Online sex predators: local youth at risk

By Mike Ford, The Delphos Herald
Published:  Monday, March 5, 2007 (1 year, 6 months ago)
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DELPHOS— “One young male was home-schooled and was on the internet with another ‘child’ who said he was also homeschooled and was the same age. They shared how they missed out on ball games and their friendship just grew and grew. Well, the other ‘young man’ wrote and said he had just gotten a car and wanted to come down to Lima and show it off. Well, the local kid worked part-time at a fast food place and the ‘friend’ said ‘oh, let me come down and give you a ride; we’ll just hang out.’ So the kid got off work early- never telling his family- and in comes this old man who says ‘are you so and so?’ He says ‘my son is very sick and he didn’t want to disappoint you, so I brought the car down to give you a ride.’ There never was a son, but here’s this naive, sheltered kid who thought he had a friend.”

This is the story of Putnam County Crime Victim Services Advocate Deb Wyant, who dealt with this case as a rape victim counselor in Allen County.

The news magazine Dateline NBC has cast a bright light on adults who use Internet chat rooms for just one immoral purpose: to have sex with an underage person. Similar “stings” have been conducted by the Delphos Police Department.

“We actually had a few cases when (former) Detective Goedde was here where some people came to our local parks to meet. The last one was a gentleman who came from the Dayton area. He approached our undercover officer online, who was posing as a 13-year-old girl. He struck up a conversation and from there, wanted to meet to have sex with her,” said Detective Dale Metzger.

Goedde declined participation in this story.

“He went into a chat room and didn’t solicit anybody; he just let the subjects approach him.

When we log in, we do not look for suspects. We log in and allow them to approach us; we do not approach anybody. We do not solicit anybody. Everything is initiated by the other person; nothing is initiated by us,” Metzger said.

Not only has DPD apprehended predators from outside Delphos, there have also been cases of Delphos men attempting to solicit sex with youth in other cities.

“We’ve had a few subjects come to the Delphos area from out of town. We haven’t had any local subjects, but I believe Findlay police did apprehend a local gentleman. We just had to serve a warrant on a gentleman from town, here, who solicited an undercover officer from down around the Dayton or Columbus area online. The girl’s parents found out and notified authorities, who took over the girl’s identity on the Internet,” he said.

Metzger says there are approximately 20 registered sex offenders living and/or working in Delphos at the present time. The state attorney general’s electronic sex offender registry may be accessed at www.esorn.ag.state.oh.us.

Metzger said local operations typically last a couple of months, as personnel build a case.

“You have to show that it wasn’t just one time of somebody playing around. There have been times we have used undercover officers — cadets, dispatchers and auxiliary officers who are female — to talk to them on the phone,” he said, noting that those occurrences have only taken place at the predator’s request.

Internet sex crimes occur for various reasons, however City Safety Service Director Greg Berquist, who has a background in law enforcement, says accessibility is partly to blame.

“The internet is becoming so pervasive that everyone has access and the speed of the internet makes it much easier for individuals to communicate. Sexual predators will find a way to work their way through the system. The big issue is that victims — in this case children — often leave the gate open. They are not conscious of the situations in which they’re trying to communicate,” he said.

Berquist also has some insight into how this type of seduction works.

“These individuals who prey on young people know the child’s faults and weaknesses. The word ‘predator’ definitely fits; they will stalk them, find their weaknesses and use the lingo that’s attractive to young people. In doing so, young people become comfortable. They feel safe and in many cases, young people believe themselves to be more mature than they actually are and more worldly than they actually are. In a lot of cases, they find out they are not,” he said.

Wyant has also seen these predatory tactics employed by online criminals.

“On the internet, you don’t know who’s on the other side. For an adolescent or any of us, you get into a chat room and the other person tells you they’re the same age or maybe a couple of years older and that they understand your problems. Any problem or conflict with parents- they understand. They support them and tell the child whatever they want to hear. By the time a meeting takes place, most of the time a kid has really built up a ‘relationship’ with this person and the kid is surprised when they meet them.

“I think a lot of children can’t afford the clothes the other kids have; they don’t get the grades other kids get or maybe they don’t look just the way everybody else looks and the internet is a huge opportunity for them to make a friend. It’s also a huge opportunity for a predator to get hold of these kids,” she said.

Wyant cautions that “popular” youth are not immune.

“The trouble is then, that a cheerleader might think she doesn’t have to worry about this, but if you’re a parent, you need to know what’s going on with that computer. Parents have to understand what a powerful instrument the internet is. They need to talk to their kids. Kids need to be told not to believe everything they read and really talk about it,” she said.

Wyant also notes that not all youth who fall prey to online predators are sheltered or homeschooled, but agrees with Berquist about typical teenage attitudes.

“It’s just that adolescent attitude of thinking they know everything and believing what comes across that screen,” she said.

As a former counselor with Allen County Crime Victims Services, Wyant is familiar with the accompanying judicial process.

“We have just started bringing online predators before judges several years ago and seeing some success. Allen County, I think, would have tons and tons of these going to court if they had more manpower. When I would talk to the officers in charge, they would say they would no more than log into a chat room and they would have tons of people hitting on them. They need manpower to do it, because it’s time-consuming.

“I would say almost all of them go unprosecuted. Unless you’re going to log on and catch them or have a family member report them, how would you even know it’s going on?” she asks.

While the predator Wyant mentioned in the beginning pretended to be younger than he was, Delphos police have encountered predators who are more upfront about their age.

“Most predators we’ve come across don’t even try to come across as younger; they will state their age directly,” he said.

Metzger agrees with Wyant that predators use friendship to manipulate youth over an extended period of time.

“What people need to understand about ‘Dateline’ is that those are condensed for the time frame of their show. They’re not showing the entire pre-log of conversations up to that point. A lot of times, predators don’t just jump right in and try to meet. They’ll lay groundwork, so they don’t scare the children away. It could last anywhere from a minute to however long it takes them,” he said.

Delphos police file all chat logs without editing and wait until the evidence is substantial enough for an arrest and the opportunity is provided by the predator.

“When we have enough, we will proceed or when they say ‘hey, let’s meet,’ then we’ll set up for them to meet us at any number of locations here in the Delphos area,” Metzger said.

Metzger and Berquist both indicate internet service providers are the place to look for the technical portion of online security at home.

Parental control software can be purchased at many discount department stores, according to Intermedia3 Technician Steven Bogan.

“It gives parents more control over what their kids can see. It can block both content and certain Web sites. It’s usually very picky about media because images and video are what pornographers use.

“Security related to chat rooms is more of a firewall issue. A firewall is a piece of software that you can think of as like a wall. It stops other programs from the internet from accessing your computer. In order for someone to access your computer, they have to find it. That may be easy or it may be hard but that’s where a firewall comes in. Hackers, predators even, if they’re very knowledgeable, can find ways through it but it’s not easy,” Bogan says.

Personal information is unlikely to be stolen just by a user accessing a chat room or using instant messaging. Bogan says the security issues are no different than that of normal internet surfing; spyware or third-party software that track the sites visited and cause “pop up” advertisements.

“Most of the information at risk relates to your computer and not to social security numbers, bank account numbers and things like that. Though, it does happen,” he said.

Look for part two of this series on internet security, relating to identity theft, in next Saturday’s Delphos Herald.

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