Wacky Internet Predator Wednesday – #11
I skipped last week’s weekly round-up of Internet predators due to an abnormal/busy schedule. So this week, we make up for it with 13 new faces to welcome to the world of wacky Internet predators! Here’s a synopsis; full articles are below.
- 5 registered sex offenders are picked up in Texas for logging on to MySpace
- 2 western PA men turn the webcams on themselves and talk sex with someone who they think is a 13-yearl-old girl
- 19-year-old male in Arizona is stopped on routine traffic stop and has 15- and 16-year old girl in the car – both of whom he met on MySpace. Note: the girls were there on their own accord! Your little princesses are no angels. If they are on MySpace – be aware!!
- 48-year-old Tennessee man arrested for soliciting “12-year-old girl” online for sex
- 22-year-old man from Kentucky showed up at an area Wal-mart, expecting to meet a 15-year-old girl, instead, he was met by officers
- A 22-year-old trooper with the Colorado State Patrol tried to convince what he thought was a 14-year-old girl on the Internet to have a sexual relationship with him; a 52-year-old TSA official was arrested for the same thing
- A 22-year-old man from Nevada was jailed on charges of child sex abuse and child pornography – He met his alleged victims through MySpace.com
Obviously I don’t have to remind you, parents, that these guys are real and do exist. They are out there – but you have help. PC Pandora monitoring software can help you keep your kids safe online and away from pervos like these…
7/17/08
Attorney General Nabs 5 Sex Offenders For Illegally Using MySpace
WOAI-TV
Five convicted sex offenders are behind bars after Attorney General Greg Abbott’s Cyber Crimes and Fugitive units caught them illegally using the popular social networking site MySpace.com.
The attorney general’s investigators have arrested 28 previously convicted sex offenders who illegally accessed the site since subpoenaing sex offenders’ user profiles from MySpace.com in May of 2007.
“Each of the registered sex offenders arrested during this operation were originally convicted of crimes involving young children,” Attorney General Abbott said. “Despite clear legal prohibitions, all five of these sex predators accessed MySpace.com. Parents and children alike must remain vigilant about the dangers posed by online sex predators.”
Attorney General Abbott said the arrests show MySpace.com’s ongoing willingness to cooperate with law enforcement. But he believes work still needs to be done.
“However, until MySpace.com and other social networking sites implement true age verification software, dangerous sex offenders will continue using these Web sites to prey upon young children,” said Abbott.
Details About Those Arrested:
On July 1, Cyber Crimes and Fugitive Unit investigators arrested Charles Cathey, 52, of San Antonio, for using the Internet in violation of his release terms. In 1988, Cathey was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a 7-year-old child and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Other registered sex offenders arrested in the sweep include:
- Daniel Louis Trowbridge, 47, arrested July 1 in Seguin; convicted in Travis County in 1980 for indecency with a child. His victim was an 11-year-old girl.
- Scott Charles Spencer, 39, arrested July 1 in Alvarado; convicted in Johnson County in 1990 for indecency with a child by sexual contact. His victim was a 12-year-old girl.
- Thomas Lyman Warren, 64, arrested July 1 in Houston; convicted in Harris County in 1984 for injury to a child. His victim was two years old.
- Joel Wayne Jones, 40, arrested July 2 in Port Arthur; convicted in Jefferson County in 1994 for indecency with a child by sexual contact. His victim was an 8-year-old girl.
7/20/08
Two Valley men exposed selves on ’Net to ‘girls’
By Marcia Moore, The Daily Item
David Frattare spends a lot of time on the Internet pretending to be a teenage girl, but role-playing is serious business for the special agent with the Pennsylvania state attorney general’s Child Predator Unit.
In three years, Frattare and seven other agents assigned to the unit have snared 150 sexual predators who have tried to engage in sexual activity with children.
In his role as a 13-year-old girl, Frattare has met many suspected criminals.
Among them was John T. Hackenberg, 38, of Middleburg, who allegedly approached Frattare, who was in his Pittsburgh office posing as a young girl in an online chat room on Feb. 5, 2007.
Frattare had set up a MySpace account for the girl he was posing as and included age-appropriate photographs of a 13-year-old girl.
On his own, Hackenberg obtained the young girl’s photograph and during their first encounter in the chatroom he allegedly turned the conversation toward a sexual nature very quickly.
