United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 22-2773 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PAUL S. OSTERMAN, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, No. 1:21-cr-110 — William C. Griesbach, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED NOVEMBER 29, 2023 — DECIDED AUGUST 1, 2024 ____________________

Before RIPPLE, SCUDDER, JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judges. JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge. A detective in Oneida County, Wisconsin, applied for a warrant so he could place a GPS tracker on Paul Osterman’s truck. After monitoring the truck—a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amend- ment—authorities prosecuted Osterman for sex trafficking a child. Osterman later learned that some information the de- tective included in the affidavit seeking the warrant was in- correct. To Osterman, this meant the affidavit failed to 2 No. 22-2773 establish probable cause for the search, so he asked the district court to suppress the fruits of the search. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court held that the affidavit established probable cause despite its inaccura- cies. The court therefore denied Osterman’s motion to sup- press, and Osterman appeals. We agree with Osterman that the detective acted recklessly when he failed to correct the af- fidavit. But we have taken an independent look at the affida- vit, as we must, and we conclude that it establishes probable cause even without the misstatements. For that reason, we are compelled to affirm. I MeetMe.com is an online-dating website. When the web- site’s administrators suspect that MeetMe users are targeting children for sexual exploitation, the administrators must file a “CyberTip” with the National Center for Missing and Ex- ploited Children. Frequently Asked Questions, NAT’L CTR. FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN, https://re- port.cybertip.org/faqs (last visited July 17, 2024). The center manages a centralized system for reporting online child ex- ploitation, and when a CyberTip involves a child in immedi- ate or impending harm, it forwards the tip to law enforcement for investigation. Id. In this case, Detective Chad Wanta of the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office received eight CyberTips. The tips reported strikingly similar instances of misconduct on MeetMe.com between January 2018 and December 2019. All the users had MeetMe usernames beginning with the letter J, including var- iations of “Jared,” “Jones,” and “Jacob.” In addition, each user sent messages on the website looking for “a much younger No. 22-2773 3 girl” and offering money to meet with one for sexual encoun- ters. The CyberTips further disclosed that all but one of the messages originated from MeetMe users who used wireless internet signals hosted by companies in Rhinelander, Wiscon- sin. Specifically, two tips noted the user accessed publicly available wi-fi provided by a McDonalds at 25 S. Stevens Street. Three tips reported the user accessed public wi-fi of- fered by a laundromat called Modes, Machines & More LLC, at 2100 Lincoln Street. And two other tips explained the user accessed a private wi-fi network hosted by Northwoods Com- munications Technologies LLC (now “Northwoods Connect – High Speed Internet”), an internet provider then located at 2151 N. Chippewa Drive. In sum, seven of the eight CyberTips Detective Wanta re- ceived involved similar usernames, sexual propositions, loca- tions, and wi-fi access. The eighth tip was different, but not by much: it linked the suspect to a wi-fi