After Avoiding Jail for Child Sex Abuse, Disgraced School Cop Arrested AGAIN
Kalamazoo, MI -- For 10 years, the students at Western Michigan University thought officer Abraham Martin Hohnke, 51, was there to protect them and keep them safe from criminals. All that has since changed, however, as Hohnke was exposed last year as a criminal from whom the students needed protecting.
Hohnke was nabbed by fellow officers in an undercover sting for trying to pay a child to have sex with him -- in a gas station parking lot -- in the back of his pickup truck.
Hohnke and several other child predators were arrested as part of a sting operation run by the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff's office placed ads online offering up sex-trafficked children for money. Hohnke responded to the ads, apparently ready and willing to engage in child sex trafficking.
Fortunately, however, there were no trafficked children, and the alleged victims were undercover deputies with the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the child predators thought they were meeting a 15-year-old girl for sex.
As mLive reported at the time:
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A sheriff’s office detective sergeant was posing as a 15-year-old girl online and arranged to meet Hohnke for sex April 13, the affidavit said.
In text messages, Hohnke said multiple times he planned to have sex with the girl. He also asked to videotape the intercourse for later viewing, the affidavit said.
Hohnke drove to a gas station near the hotel on 11th Street in Oshtemo Township where the deputy posing as a girl was at, the affidavit said.
Hohnke asked the girl to walk to him because he wanted to have sex in the back of his pickup, the affidavit said.
While Hohnke waited in the back of his pickup truck for his victim to enter, the door opened, and it was deputies instead. Hohnke had a handgun and $1,582 on him when deputies found him waiting in the back of his truck.
After his arrest, Hohnke was arraigned on April 15 in Kalamazoo County District Court on one felony count of children – accosting for immoral purposes and one count of computers – internet – communicating with another to commit crime.
In September, Hohnke pleaded guilty to a charge punishable by up to 20 years in prison but instead received no jail.
News Channel 3 reported that the sentencing, which included no additional jail time, was "just and reasonable," according to the Kalamazoo County Judge Paul Bridenstine.
Highlighting the problem with letting off child predators with no jail, Hohnke was arrested again, for child sex crimes this week — while on probation for child sex crimes.
According to the FBI Detroit Field Office, Hohnke was nabbed for child pornography charges — while on probation for attempting to have sex with a child.
