UPDATE: - It appears that we wrote this article a little too soon. Once you read the full original article, continue to scroll for our update to it.

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Why we will always exist

Arrests and convictions, we have plenty. We obtain more, day by day, across the nation. We have now shown much law enforcement that when they partner with Perverted-Justice.com, results happen. Fifty one predators arrested in three days in Riverside County, California. Thirteen predators arrested in eleven hours in Laguna Beach, California. As of this writing (Mid-March 2006), 48 convictions in 25 different states. We know these statistics already, and they make us proud. They are a testament to the individual sacrifice and volunteerism of our growing "PeeJ Army."

Obviously we did not start out with convictions, arrests and accolades. We started out testing, re-testing, and working on building what we have become. Our goals back then were simple, to poison the well of internet chat-rooms. To make them fear being posted on our website, to make them think "Is this Perverted-Justice.com or a kid?" It was, at the time, a great principle. High-minded and idealistic, we enjoyed saying "At some point, there will be less of these people and we can fold the organization." Sounds good, doesn't it?

It will never, ever, happen.

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Saturday, January 7th, 2006: One of the twenty one individuals that arrive that night is a man named Eddie Chan. Going by the moniker stoned_party, Chan hit on what he thought was a 13 year old for sex. Arriving, he was arrested by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. Featured on our PeeJ Tour for Parents and Teens Chan is one creepy, disgusting pedophile. His arrest was one of many, however Chan would come to symbolize more than yet one more arrest on a record-breaking night.

Chan, booked by police, was then charged with a couple serious California felonies. Unfortunately, the law in California and the nation does not treat sexual solicitation of a minor as an offense that requires an abnormally high bail, nor do any state require such a criminal to remain in law enforcement hands until trial. Equally unfortunate is the system itself, damaged to allow multiple delays... meaning a predator like Chan can be out in the community nearly immediately after his arrest and depending on his attorney's tactics, possibly awaiting trial for years, not months. Potentially years without registered sex offender status, without any oversight. That's our criminal justice system, and there are no resources to keep up on these people as they await trial. Chan was able to make bail.

Friday, February 3rd, 2006: Dateline NBC airs our third joint production with them, entitled "To Catch a Predator 3." It documents and airs the three day operation. Dateline's special garners record viewership for the program, the highest rated Dateline program in over two years. Millions upon millions of parents are educated regarding this issue, millions of them learn about people like Eddie Chan.

Saturday, February 11th, 2006: Eddie Chan, exposed by Dateline NBC, arrested by Riverside County, and facing charges... logs onto the internet. That's right, the same Eddie Chan. You already know where this is going, unbelievably, Eddie Chan would make contact with one of our decoy's working the Laguna Beach law enforcement sting. Over the next seven days he would tell our decoy how much he wanted to have sex with her and how much he wanted to meet, despite his recent arrest and exposure.

Just how bad was his logs? Earth-shattering, to us. Not because he was over the top sexual, but because of the sheer audacity of his statements. A snippet follows:



Just a ten minute snippet from eight days of conversation. Another snippet shows just how much denial Chan is in regarding his own actions, this is from five days later where he's still struggling with the decision of whether to molest the second child or not.



He then on the eighteenth asks her for her address, but answers her query of "what are we going to do" in regards to kissing and such with "Let's have that come naturally." This is less than a month and a half after he got arrested for arranging to have sex with a minor online the first time. It's only a couple weeks after the airing of Dateline III, which documented the sting operation. Yet, there he is.

And he wasn't the only one.

Friday, January 6th, 2006: The opening night of our Riverside sting house saw someone who was already disheartening enough, previously posted but not arrested Southbayguy310 show up to have sex with what he thought was a thirteen year old girl. Killing the idea that "PeeJ makes predators more dangerous and aware!" with a blunt rock, Keith Williams would then taste the difference a year makes, as he was arrested upon leaving the bust house. Williams of course is the man who also saw the previous Dateline sting and saw the police arresting someone. Believing that it was a drug sting next door, Williams walked in to America's homes, the disturbing predator he is.