He set up a live Webcam and invited the “girl” to watch him as he masturbated, using the child’s photograph as a sex aid, despite her comments that she wasn’t comfortable and reminding him of her age, the criminal complaint said.
Hackenberg allegedly had three more encounters with another agent, also posing as a 13-year-old girl, during which he masturbated via live Webcam.
Represented by Lewisburg attorney John Reed, Hackenberg pleaded guilty in Snyder County Court last month to felony unlawful contact with a minor and criminal use of a communication facility.
He’s free on $50,000 bail awaiting sentencing later this summer.
Danville attorney Michael Dennehy represents Mark J. Hollingshead, a 30-year-old Catawissa man free on $75,000 bail awaiting sentencing in Montour County Court after pleading guilty in May to one count each of felony unlawful contact with a minor and criminal use of a communication facility.
A state agent posing as a 13-year-old girl said Hollingshead approached the “child” on the Internet on May 29, 2007, exposing himself on a live Webcam and asking sexually graphic questions.
Dennehy said the wording of the state law allowing Internet stings to take place makes it easier for police to snare alleged predators.
“But there’s also a greater risk for entrapment,” he said.
Dennehy is not alleging state agents intentionally lured Hollingshead into committing a crime, but said the law leaves wide open the possibility of entrapment.
“I don’t think I like where the line has been drawn,” he said. “I like the basic commonwealth rule that police not engage in conduct that will engage someone to go where they normally wouldn’t go.”
Dennehy added that he has no major complaints with how the state Child Predator Unit operates, but said he would “make a lot of noise” if he suspects agents of trying to entice a defendant into committing a crime.
State spokesman Nils Frederiksen said agents work closely with two-full time prosecutors and are trained not to lead suspects into committing a crime.
“We’re not seeking them out. We respond to them,” Frederiksen said. “We have the authority, but we can’t cross a line. We can’t lead people into action that they wouldn’t normally do.”
7/21/08
Male, 19, pulled over with 2 girls he met on MySpace
KTAR-TV
A Yavapai County Sheriff’s Deputy made a late-night traffic stop this week, and inside, found two teen girls, ages 15 and 16, with a 19-year-old male they said they met on the popular social networking website MySpace.
“Neither set of parents were aware that their daughters were out and were with this particular male,” said sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn.
The male driver was in the process of dropping off one of the females when he was stopped by deputies.
Authorities said the parents were alarmed when the deputy arrived at their doors.
D’Evelyn said, “I’m not sure where they thought their kids were or if they even knew they had left the house, but either way, they were surprised to have a deputy bring their children home.”
D’evelyn said parents need to know where their children are and who they’re with at all times, in addition to monitoring their on-line activity.
7/24/08
Man arrested in W’burg for luring ‘minor’
By Sean Bailey, Times Tribune
A Tennessee man was arrested Tuesday night for allegedly luring a minor to a Williamsburg restaurant for a sexual encounter.
Instead of finding the “12-year-old girl” he met on the Internet, 48-year-old Billy Williams of Knoxville found officers from the Kentucky Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations and the Williamsburg Police Department who arrested him for first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor/illegal sex act.
According to a press release from Attorney General Jack Conway’s office, Williams had been communicating with an online decoy from Perverted Justice.
The decoy posed as a 12-year-old girl.
Perverted Justice, according to its Web site, is a non-profit organization whose mission is “to address and counter the attempts of Internet predators and pedophiles from having success abusing children.”
The organization is best known for its “Dateline NBC” specials in which members of the Perverted Justice crew pose as young children online, luring potential pedophiles to locations where law enforcement is standing by.
To date, Perverted Justice’s Web site states that 279 predators have been convicted since 2004 as a result of the group’s work.
Williams is currently lodged in the Whitley County Detention Center. According to Conway’s office, if convicted, Williams could spend up to 10 years in prison.
“This arrest was the result of collaboration between investigators at the state and local level,” Conway stated in the press release. “I appreciate the fact that, working together, we were able to execute this arrest and keep Kentucky families safe.”
7/25/08
Murray Man Arrested in Sex Sting
Lauren Adams, WPSD-TV
PRINCETON, Ky- The Princeton Police Department is praising one officer, who recently completed just several days of training on catching online predators and has already met with success.
Sunday, officers arrested 22-year-old Brook Deines of Murray, Kentucky. Deines showed up at an area Wal-mart, expecting to meet a 15-year-old girl, instead, he was met with officers.
