Internet Predator News Stories Archive - Chat nightmares that have made it to the news headlines from 2007

Man Accused of Recruiting Girls for Child Porn on MySpace - A 48-year-old man is accused of using a popular Internet site to meet and encourage teenage girls to participate in child pornography.
Published reports say David Evans posed as a 20-year-old on his MySpace page.
Cheektowaga police and the FBI have linked Evans to six teenage girls so far, and believe ten others have been victimized. Read More>>

Internet linked to assault charges: Former Port City man arrested - A former resident was arrested Friday for allegedly using the popular website MySpace to lure an underage girl into having sex with him on three separate occasions, according to police.
The charges allege Smith used a computer while he was living in Portsmouth to communicate with and solicit sex from the minor. Two of the sexual assault charges are believed to have occurred in Epping, the third in Portsmouth. Read More>>

Ex-district secretary guilty of soliciting 2 students - A former Jim Thorpe Area School District secretary faces decades in prison and lifetime registration with authorities after admitting Thursday in Carbon County Court that he solicited sex from two 14-year-old girls who were students at the school where he worked.
Remmel admitted he solicited the girls through MySpace.com, a popular social networking Web site. Read More>>

Pervert jailed for preying on young girls - A SEX menace who used the internet to prey on teenage girls was behind bars last night.
Robin David Blewett was finally caught after he lured a 16-year-old girl, from York , into his home.
An inquiry found a further four teenage victims and catalogue of more than two million pornographic photographs and child abuse images on computers and discs in his home.
The inquiry also revealed he had used the internet to compile a database of more than 500 named teenage girls.
After Blewett was sentenced, Detective Chief Inspector Neil Thewsey described him as a systematic and predatory sex offender, who posed a very serious risk to teenage girls throughout the country.
He urged parents to keep a watchful eye on their children's internet usage, adding: "It is extremely disturbing to think that the girls involved in the investigation were approached by this perverted man while sat in their own homes. Read More>>

Detectives: Man met Lakeland teen through MySpace and sexually battered her - A Fort Lauderdale man is under arrest after investigators he performed sexual acts on a 14 year old Lakeland teenager he met through MySpace.
Detectives say 39-year-old Richard Gagnon Jr came to Lakeland on multiple occasions to after talking with the teen through MySpace, instant messaging and via cell phone. Read More>>

MySpace Leads Channel 4 To Some Teens' Homes - Parents Urged To Check Kids' Web Pages
From teens running away, to sexual predators on the prowl, most people have heard of some of the dangers that have been linked to popular networking Web site MySpace.
While some youngsters might think they're not posting much personal information, Channel 4 reporter Laura Mazzeo learned a startling reality -- it doesn't take much to learn who is behind the profile and where to find that person.
Mazzeo spent just a few hours looking at Web pages open to anyone on MySpace. She reported all she needed was a full name and a hometown to find some local teens. Read More>>

MySpace and Skype have just announced a new instant message service called MySpaceIM. This new instant messenger client will allow MySpace users to talk directly with other users. If these internet predators can successfully groom your children using just a keyboard, think of what they will be able to accomplish with direct voice communication. MySpaceIM with Skype will enable millions of users to place free internet Skype calls to other MySpace or Skype users.

The joining of MySpace and Skype will allow Internet predators to talk to your children for free. The service will use the same privacy settings that the MySpace account uses, meaning the user has a choice to talk to the person or not.

They have that choice with regular MySpace chat too. If you read the news, you would know that the privacy choice does not work very well because kids constantly are groomed through the MySpace service.

Hopefully we won’t see a news story posted here involving MySpaceIM but I have a really bad feeling about this one.

Military police major in custody for raping minor - A military police major was placed under custody yesterday, awaiting a court martial for raping a minor he had befriended through an Internet chat room.
A Military Police Command spokesman said Chen Chien-wei, 31, is now under detention on charges of sexually molesting an unidentified 12-year-old girl. Read More>>

Chatroom Teacher Had Sex With Boy, 14 - A PERVERT teacher had sex with a boy of 14 after meeting him in an internet chatroom.
James Moyes, 32, bedded the teenager, who can't be named for legal reasons, after an afternoon at the cinema.
The teenager and Moyes exchanged emails before meeting up on July 14. The youngster left home in the morning with a change of clothing, saying he was off to meet a friend.
His mother reported him missing the next day when he failed to return home. Read More>>

