To Catch a Predator

To Catch a Predator is a series of hidden camera investigations by the television newsmagazine Dateline NBC devoted to the subject of identifying and detaining potential child sexual abusers who attempt to contact children over the Internet. The stories, which have all been reported by Dateline NBC correspondent Chris Hansen and producer Lynn Keller, are conducted as an undercover sting operation with the help of online watchdog group Perverted Justice. Since the third installment, law enforcement officials have also been involved in the operation, leading to many arrests. Several other NBC affiliates, such as WTMJ in Milwaukee (which was the first news media to conduct a sting operation in cooperation with Perverted-Justice) and Kansas City's KSHB have also done local versions of To Catch a Predator, as well as Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market NBC affiliate WBRE. A spin-off called To Catch a Con Man was developed in early 2007 using the similar methods but in order to catch con men performing advance fee fraud scams. Further spin-offs have included To Catch an I.D. Thief and To Catch a Car Thief.

Method

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Hansen in a typical encounter

The method used to catch would-be predators is derived from that normally used by Perverted Justice. Perverted Justice volunteers build a profile of a clearly underage person on social networking websites and enter chatrooms as decoys, waiting for predators to initiate a chat. Such chats, which are always logged, sometimes turn sexually graphic, and some result in appointments for sex.

For the Dateline NBC stories, would-be predators are invited to an undercover house used by Dateline NBC for the duration of the operation; in accordance with Perverted Justice policy, phone contact is always established with a suspected predator before any appointment is set up. The visitors are led to believe that the supposed minor is home alone, and upon coming inside the house, are soon confronted by Hansen, who interviews each one at length about their intentions. After this, Hansen identifies himself as a Dateline NBC correspondent and informs the visitor that the entire interview has been recorded on hidden camera as part of the Dateline NBC story. If law enforcement officials are involved in the operation, the predator is then promptly arrested upon leaving the house. The arrest is sometimes made in a dramatic fashion by multiple officers who, with guns drawn, ambush the suspect and command him to lie on the ground face-down before he is handcuffed. On occasion, a predator will attempt to avoid capture and arrest by fleeing. Tasers are sometimes shown being used to subdue fleeing or unresponsive suspects.

During interviews, would-be predators often claim to not have any idea how old the supposed minor is, even when confronted by Hansen with chat logs showing the decoy clearly identifying as a minor. In many jurisdictions, online solicitation with the belief that the other person is a minor is a crime, regardless of whether or not the other person actually is a minor.

In addition, interviewees also often claim:

• never to have solicited online before
• to be only trying to teach children about the dangers of the Internet
• that they would not have done anything sexual had the chat not been a sting operation
• that they suspected all along that the whole arrangement was a set up by Dateline NBC.

Lt. Jake Jacoby, of the Fairfax County Police Department, was shown in the second installment dismissing these claims as excuses, stating that the suspects are lying "usually about 100 percent of the time".

Criticism

Among the more prominent critics of the series has been Brian Montopoli of the CBS News Public Eye blog and formerly of the Columbia Journalism Review. Montopoli argues that although Dateline NBC leaves legal punishment up to police and prosecutors, broadcasting the suspects on national television, in the context of exposing criminal behavior, is already a form of punishment which the media has no right to inflict. Montopoli also suggests that NBC News is more concerned about ratings than actually bringing online predators to justice:

But NBC is first and foremost a business, and the producers' motives are not simply altruistic. Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I find it telling that this program has been remade and rerun so often. You could argue that NBC is just making sure as many people as possible are aware predators are out there, but is it too much to think that a little thing called "ratings" might play a part as well?

In May 2007, a former executive producer for Dateline named Marsha Bartel filed a lawsuit against NBC and makes assertions about To Catch a Predator that contradict what the show purports to be about. She comments on the relationship the show has with the different police organizations and the group Perverted Justice.[1]

Entrapment claims

Montopoli also suggests that To Catch a Predator may not be as immune from the defense of entrapment as the show claims. Although Perverted Justice volunteers wait for the suspect to initiate contact, Dateline anchor Stone Phillips concedes that "... in many cases, the decoy is the first to bring up the subject of sex." (Phillips defends this, saying that "... once the hook is baited, the fish jump and run with it like you wouldn't believe." ) Montopoli contends that this alone may render Predator-related cases vulnerable to the defense of entrapment. This situation, however, would fail the "reasonable person" test of entrapment, as there is no persuasion or coercion involved, but simply an opportunity is offered [2]. Contrary to popular belief, while the Perverted Justice volunteers are not law enforcement, they could be considered "agents" of law enforcement personnel by the courts, and therefore would still be at risk for creating an entrapment defense.

