Wacky Internet Predator Wednesday #13
Last week, I made no blog posts due to travel and other busy-ness. So, unfortunately, I skipped over my favorite post of the week – my Internet predator round-up. But that just means I have a bigger installment for everyone today on this, the 13th installment of my Wacky Internet Predator Wednesday blog series.
This week we showcase 7 goons from around the country that were arrested for trying to have sex with kids they met online. This is 7 more reasons that parents need to be using parental control and monitoring software like PC Pandora to ensure that their kids aren’t talking to sickos like this:
- A 47-year-old Swedish man tried to arrange a sexual rendezvous with a 13-year-old girl on a trip to the United States.
- A 35-year-old Missouri man was arrested after he arranged over the internet to meet up with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl from Arkansas
- A 34-year-old Michigan man arrested in June was ordered to stand trial for arranging and trying to meet what he thought was a 13-year-old girl he met online
- A 42-year-old social studies teacher in Oregon was arrested and charged with seven counts of online sexual corruption of what he thought was a 13-year-old girl he met on MySpace.
- A 34-year-old southern California man who drove to a Laguna Beach park expecting a sexual tryst with a 13-year-old girl was snared in a police sting instead and is facing felony charges.
- A 26-year-old Colorado man faces four felony charges of attempting to lure an investigator posting as a 14-year-old girl in an Internet chat room.
- A 24-year-old Oklahoma man offered to trade marijuana for sex with a girl he thought was younger than the age of 16. When he went to meet the girl – with a loaded gun – he was arrested and is behind bars now.
Here are the full stories with links…
Swedish man held in Internet sex sting
By Ben Winslow, Deseret News
LAYTON — Police here have arrested a 47-year-old Swedish man they allege tried to arrange a sexual rendezvous with a 13-year-old girl on a trip to the United States.
The girl was really an undercover Layton police officer.
Police said that from June 9 through July 14, Bjorn Erik Larsson exchanged messages over the Internet with the person he thought was a 13-year-old girl, seeking sexual favors. He also showed the girl his genitals over a webcam, Layton police wrote in a probable cause statement filed with the charges.
Davis County prosecutors have accused Larsson of trying to arrange a meeting with the girl while he was visiting the U.S.
“It appears right now that he had a holiday planned here,” said deputy Davis County attorney Richard Larsen.
A meeting was being set up, police said, when Larsson showed up at the police department’s annual Night Out Against Crime activities Tuesday at Layton Commons Park.
“The detective working that case was passing out Internet safety information in the park, and (Larsson) showed up to attend national night out,” Layton Police Sgt. Mark Chatlin said Thursday. “The detective recognized him, approached him and arrested him.”
Larsson was booked into the Davis County Jail, where he remains in lieu of $50,000 bail. Prosecutors filed charges of enticing a minor, a second-degree felony, and two counts of dealing in harmful material to a minor, both third-degree felonies. Police also have notified the Swedish consulate of Larsson’s arrest.
A court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.
Missouri man arrested in Internet predator sting in Fayetteville
Aug 8, 2008
FAYETTEVILLE – A Missouri man is caught by police after he arranged over the Internet to meet up with a child in Fayetteville, now he’s looking at Internet predator charges.
Fayetteville police say on August 1st, the 35-year-old man started chatting with who he thought was a 13-year-old girl in a Yahoo! Arkansas Regional chat room. They say the conversation quickly turned sexual, and just a few days later he asked the girl to meet him at a Fayetteville restaurant.
He conducted the correspondence from a public library computer.
Fayetteville Police Sgt. Bill Phelan said, “August 6th a meeting was arranged for the purpose of sex and it was at a location in Fayetteville at a local business and officers arrived, set up surveillance and located the suspect and placed him under arrest.”
Robert William Moore had allegedly been communicating for days with a 13-year-old girl in a chat room-he even sent her sexually explicit pictures of himself before arranging the meeting.
Sgt. Phelan said, “…he was actually communicating in Rogers at the public library.”
Moore thought he was meeting up with the girl at a Fayetteville restaurant right off Interstate 540, instead, he was arrested by police.
Sgt. Phelan said, “…there’s really no difference as far as the law is concerned.”
Police say internet predators think they’re talking to a child-meeting with a child-knowing it’s against the law.
Sgt. Phelan said, “They were looking for an actual child, though, so it is a big deal. Just because it wasn’t, doesn’t mean it isn’t. You know, this time it wasn’t a child, next time it may be.”
And police say, predators like this are obviously arranging meetings with children for the purpose of having sex and knowing that’s it’s illegal escalates the risk as to what happens next.
Sgt. Phelan said, “…is he going to let her leave? Is he going to take her with him, you know, what’s he going to do after that? You know, are you going to have a kidnapping with it? You just don’t know-the potential danger is high.”
While the risks are there-surprise isn’t-the public is more than aware internet stalkers are out there, even in Fayetteville.
