Caught in the Net

A few days later, Cassandra was sitting in a booth at a local McDonald's, wearing the baseball cap and a jacket. Harris and another investigator sat in the booth next to hers, pretending to be just another couple of diners in the busy restaurant. They were all waiting for Levi, who'd arranged to meet Tommy.

Levi, balding and overweight, showed up early. He spotted Tommy, went to the counter to buy a soft drink, then came over and sat down by Cassandra. He smiled when Tommy agreed to his suggestion that they go somewhere else.

As Levi and Tommy chatted, Harris removed his jacket, revealing his badge and the ID hanging around his neck. But Levi didn't notice; he was totally absorbed with Tommy. Suddenly, Harris and the other investigator grabbed Levi's wrists. He was under arrest.

As soon as she could, Cassandra escaped into the bathroom. As far as Levi knew, Tommy was still just a teenage boy.

Levi didn't encounter Tommy again until he was on trial in Jefferson County for attempted sexual assault. Cassandra and Harris were walking down a courthouse hallway when they passed Levi sitting on a bench. At the sound of Tommy's voice, Levi looked up -- and blanched when he realized it was coming from a petite young woman wearing a skirt.

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With his online sting up and running, Mike Harris was at the cutting edge of law enforcement. There was nothing like his operation anywhere in the Rocky Mountain region, nor in Kansas or Nebraska, two jurisdictions that began to call on Jeffco's expertise. And not only was Cassandra one of the earliest Internet decoys in the country, she was also the first to portray both boys and girls.

As they worked more cases, the two perfected their roles, learning to mimic the habits of adolescents. A typical teenager wouldn't be on the computer at all times of the day, for example, so they sent e-mails to suspects at 6 a.m., before I go to school, and then at 3 p.m., when Tommy or Kendra or Katie or Tigger got home. Cassandra studied how teenagers talked in the chat rooms, on the telephone. Then she'd be on the phone at 11 p.m., whispering after her fictitious mother had gone to bed.

Unfortunately, much of what Harris and Cassandra learned came from talking to victims. The kids were from a variety of backgrounds -- rich kids, poor kids, kids of all races -- but they had some things in common. They all had too much unsupervised time on their hands. Their parents were working or couldn't be bothered -- if there were two parents; another shared feature of victims was the prevalence of broken homes.

Time and again, they'd come across victims who'd spent hours on the computer, going to chat rooms, while their parents thought they were doing homework. In one case, a fourteen-year-old's parents were dropping the girl off at the mall, supposedly to meet up with friends. Instead, she was going to motels with a man she'd met on the Internet -- a man in his forties. He told her he loved her, that he would take care of her, that he would give her what her busy parents didn't. The assaults were uncovered when the girl told friends, who reported the trysts to school officials.

The offenders were as varied as their victims. Sometimes they were respected members of the community -- a minister in Evergreen, a self-made millionaire from Oregon. Other times, the investigators would get a search warrant for some filthy little apartment with a computer sitting on the floor next to a dirty mattress. But perpetrators had common habits, too, including "grooming" their targets to lower their guard. Most teenagers, even those starved for affection that they weren't getting at home, were put off by someone who started demanding to meet and have sex right off the bat. It was much more effective for the adult to pass himself off as a friend or parent figure.

You don't have a dad? I could be your dad.

You want to go shopping? I'll buy you whatever you want. You like vacations? How about I take you to Disneyland?

I got your picture. You're so cute...you can be my little girl.

Then the perp would start testing the waters, discussing sex, backing off when the target took offense, then returning later to his favorite subject. For their first meeting, the teen might drag a few friends along, and the adult might spend a little money on a meal or shopping, show how "safe" things were. The next time, it would be much easier to get his victim alone.

Some pedophiles stopped at sexual assault, which was bad enough. But others stepped much farther across the line. One twelve-year-old girl who'd met a forty-year-old perpetrator on the Internet wound up in a motel, where she was tied to a bed, injected with drugs, then raped. The process was repeated on several occasions. By the time the crimes were discovered, the girl was addicted to drugs.