldn't.
Matt Long:And as you were saying, know, you're there to challenge police, but I identify, people ask me, actually a defense attorney, was in court, and they said, Are you a prosecutor? I said, No, I'm the opposite. They said, Oh, are you a defense attorney? I said, No, that's not the opposite. I said, I'm a prosecutor hunter.
Aaron Reed:I like
Matt Long:that. I'm looking That's at what they've done improperly, unfairly, incompletely. And it's the same thing with police because prosecutors are an extension
Aaron Reed:Yeah, adjacent.
Matt Long:Of what the police investigation
Aaron Reed:And
Matt Long:when the allegations are so serious, the truth doesn't matter. Sometimes that seems to be the case.
Aaron Reed:I would say more than sometimes. And, you know.
Matt Long:That
Aaron Reed:can't Which is scary.
Matt Long:That can't be the way. No. It just can't be the way.
Aaron Reed:That's not the way the system's designed to be.
Matt Long:I wanna talk a little bit about child and intimacy crimes in the news today.
Aaron Reed:Sure.
Matt Long:And did you see the CNN article that came out?
Aaron Reed:Yeah. The Rape Academy. Yeah. I did. I read that.
Aaron Reed:I was very, first of all it was interesting that CNN infiltrated that the way I that they thought that was kind of interesting.
Matt Long:Yeah, what jumped out to you?
Aaron Reed:Well, see me, I think the fact number one, the scope, the worldwide nature of that kind of thing, and the discussions behind it, but it is a weird intersection between going too far and having this fetish and trying to figure out what's over the line and what's not. And I don't think those are always very clear. I think it's difficult for investigators to probably find those answers in those kinds of cases, in those kinds of contexts. But yeah, thought that was very interesting. I know you had read that article as well.
Aaron Reed:What did you think about Well,
Matt Long:first of all, that it highlighted something that we deal with a lot, which is Telegram. Yeah. Is that Telegram is an app where there's a group of people we'll get on, and it's something that we are seeing a lot of crimes happening on the app.
Aaron Reed:That encrypted kind of thing.
Matt Long:Yeah, and what it is is you got a lot of people who will, they'll come onto these, what becomes like this group message chat room, essentially. Yeah. A lot of contraband images are being shared on that. So child pornography, you know, other
Aaron Reed:Voyeurism things, Yeah. Also
Matt Long:Upskirting, voyeurism, surreptitious videoing. In order to gain access to those groups, you have to provide your own images. Right. They either have
Aaron Reed:to Pay to play.
Matt Long:That's right. They either have to create them, or find them, or get them somewhere, so they are trafficking in contraband images. Yeah. And so I thought it was it was it was important and good to highlight that stuff because I I do presentations to families and and and organizations and people, and that's one of the things I tell people just to look out for is Telegram and those types of things.
Aaron Reed:Yeah, a lot of those apps are, they can be used for a lot of good reasons, lot of good things, but just like anything else, all the way from Snapchat to Instagram to anything else, a lot of it's being used in bad ways. And the more advanced they get, these apps get, I feel like the easier it is for these kinds of things to happen, and like I said, the global scale of it, the guys in Poland, the guys in Italy, Russia, all these different places that they're all coming together in this closed world that they can traffic all the things that they have created or maybe gotten or obtained as a currency and help learn and teach each other how to do it.
Matt Long:How commit crimes and how to engage in crimes. I get people coming to me often and they'll say, they're worried that could I be, could just contraband and child pornography just appear? Will I just will it just get shared with me? And and I told him that's it's possible, but that's not
Aaron Reed:really It's rare.
Matt Long:It's not how the world
Aaron Reed:works. Yeah. I I would be It's
Matt Long:kinda like the every time Halloween comes around and they say, oh, look out for people who are gonna be putting weed gummies out at hand. Well, that's expensive stuff and people who like their drugs don't give their drugs out. So they're not usually doing that.
Aaron Reed:That's a good point. It's kind of A the same lot of marijuana for the neighborhood.
