Potential predators in Petaluma

Chris Hansen Correspondent • Profile

Petaluma, Calif. - A girl appears to be home alone and looking for company. She keeps waving men into the garage... and they keep following her all the way to the backyard where she offers them a drink.

Anyone watching this scene repeat itself over and over might be wondering what’s going on.

The girl is an 18-year-old actress hired by Dateline.  She’s inviting suspected sex predators to sit at a bar in a backyard that is wired with hidden cameras.

Decoy: Where do you work?

Gopi:  I work in Apple.

Decoy: Oh, so you sell fruit?

Gopi: Sorry?

Decoy: You sell fruit?

Gopi: I’m a software engineer.

Decoy: Oh, software, oh, like the computer.  Oh.  (Laughter)

Gopi: Yep.  Yep.

She chats with the men making them feel more at ease and then I come out.

Chris Hansen, Dateline Correspondent (walks out):  So you had quite the commute today, huh?  Why don’t you have a seat over by the bar there.  How’s it going?  Please sit down.  Did you enjoy your drink?

It’s all part of Dateline’s latest investigation into online sex predators.  As in the past, men from all walks of life show up. A respected doctor and a carpenter who gave us the most revealing confession we’ve ever heard.

Hansen: Is there a part of you that really wishes there was this-- 13 year old girl here?

Jeff Couture: If there were really a 13 year old girl who looked like your friend there, then-- (laughs) then I don’t know.  (laughs)

We’ve hired the online watchdog group Perverted-Justice as consultants.  Its volunteers are experts at pretending to be kids online.  For this operation, the volunteers go into local California chat rooms posing as twelve and thirteen year olds and wait to be contacted by an adult.  If a chat turns sexual, the decoys will agree to meet in person and give the suspected predator the address to this undercover house.

It’s in Petaluma, California—an hour north of San Francisco, the town where John Mark Karr, the former suspect in the John Benet Ramsey murder was charged with five counts of possession of child pornography. And the hometown of Polly Klaas a 12-year-old abducted and murdered by a sex predator. 

Sergeant Matthew Stapleton, Petaluma Police Department: This is a beautiful community with wonderful people in it.  And  there isn’t anything about it  that caused that event to happen here.  The Polly Klaas tragedy is capable of happening in anywhere, USA.  

RELATED LINK A message from the Polly Klass Foundation When Polly was kidnapped, people from her hometown of Petaluma volunteered in the thousands. For two months they mailed posters, searched the woods and answered the hotline—until her body was found—saying loud and clear to the nation, "Not our child, not in this town, never again."

Sergeant Matthew Stapleton of the Petaluma Police Department says law enforcement here is acutely aware of the dangers posed by sex predators. That’s one of the reasons the department wanted to set up a sting.

Sgt. Stapleton: We wanted to make sure that people around us got the message crystal clear that we have resources dedicated to this.  And, we will continue to dedicate resources to this as much as we can.

And that’s why the Petaluma police reached out to Perverted-Justice. Sergeant Stapleton and his men worked out a plan with the online watchdog group. The police will be staked out in the house next door and Perverted-Justice will turn over chat logs and phone records of the suspects expected to show up. Once a man leaves, the police will make an arrest.

Usually we’re set up inside the house—often in the kitchen.  This time we’re in the backyard. To give you an idea of how this works, watch a man, 41 year-old Norberto Avalos. He’s here to meet a girl who told him she was thirteen.

Decoy: Yeah?  Well, come on back.  I made some frozen lemonade.

Norberto Avalos: Lemonade.

Decoy: Yeah.  So—sit down.

As he heads into our backyard, we are unaware that this man has a criminal history for armed robbery.

Avalos: This house is nice.

Deocy: Yeah. So sit down right there and pour me a drink.  I’m gonna get into my swimsuit.  So—maybe we can hang out in the hot tub.

Avalos: Okay, thanks.

Online, he calls himself “sebastian_for_u.” He tells the decoy he can make a girl walk on clouds if he makes love to her.  Then he asks about meeting her in person. “We will just talk right? Or do I have to take some condoms?”

The decoy says “Well, I dont wanna get pregnant.”  He says “Even if we don’t use one I won’t get you pregnant—I know how to do it- take it out on time.” The decoy tells him to bring them anyway. Online he also offers to bring her a webcam.

