Reflections on 'To Catch a Predator'

Viewers are always asking do I ever feel like I’m in danger... We’ve had guys who talk in their chats about how they never go anywhere without a gun. That makes me nervous.  

The police arrested a guy before he came into the house.  And in fact, we found out later that the guy had a shotgun in his car.  And we find out that he was a Marine sniper.

I think the most well-known, the most remembered person to surface in one of these investigations is Rabbi David Kay.

The rabbi has sent a couple pictures of himself naked, one of him engaging in oral sex with another man.  He sort of comes at me because he wants the picture.  He’s not even thinking that we could have a million copies of it already.

It’s at that point that Ron Knight our security man, steps in, and he leaves.  That was tense, but at the moment, I really didn’t think I was facing any great danger.

In Flagler Beach Florida, part of me thinks we dodged a bullet. This is one of those nights where everybody was pretty tired. So about 9:30 at night, we broke down.  And, of course about five minutes after we got back to the hotel, cell phones are going off.

So we scramble back into position.  And somewhere in this time period, we get an indication that he might be a police officer.

This means he might be carrying a weapon.  Which means it’s a better idea to have the police make a traffic stop.  And we can get the crews there very quickly afterwards.

So the police stop him.  And he identifies himself as a law enforcement officer.  They search him.  They find a .38 caliber pistol in his pocket.  In this car they find an assault riffle, a shotgun another handgun.  Hundreds of rounds of ammunition.  Bullet proof vests.  A still camera and a video camera among—assorted other items. I realized, at that moment, that I could have been standing there in this house, confronting a man who had a loaded gun in his pocket. I wonder what this guy would have done had there really been a young teenage girl home alone. What was he gonna do with the video camera, the still camera?

Who knows what would have happened to a young girl.  I wonder what would have happened had there been a confrontation. How does he react?  That’s why we try to take all the precautions we can. 

Now, he’s out on bail and has pleaded not guilty. His attorney says he always carries those weapons because he’s a police officer.

Frequent viewer question #2: Is it entrapment?
We’ve gotten hundreds of emails from viewers asking, "Is this entrapment?"

Ken Lynch: Okay. Entrapment is basically a defense when a normally law-abiding person is induced to commit a crime that they wouldn’t otherwise do because of police behavior.  In our situation, first of all, there was no police conduct.  So, there is no entrapment.

Mike Burns, Darke County Sheriff's department: How can it be entrapment when you set up a profile, you present it with illicit things about it, strictly innocent, and they contact you?  And they are the ones that begin talking about wanting to have sexual encounters with you.  They initiate it.  Because they get caught once they’ve initiated it is not an entrapment issue.

Del, Perverted-Justice: One of the questions that we get asked more than any other question is, “Why don’t you guys bust women?”  And it’s not for lack of (laughter) trying.  It’s not like we’re out there with just girls. We’ve got boys, we’ve got everything ,  but women just generally aren’t Internet predators.  In terms of just a woman of her own accord hitting on one of our kids, we just haven’t had it happen.

The closest we’ve ever come to catching a woman was in Georgia. She told a Perverted-Justice decoy she was going to come with her boyfriend for group sex - the woman chatted on the phone with the decoy named Erin.

Del: And we’re like, “oh there is a woman.” And she has this conversation.  And she was gonna come with Marvin. And Marvin ended up showing up for the girl. But, the woman Phyllis, didn’t come.  And the police, I believe, are actually still trying to figure out whether or not they’re going to arrest her or not. 

The man has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

I think we’re covering a continuing story. And this problem isn’t going away.  You know, we’ve done 10 investigations so far.  And I’ll bet you that we could walk into virtually any town in America and do it again.

When we catch somebody who has committed a sexual assault in the past, especially when you talk about the sexual assault of a child, to me, I think that’s satisfying to expose somebody like that.

In the one case in Ohio, Kevin Westerbeck, there was a frustrated detective chasing this case for a couple of years. He sexually assaulted a young female relative, who had sought his company in the middle of the night because she was afraid as a thunderstorm was coming.  And it wasn’t until Westerbeck surfaces in our investigation that he ultimately pleads guilty in this earlier case.

Thomas Bodner - some 20 years ago, it turns out, he sexually assaulted three children in one family. And here he is, in our hidden camera house, and he makes a run for it and the police arrest him.

And we tracked one of the victims down, who lived in Alaska.  And she tells a heartbreaking story about what happened to her and her two brothers. It turns out that after serving prison time in that case, he was caught again, Santa Barbara, California, charged with the sexual assault  goes back to prison.  And then here he is, out again, here to meet someone who he thought was a young teenage boy.

He’s pleaded not guilty is in jail waiting for his day in court

Rod Pacheco, Riverside County District Attorney: The Bodner case involves the possible sentence of 25 years to life, because it’s a three-strikes case.  We intend to seek that sentence.  What that means is, he will take his last breath in prison. 

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