Another place to try is
http://www.perverted-justice.com/
PERVERTED JUSTICE PREVAILS
Vigilante group nets local sex offender
EDDIE SHOEBANG
Scouring the internet for underage children shouldn't be as easy as picking fruit at the grocery store. But it is. Anyone with an internet connection and a proficiency in chatroom slang has all the skills needed to net an unsuspecting child into a vile sexual romp.
Back in 2003, Dennis Isbart—a Charlestown-based 48-year-old civilian dispatcher for the BPD—thought he found a very special 14-year-old boy, and typed the following to him: “I am looking 2 suck and poss get topped … willing 2 pay $$ (125) … not looking for anything in return.”
But Isbart wasn't talking to some naive kid. He was talking to David Brainer, a 39-year-old Michigan man who volunteered at Perverted Justice, a 45-member group that monitors online chatrooms for sexual predators. After Brainer obtained Isbart's picture, Perverted Justice posted it on their website. Then someone from Charlestown took the photo, and re-posted it on a community forum. Someone recognized Isbart, and soon the Boston Police Department was notified.
Isbart was convicted last month, after pleading guilty to one count of child enticement, and was sentenced to two years’ probation. He's prohibited from having any internet access; he cannot make contact with anyone under the age of 16; and he must register as a sex offender.
When Brainer is in vigilante mode, he enters chatrooms as one of two characters: He either plays the cool kid at school who doesn't want anyone to know he's gay, or unattractive, friendless loner from a broken home. Not surprisingly, the loner is the more attractive one for predators.
“I've gotten quite a few teachers,” Brainer says. “These people want to go someplace to have access to children. It's very sad, but if you want to catch a fish, where are you gonna go?”
Though Brainer doesn't work the Boston area all that much anymore, it left a lasting impression: “Boston was a cesspool,” Brainer says. “I could score all day in Boston chatrooms.”
Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Kelly, who handled the Isbart case, claims that the number of online sexual predator cases has been decreasing over the past five years—mostly because parents and children have been more vigilant about keeping an eye out for the bad men.
“Public awareness of the threats of children, and people paying attention to news stories are all helping,” Kelly says. “Hopefully, this will lead to even more children speaking out.”
Perverted Justice’s approach to cleaning up the web—which includes publicly posting the would-be pervs’ chat logs, cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses and any photos on their site—is controversial in both law-enforcement and civil-libertarian circles. Critics also claim that the increased scrutiny actually makes for savvier, more elusive sex offenders—the way prolonged use of antibiotics can make for more resilient diseases.
“It's a pretty fiercely debated issue in law enforcement,” Kelly says. “A lot of groups have well intentions, but there are a lot of things that take place in a course of an investigation that can happen. I haven't heard of harassment firsthand; however, I can see that as one possible product of the way this is done.”
According to Perverted Justice creator Xavier Von Erck, harassing potential criminals was never the intention of the site, and that its only purpose is to aid law enforcement. Von Erck—a 20-something Portland, OR, native—launched the site in 2002 because the local fuzz didn’t have a cybercrime detective on staff at the time. Despite the red flags his operation might raise for civil libertarians, Von Erck claims he hasn't heard of a single act of violence committed against anyone posted on Perverted Justice.
“No
has ever broken the law,” he says, suggesting that “more people have committed violence due to rap music.”
The group’s rapid growth and national profile—they recently worked with Dateline to net 50 sex offenders—is a dream come true for Von Erck, who has no plans to step aside from Perverted Justice, not even to start a family.
“I won't have children,” he says. “Not if I'm doing this. I've heard enough of the stories, and there is no way I'm bringing kids into this society.”
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