DA refuses to prosecute ‘Catch a Predator’ cases

Source: Associated Press

MURPHY, Texas - A sting in which police teamed up with “Dateline NBC” to catch online pedophiles was supposed to send a flinty-eyed, Texas-style warning about this Dallas suburb: Don’t mess with Murphy.

Instead, it has turned into a fiasco.

One of the 25 men caught in the sting — a prosecutor from a neighboring county — committed suicide when police came to arrest him.
The Murphy city manager who approved the operation lost his job in the ensuing furor.

And the district attorney is refusing to prosecute any of the men, saying many of the cases were tainted by the involvement of amateurs.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19486893/

"Some other suspects contacted Perverted Justice decoys online but never showed up at the house.

Among them was Louis Conradt Jr., an assistant prosecutor from neighboring Kauffman County, who allegedly engaged in a sexually explicit online chat with an adult posing as a 13-year-old boy.

As police knocked at his door and a “Dateline” camera crew waited in the street, Conradt shot himself.

His sister, Patricia Conradt, told the City Council that police acted as “a judge, jury and executioner that was encouraged by an out-of-control reality show.”

an adult engages in sexually explicit online chats with an adult posing a thirteen year old....

Among them was Louis Conradt Jr., an assistant prosecutor from neighboring Kauffman County, who allegedly engaged in a sexually explicit online chat with an adult posing as a 13-year-old boy.

I was totally disgusted with the whole premise of the show the first and only time I saw it.

Fits perfectly with TV reality shows.

I seem to remember some tine ago that their cases were brought to court but were thrown out because the girls were not juveniles but adult police women. So in effect there was no pedophile crime committed. Anyone else remember this or am I having a senior moment?

Ah...the internet...where men are men, the women are men and the cutie your chatting with is probably an FBI agent...

if those perverted justice people are really interseted in justice, they might want to be a little more careful and maybe work with law enforcement, even

as for the tv show... pff

Beside the distasteful subject matter, it's has that same creepiness about it as 'Hell's Kitchen' -- watching abuse and humiliation as some form of entertainment.

It harkens back to the days of flagpole sitting, going over the Niagara Falls in a barrel or marathon dancing...entertainment that was popular among Depression era desperate.

You are right...these very important matters and the whole notion of trivializing it to the extant that some real disturbed MEN might be let loose and a little wiser on how NOT to get caught.

This show is SICK. I've always had a problem with this particular show; one of my own personal 'fantasies' regarding it is to realize who they are while chatting online, get them to come to me, and then proceed to show the camera the chat log and screenshots of the user profiles when the conversation began and at the end.

"You're a bunch of dangerously sensational, disingenuous fuckwits," I'd then say as I slammed the door in the camera's face.

These revelations about the show's ethics- or, rather, the lack thereof- don't surprise me in the least; in fact, I saw this or something like it coming from a mile away. Any time you demonize a segment of criminal society by keeping a list, you increase the probability that something like this will happen.

Didn't a guy just kill himself when he found out this show was coming for him?

It's sick and sad. We need to be treating murderers and thieves and other classes of criminal like this as well- or we need to stop doing it to sex offenders. If we don't, this kind of shit will most certainly happen again.

eom

...he's saying to himself: "Man, this will send the ratings through the roof!"

(I am NOT on the side of the dangerous perverts, by the way....

IMNSHO...

:-)

So what if a prosecutor from a neighboring county — committed suicide, he obviously had something to hide and the this show didn't make him do it!!

This is great to show America what's really happening in a world they know little about..

"No smoke without fire" is a saying I don't necessarily agree with. This man may have been hiding something or may not have been -- that's the point, we don't even know yet. Per the article, the man didn't show up in person. He still may have had child porn, or he may not have. WE DON'T KNOW! Yet, you're believing the same people who engage in news-o-tainment and skew events however they want mere sly to drive ratings. Just like this show.

I'm betting that he knew whatever happened, or however innocent or guilty he was, wouldn't matter: he was a legal professional in a small town, and odds are a community and church leader. He knew his professional and personal life was destroyed.

So, maybe he was indeed a predator or maybe he was some idiot who used bad judgment and needed therapy. We won't know now.

who are posing as kids. No one has proven that they have actually broken the law. This is vigilante justice and it stinks.

The Perverted Justice is a vigilante group that conceals its processes, and reveals only what it chooses to. There is no discovery and no transparency. This isn't how law enforcement should be performed. Indeed, it's easy enough to side with this non-transparent and non-democratic entity when it comes to child predators, who are the lowest scum of the earth, but we should all be scared silly about the way they perform and coordinate with law enforcement.

Transparency is the only way to run a government: full transparency to all citizens and all oversight bodies. Private organizations that link up with government and refuse transparency should be utterly rejected.

It's just a shame that so many otherwise progressive DUers are mystified on this point because they hate the crime so much. Of course we hate the crime. It's awful. All the more reason to enforce the law in a democratic, transparent, and just way, rather than getting in bed with unaccountable and fascistic organizations like Perverted Justice.

I hate child predators as much as anyone but entrapment is not the way to catch them.