The March 2007 issue of Law Enforcement Magazine, a publication of Officer.com, addressed the entrapment issue from a law enforcement perspective. "Though defendants raised the entrapment issue in Riverside, a judge's ruling later threw it out. The judge ruled it differs from a police officer presenting a handful of drugs to a subject and asking if he wants to buy some. In this scenario, the person's being invited to make a snap decision. In contrast, driving to a meeting location afforded these Internet offenders plenty of time to change their minds." The article continued:

Even so, Perverted Justice plunks precautions in place to thwart the entrapment issue. Volunteers never initiate contact with the person; all communication begins with the offender. Later, contributors never instigate lewd conversations or talks of sexual meetings.

To date, however, the claim of entrapment has not been used successfully in a court of law to defend a To Catch a Predator suspect.

Conflict of interest

Beginning with the fourth investigation, Dateline began paying Perverted Justice a consultant's fee to do its regular work; the fee was reported to have been over $100,000 for that operation. It was suggested that this payment created a potential conflict of interest for Perverted Justice, an organization run largely on the efforts of volunteers, and furthermore, that for Dateline to pay this fee would be tantamount to paying news sources, widely frowned upon in the journalism industry. In their FAQ, Perverted Justice defends this consulting fee, citing, among other things, the costs of keeping its website running and the fact that "... everyone except [themselves] and the predators are being compensated for this massive amount of effort."

This claim was also addressed by the March 2007 issue of Law Enforcement Technology Magazine. "A judge also dismissed motions to throw out indictments against seven of the 18 men arrested in the Ohio sex sting. To date, 16 have pled guilty and two were convicted at trial. Defense attorneys contended the sting violated state law because of Dateline's involvement with Perverted Justice and petitioned to have related videos, statements and photos suppressed. A judge ruled against the potential conflict of interest, noting department officials had partnered with Perverted Justice and were unaware NBC had paid the organization for consultation services.

The department kept itself separate from Dateline staff during the sting as well, to avoid legal hassles later on, says Burns. Officials were positioned in a location near but not inside the house where offenders arrived for meetings. Communications and video equipment permitted authorities to keep tabs on what transpired, and all chats were transmitted directly to officials as they took place. "We didn't want to blur the line of ethics between law enforcement and the media," Burns explains. "We didn't even speak to Dateline officials during the operations."

Investigations

New York City

The first in the series aired in November 2004 as a Dateline NBC segment called Dangerous Web. The operation was set up in a home outside Hillsborough, to which 18 men came over two-and-a-half days after making an appointment for sex with a minor. One of the men in the investigation was a New York City firefighter, who was later fired by the FDNY.

Washington, D.C.

The sequel to the first story was an hour-long special airing in November 2005. The operation was located in Fairfax County, Virginia, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and saw 19 men arrive over three days. Among the men caught were a rabbi and a high school teacher; both lost their jobs after taping and have since been convicted and sentenced to jail. Another man was interviewed by Hansen after showing up at the house naked, then encountered again the very next day at a local McDonald's, having been summoned again by the same people, in the same chatroom, he was sentenced to jailtime, but the judge suspended his sentence.

Riverside, California

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Mug shots of the fifty men charged in the Riverside, California operation

The third installment in the series was a two-hour-long special, which aired in February 2006. The operation was located in Riverside, California, and, at the request of Perverted Justice, was the first done in co-operation with local law enforcement officials. During this sting, 50 men were arrested in three days and charged with felonies -- so many that three arrived almost simultaneously, and law enforcement, at one point, ran out of personnel. (One other person arrested was charged with a misdemeanor.) The men arrested included a criminal investigator working for the Department of Homeland Security who was later fired and, for the first time, two men who claimed to have seen previous Dateline investigations into online sex predators.

Greenville, Ohio

The fourth investigation aired in two one-hour-long parts during April and May 2006 as the first half of a month-long series of To Catch a Predator specials. The operation was based in Greenville, Ohio and resulted in the arrests of 18 men in three days. The small-town location of the undercover house meant that potential predators from the larger surrounding cities of Indianapolis, Columbus, and Cincinnati had to drive upwards of an hour and a half to reach the operation. Among the men caught was one who had been slated to start a prison sentence for a different charge of solicitation in four days.

