‘Predator’-catching group exposed town’s police chief. Are citizen-led stings helpful?
When Jason Velasquez set out to catch online child predators nearly five years ago, he didn’t expect to expose a high-ranking law enforcement official.
The chief of police for a Massachusetts town was the first person he caught in a self-organized sting operation after starting Predator Poachers Massachusetts. The organization is one of several citizen groups formed in recent years across the U.S. to expose those who might prey on children.
“I had no idea who he was,” Velasquez told McClatchy News in an interview, recalling when he met the Stow Police Department’s then-police Chief Ralph Marino.
Marino didn’t know he was messaging Velasquez on social media while the man was posing as a 14-year-old boy, Velasquez said.
The police chief had been duped by an online profile Velasquez created as a decoy account, he explained. The tactic, which he said Predator Poachers Massachusetts still uses, is also common in law enforcement sting operations.
In April 2020, Marino came face to face with Velasquez and his camera when the then-police chief tried to meet up with who he thought was a teenage boy in public, Velasquez said. He confronted him at a parking lot and posted the filmed encounter to Predator Poachers Massachusetts’ YouTube account, WCVB reported.
The next morning, Massachusetts State Police were at Velasquez’s doorstep and requested “everything” on his phone, he recalled.
The troopers had a computer and downloaded evidence.
“I was surprised. I was shocked,” Velasquez said when he learned he caught a police chief.
Marino was charged with enticing a child under 16 by Massachusetts State Police, the Stow Police Department said April 2020 as it announced Marino’s resignation as chief.
The Stow Police Department said its members “were deeply disturbed, shocked and disgusted,” WHDH reported.
An attorney who represented Marino in the criminal case didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ requests for comment.
Despite reports of some successes, Joseph A. Del Russo, an attorney, former prosecutor and professor at Montclair State University, told McClatchy News he has some concerns about citizens trying to carry out sting operations.
Del Russo, as the chief assistant prosecutor with the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey for 20 years, investigated cases involving abuse against children and related cases. As an attorney, he represents victims of sexual violence and occasionally provides defense consultation.
“The ultimate question about whether this is beneficial for society or not, whether it’s beneficial for law enforcement or not, which is a different question … (and) remains to be seen,” Del Russo said.
In a statement to McClatchy News, Massachusetts State Police spokesperson Tim McGuirk said “our department would strongly discourage private citizens from conducting law enforcement operations of any kind.”
When predator catching gets violent
Some groups have gotten violent, creating concern among law enforcement. Some authorities have deemed citizens trying to catch predators as “cyber vigilantes.”
Bikers Against Predators — a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that operates similarly to Predator Poachers Massachusetts — has occasionally gotten pushback from law enforcement because of groups that get physical, according to the group’s president, who goes by the alias “Boots.”
Boots said violence creates “a bad look on teams like ours.”
“We’ve never put our hands on anybody,” according to Boots, who said he films every encounter and speaks with individuals accused of trying to solicit minors online to collect usable evidence for law enforcement.
College students at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, for example, were recently charged in connection with luring a man to campus, wrongly accusing him of being a pedophile and assaulting him, the Associated Press reported.
They reported being inspired by the predator-catching trend seen on TikTok, according to the outlet.
On Jan. 16, five students pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy charges, the Associated Press reported. They’re scheduled to return to court for a pretrial conference on March 28.
“Once the incident was reported, the Department of Public Safety commenced an immediate and thorough investigation — with concern for the victim at the forefront,” Assumption University President Greg Weiner said in a statement provided to McClatchy News.
Predator Poachers Massachusetts member Julie Harmon, who is Velasquez’s cousin, said in a statement on behalf of group members that they “strongly condemn” what happened at the university.
“Our group operates within the boundaries of the law,” the statement said. “We meticulously document interactions with suspected predators, gather evidence, and work closely with law enforcement.”