Costa Mesa Man Allegedly Had Sex With Boy, 15 - A 46-year-old Costa Mesa man was being held without bail Friday night for allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old Fullerton boy he met in an Internet chat room.
The teen later told authorities he had had sex with Gardner at the man's home on previous occasions.
Investigators said the two met through an Internet chat room in August and have been writing each other since. Read More>>

Woodridge mayor's son gets 30-day term for solicitation of child - William F. Murphy, 33, a Schaumburg lawyer, was sentenced Monday to 30 days in the DuPage County Jail after pleading guilty to one count of indecent solicitation of a child, a Class 3 felony, according to DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett. He traveled to Winfield in an attempt to have sex with a minor he met through an Internet chat room,
“William Murphy attempted to make a victim out of a minor he met through an Internet chat room. Through online conversations, he gained his victim’s trust and after doing so William Murphy made the drive from Schaumburg to Winfield to have sex with his victim. Read More>>

Kids, parents told scary examples of online threats - In as little as 20 minutes, an online predator can target a teenage girl in an Internet chat room and, by mining information readily available online, learn her name, her parents' names, the name of her school, her hobbies and personal interests, her address and her phone number. Read More>>

Man admits sex with girl - Quentin Noel Tarry, 32, stood up in court yesterday and admitted he knowingly had sex with a 13-year-old girl and took photographs and video of their sexual activities.
Tarry was 30 when he met the 13-year-old victim on an Internet dating service site for adults Read More>>

City Man Faces Internet Sex Raps - A city man faces child-sex charges for allegedly luring a Vancouver teen over the Internet. Staff. Sgt. Howard Kunce, an officer involved in the case, said "In this case, they weren't in person," he said, adding that while he couldn't give many details on the allegations, a person can commit the offence of invitation to sexual touching over the Internet without meeting the child.
He noted the case is just one more reminder to parents to monitor what their kids are doing online. "Parents have to question the need for a webcam in the household," he said. Read More>>

Former cop found guilty of child sex internet charge - A jury has taken just seven minutes to find a former Northern Territory police officer guilty of using the internet to try to lure a child into sexual activity.
It had heard that Lloyd Alexander Gedling, 40, used an internet chat room to try to arrange a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl. Read More>>

Sex chats with kids continue amid stings - In spite of massive publicity on television and in newspapers and magazines about these kinds of stings, there is no shortage of people, usually men, who fall for them. Broughton and Detective Pat Colasuonno have arrested dozens of men from all walks of life and every corner of the country, including a military man, business owners, college students and retirees.

But the real key to fighting Internet predators is to eliminate the victims, investigators say. That involves persuading parents to stop using computers as baby sitters and begin establishing rules and limits for their use, Broughton said.

"There's other things in life, and it doesn't need to be behind a keyboard, staring at a screen for many hours of the day," Broughton said. "Go outside. Read a book. Ride a bike."

Parents need to monitor online activity and keep computers in public areas where they can lean over from time to time and see what is happening on the screen.

It means carefully screening a child's MySpace profile and making sure it can be accessed only by invitation. Some parents insist on having veto power over "friends" on their child's MySpace account and many use computer programs to block certain content on computers available to their children, investigators said. Read More>>

Chatroom pervert faces High Court sentence - Steven Brodie, 29, from Edinburgh, had previously admitted having sex with the victim, as well as another girl aged 15.
The court hearing that Brodie had spent two nights sleeping with the 13-year-old in her bedroom in Caithness, unknown to her mother. He had groomed her through an internet chat room.
Brodie also met the 15-year-old girl in the Highlands through an internet chat room and had sex with her at a B&B in Inverness. Read More>>

Teen charged in sex chat with girl, 12 - An 18-year-old resident has been charged with engaging in sexually explicit conversations with a 12-year-old girl on the Internet. The 12-year-old girl also was a township resident, police said, and in one conversation, Trainor allegedly suggested the girl sneak out so they could meet. Read More>>

Man charged with using Internet to proposition girl - An Adams County man is charged with sexually propositioning and sending sexually graphic photos to a young girl on the Internet.
Mumaw was accused of using Internet chat rooms and an instant-messaging service to contact someone he thought was a young girl.
Mumaw asked the girl if she would engage in various sex acts with him and suggested she get a webcam to send nude images to him Read More>>