Matt Long:People aren't really looking to share these images just with, just And so what I tell them is, is it is pretty easy to avoid that stuff. Yeah. However, there are these groups that go in, there might be fetish groups, that something can be shared without you wanting to, intending to. And if that happens, back out, report it. Don't want that stuff on your phone, on your start, so that was interesting about the report or the CNN article, but I don't know that it provided as much.
Matt Long:It seemed a little sensational, seemed a little Yeah. And then the other part that just struck me was this red herring of when they were saying that there was this website, and I'm not gonna give it out, but it's a .com that is a commercial pornography Well known. It's one of the older, one of the old Been around for a long time. Been around since the internet's been around, Yeah. And it does allow uploads of videos.
Matt Long:Right. And it is very, some depraved, some fetish, some kink, and it has a lot of paraphilia's in there, but it was a little conflated with as if that website was the rape academy. Right. Like the ground zero thing. Right.
Matt Long:Where people are going to that website to learn how to commit crimes.
Aaron Reed:Correct. Yeah. That's that's not what That
Matt Long:wasn't what they were saying. They were saying that the people who are committing crimes may use that site to upload Upload videos. But Correct. And those are
Aaron Reed:Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of these websites, a lot of very well known, very commercialized pornographic websites all have a lot of different categories and they border on these kinds of things. I agree with you. I didn't like the attack of that website just for people uploading them. People are gonna do things that are questionable on these sites just like they do on non pornographic sites, just like they do in everything else.
Aaron Reed:And it's up to those sites to monitor and do what they can to discourage those kinds of uploads. But yeah, think the bigger issue is more along the telegram and those kinds of applications that would allow that to be shared in an open universe.
Matt Long:Look, you're a parent, it's important to be aware of the monitoring kids' online behaviors and that. The one thing is being exposed to that type of graphic material. There's red flags and there's problems. There's 100 concerns with that. So it's good to be aware of that, but I don't think it's helpful to present that as if that's the The root cause.
Matt Long:That's right. Yeah, That I thing exists.
Aaron Reed:Correct.
Matt Long:Again, it's harder to get access to it. It's good to shine a light on things, you know. Absolutely. Because the misperception is because we're defense attorneys that somehow that means we're pro criminal or pro crime.
Aaron Reed:Yeah, like we don't care about crimes being committed or which is the most ridiculous thing I
Matt Long:would Right, what we really care about is police overreach. Yes. Police incompetence, police negligence, prosecutor abuse of discretion and overreach, and ensuring that this system that really is designed to take away the liberty of someone is truly operating the way it's supposed to.
Aaron Reed:That's right.
Matt Long:But it's not vigilante justice or these types of things and so
Aaron Reed:We're not out there making excuses for people doing bad things.
Matt Long:Right, pro crime, pro criminal. That's just Yeah. The But again, these types of crimes, sex crimes, child crimes, intimacy crimes, what are some of the things that you've seen that makes you comfortable working in this area?
Aaron Reed:So I think that's a great question, because not a lot of lawyers are, and the ones that say they are, some of them might not be as comfortable as they think they are, but for me it's all about there's a situation, there's something that happened, and I want to make sure that the truth of that matter comes out, and I want to, and you have to be comfortable if you're going to trial on these kinds of cases, have to be comfortable talking about subject matter that is difficult and images to see that are difficult images to see, and you have to be comfortable at least acknowledging them. You don't have to be comfortable with them, And I think most lawyers would tell you they go and do an evidence viewing of CSAM material. They're not all that excited about going and doing it,
Matt Long:but The CSAM is what?
Aaron Reed:The child sexual abuse Abuse material. Right, so in other words, like child pornography, and that's not a great part of my job, but it's a necessary part of my job, and I'm willing to go do that to make sure that the government says that they have child pornography. I need to verify it, or that this victim come forward and says, Yeah, was sexually assaulted by this guy. Okay, I need to make sure that it actually happened. Not saying don't take people at their word, but from a defense attorney standpoint, we can't really do that.
Aaron Reed:We demand evidence, like you said. We want the evidence, we want these investigations to be airtight, and if it is, and it turns out that our client did do something wrong, then they're gonna pay for it. And that's the way the systems work. And for me, I don't get emotional about handling specific kinds of cases because I feel like I can do it based on my mindset. And I try to stay in that frame of mind while I handle these cases, but knowing the material and the subject matter is, it's touchy and it's difficult.