In California, three members of Dads Against Predators, a group local to Redding, were arrested on charges of felony assault, false imprisonment, battery and vandalism, according to KRCR.
They assaulted a man they accused of being a child predator and sent him to a hospital in August, according to the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office, which reportedly said “vigilante justice has no place in our community.”
“Cyber-vigilantes, even when well-intentioned, lack the training necessary to properly and safely investigate these cases,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer wrote in a 2023 memo to police chiefs, according to USA Today.
“I don’t think I’m a vigilante at all,” Velasquez said.
He said he considers himself an activist “just trying to protect communities (and) trying to spread awareness.”
Dr. Thomas Holt, a professor at Michigan State University’s School of Criminal Justice, told McClatchy News in an interview that if a citizen group collaborates with law enforcement, that doesn’t strike him “as vigilante behavior.”
When a situation involves violence, however, he would view that more as “traditional vigilantism.”
Mary Graw Leary, a law professor at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law and a former federal prosecutor, said in an interview with McClatchy News that violence is harmful to an investigation.
“That’s true with law enforcement … that has to be explained,” she said.
“The other piece about violence, which really, I think often gets overlooked, is the people unrelated to the investigation,” she said. “They are potentially put at risk when you create this kind of a tense situation.”
It’s unknown how someone might react when they’re publicly confronted and accused of being a predator, Del Russo said.
Eric Hoffman, the prosecutor of Delaware County, Indiana, spoke out against a local “vigilante” operation in October 2022, WXIN reported.
“If somebody pulls a gun and opens fire, an innocent person is going to get killed,” Hoffman said.
While speaking with The Star Press in October 2022, Hoffman stood behind his decision to refuse cases brought by local citizen group PredatorCatchers Muncie, the newspaper reported.
The Indiana Prosecuting Attorney’s Council advised in a report that officials should “not approve, condone, encourage or promote cyber-vigilantism by private citizens,” Hoffman mentioned, according to the newspaper.
“I think shows like ‘To Catch A Predator’ certainly made the notion of finding people online or actively soliciting children a little more accessible to the common person who isn’t maybe thinking about child sex crime,” Holt said.
Should sting operations be left to the professionals?
Graw said she doesn’t think it’s the “wisest course” for citizens to seek out offenders.
“If your goal is to incarcerate offenders of children, the best people to leave it to are the professionals, law enforcement, prosecutors, etc.,” she said. “When a citizen engages in these activities, they may not be engaged in the best practices. They may be creating evidence that can easily be attacked in court.”
Del Russo said he’s concerned about the possibility of a citizen confronting someone who might already be under law enforcement investigation.
This could be disruptive and undermine their case when authorities might have been close to obtaining “important evidence,” Del Russo said.
Some citizens trying to get predators off the street “could do a disservice to justice and do the wrong thing, and ultimately the perpetrator goes free,” Del Russo said.
In some cases, a suspect might be a “serial predator,” he added.
He said the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which involves a collaboration between federal, state and local law enforcement, basically does what citizen groups try to do.
“They’re well educated, they’re well trained and they have the power of the government behind them,” he said.
Dr. Karen Holt, an assistant criminal justice professor at Michigan State University married to Dr. Thomas Holt, has sat in on law enforcement-led sting operations in Michigan.
She said in an interview with McClatchy News that she’s not “necessarily sold” on “citizens acting in that capacity.”
“The idea of, like capturing the bad guys or setting the bad guys up, isn’t necessarily the best way to go about reducing potential victimization,” she said.
An offender may be known to the victim and the abuse often happens offline, according to Karen Holt, who researches sexual deviance and the link between media and sexual violence.
“It’s someone that they know and love and trust,” she said.
She said law enforcement gets overwhelmed with cases and authorities “don’t necessarily have the resources to go out and investigate every single person.”
“When that happens, I think people start to become fearful and concerned, and so you get kind of these informal types of control popping up,” she said of citizen-led sting operations.