Hudson Teacher Arrested - An 18-year veteran of one northeast Ohio's most prestigious high school academy's, is accused of trying to lure a 12-year-old girl on the internet.
'He approached a 12-year-old girl, what he believed to be a 12-year-old girl in May of this year. Within one chat, he started talking sexually with that 12-year-old girl. That carried on from May until August." said Assistant Cuyahoga Co. Prosecutor Jennifer Driscoll.
'This is a prime example of a guy that needed to be stopped." said Driscoll, "A guy who is a teacher, who's around kids all day and so we moved on it very quickly." Read More>>

Mom catches teen daughter having sexual affair - This news story shows just how powerful a tool a computer monitoring program can be.
A mother in New Jersey caught an online predator in the act. She installed spyware on her computer and discovered her 14-year-old daughter was having a sexual relationship with a 42-year-old married man.
If you are a parent and you have children with access to the Internet, pay very close attention. Listen to one mother who discovered the unthinkable.
On the social network site NetLog.com, she says her 15-year old daughter chatted with a man with whom police claim not only met her in person, but had sex with her. Read More>>

Man faces felonies for sex with girl - A 36-year-old Helena man faces six felony charges for allegedly soliciting sex from a 13-year-old girl on the socializing Web site MySpace and then engaging in various sex acts with the girl on multiple occasions. Dietz “knowingly used electronic communication to persuade or counsel a child less than 16 years old to engage in sexual conduct,” which led to the charge of sexual abuse of children, court documents said. Read More>>

Elementary teacher admits child porn charge - An elementary school teacher admitted arranging to have sex with a 14-year-old boy. King, who lives in Hamburg south of Buffalo, was arrested February 1st at a suburban restaurant where he had arranged to meet the 14-year-old Internet acquaintance Read More>>

"PrideFest" Organizer Charged for Soliciting 14-Year Old Boy over the Internet - A homosexual event organizer has been charged with felony for sexually soliciting a 14-year old boy over the Internet. 42-year old David Bodoh contacted the Oconomowoc boy through an Internet chat room, and sent sexually explicit emails as well as nude photos of himself. He arranged to meet the boy at Brookfield Square Mall on July 12, promising to give him "the ride of his life". Read More>>

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Polygamist's son sent to jail for having sex with 13-year-old, pair met on Myspace - A judge sentenced the son of an imprisoned Utah polygamist to 180 days in jail Tuesday for having sex with a 13-year-old girl he met on the Internet site MySpace. Read More>>

Man Accused Of Luring Mass. Teen To Charlotte Over The Internet - Authorities say an Internet relationship between a man and a 15-year-old girl ended at a home in Charlotte over the weekend.
Police say Kareem Kirk, 34, lured the girl to a small duplex on East Seventh Street – hundreds of miles from her home in Springfield, Mass. They say he told the child he is Muslim and wanted to make her his second wife. Read More>>

Lured for sex in a cemetery - Daniel William Peckham, 22, fronted Parramatta Bail Court yesterday charged with grooming minors for sex online and transmitting child pornography. The girl ,aged just 13, later told police that Peckham had contacted her via a gothic chat room, inviting her to join his Rookwood Gothic Society.
He told her via his MySpace forum that the only way to become a member was if she either had sex with him or sent him nude pictures of her. Read More>>

Pervert off to the slammer - Convicted of having sex with 13-year-old boy - A 39-year-old pervert with a “disregard for humanity” was sent to the penitentiary today for having sex with a 13-year-old boy he met on an Internet chat line.
According to agreed facts, Hansma first met the teen victim on the Edmonton-based Nexopia web site in August 2005 and, while he said he was 35 despite being 38 at the time, he knew throughout that the boy was 13. Their online conversations culminated in a meeting at Westmount Shopping Centre they rented a room, they watched TV, talked and drank booze and then had sex. Read More>>

Police: Girl lured from chatroom - A Bergen County man has been charged with using the Internet to lure a 14-year-old Newton girl into several sexual encounters outside her home since April, detectives said. Police allege Florentino, a tech support employee for an unspecified company in Hackensack, picked the girl up in his 1995 Nissan Pathfinder "and then committed several acts of sexual assault and sexual contact upon the child victim."
Florentino is charged with sexual assault and electronic luring of a child, both second-degree crimes, third-degree endangering the welfare of a child and fourth-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact. Read More>>

