'To Catch a Predator' III

During our latest investigation, it didn’t take long for Sgt. Chad Bianco to uncover the fact that some of the men who came in our door had violent criminal pasts.

Sgt. Bianco: They’re nice men or nice boys that appear on the Internet, but when they actually show up at your front door or in your living room, then you find out who really was on the other end of that internet connection.

The thought of one man meeting up with a real child is scary: He’s a registered sex offender and he’s making a bee-line for the decoy who says she’s a 13-year -old girl.

His name is Greg Karnos. Back in 1999, seven years before he walked into our house, he was convicted of attempting lewd acts with not one but seven children, 15 years old and younger.  Real children... not decoys. Officer Joe Meister investigated the case in a neighborhood near Losa Angeles

Officer Joe Meister: I contacted the victim, she told me she was walking to school, saw a man standing next to his car masturbating.

Meister discovered Karnos hanging out near the school where these sex crimes were reported and approached him. When questioned, Karnos admitted everything. And many of his victims were able to identify him.

Officer Meister: He said “Yes, it was me.” And I was shocked that he told me that. I asked him if he was around junior high schools—we had a 10-year-old victim. And he said no, “I don’t do it around 10-year-olds, I just do it around high school girls.”

Karnos was sentenced to a year and a half in prison and five years probation, apparently not enough to deter him from coming here.

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: How old are you?

Greg Karnos: 49 years old.

Hansen: You said you were 38. Here is this chat. What do you do for a living, Greg?

Karnos: I’m a manager.

Hansen: A manager of what?

Karnos: Telecommunications.

Hansen: Really...

Karnos: Can i see some ID please?

Hansen: You would like to see some of my ID?

Karnos: Yes, if you don’t mind.

Hansen: Really? So you’d like to know who I am?

Karnos: I can guess who you are, but yeah I would like to see...

Hansen: You came here to meet a 13-year-old girl?

Karnos: No.

Hansen: In your chat log...

Karnos: You know that’s all make believe, I don’t believe that for a second it was a 13-year-old.

Hansen: 13, female, Riverside. Do you like older guys?

Karnos: No.

Hansen: No, I’m reading from the chat log...

And off he goes, into the hands of the riverside county sheriff’s department.

And when it comes to his Miranda rights, he seems to know the drill.

Karnos (while being arrested): I would rather remain silent Cop: You would rather remain silent?  Very well sir, I understand. 

He may be silent now, but many prosecutors around the country including Riverside County’s Michelle Paradise are not afraid to say out loud that they don’t believe most sex predators—especially those addicted to the Internet can ever be reformed.

Hansen: Based upon your experience, if one of these guys serves three or four years and gets out, would it surprise you if he got right back on the Internet and started this activity again?

Michelle Paradise, Riverside County district attorney: It wouldn’t surprise me if he got right back on the Internet an hour after he got out.

Hansen: An hour...

Paradise: Yes. 

In fact, as we found out, see she may not be far off. But some experts think that doesn’t have to be that way.

Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic: What society’s really been unable to do is come to any kind of a clearer understanding of whether these men are bad. Or whether they are ill.

Dr. Berlin: I think some are bad and some are ill. And some may be a combination of both.

He’s been treating patients with sexual compulsions for the past 25 years. He says some of what we saw in our investigation is a result of 24 hour a day/7 day a week access to the Internet.

Dr. Berlin: There is a distortion of reality and fantasy to some extent. that people feel as though they’re playing a game and then ultimately and sadly sometimes cross a line that they might not otherwise have crossed.

That doesn’t mean Dr. Berlin believes these men shouldn’t be punished, but he says it must be combined with intense treatment and monitoring that in some cases might last a lifetime.

And he says there’s hope for many of the men arrested during our investigation. Doctor Berlin recently conducted a five-year study in which 600 sex offenders, many of whom targeted children, received intensive treatment. Less than 10 percent were arrested again for a sex crime.

Hansen: The natural reaction after seeing a story like this is to say “Lock these guys up. Throw away the key.”

Dr. Berlin: There’s nothing about prison alone that will erase those cravings or enhance their capacity to successfully resist acting upon them, so unless we have both a strong criminal justice component and a strong public health component in my judgment were doing society tremendous disservice.

Everyone can agree that the current system is not working. Sexual offenders are able to prey on kids again and again. Just ask this next woman you’re about to meet. When she was 9 years old, she was repeatedly molested in her bedroom.

And the man who was convicted of that crime is about to come knocking on our door.

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