Matt Long:Yeah, I tell people, I'm like a surgeon. Yeah. You know, it's blood, guts, but you have to be clinical And in I understand we live in a world now where, one of the concerns I have, or why it is easy to do the job, is number one, false allegations do exist.
Aaron Reed:Yeah, they do.
Matt Long:It just does happen.
Aaron Reed:It's a reality.
Matt Long:And now too often, we're getting police who prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an allegation happened.
Aaron Reed:Right.
Matt Long:And then they start. Right. Or they prove beyond a reason, or prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an investigation occurred. Yeah. But not that that investigation actually tells you
Aaron Reed:about something. Did it yield the results?
Matt Long:Right, did it? Yeah. And I understand that it can be, at least in today's age, it's controversial to even say, well, let's challenge what that complaining witness said. And yet, there are a couple different types of false allegations. Right?
Matt Long:There are the malicious false allegations. Right. And then there are the erroneous false allegations. And have you seen those in your work?
Aaron Reed:I have, I've seen both. And for me personally, the ones that are malicious tend to be the ones that we go to trial on. Those tend to be the cases where if we can get the evidence that we can prove a person is lying and we have a reason to kind of point the finger and say, hey, we know this isn't true. Versus other cases where maybe something did happen, maybe their brain's a little foggy, maybe they were drugged and they don't remember everything, they remember something did occur that they don't consent to, or something along those lines. Those ones do happen, and those ones are, you have to be careful, because you don't know, number one, what they went through, right?
Aaron Reed:So you have to know where to push, know where to get the information, know how to get the information, but you also have to be aware that you're still doing a job for your client and trying to figure out what really happened. And I know there's a lot of attorneys out there that would pretty much take an allegation at face value. Like you said, the allegation, and we didn't really do an investigation, but hey, we have this allegation and this person said this, so let's wrap it all up and charge them. But not every attorney thinks along the lines like you and demands that kind of proof, and that's partly why I take these cases, but they are difficult. The ones where there are more accidentals or a gray area, those can be very difficult to navigate.
Aaron Reed:And as a prosecutor, you're a prosecutor. What would, if you had something like that, where it wasn't a malicious thing, how would you handle notifying the victim, going through that?
Matt Long:Yeah, it's, language is behavior.
Aaron Reed:Sure, yeah,
Matt Long:I agree. And so one of the things we do, whether we're defense or prosecutors, is trying to get specific with language. And so too often you get people who use either loaded language or you know, over overstated language. Conclusory language, right? Legal question.
Matt Long:Yeah. I was raped. Okay, if we stop there, a person may have an idea of exactly what that means.
Aaron Reed:Right, sure.
Matt Long:And then you say, okay, tell me about that. And I've seen recently a couple situations where the person who was accused of a rape, when you looked at, when both were interviewed separately, they both gave almost the same description of what happened. Interesting. And it's that they were both in agreement about a particular sex act was going to occur, and that's oral sex. Okay.
Matt Long:And then, in this case, the complaining witness, it happened to be female, was asked, okay, tell, you said rape, tell me about that. And then they described that the guy finished somewhere that wasn't expected, and that wasn't agreed on. Sure. And so there, this was person who absolutely felt degraded. Yeah.
Matt Long:Violated.
Aaron Reed:Right.
Matt Long:And that what happened to her body in that context was non consensual. But that's a very different concept than, he forced himself on me and forced his penis in my Right,
Aaron Reed:yeah. Forced oral sex versus this is what we agreed to, up to a certain point.
Matt Long:Up this point.
Aaron Reed:That's right.
Matt Long:Yeah. And the kid, the young man in that situation was just really kind of beside himself, because he's saying,
Aaron Reed:Oh yeah.
Matt Long:I didn't force it was, this was consensual. Understood it was consensual, as I've talked to a number of people, some cops and other people would say, when you use some of these words, and if you've been exposed to, it really does go to, I think our society's lack of sexual knowledge, education, and these things. Some people are overly exposed, and some people aren't, but if you don't have a shared idea or understanding of a sex act, then you could say these words, and just have completely different
Aaron Reed:Yeah, different meanings, different Concepts.