Teenagers lured into meeting virtual strangers - One in five teenagers has met someone face-to-face whom they first encountered on the internet, according to research into the risks taken by young people online.
The study found that teenagers also freely hand out personal information to strangers. Details divulged include full name (30 per cent), address (12 per cent), mobile number (20 per cent) and where they go to school (46 per cent), while 9 per cent had posted family photos.
The study found that parents are often ignorant about what their children are up to, with only a fraction aware that they are befriending strangers. Read More>

Pedophiles in Internet ‘playgrounds’ targeted - Thousands of registered sex offenders are using MySpace.com, possibly to prey on young people, according to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.
in a letter sent to the social networking Web site on Monday, Corbett and attorneys general in seven other states said they are "gravely concerned that sexual predators are using MySpace to lure children into face-to-face encounters and other dangerous activities."
"There is no doubt social networking Web sites have become the electronic equivalent of the playground," Corbett spokesman Nils Frederiksen said. Read More>>

Arrest in luring girl, 11, over Net - Man allegedly had sex with Porterville child after meeting online - Authorities believe a Los Angeles college student used the Internet to seduce an 11-year-old Porterville girl for sex after meeting her in an online chat room. Court records show Breceda met the 11-year-old girl in January in an online chat room that uses video cameras so users can see each other.
Aaron Breceda, 21, is charged with eight criminal counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and one count of seducing a child. He faces a June preliminary hearing.
Douglass said online sexual predators are becoming more common because of the popularity of social networking sites and Internet chat rooms. Parents can help to keep their children safe, she said.
"The biggest thing that [parents] can do is to monitor what their children are doing on the Internet and know what their children are doing with friends," she said. Read More>>

Net luring nets year's jail time - He stood in his best suit looking toward the judge for mercy after he'd gone looking for sex with a 12-year-old girl.
Meek and mild-mannered, he'd been married for a decade and has a steady job.
He'd chatted online before, but had never gone to meet anyone he met there. But in October 2005, Dhandhukia began communicating with a "tarafungirl12." The next day, he drove from Mississauga to London to the Harvey's Restaurant Read More>

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Internet sex beast gets life - A COMPUTER geek from Waltham Abbey who had sex with a 14-year-old girl after grooming her over the internet was given a life sentence this week.
Robert Barwell, 31, of Roundhills, met the girl in an online chat room when she was just 13.
The victim logged into an internet chat room in November 2005 because she was bored. She made it clear she was 13 and female.
She became more and more dependent on the relationship she had with him and by Christmas they were exchanging 15 texts a day. Read More>>

Local Radio Personality Guilty Of Internet Luring - A Denver radio personality who was accused of internet luring and attempted internet sexual exploitation of a child pleaded guilty Monday.
Scott Eller Cortelyou, 53, was arrested in January at his home in Conifer after investigators said they learned he had engaged in sexually graphic online conversations in an Internet chat room with a 12-year-old girl. Read More>>

Man charged with luring, sexual assault - Victim, 13, met accused on the Internet
A 36-year-old Scarborough man faces several charges after a 13-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted after meeting someone with whom she had struck up an Internet friendship.
Through an online chat room, the teenager from Peterborough County began a relationship with a suspect about two months ago, OPP Const. James Searle alleged.
"They (predators) constantly talk to someone (a child) to gain their confidence. They pretend to be someone else. They learn their location, address," Searle said. "Technology allows them to hide behind the computer screen and they can do whatever they want. They can be whoever they want to be to live out their fantasies." Read More>>

Man arrested for soliciting underage girls for sex - A 43-year-old Granite Falls, Wash., man was in federal court Monday afternoon after his arrest Sunday when FBI agents alleged he tried to lure two young girls he met online into a sexual rendezvous.
Dolle used the yahoo.com screen name “gcletus73” in an Internet chat room when he began corresponding with a 14-year-old girl and her 14-year-old friend.
During the recent chat room exchange, gcletus73 tried to arrange for sex with two 14-year-old girls. He traveled to the Portland area Sunday for the rendezvous Read More>>

