Felony charges against Patrick Hensley were dropped on December 14, 2021, when the Monroe County Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the case without prejudice roughly three months after his arrest in an undercover online sting.1MLive. Charges Dropped Against Man Arrested in Child Predator Sting No public explanation was given for the decision, and available reporting does not indicate whether the charges were ever refiled.
What Hensley Was Charged With
Hensley, a 43-year-old Brownstown, Michigan resident, was arrested on September 28, 2021 on a two-count felony warrant: accosting a child for immoral purposes and using a computer to commit a crime.213abc. Michigan Man Charged With Contacting Minor Online for Sexual Purposes The warrant came out of an undercover social media operation run by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Violent Internet Predator and Exploitation Response (VIPER) Task Force, which accused him of attempting to contact a minor online for sexual purposes.1MLive. Charges Dropped Against Man Arrested in Child Predator Sting
He was arraigned in First District Court the next day. Bond was set at $10,000, with a condition that he wear a GPS-enabled tether if released.3The Monroe News. VIPER Apprehends Brownstown Man on Two Felony Charges
What “Dismissed Without Prejudice” Means
Both counts were dropped on December 14, 2021.1MLive. Charges Dropped Against Man Arrested in Child Predator Sting Because the dismissal was entered without prejudice, the prosecution kept the option to refile the same charges later. A without-prejudice dismissal is not an acquittal and does not clear the underlying accusation; it ends the current case while leaving the door open. The prosecutor’s office did not publicly say why it dropped the case, and the reporting available does not show any later refiling.
The VIPER Sting Behind the Arrest
The VIPER task force was a relatively new unit within the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office at the time of Hensley’s arrest, created to target online predators through undercover operations on social media, with officers typically posing as minors and arranging in-person meetings with suspects.4The Monroe News. VIPER Arrests Five Men Who Face Numerous Charges Hensley’s case was one of several the unit brought in its first months of operation.