Buckeye High School Principal Accused of Luring | Crime Files

BUCKEYE, Arizona. – The judicial documents we obtained show that these are criminal offences a high school principal in West Valley is accused of it.

On September 3, we reported that the principal had been suspended until further notice due to what school district officials described as a “law enforcement investigation into a personal matter unrelated to his work for the school or district.”

We now have a better picture of the allegations made against the suspect.

Who is the suspect?

Court documents identify the suspect as 42-year-old Joseph L. Kinney.

According to our previous report, Kinney is the principal of Buckeye Union High School. As of September 4, the website still lists him as the school’s principal, but Buckeye Union High School District officials announced on September 3 that the school’s current assistant principal, Kristin Koke, will assume the duties of principal.

What happened?

According to court documents, the case began as an FBI investigation that was later turned over to Phoenix police.

According to investigators, the investigation into the case began on July 22, when an undercover Oregon agent posed as a 12-year-old girl on a social media app called Whisper. The app is described as “an anonymous social media application that allows users to post messages, also known as ‘whisper messages,’ on the app and exchange messages with other users.”

“The undercover officer posted on Whisper ‘bored lol what should I do,’” according to part of the court documents.

The officer, officials say, later received a response from a user they identified as Kinney, who asked the user to “get cozy in her bed” and undress. The officer, in the guise of the teenage girl, then tells Kinney that she is only 12 years old and that the request was strange. Kinney responded by saying, “I don’t mind your age.”

Other parts of the conversation between Kinney and the undercover agent, as noted in court documents, included conversations related to sexual matters. Later investigations eventually linked the Whisper account to Kinney.

On September 3, the FBI served a search warrant on Kinney’s Goodyear home, and that same day, Kinney was arrested during a traffic stop. Investigators say a subsequent forensic analysis of Kinney’s iPhone revealed that the Whisper app had been deleted when Kinney was pulled over.

Investigators say that after Kinney read his story Miranda rights, he admitted to using Whisper on his phone and admitted to talking to “multiple women on Whisper who claimed to be underage.”

“(Kinney) stated that he never really believed they were minors and that he assumed they were all adults and were just having imaginative conversations and role-playing,” investigators wrote. “(Kinney) recalled one woman telling him she was 9 years old, but her picture did not resemble a 9-year-old child, so he assumed she was an adult.”

Kinney later said, the documents show, that he felt “stupid and ashamed of his decisions” and that he “would never engage in sexual activity with a child.”

What do they accuse the suspect of?

Court documents show Kinney is charged with luring a minor for sexual exploitation (ARS 13-3554).

A judge has set Kinney’s bail at $60,000. If he posts bail, he will have to submit to electronic monitoring, have no contact with minors, and have no access to the Internet, with no exceptions.

Meanwhile, a preliminary hearing for Kinney is scheduled for September 12.