They're still showing up

After Dateline confronts a potential sex offender here in rural Fortson, Georgia,  law enforcement working with the online watchdog group Perverted-Justice steps in.

Even the U.S. Marshalls and Secret Service are involved. Remember “scoobydooat101,” 23-year-old Denis Coulson.  He made plans to teach new sex tricks to a girl he was told was 15. 

After he’s arrested, he’s put in an unmarked car and taken to an EMS station where he’ll be questioned by law enforcement.

His car is searched, the police find directions to the house, along with condoms and marijuana.

Coulson is then brought to a room where he waits to be interrogated. That’s where he meets Harris County Sheriff Mike Jolley who finds out this isn’t Coulson’s first run-in with the law.

Coulson: I’ve had my get out of jail free card.

Sheriff: There is no get out of jail free card.

Coulson: Uh, but from my parents that’s what I’m saying.

Sheriff: You’ve already used it one time.

Coulson: I used the one and I’m done now, especially for this.  It’s over. (laughs) It’s over.

Sheriff: What have you  been picked up for?

Coulson: Ah, let’s just not talk about it.

Sheriff: We’re gonna find out about it.

Turns out “scoobydoo” has had several prior charges...

Sheriff Mike Jolley: He had four prior charges from theft to simple battery—simple assault.  Some of these are aggravated type crimes.

But he was never convicted.  Tonight he’ll have four more charges added to the list- enticing a child for indecent purposes, obscene internet contact, criminal attempted child molestation, and possession of marijuana. One charge was later dropped.

“Scoobydoo” is brought into the interrogation room.

Scoobydooat101: Oh my god, I just want to start crying but I can’t cry.

Investigators read Coulson his rights and start asking him questions.

Investigator Gary Lewis shows the 23-year-old a copy of the chat he had with the decoy playing a 15-year-old.

Coulson: Yeah, there’s a lot of explicit sh8T in there that I definitely shouldn’t have said.

Lewis: Yeah

Coulson: Let’s not read that.

Lewis: Yeah I saw that.

Coulson: Let’s not read it.        

Coulson:   I never should never have said any of that…

Lewis: Less than five minutes after you all were communicating she relayed to you that she was 15 years old.  I’m curious as to why you continued the conversation.

Coulson: Because I’m retarded.

Lewis: You’re retarded.

Coulson: Because I’m retarded.  Because I was bored as sh*t and I just—just looking for conversation and I was conversating.  I’m not, I’m not trying to clear it up.  I—I just—I—it’s wrong.  It’s wrong, it’s wrong.  It’s bad. 

Lewis: I mean why would you ask a 15-year-old girl—

Coulson: I think we need to stop.

Lewis: --if she’s still a virgin?

Coulson: I think we should go ahead and stop. 

“Scoobydoo” ends the interview pretty quickly.

But sheriff’s investigators like Tony Knotts and a secret service agent disguised because of her undercover work, have others to question....

Investigator Tony Knotts:  What we’ve got here, basically, you’ve been caught in a sting operation.  Of course that’s why you’re in handcuffs.

Christopher Cannon is the 32-year-old volunteer church director who mentioned several sexual positions he’d like to try with a girl posing as a 15-year-old. He’s the one who ran as soon as he saw me.... but that’s not what he tells investigators.

Christopher Cannon: It’s funny, when I saw this on “Dateline,” three months ago or whatever—

Knotts: You show up in the middle of it.

Cannon: Yes.  And I went, “That is so sick.” Why did I do this?

The investigator reminds him he’d been chatting online with the decoy for more than a week and many times the chat turned sexual.

Cannon: I mean just playing around with her, but my in—my intention wasn’t to do anything.  I wanted to reject it.

Knotts: Yeah.  But you drove 115 miles?

Cannon: I know I kept saying to myself, “Why am I coming out here?  Why are—what are you doing?  What are you doing?  Turn around, turn around.”  Trust me, I wanted to turn around. 

Knotts: Help me understand I’m kind of lost when you say that you didn’t want to come but you’re here.

Cannon: Oh, yeah.  I know—I know what you’re sayin’ it’s just part of me was like you know, “Zavior just turn around,” and part of me was like, “You know, this is the first weekend you have to yourself.  Just go out there you know, hang out a little bit.  Don’t do anything silly.”

