'To Catch a Predator' III

Chris Hansen Correspondent • Profile

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - A month ago, Dateline launched its third investigation into a growing national epidemic—grown men trolling the Internet, many looking for sex with children. This time, to expose them, we set up multiple hidden cameras in a house in Southern California.

A decoy coaxes the men in, but instead of finding a 12- or 13-year-old home alone, the men looking for sex will meet me.

Here’s an example of the kind of confrontation we’re in for: A 37-year-old, Kurt Lemke, a truck driver, calls himself “haloballfan” online. He thinks he’s here to meet a 13-year-old boy named Dave, but we really send him a decoy photo. During his chat, he makes plans to give the boy oral sex.

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent (hidden camera footage): What are you doing here?

Kurt Lemke: Just hanging out.

Hansen: Hanging out?

Lemke: Who are you?

Hansen: Who are you here to meet?

Lemke: I don’t know.

Hansen: Well why did you come here?

Lemke: I think I was, ah, misled.

Hansen: Misled ? Misled into what?

Lemke: Not sure who you are.

Hansen: I have the log of your conversation with somebody who identified themselves as a 13-year-old boy named Dave.

Lemke: Okay.

Hansen: Does that sound familiar?

Lemke: Possibly.

And that’s about all he’ll say, so I tell him who I am: 

Hansen: We’re doing a story...

And he runs out and doesn’t want to hear anymore.

Lemke: Hell no.

But unlike our previous hidden camera operations, where after leaving the house some men were able to make a run for it, this time things will be different. This time law enforcement will be waiting.

It was almost two years ago when Dateline conducted its first investigation into online predators. A year later, we did it again. In two different investigations, in two different states, dozens of men showed up at our undercover houses after chatting about sex online and then making a date with a minor.

One man who sent obscene video of himself to someone posing as a 13-year-old was a New York City firefighter whom we then confronted. Another man was a rabbi. He was not happy when he found out he would be exposed on national television.

Both of our investigations were watched by millions of people. It was the talk of radio and cable television shows for weeks. So have sexual predators learned any lesson at all? 

Apparently not, as you’ll witness firsthand in our latest investigation.

As we have in the past, we enlisted the help of volunteers from Perverted-Justice, a watchdog group that regularly catches online predators by posing as kids online. But this time Perverted-Justice volunteers wanted to get law enforcement involved, so before our investigation began, they contacted the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

Sgt. Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department: We were approached by Perverted-Justice to do this large sting and they told us that “Dateline” would be following along. We jumped at the chance.

Sgt. Chad Bianco and a Perverted-Justice volunteer screenname “Frag” devised a plan.

Sgt. Bianco: We were in telephone contact and two-way radio contact with Perverted-Justice and they would let us know when someone was getting close.      

The sergeant and his men, staked out in a mobile home parked in the driveway next door, are ready and waiting for suspects to show up at the house in an attempt to molest a child.

The detectives will watch as men enter our house and then wait for Frag’s signal. The cuffs will go on potential predators because Perverted-Justice has already turned over important evidence to detectives—chat logs filled with sexually graphic material, men planning sex acts with a 12 or 13-year-old.

Sending those messages alone may only be a misdemeanor in California. But if the men show up at the house, there’s no mistaking their intent to have sex with someone under the age of 14— and that’s a felony says Deputy District Attorney Michelle Paradise.

Deputy District Attorney Michelle Paradise: Not just the fantasy, because that’s what’s happening on the Internet.  They’re having their fantasies.  They’re satisfying their urges for foreplay or whatever.  They actually have to get them to follow through and show that there is an intent and make some proactive effort to meet that child.

Since almost 20 men showed up each time during our first two investigations, we’re prepared for a big turn out, but it’s hard to predict.

How many men will take the giant step and go from the chat room to our living room? We’re set up in a house in southern California ready and waiting for the knock on the door.

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