What happened to potential predators?

Chris Hansen Correspondent • Profile

They came from all walks of life: blue collar, white collar, some with long rap sheets—others without even a traffic ticket.

They all had one thing in common—each carried on a sexually explicit chat online with someone who claimed to be a young teen.  And, each would be caught by Dateline.

In Virginia, we met a rabbi.  In California, a high school teacher. When we began our investigation nearly two years ago we had no idea how many men would be brazen enough to actually enter someone else’s home, where a minor was supposedly alone.  Yet it happened again and again.

And we certainly never expected to see naked guys, which we did not once, but twice.

Dateline touched a major nerve—exposing an epidemic of sexual predators in our country.  When we first started our investigation we were told by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that one in five children online has been approached by adults looking for sex. 

We knew there had been abductions and even murders committed by online predators so we understood how serious the issue could be.  But the question was how to go about reporting on this crime and exposing the men who might be inclined to commit it.

Enter a group called Perverted-Justice, a kind of online watchdog organization whose mission is to do what it believes law enforcement doesn’t always have the resources to do—make a full time job of going after internet predators.  And they do it by posing as kids online.

At any given moment, one of perverted justices’ 50 volunteers, some who say they were victims themselves of sexual abuse, troll Internet chat rooms usually through AOL and Yahoo, waiting to be approached by a predator.

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: Are these chat rooms really that creepy?

Frag, Perverted-Justice: Oh, they’re just loaded. I mean you half the time we have to close down windows. There’s so many guys hitting on us, that it’ll crash our machines.

While Perverted-Justice has no authority to arrest the potential predators it identifies, in the last year it has consistently worked with law enforcement in the criminal prosecution of those men.

They do it by providing transcripts of their online chats that can then be used as evidence in court.

But we wanted to take what Perverted-Justice does one step further—to see if these predators would actually leave the world of cyberspace and show up at a house where they were told a child was alone. 

For our first investigation, we rented a house in Long island, New York, in a middle class neighborhood.

We rigged the home with hidden cameras—inside and out.

Next, Perverted-Justice decoys all around the country began operating in chat rooms, identifying themselves as a child alone in the house, a child open to the idea of sex even with an adult.

Hansen: Now how explicit do you have to be to lure these guys in.

Frag: Well, we don’t really have to lure them. They’ll come to us.  We go into these chatrooms, I haven’t said a word to anybody I’m sitting in a room and the IMs start popping up and they start coming on.

And the parade began— one after the other, grown men made dates, and showed up at our undercover house.

Some talked... probably because they thought I was with law enforcement, although I never pretended to be a cop. But none had any idea our hidden cameras were going to expose them before a national audience.  When we told them. Most headed for the door.

But in the first investigation, none was more shocking than one man who never made it in the door—although he came awfully close. He’s a man in a position of trust: 24- year-old Ryan Hogan, screenname “ryan4686,” a New York City firefighter.

After spending hours engaged in a sexually explicit chat - sometimes from the firehouse, he makes a plan to come over to have sex with our fourteen year old.  Coincidentally, when he drives by, he sees a police car parked near the house and has a possible burst of conscience.

Del: “He went back to saying it was immoral illegal and everything else.”

Still, he goes home, gets comfortable again, and turns on his Web cam, exposes himself and masturbates, all while wearing his New York City firefighter sweatshirt.

And then unbelievably....he says he’s going to come by the house again. He never makes it.  So we go looking for him.  

Hansen: Hey Ryan, Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC.

Hansen: Is this appropriate behavior for a New York City firefighter?

Ryan Hogan: No sir it is not.

Hansen: For any adult to have this kind of a conversation.

Hogan: (overtalk)...for any adult no.

Hansen: With somebody says they are a fourteen year old girl home alone.

Hogan: No sir it is not.

Hansen:  Then what are you doing Ryan?

Hogan: I made a mistake at the time. I made the judgment call to correct that mistake.

Hansen: Is there anything else you want to say about this...

Hogan: Yeah, I think ah, people ought to use their heads, people should know better, um, I made a mistake.

Either way, what he did was a crime. And after our story aired, Ryan Hogan was terminated from the New York City Fire Department.  Last year, he pleaded guilty to using the internet to transmit obscene material to a person under 16.  He faces up to sixteen months in prison and must register as a sex offender. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

New York was our first investigation and in two and a half days - 18 men walked down this driveway to meet someone who said they were a 12, 13, or 14-year-old home alone.

The question was, how many more were men out there?  And where? 

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