About 36.2 million reports about suspected online child exploitation were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2023. The nonprofit, created by U.S. Congress, reports a more than 300% increase in reports about online enticement between 2021 and 2023.
“I think that the rise of these, the emergence of these groups, I assume, is well intended,” said Leary, the former policy consultant and deputy director for the center’s Office of Legal Counsel.
“It speaks to the frustration of the volume and amount of sexual exploitation of children that we are living with as a society. And we cannot prosecute our way out of that problem.”
‘We’re trying to build the best case’
Boots told McClatchy News that his organization tries to keep the situation calm during encounters with suspected predators as other Bikers Against Predators call police from different locations.
He explained he tries to build a rapport with the people they meet, allowing for a better chance of them volunteering information on camera.
“We’re trying to build the best case possible against them.”
He was inspired to launch Bikers against Predators in 2021 after he said a family member became a victim of an online predator.
Since then, he’s regularly on the road, traveling to different states to catch individuals who think they’re about to meet a minor. Every meet-up is livestreamed online.
As a father of six children, Boots balances these efforts with family time and a full-time job.
A recent Bikers Against Predators sting operation led police in Parsons, Kansas, to arrest a registered sex offender accused of trying to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old for “illicit purposes” on Jan. 21, police said.
“This group did everything right: they gathered evidence, involved law enforcement, and ensured the situation remained safe for everyone involved,” Parsons Police Chief Robert Spinks said.
“This wasn’t vigilantism — it was a thoughtful and thorough collaboration to protect our community,” Spinks added.
Another person previously caught by Boots’ group was an Indiana music teacher, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison December 2023 after authorities said he tried meeting a 13-year-old decoy, WPTA reported.
Graw said that when organizations do partner with law enforcement, it is “certainly better than not at all and then just showing up with evidence.”
If Del Russo was working as a chief prosecutor now, he said he’d caution a person against beginning a predator-catching group and starting a social media channel for it.
“Their behavior may be influenced by clicks and money rather than justice,” Del Russo said.
“I understand maybe you’re monetizing so you can pay for resources to further your investigative capacity. But at what point is this just clickbait?” Thomas Holt said.
Boots said citizen operations have to be done the “right way.”
“If you’re wanting to be internet famous and try to do this for views … I would suggest not doing it, because you’re going to get yourself hurt,” he said.
Possible solutions to overall issue of child exploitation
For citizens who want to help, Karen Holt suggested getting involved in prevention or education — “things in the community that can still have that same goal,” she said.
“The way to respond to victimization of children is not to take the law into your own hands, but to work with the law and to create laws that are more protective for children, and to not ignore the fact, in my opinion, that we have an unregulated internet which monetizes the sexual objectification of children,” Leary said.
Thomas Holt suggested it would be helpful for officials to identify what police resources might be needed to potentially improve the response to the issue of child exploitation.
“If we see this as a problem that we want to invest in, then we need more resources for police and better training for police,” he said.
Velasquez estimated Predator Poachers Massachusetts has caught a few hundred people so far, both in Massachusetts and beyond.
“The worst ones are those in positions of power,” Velasquez said.
In November 2020, Marino’s case was resolved, Worcester County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Lindsay Corcoran confirmed to McClatchy News in a statement.
A “judge imposed a continued without a finding for three years and ordered him to have no contact with the complaining witness, no unsupervised contact with children under 16 and to continue counseling,” Corcoran said, adding that a prosecutor “requested a guilty finding and requested all of those conditions, including the condition that he register with the sex offender registry board.”
The case was dismissed in November 2023, records show, according to Corcoran
“I feel like if I can stop these men from harming a child before they harm a real child, that’s what I’m going to do,” Velasquez said.
“Every day that I’m not on these apps, I know that there’s another person out there that is getting away with it, which is just disturbing. But I know sooner than later, I’ll be back at it again.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2025 at 9:06 AM with the headline "‘Predator’-catching group exposed town’s police chief. Are citizen-led stings helpful?."
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