Not only did Minnesota prosecutors file objections yesterday to the ACLU of Minnesota’s brief in support of Sen. Larry Craig, they also went into great detail about the restroom sex solicitation sting that ensnared the senator and exactly what he’s accused of doing. The sting, which nabbed about 40 men in a four-month period in an airport men’s room, included plenty of other cases where suspects followed "the very same pattern of conduct," then engaged in sex acts on the spot, the prosecutors wrote. Because of that, they contended, and because the venue was a busy international airport, the ACLU’s argument that signals under a stall wall could be an invitation for private sex elsewhere, and thus constitutionally protected, are “simply absurd.”

“The defendant invaded the sanctity of the officer’s bathroom stall, first by repeatedly staring into the stall, second by moving his foot over in a controlled and deliberate manner until it was on and touching the officer’s foot within the officer’s stall, and third by stroking his hand from front to back along the stall divider three times with increasingly greater amounts of the defendant’s hand being exposed on the officer’s side of the stall divider with each swipe,” Prosecutor Christopher P. Renz wrote. Those actions in themselves constitute disorderly conduct, he argued. After similar actions, others observed by officers as part of the sting exposed themselves under the stall wall, looked under the wall, or engaged in masturbation, he wrote.

The judge had already ruled in favor of allowing the ACLU’s “friend of the court” brief, which contends the entire sting was unconstitutional. The prosecutors are now asking him to strike the brief from the record. You can read my full story here in today’s Spokesman-Review, and see the full court document here.

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