CO- Fort Lupton police work to catch Internet lurers

8-23-2009 Colorado:

FORT LUPTON — When she gets onto a chat page on her computer, Detective Crystal Schwartz doesn't always know the men who begin communicating with her. But they believe she's a 14-year-old girl, and usually within a minute of logging on, Schwartz receives a sexual proposition.

She's actually 27 years old, with a master's degree in forensic psychology, but sometimes even she can't figure out why they do it.

Schwartz has now arrested seven men on charges of Internet sexual exploitation and luring of a child. It was more than a year ago when what was probably her biggest surprise came. In July, a man named ___ sent her a photo of himself after they'd been “talking” for two months. It showed ___ in his Colorado State Patrol uniform, standing next to his patrol car.

Two days later, Fort Lupton police — accompanied by several Colorado State Patrol troopers and Colorado Springs police officers — arrested ___ at his home.

Throughout the two months she talked with ___, he propositioned her numerous times, asking her about sex acts, about undressing him, about attending nude parties. And all the time, ___ thought she was a 14-year-old girl.

And, despite the publicity she's received by catching the suspects, the online propositions keep coming, the men continue to believe she's a naíve 14-year-old girl, and they continue to come after her.

When they ask for a photo of the imaginary 14-year-old, Schwartz sends a photo of a young-looking Fort Lupton police officer.

In some cases, the men have driven to Fort Lupton to meet with the “girl,” only to be arrested by Schwartz and other officers. Some cases take more than a year to develop. One took two hours.

A man in Idaho Springs met Schwartz's imaginary 14-year-old girl online, and he was on his way to Fort Lupton to meet her within two hours.

When he was arrested in Fort Lupton, he was driving a pickup with a bed in the back and a bag of marijuana for the “girl.”

Because of her training and experience, Schwartz knows she has to be careful when talking in the chat room with the suspects. “I can't initiate the sexual conversation,” she said, “because of entrapment problems. But I just play naive, and they keep asking questions.”

Even the meetings have to be set up by the men. If she was to lure a man into a trap, Schwartz knows she'd probably lose the case in court. So far, losing hasn't happened. Every case that's come to court so far has been pled out with a guilty plea from the men. She's only testified in one preliminary hearing.

Even with the arrests, the men seem to continue to be fooled by the 14-year-old persona. “It's a sickness,” said Fort Lupton Police Chief Ron Grannis. “I don't think they can stop themselves.”

Grannis is right, according to the professionals who treat people involved in the Internet sexual crimes.

Dr. Rick May is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado, and with his partner operates Treatment and Evaluation Services in Aurora. It's where people who are convicted of Internet sex crimes are sent for rehabilitation.

But they can't be cured. “They can be managed with treatment,” May said. “They need to recognize that they have a problem, and they will work on it.”

And even though there are dozens of police agencies across the state that have officers posing as young girls to catch the predators, they still log on.

“Anyone with a room-temperature IQ is aware they could be talking to a cop online,” May said. “But this shows how driven they are, and how they have denial that anything bad could happen to them.”

For Schwartz, Grannis and other officers working the cases in the chat rooms, they know it needs to be done, even if they can only work it an hour or two a day. “It's very satisfying to get these guys,” Schwartz said. “To know they might not contact another girl because we caught them. I wish they could get more jail time, though.”

Schwartz will continue to work the Internet as much as she can with her other detective duties. She has attended and taught Internet crime classes, and she learned how the predators “groom” a victim to get her to say the things they want or meet them somewhere.

“It's really good to get them after going through that,” Schwartz said.

She's married — her husband works for the Weld County Sheriff's Office — and she said he understands what she goes through to apprehend someone.

And, because she knows how important it is, she wants to continue trapping the predators for as long as she can. ..Source.. by Mike Peters