A series of charges filed against former Dundalk minister Jonathan N. Gerstner, who was arrested in an Internet sting after he was accused of soliciting sex from a minor, should be dismissed because they don't - and can't - identify a victim by name and because one of the charges is too vague to be understood, his lawyer argued yesterday.

"Who is this person? How can I, as an advocate for my client, go and fully investigate the case," without knowing who the victim is, Towson lawyer Joseph Murtha asked Howard Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure during an afternoon motions hearing.

Murtha's arguments, made exactly one month before Gerstner, 45, is scheduled for trial, took a new approach on what has become a familiar debate over the validity of the laws used to charge suspects caught trying to solicit sex from adult investigators who are posing as minors in Internet chats.

While other lawyers have focused their arguments on factual impossibility, saying no crime was committed because there was no "minor," Murtha took aim at the wording of the charges themselves.

The charges, computer solicitation and attempted rape and attempted sex offense, list no victim, and instead use the generic term minor, he said. And the solicitation charge is so convoluted that it's impossible to understand exactly what behavior is illegal, he argued.

"I don't see how the state gets out of this," he said.

But Assistant State's Attorney Jim Dietrich said the solicitation law "couldn't be any clearer," and that charges are designed to tell a defendant what crimes they are alleged to have committed. The victim's name is not considered an "essential element" to be listed in charging documents, he said.

He said he can't put the screen name the investigators used in the indictment "and state that she is a minor because, in fact, she is not."

Leasure did not rule on Murtha's motion, but is expected to issue a decision before Gerstner's Jan. 6 trial date.

Murtha said yesterday that he decided not to make the same arguments made in similar cases - that no crime was committed because the victim was fictitious - in his motion to dismiss because of a recent appellate ruling in another Internet case. Such an argument, which requires testimony and evidence, would more likely be made at trial, he said.

Gerstner, who lives in Perry Hall, was working at Inverness Presbyterian Church in May when he allegedly arranged a sexual liaison with "Jennifer," a Maryland State Police trooper posing as a 13-year-old girl.

He was arrested after he arrived at the meeting site - Foxhill Park in Bowie, according to state police. The case was charged in Howard County because the investigator was working from a Columbia office.

Gerstner is no longer in his position at Inverness and is not currently serving as a minister, Murtha said.