Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, Jan. 19. I’m Justin Ray.
Warning: This story discusses child abuse.
An activist behind a YouTube channel based in California is catching people in the state who are trying to meet kids for lewd acts. His followers have hailed his work and praised him for keeping kids safe, while others in law enforcement and legal experts say he’s putting himself in danger and jeopardizing potential criminal cases.
The channel, called CC Unit, has 137,000 subscribers. It is led by a man who operates under the moniker “Ghost.” He tells The Times that he is a student in his early 20s based in San Diego. He’s in his last year of college.
Recently, the account reportedly led to the arrest of a man in Elk Grove.
Ghost said his team is made up of about five people who serve as decoys, perform phone calls and act as security for encounters. Some members are based in San Bernardino, Hawaii and Texas.
He explains that he finds people on online forums, messenger apps, dating apps, social media and other web mediums. Ghost said he and his team never make first contact. “Let’s say they get arrested,” he adds. “It’s better in court if they reached out first, because it doesn’t look like we enticed them or we instigated the conversation first.”
“Ghost” needs to get a job.
I ran into the live stream of this last week on YT and mentioned it in a post here.
He explains that he finds people on online forums, messenger apps, dating apps, social media and other web mediums. Ghost said he and his team never make first contact. “Let’s say they get arrested,” he adds. “It’s better in court if they reached out first, because it doesn’t look like we enticed them or we instigated the conversation first.”
Were these platforms for kids or adults? It would be necessary to review the pictures he uses to entice, review the chats and review any phone calls that should be recorded. Why take his word for it when he’s making money off it? Remember when “Perverted Justice” “lost” the hard drive and couldn’t produce that evidence in court? Chris Hansen even said the decoys acted like children eager for sex. What? I’m all for saving kids from real danger but my nephew met his wife on line when she was underage. Now they have two awesome kids.
CC Unit is one of several YouTube channels that conduct this kind of activity which if you follow up on their “cases” most of them don’t make it to court. They are a shoddy group of wannabe cops that don’t know the first thing of putting a case together thereby tainting any police investigation from securing a conviction of any sort.
At best they are public shamers that put these videos out for views and monetization from the public dumb enough to believe that they are making a difference…
This good sanitarian act sounds a bit crafty /shady in and of itself as if real internet stings aren’t bad enough. How precarious is this group. Getting set up in much of this registry ordeal is bad enough, than surprise I’m really 14 going on 15 in this cock-eyed one eyed jack ruse.One even has to enjoy this Soloman professors view that defends this groups
actions in some form. Even this ordeal that one can’t change but the young person can.
Seems these stings out in CA are a bit coated or tainted in and of themself. . Even this making a decision that are not really yours to make is in question. Excuse me or is CA understanding making a different is not setting up one to make a decision Guess its Cowboys wanting to be hustlers .. oops I mean …rustlers in this internet game con game to protect and abuse that is in many ways the abuse of the greedy operators in much of this byplay of truth and justice.
one day the will set up the wrong person. you have to be careful playing cop.
I don’t see how this can be legal. Can I go around town offering people good deals on fentanyl, and when I find a taker just call the police to give me a fake bag and they can meet me for the meet up bust, them post the entire thing on YT for likes and subscribers. If it isn’t illegal it is certainly unethical. But not too far from what the FBI did to me.
NBC tried this nationwide and ran into legal problems.
I got caught off a sting. I was going to meet an escort when I got to the hotel parking lot they dropped the age to a 17 year old I ended up getting arrested. I had a horrible lawyer and he told me everyone looses in these cases take a plea deal. I ended up taking a plea deal I went to jail and after jail I hired a real lawyer and he wrote this motion that showed the police lied on the police report and how they broke the law and entrapped me. I literally said no the sex 4 times but the cops wouldnt stop calling my phone. The judge agreed with me and my lawyer and she expunged my case and got me off the registry. That was 2 years ago and my life is still not the same. I was in 8 newspapers because chris hanson was apart of the sting. I cant move forward with life because everyone googles you so they see I was arrested in a sex sting. these stings are garbage I was on an adult site they said they were 28 the nude pics were of an adult they took 2 cell phones and my computer and they found nothing this bs sting made my life hell. Stings should be against the law. Its all just for headlines
I was also part of a To Catch a Predator/Perverted Justice sting. After returning home after arrest and bail, I did some investigating as well as viewing the court documents to find that Greg Brainer (Jay Alternative) of Milford MI, a openly gay man around 40 was the person responsible for the chats, while Alison Shea (Del Harvey) was the decoy. She supposedly is also gay. She eventually became Twitter’s Director of Trust & Security. Greg sought me out within a couple of days of my release, even though the group declared that they never made first contact. Lies. I would later realize that the intention was to nab me again, like they did with a mentally challenged individual. While I certainly understand what I did and understand that there are consequences, I have a lot of animosity towards this group to this day. I find people like this, on some moral high horse, but conduct themselves in such a crude, cruel, and repulsive manner, to be as bad as the people they believe they are trying to get off the street. It’s disgusting and quite frankly, I’m fine with any ill that comes their way.