Man convicted of attempted child molestation - In an internet chat room, she said she was a 12-year-old girl whose mother had died, who was a virgin and who liked chocolate.
And she attached a photo of a very young looking girl in a “Hello Kitty” tee shirt.
He answered that he was a 19-year-old Placentia man who thought she was too young for him. But then he pressed her for sex.
Within 90 minutes of the first contact in an online chat room, Deep Aurora, an unemployed college student, was on his way to Laguna Beach for what he thought was a rendezvous with a pre-teen girl so that he could be the first man to have sex with her. Read More>>

DC Police Bust Cross-Country Internet Predator - Parents nationwide can sleep easier after DC Police make a big bust.
63-year-old Aubrey Lynn Shephard from Benton, Arkansas was arrested after driving all the way to DC expecting to have sex with two preteen girls.
Police say Shepherd posted a message in an internet chat room looking for "any parent out there willing to share their kid with a horny old man." Read More>>

Cop poses as girl online to nab alleged icky man - Parents, watch what your children are doing and whom they're in contact with online.
That's the message Barrett Township police want to get out after nabbing a Pennsburg man on charges of sexually soliciting a 14-year-old Tobyhanna girl online.
That girl turned out to be Officer Ryan Venneman using a fake MySpace Internet account Read More>>

Trooper busted - Sergeant accused of trying to solicit sex from underage girls - Hardoin, 45, who formerly served in Monroe as coordinator for a chapter of the Safe Kids program, was arrested by investigators from the Michigan Attorney General's Office. Moments later, the investigators executed a search warrant at the trooper's home and confiscated a personal computer and a webcam.
According to a news release from Attorney General Mike Cox, Hardoin allegedly used the screen name "raging_37" to engage in sexual conversation on the Internet with 13- and 14-year-old girls. He also allegedly urged them to watch him engaged in a sexually explicit act through the webcam. Read More>>

International Academy teacher charged with Internet sex crime - Krisniski, 47, was charged with four counts of using a computer to communicate with another to commit a crime/felony and one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Krisniski was arrested by officers of the Macomb Area Enforcement Team on March 9 when he was caught allegedly attempting to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old boy Read More>>

High School Teacher Charged With Using Internet to Entice Minor - A Peoria, Ill. woman
has been charged with using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity. Church allegedly attempted to solicit a minor for sexual activity on MySpace.com. Read More>>

Online predator gets 14 years in sex with girl, 11 - A federal judge in Connecticut sentenced a former Jersey City man to 14 years in prison yesterday for using the Internet to set up several rendezvous with an 11-year-old girl and then traveling to her home and molesting her, officials said. Szeto met the girl in 2005 through the Web site MySpace and chatted with her online and by phone for about two months Read more>>

A 28-year-old Brenham man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after he twice was caught by investigators using the Internet to solicit a minor for sex. John David Payne, 28, first was arrested in December 2005 when he drove from Brenham to Bastrop to meet with whom he believed would be a child. While free on bail, he was caught by authorities in Washington County for soliciting another minor, officials said. Read More>>

Move Over MySpace, Teens Turn To Video Chat Site - It's live, it's lewd, and it's the latest online craze with kids. But this website is a serious desktop danger. Move over MySpace, meet the new nightmare parents will have to police.
It's called stickam.com. All your teen needs is a computer, a webcam and little bit of time. And you can invite every freak and pervert into your home, and not even know it. Read More>>

Teens' feeling of invincibility factor in posting nude photos - Most teenagers use Web sites to chat, instant message and disclose their most personal thoughts through blogs. But many do so without a second thought about who might see what they say.
Some don't even hesitate to send nude pictures of themselves over the Internet.
They believe they are bulletproof," said David Welsh, a Fort Worth psychologist.
"They're really technologically sophisticated, but they may be socially naive." Read More>>

Sex raps for T.O. man - A 24-year-old Toronto man was arrested in Ottawa early yesterday and charged with a string of sex offences after allegedly carrying on a three-month Internet relationship with a 13-year-old girl and meeting her in Ottawa.
"He came to Ottawa to meet her and they met up at a location. As a result, some activities (occurred)," Det. Rohan King of the Ottawa police's sexual assault and child abuse unit said of the accused man. Read More>>

Winston man's arrest linked to Internet chat - A Winston man has been arrested in connection to sex-related crimes involving a 15-year-old male he met on an Internet chat site, according to the Oregon State Police. Richard Steele, 38, is accused of third-degree sexual abuse and compelling prostitution and was arrested about a month ago Read More>>