Source: www.wesh.com 6/29/22 FORT PIERCE, Fla. —A Florida teen is being credited with putting a child predator behind bars. According to WPBF, back in January, 38-year-old Zachary ___ of Jensen Beach started talking to who he believed was a 14-year-old girl named “Shayla” on the internet. “Shayla” was actually a 16-year-old boy who was trying to find predators in his area. “Here you have a 16-year-old boy wanting to take the matter into his own hands and find these child predators in his area, and he found one,” Callahan Walsh,…
Read MoreTag: Entrapment
DOJ report: Agents used photos of FBI employees to lure sex offenders
Source: upi.com 8/2/21 FBI agents have used photos of young female support staff employees posing as children or sex workers to lure sexual predators on social media websites, Department of Justice inspectors say. A report by the department’s Office of the Inspector General submitted late last week found that one agent used photos of FBI support employees who were not certified as undercover agents without getting consent from their superiors. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz reported that the agent “said he was ‘fishing’ on social media sites but not recording…
Read MoreFL: Civilian sex stings aim at ‘street justice’
[yoursun.com – 6/1/21] For about as long as there have been children, … … Now some civilian groups are taking matters into their own hands. Sarasota resident Lee Bassett runs a Facebook page called Southwest Florida Exposures. … That was the first of Bassett’s online stings that resulted in an arrest. Law enforcement disapproves Despite Bassett contributing to the arrest of Allen, law enforcement generally discourages undercover civilian operations. Officers say it can detract from real justice with real consequences. … Because of a lack of legal consequences, the civilian…
Read MoreWA: Lawsuit: State operation to catch sex offenders entrapped innocent men to boost arrest numbers
[spokesman.com – 5/2/21] Quentin Parker believes the sting operation that identified him as a “dangerous child predator” in 2019 failed its mission. Though charges against him were ultimately dropped, he claims in his recent lawsuit against Washington State Patrol that dishonest detectives manipulated him and “forever tainted and destroyed” his life for their own financial gain. According to the suit filed in Thurston County Superior Court this February, detectives funded by a nonprofit now under criminal investigation pretended to be women and girls on social media to entrap men, boost…
Read MoreUK: Woman’s cruel ‘Fred West’ prank saw ex-partner hounded by paedophile hunters ‘to teach him a lesson’
[hulldailymail.co.uk – 1/11/21] Amy Gray was angry that her ex had left her for another woman so pretended to meet a 14-year-old for sex A Hull woman hacked into her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook account, arranged to meet a 14-year-old for sex and then alerted a paedophile vigilante group in a bizarre revenge plot. Amy Gray, 37, of Great Thornton Street, said she was angry that her ex had left her for another woman and in November 2018 decided to teach him a lesson. Gray – who had helped the man set…
Read MoreConvicted of Sex Crimes, but With No Victims
[nytimes.com – 8/26/20] Jace Hambrick worked as an apprentice laborer during the week, renovating homes around Vancouver, Wash., and at a neighborhood gas station on weekends. Much of the rest of his life was online. He was hard-core, amassing a collection of more than 200 games. People told him it wasn’t smart to be so cut off from reality, but his internet life felt rich. As a dungeon master in Dungeons & Dragons, he controlled other players’ destinies. As a video warrior, he was known online by his nom de…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: App. Goes to Disturbing Lengths to Catch Predators
Good Morning America has run two recent segments on a parental control phone monitoring app. called Bark. For a fee, the tech company advertises that it’s app. can monitor your children’s social media online activities for signs of potentially dangerous situations such as cyber-bullying, adult content, sexual predators, drug use, depression, suicidal ideation, threats of violence and other assorted issues. Understandably, the online world can be a dangerous place, so some parents might choose to monitor their children’s computer activities by paying a tech company to act as “big brother”,…
Read MoreFL: Florida Cops Went to Absurd Lengths to Entrap Man Who Showed No Interest in Underage Sex
[reason.com – 10/21/19] How do you catch a predator in Sarasota, Florida? You create one. The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) is going to “outrageous lengths” to make law-abiding lonely guys into sex offenders. That’s according to Noah Pransky, a fearless journalist who has been covering Florida’s addiction to entrapment for years. In September, SCSO arrested 23 men for allegedly soliciting underage girls for sex. Pransky’s most recent piece in Florida Politics chronicles the elaborate back and forth between one of those men and a police officer pretending to be a…
Read MoreCA: California Men Sue Over Gay Sex Stings