Matt Long:Yeah, that's interesting. Years ago I was involved in the Kavanaugh hearings, and was doing some analysis in that. It was interesting because what she described, she described freezing. And sometimes if the person freezes, that might be misinterpreted as giving consent. And so it can exist where a person is genuinely, strongly experiencing a crime, a violation of the body, and the person on the other side is not aware that that's what's happening.
Matt Long:For example, these are complicated issue, they're sensitive issues, but that's where you genuinely say, yeah, I believe that you experienced something, and I believe you experienced this. Yeah. But that doesn't mean that person had that same mental state.
Aaron Reed:The perception
Matt Long:Had that of same knowledge. Yeah, that's a good point. And though, that's where the devil's in the details, is when you do dig because into it becomes a question of, okay, did he do something? Did they do something?
Aaron Reed:Gotta parse out what is the wrong act.
Matt Long:Exactly, and it has to, or, you know, if you can't give specifics about where or Not necessarily time. Time isn't isn't really a factor, or it's not necessarily an element in Arizona, but Yeah. You know, a specific act, for example. Well it happened a number of times, well what's it? Yeah, what happened?
Matt Long:Now you gotta get to the specifics, versus a person will say, okay, it was close to Christmas time, and I was wearing these clothes, it happened in this place. Now you've got contacts, here's the act that happens. And that just, again, seems cruel sometimes to force that articulation, and that's why victims don't like coming and don't wanna come forward, and why going through the very forensic process is hell.
Aaron Reed:Especially if it's done right. Right.
Matt Long:Yeah. Well, if it's done right, then the police won't just rely on the complaining witness's statement. Right. They'll go get corroborating evidence to build a wall of evidence around them that then makes what we do.
Aaron Reed:Difficult.
Matt Long:Really difficult.
Aaron Reed:Very hard.
Matt Long:And, but when the police don't do that, that's when they fail both sides. Correct. Because due process is about identifying evidence, obtaining it, and presenting it. Yep. And if the police don't do that, then they fail the accused, they And fail the complaining that's why I it's really doing, there's not really both sides, you're doing the same thing.
Matt Long:Yeah. Either you've given me an inroad to be able to attack, or you've, and you've built that wall of evidence around that person, or you've not, and if you do that, you're failing both, including the accused.
Aaron Reed:And I think that is the best way of looking at that kind of situation, these kinds of cases, because so many times I've been asked, or people comment, or people just in general public, oh, that lawyer got that rapist off, or whatever, well, did see what happened? Did you see the investigation? Were you a party to the investigation? Do you know the facts? And when you don't, of course, like you said, people like to make conclusory statements, they like to make these statements that says, okay, I was raped, or no, you let that person off, that defense attorney got that person off.
Aaron Reed:Well, you don't know the context about what happened. You don't know that the officers had every opportunity to get all the details from the victim in a variety of ways. And I know it's not easy, but if you approach victims that happened, that something happened to them, and you break it down into the smallest details, and you go point by point, and if it takes ten hours, takes ten hours. If it takes four or five different sessions, it takes four or five different sessions, but you have to get the details out that matter so that the police can do their job, so that the prosecutor can do their job, so that we can't do ours. Right.
Aaron Reed:And the people don't understand it that way. They don't see it that way, and I'm glad you mentioned that, because that to me is how it should work. And when it works that way, then the victims get justice, the officers look like heroes, the prosecutors look like heroes because they're putting bad people away, and we're just the guys that were there doing what we can to help, and none of it really made, you know, we didn't do anything to get that client off. Right. That's what people don't understand,
Matt Long:In addition to being trial attorneys, and I think one of the reasons why we're sitting here together, is because we have personal relationships, we know each other, we like golf, we like, but we're also two dads. Yeah. And I guess one of the reasons here is to educate people about the real world of child and intimacy crimes, and also hopefully, that people that listen to us, and have access to us, well, maybe they can be in a better position for having listened to us than if not. Because my goal in doing this, is not just to educate people, but hopefully provide material into the world, that would put us out of business. Sure.
Matt Long:For us to be out of business, that means these types of crimes aren't being committed anymore.