Secret service agent:  Well, why would you even have a sexual conversation with a 15-year-old?

Cannon: I really tried to avoid her when I first met her.  Every time I would get online you know, she’d initiate the conversation.

Knotts: You’ve said you didn’t initiate the conversation, but actually you did. She never talked to you.  You said, “Hello, Natalie,” ‘cause you saw her in a chat room, “And how are you doing today?”  That was the first initiation on your part.

Cannon: Yeah. Yeah. I did initiate.  Yeah.  Just chatting.

Knotts: You asked her, if she’s horny now and then you asked her if she’s wet.  Now why would you care if a 15-year-old is wet?

Cannon: Stupidity, man.  I mean I don’t know why.  It was just—dumb.

Knotts: And you tell her you’ll be gentle, what are you referring to when you’re talking about being gentle?

Knotts: Just being with her, nothing sexually, touching or and all that-

Secret Service agent: Chris, please.

Knotts: Chris we don’t—we—we’ve been doing this too long.

Cannon: I can understand.  I understand you all go through—

Secret Service agent: I just saw you do the sign cross so I know you’re-- (SIGH) you’re—probably a religious man.

Cannon: I’m about to faint.  (chuckles)

Secret Service agent: And you would probably feel better if you—

Cannon: If it never happened.

Another man who probably wishes it never happened was someone who also ran from us, but did talk to police.

43-year-old Jim Klein? Online he made plans to lick a 15-year-old all over.  He admits to investigators he’s been married for 20 years and has three children ages 11, 13 and 15.

Investigator:  How would you feel if this was—

Jim Klein: I just—

Knotts: —your 15-year-old or your 11-year-old or your 13-year-old.  How would you feel?

Klein:   I’d feel awful.

Knotts: That’s it?  Just awful?

Klein: No.  I mean no.  I mean—

Knotts: I mean you were pretty much down here tonight 100 miles away from home to do what you were gonna do and damage this child’s mind for the rest of her life.  Sex may be sex to you but to this child, 15, she’s gotta live with this for the rest of her life. 

And Klein actually does admit he was planning on staying the night.

Klein: I was gonna leave tomorrow morning.

Police officer:    Where were you gonna stay at?

Klein: She said I could stay there.  She said the house went through—says it was a big house.

Investigator: Where were you gonna sleep at?  Did y’all discuss any of those options there?

Klein:   No.

Knotts: And you brought four movies and you arrived at 9:30 at night?

Klein: Yes.

Knotts: And you’d have stay up all night watching movies?

Klein: Yeah.  I mean she wanted to watch all four we woulda watched all four.

Knotts: Would you have done anything else if she wanted to do anything else?

Klein: Yeah it was talked about.

Klein says he had two glasses of wine before he started chatting online and it clouded his judgment.  But that doesn’t explain why he showed up the next day, apparently stone cold sober.

Klein: I was seriously considering not even coming down here and I was just saying you know I just don’t, I just don’t feel comfortable about this, I don’t feel good about this.  I just don’t think it’s a good idea.

This man also realizes it wasn’t a good idea.  He’s the religious 22-year-old who said he was conflicted about meeting a 14-year-old after a sexually graphic online chat.

Matthew Cogburn: I won’t say a mental struggle but—I’m still a virgin.  And I’ve been having trouble.

He tells investigators that this isn’t the first time he’s gone to visit someone he met online. In fact he says he met his last girlfriend on MySpace.

Cogburn:  We dated for 5 ½ months.  But it was nothing sexual.  And nothing, you know.  Just good clean relationship.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Cogburn: have met girls before.  But haven’t done anything. I couldn’t.  And just because of my spirituality.  And I didn’t—solely, deep down, I didn’t have any intentions of doing anything. I’ve been able to talk the way I’ve talked.  And this is my punishment.

And his punishment—like the other men caught in this investigation begins when they are taken to the county jail, where they are photographed, fingerprinted, and put behind bars awaiting a bond hearing. 

Most of the men have to wait 48 hours in jail until the judge will see them.

While most of the men say they would not have had sex with a minor, none have had a chance to make a plea, that should happen sometime this Fall.

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