[Florida Action Committee] Five California Men are Suing the City of San Jose after being arrested in a “gay sex sting.” The charges against them were eventually dismissed, but undoubtedly much damage was done regardless. The men claim their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when they were arrested for “loitering” during a 17-month operation conducted beginning 2014 at a park known to be a meeting place for Gay and Bisexuals. In total, during the 17 months, only 19 men were arrested. Six fought the charges and ultimately got…
Read MoreFL: Man arrested in child sex sting sues Orange County Sheriff Office
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A man arrested in a child sex sting is suing the Orange County Sheriff’s Office on claims of entrapment. ____ ____’s attorney said deputies tried to entrap his client, who he said never had any intentions of meeting a 14-year-old girl. Full Article Related http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-11-01/news/os-sex-sting-child-predators-arrests-20111101_1_youth-pastor-disney-worker-disney-employee
Read MoreChris Hansen Is Back To Catching Predators
In mid-August, the police department in Fairfield, Connecticut, received a most unusual phone call. It was from Chris Hansen, former host of the infamous NBC reality series To Catch A Predator, which filmed the arrests of men caught soliciting sex from underage decoys online. Hansen informed the department that he was setting up a sex sting in Fairfield that would mirror the operations he became famous for a decade ago, with one key difference: This time, he was going at it without the backing of a major—or any—television network. It…
Read MoreChris Hansen using crowd funding to get back to catching predators
Chris Hansen is going back into the predator-catching business, but this time he’s asking his fans to help him. The veteran network news correspondent, known for the “Dateline NBC” investigative series “To Catch a Predator,” is turning to crowd funding to support a new hidden-camera operation to capture men who use the Internet to find underage sex partners. The results will become the basis for a new series, “Hansen vs. Predator.” Full Article
Read MoreHow I Became a Monster
Hello. I’m a monster. Not just any kind of monster. Vampires and werewolves get to star in movies. They’re monsters, but they can also be heroes. I’m the worst kind of monster. I’m a sex offender. And the worst kind of sex offender. I’m a pedophile. Don’t worry. I’m locked up. I’ve been in a federal penitentiary for almost two years and I’ll be here for at least another seven. No time off for good behavior. Not for monsters like me. When I get out, I’ll be on lifetime probation.…
Read MoreFL: To Entrap an Innocent
Florida police use sex-crime laws to bait men with no apparent interest in underage trysts. After a year-long investigation, WTSP, a CBS affiliate in Tampa Bay, Florida, has uncovered an alarming pattern of police trying to entrap innocent adults in sex crimes. The stings follow the basic pattern familiar to anyone who has seen To Catch a Predator, except “many of the men whose mugshots have been paraded out by local sheriffs in made-for-TV press conferences were not seeking to meet children online. Instead, they were minding their own business,…
Read MoreFL: Air Force aiding Florida police in sex stings
CLEARWATER, Fla. – Not only have Central Florida law enforcement officers violated federal rules in conducting “To Catch a Predator”-inspired sex stings, but WTSP in Tampa has learned they may also violate longstanding federal law that prohibits the use of military resources to enforce state laws. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Officers accused of bending rules on sex sting arrests
BARTOW, Fla. — In the decade since Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator segments popularized Internet sex stings, more than 1,200 men in Florida have been arrested, accused of preying on underage teens and children for sex. But as the stings put more and more men behind bars, detectives are working harder and harder to keep up their arrest numbers. And the tactics they’re using to put alleged sexual offenders in jail are sweeping up large numbers of law-abiding men, too. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Officers bend rules to boost sex sting arrest totals
POLK COUNTY, Florida – In the decade since Chris Hansen and “To Catch a Predator” popularized Internet sex stings, more than 1,200 men in Florida alone have been arrested, accused of preying on underage teens and children for sex. But as the stings put more and more men behind bars, detectives are working harder and harder to keep up their arrest numbers. And the tactics they’re using to put alleged sexual offenders in jail are sweeping up large numbers of law-abiding men, too. Full Article
Read MoreFL: How Many Convictions Are Questionable in Light of Sting Exposure
Imagine someone offers you a cigarette, you accept and about halfway through smoking it they tell you the cigarette contains marijuana and they are arresting you for possession. The cigarette never actually contained marijuana and you never sought out drugs, but you get arrested anyhow. That’s how many who were arrested in sex offender stings feel. Last Friday, Tampa’s CBS affiliate, WTSP, had the courage to report on something that victims had been screaming about for years; Sex Offender stings. Only in this case it’s not an abused child who…
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