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Man Admits He Molested Kid in Cop Job Interview

By Andrew Chow, Esq. on June 28, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Honesty is the best policy, but it can also get you arrested if you cop to a crime. That's what happened to Christopher Stringham, who interviewed for a job with the Missouri Highway Patrol and allegedly admitted to molesting a child.

Stringham, 26, of Park Hills, Mo., was asked a rather routine job-interview question about whether he'd ever committed a crime for which he could be convicted, St. Louis' KMOV-TV reports.

Stringham answered yes, and allegedly volunteered that he'd inappropriately touched a child several times. He also implied each alleged incident was an accident.

An honest answer, perhaps, but Missouri Highway Patrol officers abruptly cut short Christopher Stringham's job interview. Instead, they got the ball rolling on a criminal investigation into his self-alleged child molestation.

Stringham was arrested and charged with 20 counts of first-degree statutory sodomy. His bail, initially set at $500,000, was reduced Tuesday to $25,000, the Associated Press reports. If he's released, he will also have to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet.

Though the crime is called "statutory sodomy," it doesn't actually have to involve sodomy. Missouri's law covers "any act involving the genitals of one person" and contact by another person's hand, mouth, or anus; it also includes penetration by any object for sexual gratification.

The "statutory" part of the crime means the victim was underage. If the victim was under 14, a convicted molester could face five years to life in prison; if the victim was under 12, the minimum punishment is 10 years.

It's not clear how Christopher Stringham's "accident" claim will play into his defense. It's also not clear what kind of job Stringham was interviewing for when he allegedly admitted to molesting a child. But suffice it to say, he's no longer in the running.

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