Aaron Reed:Yep.
Matt Long:And that's certainly what I wanna see.
Aaron Reed:I mean, it's a better place, right? The world would be a better place.
Matt Long:We do DUIs, we do vehicular cases. I'd love for there to not be DUIs and Death and gore and bad stuff, yeah. Work in tragedy, we work in the tragic crimes. We do. And so, to that end, and I know we're motivated by that, is I wanna talk a little bit about some tools or some techniques that we've learned for families to help protect yourselves, help prevent abuse from happening.
Matt Long:Knowing that if we can't prevent abuse, one of the things that we wanna encourage is that people do have the power and the ability to tell, to tell someone. You know, we were talking before this a little bit, this idea of, you know, as parents, what do you do to your kids? And so I guess from an older father to a younger father, let me offer one some
Aaron Reed:Please, I learned mine are three years old and one. Right.
Matt Long:Mine are 27 and 20 Yeah. The first thing we teach is, well, first of all, as kids in our home, you get to think the thoughts that you think and the feelings that you feel. We kinda emphasize that. Okay. Always get to tell me about the things that you think and the feelings that you feel.
Aaron Reed:I like that.
Matt Long:But then in addition to that, we teach the difference between a secret and a surprise. And what we say is that there should never be a secret that is permanent. That know, that there aren't secrets, they're only surprises. And surprises are something that everybody gets to experience eventually. Right.
Matt Long:And that there should never be a secret that isn't eventually known by the other parent, by another adult, by the other brother and sister. Right. Eventually, everybody is going to learn about this thing, and it's gonna be a surprise, not a secret. Yeah. And so we distinguish between those things.
Matt Long:Secrets are only temporary. Like I said, and then we say, let's just talk about in terms of surprises. Sure. And that right away, just we don't have secrets in home. Right?
Matt Long:And, oh, but we're gonna buy this thing for mom for her birthday or for mother's day.
Aaron Reed:Right.
Matt Long:Let's not tell her about what we bought her. Gonna be a surprise that everybody
Aaron Reed:Eventually gets she'll learn it. Share
Matt Long:Right. And very quickly, it's gonna be really difficult for another adult to come in and tell them, now this is a secret. Because they're gonna be programmed at that point. We don't keep, I don't keep secrets from my mom and dad. Everybody gets to learn eventually.
Matt Long:Yeah. And if that kid learns those types of things, that's gonna be a kid who's less likely to be targeted by somebody who wants to do them harm.
Aaron Reed:Yeah. Yeah. So God forbid if they are, they have the structure and the power to tell someone about it.
Matt Long:That's it.
Aaron Reed:Which is extremely powerful. It is not easy to talk about these things with people, but having a go to group of people, whether it's your parents, your siblings, everyone should be able to talk to somebody without fear of judgment or whatever it might be. I think having that is something for children is vital. They need to be able to tell you what's on their mind without you trying to, without you reacting as a parent in a negative way. Especially if it's some that they're struggling with.
Aaron Reed:That's right. They gotta be able to trust their parents or the people that are closest to them.
Matt Long:Yeah. This is the first of hopefully many conversations we're gonna on these topics, and along with always providing resources to families. Because at the end of the day, yeah, we're trial attorneys, we're criminal defense attorneys, but we're just dads Interested in the well-being of our children and other people's children. That includes not just children, but people. Yeah.
Matt Long:Who are need to be protected from the government, from police, and have their rights advanced. So if you have questions, if you have concerns, if you are in need of help with somebody that's navigated this waters, give one of us a call. Aaron Reed with Cates and Reed.
Aaron Reed:Yeah, on the door as of this year.
Matt Long:And Matt Long with Long and Simmons. One of us will help you. Yeah. And we even work together to make sure that we can get the best information to people and represent what is real. Because what is real the area of crime, sometimes complicated.
Matt Long:I'm not sure often what's true, because often what's true is
Aaron Reed:Can be tough to find.
Matt Long:Yeah. But we can get to what's real.
Aaron Reed:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Matt Long:And so that's, that's, that's what we do. Well, more soon.
Aaron Reed:Absolutely. Thanks for
Matt Long:having me. Thanks friend.