Williams, like Chan, is booked by police, was then charged with a couple serious California felonies. And like Chan, he makes bail and is a free man awaiting trial.

Friday, February 3rd, 2006: Dateline NBC airs our third joint production with them, entitled "To Catch a Predator 3." It documents and airs the three day operation. Dateline's special garners record viewership for the program, the highest rated Dateline program in over two years. Millions upon millions of parents are educated regarding this issue, millions of them watch Keith Williams walk into the house to be grilled by Chris Hansen. They hear the entire story and think "How could this guy still be in the rooms despite all this?"

Saturday, February 18th, 2006: You guessed it, we still hadn't seen the last of Keith williams. Popping up and hitting on yet another, the THIRD of our decoy profiles in less than a year, Williams wasted no time trying to arrange yet another meeting for sex with a decoy. A man who has seen other's arrested, been profiled to twelve million people and whom had already been posted once before... wanders right back into it again. Using his other screenname, mikeinthe310, he approached our decoy with the same stupid crap. This time though, he demands a number. After talking to our verifier, he then tries to disguise his age, claiming to be younger than what he actually is.

First he starts off closer to the truth...



Then he turns around and tries to be "crafty" by changing his age. First though, he lays down why he wishes he was fifteen years younger.



Later...



He comes back the next day, and magically? He's fifteen years younger.



After a spate of paranoia, he comes back the next day to try to continue his "ruse."



Keith Williams hit on us a little too late to show on February 19th, but his motivations and "game" were obvious. Remember, this is after being posted once, being arrested, being aired on national TV just two weeks prior... and there he is, out on bail, in the rooms again. Obviously, we've shared this information regarding Chan and Williams with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, both men were re-arrested and their bail increased. It just illustrates though, the fact that we will always exist. There will never be a shortage of predators. Even some of the predators we've already had arrested will be back out there again, continuing to keep our volunteers busy.

These two men illustrate the need for strong community notification, strong follow-up on their cases. They are great examples of the urgent need to make sure those in their communities know all about their activities online. Some of the men we've exposed and had arrested have had offline victims in the past... that's why it's terribly important that all predators, offline or online, are exposed to their communities. Many of these men are compulsive, they will be in the rooms no matter the actions taken against them. We believe politicians need to examine these sorts of cases and have evaluations done on internet predators before determining bail. Had we not been the decoys working Laguna Beach, these two men may have found real teenagers, all while waiting for trial regarding their solicitation of our decoy profiles.

In the meantime, we will continue to build our volunteer army and continue to keep this issue a hot-button topic in the media and in individual communities. It is an epidemic out there in the chat-rooms and social networking websites across the internet and as experience has shown us, it will be an epidemic until government gives everyone stronger tools to incarcerate and isolate these people from legitimate society.

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Update: One month later...
The story above is shocking, two men arrested who then turn around and keep at it... but wait, it gets worse. Since we wrote that article, another man from the Riverside sting has hit on another one of our profiles. That makes 3 of the 51 arrested who were awaiting trial... who have hit on us again.

Think that's bad?

In our recent Ohio sting that will air in May on NBC as part of our on-going "To Catch a Predator" series, a 47 year old man arrived to have sex with what he thought was a minor. That's not surprising, happens all the time... what shocked us however, is not two days before he arranged a plea bargain in a non-PeeJ case where he solicited what he thought was a child and was arrested by Ohio police. The same day that he accepted a plea agreement which was to net him eleven months in jail, he was online soliciting one of our profiles.

He would end up arriving two days later to be arrested again, for solicitation. Remember, just two days prior he pled guilty and was sentenced to eleven months in jail. He was given nearly a week between sentencing and jailing to take care of "personal affairs." However, the main affair he was concerned about was trying to find a real minor to have sex with before he went off to jail for nearly a year.

Just two more cases in the last month since we originally published this article. If these four examples don't frighten any parent reading this, then we really don't know what it will take to make people realize just how insidious and obsessive internet predators are. Be sure to catch "To Catch a Predator 4" in May to hear even more about this shocking case and to see Chris Hansen's confrontation of him.

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