Fayetteville resident Pat Love said, “…crime has gotten worse as the years go by we hear too much of it now.”
Police found a couple of flash drives with suspected child porn on them, as well as a box of condoms during Robert Moore’s arrest. This investigation is far from over-detectives will be looking through Moore’s computers-looking for how long he’s been doing this and if there are any victims.
Robert Moore sits in the Washington County Jail awaiting a bond hearing on Friday.
Farwell man to stand trial in Internet sex case
Trace Christenson, The Enquirer
A Farwell man, arrested in Marshall in June for allegedly enticing a child to have sex, was ordered Tuesday to stand trial.
James Young III, 34, was arrested June 15 —Fathers Day — when he arrived at a Marshall McDonald’s expecting to meet a 13-year-old girl, according to Calhoun County Sheriff Department deputies.
During testimony in district court Tuesday, a witness from Perverted Justice testified she exchanged sexually explicit messages with Young, who used the name Fredold_2000. The woman, Nancy Popham of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, testified she pretended to be a 13-year-old girl from Marshall with an online name of Kylieblue.
Perverted Justice is a Web site that trains people to search for Internet sexual predators and works with police to catch them. She used Marshall because of past cases investigated by Perverted Justice working with the sheriff department, prosecutors said.
Popham testified that Young suggested a meeting so he could spend the night with the girl in a hotel room, shower and have oral sex.
“If it was possible not to get in trouble would you think about having sex with me,” Popham said Young wrote her on May 24.
She said Young also sent three pictures of himself, including one of him naked with an erection.
Popham, pretending to be the young girl, agreed to meet Young at the restaurant but when he walked to the counter after smiling at a teenage girl who was inside with deputies as a decoy, Detective Guy Picketts said he walked up and said, “Jim, Calhoun County Sheriff Department. You are under arrest. Put your hands on the counter and don’t get stupid.”
During an interview after his arrest, Young told Picketts he had child porn on his computer and prosecutors played a small portion of a video for Judge Marvin Ratner.
After the testimony, Assistant Prosecutor David Heiss asked to change the charges from enticing a child for immoral purposes to possession of child sexually abusive material, use of a computer to possess the material and attempted third-degree criminal sexual abuse. The judge granted the motion.
Defense Attorney Ken Marks argued there is no way to determine the age of the people depicted in the video seized from the computer and that his client did nothing to attempt to have sex with the young girl in the restaurant.
“He just showed up at a McDonald’s,” Marks said.
Ratner disagreed.
“He appeared at a McDonald’s with the intent to meet someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl,” the judge said, “and start a chain of events which would end in a sexual act.”
If convicted on all charges Young faces up to seven years in prison. He remains in the county jail.
Ontario teacher arrested on felony charges
By Jessica Keller, Argus Observer
ONTARIO — An Ontario High School social studies teacher was arrested Wednesday and charged with seven counts of online sexual corruption of a child in the second degree.
Malheur County District Attorney Dan Norris said Joseph Tracy Garner, 42, Ontario, is scheduled to face a grand jury this morning and be arraigned this afternoon in Malheur County Circuit Court.
The arrest comes after a three-month investigation that began with a private organization that specializes in identifying potential sexual predators online through the use of decoys.
Those decoys are professionally trained, Norris said, to avoid entrapment issues. That private organization’s investigation began, he said, when a person, who police assert was Garner, used MySpace to contact and initiate explicit and, at times, graphic conversations of a sexual nature with a purportedly 13-year-old Oregon girl — in reality a decoy.
Those conversations began in May, and Norris said the Oregon State Police were notified in June when police assert Garner tried to arrange a physical meeting with the girl for the purposes of having sexual contact, which is a crime in Oregon. The crime is a Class C felony.
Norris said, once OSP began its investigation, officers traced the communications back to Garner’s computer account. At one point, a school photo of Garner was sent to the decoy, which also aided police.
“He was foolish enough to use his own identifiers on his Yahoo account,” Norris said.
Up until Wednesday, Garner did not know he was a suspect or the girl was actually a decoy, Norris said. He said, however, through the identity created on MySpace, it’s very clear he believed the girl’s age was 13.
Norris said, after reading the chat logs, the decoy handled the communications professionally.
“She allowed him to control the direction of the conversations,” he said.
While, in some of the chat records, the person police believe to be Garner indicated he and the girl would have to wait until she was 18 to have sex, when the meeting was arranged, it was for sexual gratification of some nature, Norris said. In another chat, the person believed to be Garner also indicated maybe the girl could change his mind about not having sex until she was 18 when they met, Norris said. He also said sexual gratification does not necessarily mean sexual intercourse.
“A kiss can be considered sexual gratification of a person,” Norris said.
He said OSP could have pursued its investigation into Garner longer to gather more evidence, but time became a factor.
“We weren’t in the position to be able to wait, before the school year started, to take action,” he said.
Norris said he wants the case to be tried as expediently as possible as well because Garner has a wife and three children and is a well respected teacher in the community.