Decoy: Did you get me some presents? I’ll be out in just a minute.  I can check ‘em out. 

Hansen (walks out): So what’d you bring?

Avalos: Hey, how ya doin’?

Hansen: Good, how are you?

Avalos: Good.

Hansen: What all did you bring here?

Avalos: Oh, I brought a Web cam.

Hansen: Why did you get a web cam?

Avalos: Oh, for your daughter.

Hansen:  And why would you want to buy my daughter a Web cam?

Avalos: Just I mean to talk.

Hansen: Well, why would you have a web cam if you weren’t gonna—

Avalos: Well, just to see her face and so I can see her face.

Hansen: But you had no other plans about making her do anything sexual?

Avalos: Oh, no, not—I’m not like that.

Hansen: Now did you bring condoms with you?

Avalos: No.

Hansen: There’s none in your car?

Avalos: Well, there is—I always carry condoms in my car.

Hansen: You always carry condoms in your car.

Avalos: Yes, yes.  But I wouldn’t do that to a 13-year-old, believe me. 

Hansen: The problem is that your conversation makes it sound like you would do that with a 13-year-old.

Avalos: No, I wouldn’t. 

Hansen: (reading from chat) “Have you ever had an orgasm.  Well, if you were my girl, I will give you the best one in your life.”

Avalos: Yeah, but I wouldn’t do that to her. Until she gets 18.

Hansen: So, you’re gonna hang out—you’re gonna hang out here for five years until she turns 18?

Avalos: Maybe, yes.

The decoy clearly identified herself as a 13-year-old.

Hansen: There’s talk about condoms.  There’s talk about sex.  There’s talk about—giving her an orgasm?  I mean what conclusion am I supposed to draw from that?

Avalos: I just made a mistake.

This is the part where he finds out he’s going to be on national television.

Hansen: I am Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC.  And we’re doing a story on adults who try to meet teenagers on-line.  Now, if there’s anything else you wanna say—

Avalos: No.

Hansen: I’d like to hear it.  If not, you’re obviously free to walk out the door you came in.

Avalos: Well, I’m sorry.  And, you know, I wouldn’t do that. Seduce a kid—I mean a girl.

Hansen: Well, you’re seducing her online.

Avalos: I wouldn’t do that on, you know, in person, you know.  I regret  whatever I said on, you know, online.

Hansen: Well, you’re free to go.

Avalos: Thank you.

Hansen: And you can take your stuff with you.  And you better take the Web cam as well.

As "sebastian-for-u" picks up his presents and leaves the backyard, law enforcement moves into position and makes the arrest.

He’s quickly whisked away by officers and taken to this temporary booking station. After being photographed, he is questioned by police where he continues to deny that he was doing anything wrong.

Police officer: You think it’s even appropriate for a 41-year-old to cook dinner for a 13-year-old, when her parents aren’t around?

Avalos: No.

Police officer: You brought porno movies on your laptop—

Avalos: Yeah.  But I—but I’m—

Police officer:I mean, you know what would have happened if you guy were to start watching those porno movies—

Avalos: I know.

Police officer:You would have had sex with her.

Avalos: Yeah, probably.  Well, not—no—when I was coming—driving, I said, “No she’s only 13, how am I gonna let her watch porno movies."

Then the 41-year-old admits he’s been in trouble with the law before.

Avalos: We tried to rob a store.

Police officer: Who’s we?

Avalos: You know, me and one of my brothers.

Police officer:Did anyone get hurt?

Avalos: No.

Police officer:How’d you get caught?

Avalos: Sometimes you make really stupid mistakes.  I regret for that and now look, I’m regretting for this over here, you know.

Police officer:Did you have a gun when you tried to rob the store?

Norberto: Yes and it was my own gun.

Avalos is a felon- convicted of armed robbery. He says that was five years ago and his record’s been clean ever since.   He’s taken away and brought to the county jail where he’ll remain until he posts $30,000 bail. He is only the first in a long line of men who’ll be walking up our driveway.

And you’re about to meet another suspected predator who carries a gun— a marine corps sniper who says he takes a shotgun everywhere he goes.

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