"Last Friday through Sunday these men, ages 23 to 48, drove to a home in Louisville with one goal in mind -- to victimize an innocent child," said Attorney General Stumbo. "They thought they were going to molest a 13-year-old child and instead came face to face with law enforcement."
The sexual predators assumed they had been chatting online with the child for a day or two, or in some cases, several days or weeks. They actually had been chatting with a volunteer from watchdog group "Perverted Justice," which was assisting law enforcement in the undercover operation. Perverted Justice has done similar work with law enforcement agencies around the country.
The perpetrators described in detail in online messages the sexual acts they planned to commit with the "child." They arranged to meet the "child" at her home and when they arrived they were taken into custody by law enforcement. Several of the predators also sent explicit photos and showed indecent video of themselves to the person they thought was an underage female. Perverted Justice volunteers never initiated the online chats and never had any sexual conversation until initiated by the predator.
An example of the undercover online chat includes the following where it took only 13 minutes for the online predator to solicit sex from someone he thinks is a 12-year-old girl:
| 12:08a.m. | Predator: | hi, asl plz (age, sex, location please) |
| 12:08a.m. | "Child": | 12 f ky u? (12-year-old female from Kentucky, you?) |
| 12:09a.m. | Predator: | 27 m Louisville; pic or cam? (do you have a picture or a webcam?) |
| 12:10a.m. | "Child": | on my pro (on my online profile) |
| 12:10a.m. | Predator: | Ur cute |
| 12:10a.m. | "Child": | lol tyvm (laugh out loud; thank you very much) |
| 12:13a.m. | Predator: | What r u wearing? |
| 12:14a.m. | "Child": | lol t n jean (laugh out loud; t-shirt and jeans) |
| 12:15a.m. | Predator: | have any naughty ones (pictures)? |
| 12:15a.m. | "Child": | lol no |
| 12:20a.m. | Predator: | ever had sex? |
| 12:20a.m. | "Child": | no |
| 12:20a.m. | Predator: | you want to? |
| 12:20a.m. | "Child": | lol i dunno prolly someday (probably someday) |
| 12:21a.m. | Predator: | will u let me have sex with u? |
The Office of the Attorney General's aim is to get sexual predators off the streets, send a message to other predators that they are being watched and alert and inform parents, guardians and young people of the dangers lurking online.
"We hope to make children aware that the 'nice' older stranger they chat with sees them only as prey," said Stumbo. "He is ready and willing to leave them with emotional and possibly physical scars for life...or worse, kidnap or kill them. Working together, we must increase public awareness of this very real threat to our children. Online predators will use email, instant messages, bulletin boards and chat rooms to gain a child's confidence and arrange a meeting. Unfortunately, the ploy often works."