Princeton Police Chief Don Weedman says there was never a 15-year-old, “It was a decoy, type sting operation, there was no juveniles involved whatsoever.”
Instead, he tells us it, was Det. Brian Ward behind the computer posing as a local teen. He chatted with Deines just a handful of times before they agreed to meet.
“He was needless to say, shocked and more shocked when he realized there wasn’t anyone waiting for him,” Weedman says of the arrest, which took just ten minutes.
And officers with Princeton PD say this arrest occurred a lot faster than normal. Typically it takes months to arrange a meeting, this one took just a few chats over the course of two weeks.
Deines, meanwhile, has bonded out of jail and is due in court next month.
7/26/08
Internet Sting Leads To State Patrolman’s Arrest
Shaun Boyd, KCNC-TV
FORT LUPTON, Colo. (CBS4) ― Police say a trooper with the Colorado State Patrol tried to convince what he thought was a girl on the Internet to have a sexual relationship with him.
The person he thought was a girl was actually a Fort Lupton police detective posing a 14-year-old.
Detective Crystal Schwartz set up accounts on MySpace.com and Yahoo! Chat in which she posed as a girl who liked cheerleading and volleyball. 
Schwartz said trooper Justin Tolman, 22, began communicating with her decoy profile soon afterwards. He allegedly indicated he was interested in sex and made graphic sexual statements and sent lewd photos.
Tolman also allegedly sent a picture of himself in uniform standing next to his patrol vehicle. He was arrested Friday morning on suspicion of sexual exploitation of a child.
Tolman, of Colorado Springs, has been a trooper since July of last year. He is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
Sgt. John Hahn, a spokesman for the Colorado State Patrol, told the Greeley Tribune Tolman passed an “exhaustive” background check his department conducted on him before he was hired.
Schwartz is the only member of Fort Lupton’s Internet crimes unit. Last month her operation spearheaded the arrest of a Transportation and Security Administration employee who works at Denver International Airport. Stanley Gantt, 52, who also now faces sexual exploitation charges, came to Fort Lupton planning to have sex with a 14-year-old.
Schwartz told CBS4 the number of sexual predators who wind up trying to contact her decoy Internet profiles is disturbing.
“They see that I’m 14 and they contact me right away and typically it’s sexual content within 5 minutes,” she said.
Fort Lupton Police Chief Ron Grannis said the arrests should serve as a wake up call to parents that predators come from all walks of life, and that the Internet is often a stalking ground for sexual predators.
“This gentleman was in position of trust — wearing a badge — and I think it’s a good thing we’ve got him off the street now,” Grannis said, in reference to Tolman.
Tolman was set to appear in Weld County court Saturday morning.
7/27/08
Police: Teen victims say they met man on MySpace
By Jaclyn O’Malley, Reno Gazette Journal
A 22-year-old Sparks man jailed this week on charges of child sex abuse and child pornography, met his alleged victims through MySpace.com, a popular Internet networking site, according to court records.
Angel Eduardo Leyva, who is unemployed and lives with his father, remained in the Washoe County Jail on Friday in lieu of $115,000 cash bail on multiple charges of statutory sexual seduction, sexual assault, luring children, use of a minor in the production of child pornography and possession of child pornography.
Leyva is accused of having sex with a minor girl multiple times since May 2007, and then coercing her and two other girls to e-mail him nude and suggestive photos to his account.
According to a police affidavit, a girl contacted Sparks police last month and reported she had been having sex with Leyva for roughly the past year. She said she was 14 when Leyva picked her up near her Sparks home and took her to a Reno motel where they had sex. The girl said they both knew each other’s ages.
Later, she told police Leyva continued to pick her up throughout the year and they would engage in sex acts.
The day after she contacted police, Leyva was interviewed by police and admitted the allegations. When detectives reviewed his e-mail account, they found multiple pictures of nude girls, including two who were younger than 16, the affidavit said. Earlier this month, police found two more girls who said they met Leyva on MySpace and that he coerced them into e-mailing him nude photos.
One girl, who said she was 13 when she met Leyva in 2006 said he threatened to make her life “hell” if she did not e-mail him the photos from her cellular phone, the affidavit said.
Sparks police still are trying to identify additional victims in the case and urged the public to come forward with any information by calling 353-2225, or Secret Witness at 322-4900.