Under Ohio law, for prosecutors to file the most serious charges, there must be a police officer involved in the chat or phone conversation, so three Perverted Justice members were temporarily deputized for the length of the operation.

Fort Myers, Florida

As with the Ohio investigation, the fifth investigation was aired in two one-hour-long parts in May 2006, forming the second half of the month-long series of To Catch a Predator specials. The operation was based in Fort Myers, Florida and saw 24 men arrested in three days. Among the more notable moments in the investigation was the arrest of a man who had brought along his five-year-old son to the house, and another man whose chat log discussed using a tub of Cool Whip and a cat in sexual acts, who stripped in the house before encountering Hansen.

Fortson, Georgia

In August 2006, Perverted Justice announced that the sheriff's department in Harris County, Georgia had arrested 20 men over four-and-a-half days in another sting operation. The investigation aired on Dateline NBC in two parts on September 13 and September 22, and showed a growing awareness of the television series among potential predators; Dateline itself was referenced by name several times. One man said that he had seen the show "about three times on TV already".

Shortly after the first half of this investigation aired, the Georgia Governor's office announced a new Child Safety Initiative which would triple the number of special agents in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation dedicated to catching Internet predators and double the number of forensic computer specialists dedicated to helping prosecute computer crimes.

Petaluma, California

From August 25 to August 27, Perverted Justice and Dateline worked with law enforcement in Petaluma, California to arrest 29 men in three days (one was later released due to lack of evidence). The resulting investigation aired on Dateline NBC on September 29 and October 6.

Petaluma was the hometown of kidnap and murder victim Polly Klaas, and was also a former home of John Mark Karr, who made a false confession to the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Also, the last segment of the Petaluma investigation focused in part on the Mark Foley scandal, which had broken just days before the investigation went to air. Indeed, several political cartoons published in the wake of the scandal explicitly referenced To Catch a Predator by name.

Partially due to its proximity to Silicon Valley, the investigation saw several computer engineers arrested, one of whom declared to the police that he was a well-respected man in society with a Ph.D. in computer engineering. Also among the more notable arrests was that of a medical doctor who was the vice-president of a major cancer research corporation and an active-duty Marine Corps sniper who, in his chat, said: "I carry a gun everywhere I go". Police intervened immediately before any confrontation with Hansen and found a shotgun in the sniper's truck.

Long Beach, California

In September 2006, Perverted Justice and Dateline once again worked with law enforcement in California, this time in Long Beach to arrest 38 men over three days. The Long Beach investigation featured a man who had previously been encountered in the Riverside operation nearly a year earlier. During this investigation, the presence of the Dateline sting operation in town was leaked online through a Craigslist internet posting. This investigation aired on January 30 2007 and February 6 2007.

Murphy, Texas

In November 2006, Perverted Justice announced that another To Catch a Predator sting had been conducted with law enforcement in Murphy, Texas. There were 25 men who arrived at the filming location over four days, with law enforcement investigating additional suspects. Most notably, these additional suspects, who conducted chats but did not arrive at the undercover house, included Rockwall County assistant district attorney Louis W. Conradt Jr., who shot and killed himself on November 5, 2006 at his home when police attempted to serve him with a search warrant.

This sting was also notable because it prompted protests from local residents, who opposed the fact that law enforcement officials were purposely attracting sexual predators to their neighborhood. Others countered that these predators were already in the area (or close by) and that this sting revealed them to be sex offenders. This investigation aired on February 13, 2007 and February 20, 2007.

On June 1, 2007, all 23 cases brought up against those arrested on this installment of the show were declined to be prosecuted by the Collin County prosecutor's office due to insufficient evidence. The cases were not expected to be considered again.

Flagler Beach, Florida

In December 2006, Perverted Justice worked with the police department in Flagler Beach, Florida to arrest 21 men over four days, and the sting was filmed again by Dateline. Among the men arrested was a sheriff's deputy from Alabama. This investigation aired on February 27, 2007 and March 6, 2007.

Ocean County, New Jersey

From March 28 to April 1, 2007, Perverted Justice worked with the Sheriffs Department in Ocean County, New Jersey to arrest 28 men who showed up at Dateline's undercover house. The arrests spanned a variety of Northeast states, including Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The investigation was covered by Dateline NBC for a future edition of To Catch a Predator to air sometime in July. Those arrested included a school bus driver and a firefighter.

See also

• Perverted-Justice.com
• Online predator
• Sexual predator

External links

• To Catch a Predator, official series website