“I would like to move this quickly because this is not something healthy for the community, and so the faster we get it adjudicated the better,” Norris said.
According to a press release this morning from Ontario School District, Garner resigned from the school district after he was arrested yesterday. The press release said Garner is suspended from all contact with students in the district.
In other court news: Thomas Dunbrasky, 54, Fruitland, pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor younger than 16, in Payette County District Court Wednesday. Dunbrasky’s trial is set to begin at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 25.
According to the complaint filed by Payette County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in June, Dunbrasky is accused of exposing himself to a girl, now 10, and asking her to perform oral sex in two separate instances. The first instance occurred between March 27, 2006 and April 2, 2006, when the child was 8, and again between Nov. 1, 2006 through April 1, 2007.
A man who drove to a Laguna Beach park expecting a sexual tryst with a 13-year-old girl was snared in a police sting instead and is facing felony charges, authorities said today.
Scott Fish, 34, of Anaheim was charged Tuesday with attempted lewd acts with a child and sending pornography to a minor.
Laguna Beach Police Sgt. Darin Lenyi said detectives began the undercover investigation Aug. 1 after Perverted Justice, a nonprofit group that identifies sexual predators on the Internet, allegedly identified Fish as a suspect who had solicited sex acts from what he thought was a 13-year-old girl.
Fish, a construction worker, agreed to meet the “victim” Tuesday night at Alta Laguna Park and arrived with a condom, police said. He was arrested and taken to Orange County Jail, with bail set at $100,000. Earlier, he allegedly had e-mailed pornographic photos to the girl, police said.
Lenyi said investigators seized Fish’s home computer and are analyzing it to determine if there were additional victims.
“This was a perceived victim,” Lenyi said. “But if it wasn’t for this investigation, there may have been a real one.”
Anyone with additional information is asked to call police at (949) 497-0375.
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A Grand Junction man who planned to enroll as a criminology student at Mesa State University told a jury he wasn’t trying to lure an underage girl, just help another man live out a fantasy.
John Laure Merritt, 26, faces four felony charges of attempting to lure an investigator posting as a 14-year-old girl in an Internet chat room.
Merritt testified Thursday that he thought he was actually talking to another man who was acting out a fantasy of being a 14-year-old girl, according to a report in the Grand Junction Sentinel.
He told the jury that he was in a chat room that requires users to be adults.
Merritt faces life in prison, if convicted on all counts.
Prosecutors said that after the girl said she was 14, he repeatedly initiated conversations about sex and sent her several pornographic images.
Merritt testified that he didn’t think investigators could look for Internet predators in adults-only chat rooms.
Final arguments were scheduled Friday.
Protecting Your Kids Online
Abbie Alford, Fox 23
A Green Country man accused of soliciting sex to a minor online is behind bars.
Ottawa County Sheriff Terry Durborow says 24-year-old Brandon Coleman offered to trade marijuana for sex with a girl he thought was younger than the age of 16.
Deputies say when he attempted to meet the girl he was loaded with a gun.
Undersheriff Bob Ernst tells Fox 23’s Abbie Alford a three-month investigation with the National Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force led to Coleman’s arrest.
During those three months Coleman was known online as “dark_angel_74447” he would message the girl telling her she was sexy, he was naked and he wanted to have sex with the minor.
Now child advocates says parents still need to closely watch what their children are doing online.
Three years after Rebecca DeMauro’s daughter was propositioned online by a sexual predator the DeMauro’s are shocked to see how easily little girls can be targeted by predators.
Rebecca says some teen chatting sites like chatpit.com are welcome mats for molesters, rapists, “ Predators apply within,” says Rebecca DeMauro.
Rebecca’s daughter Kristin now 13-years-old says too often she hears how her friends still chat online.
The thought of her friends giving out their name, address and phone number make her cringe.
Kristin says she learned not to be so trusting.
“I knew when he wouldn’t tell me his name and he wouldn’t tell me who he was. He said, ‘oh I’m your friend.’ And I thought, ‘Mom warned me about these people,’” says Kristin DeMauro.
Authorities didn’t lock up Kristin’s online predator for years after that incident.
However, Detective Rodney Russo with the Tulsa Police Department Sex Crimes Unit says Kristin’s predator most likely didn’t single her out.
“Sexual predators are not just grooming that one person they are grooming a whole bunch of people. Sexual predators are looking for different ones. They are probably contacting four or five different ones and hoping one will give in,” says Russo.
Child advocates say parents must be involved in their children’s lives well before online predators have the chance.
“If you have some sicko that’s preying on your child. What do you do? You have to protect your kids. It’s your job as a parent,” says Rebecca DeMauro.
Since 1999 The CyberTipline at National Center For Missing and Exploited Children reports tips regarding the online enticement for children sex acts has increases ten times.
Ottawa County Sheriff Officials say if you’ve talked to “dark_angel_74447” online you need to call authorities at (918) 542-2806.
