A cyber twilight zone in Ft. Myers, Fla.

Chris Hansen Correspondent • Profile

FT. MYERS, FLA. - A 49-year-old man talks to a teenager he's never met before. He probably believes she’s the 15-year-old he’s been chatting online with for the last week and a half.

Actress, decoy (hidden camera footage): Hey, I just have to change my shirt real quick, but just come in and watch some TV. I’ll be right there.

Michael Wilusz: Okay.

What Michael Wilusz doesn’t know is she’s really a 19-year-old actress we hired to be a decoy. He walked into a Dateline hidden camera investigation.

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent (walking in): Come on in over here. Have a seat there.

Wilusz: Oh wow. (laughs, eating cookies).

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: Hungry? How does it taste?

Wilusz: Great. Wow, these are home-baked?

Hansen: Do you want time to finish your cookie?

Wilusz: Not really.

Hansen: So you’re good if I ask you a couple of questions?

Wilusz: Yeah.

It’s the latest in our continuing series of investigations into online sex predators. For the first time we’re in the south: Fort Myers, Florida. Hilton Daniels is Fort Myers chief of police. 

Hilton Daniels, Ft. Myers Florida police chier: I had a lot of parents call me and say, “Hey, I’ve caught my kids talking to someone over the Internet. I’ve had my kids slip out of the house and go meet someone, what do I do?”

While searching for a way to help parents and children in his community, Chief Daniels says he saw one of our previous broadcasts and had an idea.

Chief Daniels: We decided “Well, let’s get a hold of Perverted-Justice” and have them teach us how to do this operation.

Perverted-Justice is an online watchdog group Dateline has been working with during each of its computer predator investigations. Its members are experts at pretending to be kids online and on the phone.

Dateline hired Perverted-Justice members to do what they’ve been doing for the last four years: chat online with looking for minors hoping to meet the teens for sex. The members go into chat rooms and on social networking sites like MySpace and Teenspot using profiles of young teens. Sometimes the decoys act eager about having sex.

Since Perverted-Justice members want to see these predators arrested, they are more than willing to help out the Fort Myers police department. 

Chief Daniels: Perverted-Justice says, “Hey, not only will we teach you, we’ll come down and do it for you.”  So, the next thing I know, we’re setting up a sting operation.

Frag (his screen name) from Perverted-Justice worked out a plan with Chief Daniels’s officers. Once a potential predator makes a date online for sex with a minor, the chat logs will be sent to detectives and prosecutors who are staked out in the guest house behind our house.

Chief Daniels:  The state attorney’s office were reviewing the chat logs to make sure that this person had already violated state statute.

Under Florida law, it’s a crime for an adult to solicit sex with a minor online. 

Chief Daniels: Coming to the house was kind of like the icing on the cake.

For our latest investigation, we’ve come to a lovely home in an upscale neighborhood. There are five cameras outside, including one hidden in a palm tree. It covers the street from both sides, able to spot a potential predator’s car a block before he arrives.

As for the cameras inside the house, there are eight. From the moment a man walks in the door, his every move is caught on tape— although the man doesn’t know it yet.

Hansen (hidden camera footage):  What are you doing here today?

Wilusz: Is this some kind of set up or something?

Hansen: what do you mean?

Wilusz: I’m just on my way to the beach.

The man who liked the cookies
Michael Wilusz's screenname is “genericwhitemale.” He’s almost 50 years old and he’s been chatting online with a girl who calls herself Jolanda and who says she’s 15.  He lies to her about his age typing “I’m 30 you probably don’t want me around you... I’m cute though.  Built good.” 

Genericwhitemale (chat log): we’d have to keep us a secret because of the age diff

genericwhitemale: younger girls like you dont come along often...i’d want you again and again.

Then he sends an online picture of his penis to the girl who told him she was 15.

Hansen: And how did you meet her?

Wilusz: Online of course.

Hansen You act like I should know this.

Wilusz: Well yeah. I mean, it’s a common thing now.

Hansen: To meet young girls online?

Wilusz: Well, meet any women online.

Then I remind “genericwhitemale” that Jolanda told him she was 15.

Wilusz: What? No way?

Hansen: I have the transcript of your conversation with Jolanda.

Wilusz: You know what. I don’t want this cookie. I just want to get to the beach.

But “genericwhitemale” won’t be going to the beach today. As he heads out the back, he stumbles off the porch right into the arms of the Fort Myers police department.

The police quickly take him down to the ground. In Florida, where it’s relatively easy to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon, the officers aren’t taking any chances.

Chief Daniels: The best thing to do as quickly as possibly was to get this person on the ground with their hands behind them in handcuffs, where we could make sure that if they had a weapon of any kind, no one was going to be hurt in the area.

He’s taken away in an unmarked police vehicle and brought to a transfer station.  His car is searched, where there were some condoms found.

Wilusz was put into a marked police car and taken to jail. The next morning, he is brought before a judge, charged with attempted lewd or lascivious on a victim 12 years of age or up to 15 years of age in soliciting a child by computer.

After previous investigations in four different states, we’ve seen and heard some strange things.  But even we were surprised at what we found here in Florida.

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