United States v. Petro

── United States v. Petro ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Date: April 27, 2026 Category: General Appellate Case: 25-5028 Document: 67-1 Date Filed: 04/27/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS April 27, 2026 Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. No. 25-5028 THOMAS EDWARD PETRO, Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. 4:24-CR-00137-GKF-1) _________________________________ Jon W. Grevillius, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Virginia L. Grady, Federal Public Defender, with him on the briefs), Office of the Federal Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant. Leena Alam, Assistant United States Attorney, Northern District of Oklahoma (Clinton J. Johnson, United States Attorney, Northern District of Oklahoma, with her on the brief), Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee. _________________________________ Before HOLMES, Chief Judge, KELLY, and FEDERICO, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ KELLY, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ In November 2024, a jury found Defendant-Appellant Thomas Edward Petro guilty of one count of coercion or enticement of a minor, 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b). On appeal, he maintains the government made improper remarks during closing  Appellate Case: 25-5028 Document: 67-1 Date Filed: 04/27/2026 Page: 2 argument about his presumption of innocence that amounted to reversible error. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we remand with instructions to vacate the judgment for further proceedings. Background In August 2023, Mr. Petro began using Whisper, III R. 248–50, an anonymous social media application that assigned users a username but did not allow them to upload their own photos, instead permitting them to share stock photos, id. at 78–80. Users interacted with each other by sharing those photos, allowing others to comment and contact the poster. Id. at 80. Mr. Petro believed Whisper required users to be at least 18 but did not verify that belief. Id. at 249. Around the same time, MV, 1 then 13, also began using Whisper. Id. at 77. MV’s username did not indicate her legal name or age, and she could not, and did not, post photos or videos of herself to Whisper. Id. at 78–80. Mr. Petro, using a pseudonym, contacted her. Id. at 80–81. He told her that he was 31; she told him that she was 26. Id. at 81–82. MV testified that she sought to communicate with older men “[t]o play a pretend ‘Catch a Predator.’” Id. After talking on Whisper, MV suggested moving their conversation to text messages, which they did. Id. at 84. Between August 10 and August 28, Mr. Petro and MV communicated regularly, sending scores of text messages a day, exchanging audio and video messages, speaking on the phone almost every night, and chatting over video. Id. at 95–96, 1 The parties refer to the victim using different abbreviations. Aplt. Br. at 1; Aplee. Br. at 2 & n.1. We use the government’s term, “MV.” 2  Appellate Case: 25-5028 Documen