Age. Sex. Location.

Three words that spell trouble when predators find teens online

It took less than a minute.

In less than 60 seconds from the time Naperville Police Detective Richard Wistocki logged on to the Internet as a 14-year-old girl, he was contacted by someone wanting to know his "asl."

Age. Sex. Location.

From there, it only got worse.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice survey, 1 in 5 children ages 10 to 17 receive unwanted sexual solicitations online.

Internet crimes have become so commonplace that much of Wistocki's time is spent working on existing cases instead of searching for offenders. While Naperville gained national notoriety in the late 1990s for its work in capturing online predators, the department now "hardly ever" logs on in search of such individuals, he said.
   

"I'm so busy with the cases the kids are getting themselves into," said Wistocki, who works in youth investigations and the department's Internet Crimes Unit.

The majority of those cases, about 75 percent, involve students harassing or threatening one another through instant messages or postings on popular sites such as MySpace. The other 25 percent, he said, involve Internet predators.

Part of the reason the Internet Crimes Unit rarely logs on as teens these days is a staff shortage, said Wistocki, who works with four others in the unit. In addition, he believes more service is done to the community by working with parents, children and educators about Internet safety.

"How am I serving Naperville?" he said of posing as a teen online. "How am I serving parents and kids when all of them are exhibiting risky behavior through MySpace and Xanga?"

Just because parents may not understand the technology doesn't mean they should remain in the dark about what their children are doing, Wistocki said.

"You wouldn't leave your child in the city in the middle of the Greyhound bus depot, would you?" Wistocki said. "Well, that's what they're doing."

Wally Loague, assistant principal at Kennedy Junior High School in Lisle, said the number of students using the sites continues to increase.

"In the last six months, it's really gotten bad," Loague said of students posting personal information.

School officials review the content of student blogs when they are used to make threats or harass other students, he said.

"We're all quite concerned that parents need to be brought up to speed," Loague said.

In his presentations, Wistocki teaches parents about IM and buddy lists, along with wireless phone text messaging. He also shows them blogs — now more popular than chat rooms with teens — and points out the wealth of personal information that many include on their pages that can lead a predator to them.

"One kid took a picture right in front of Kennedy Junior High School," Loague said.

Wistocki also shows parents some of the more shocking content teens post online for anyone to see — photos of themselves in suggestive poses and racy or vulgar comments. One girl listed her hobbies as "having fun, sleeping, guys, sleeping with guys." Another teen had posted "War is to peace as f«««««« is to my virginity."

"This is a 14-year-old girl," Wistocki said.
Playing the part
While he rarely goes online in search of predators, Wistocki, who has been with the department 16 years and in the juvenile division for more than a decade, logged on after 9 one recent weeknight. He stopped briefly on the MySpace site.

"Man, there's a lot of kids on it tonight," he said while waiting for the page to load.

He typed "Naperville" in the search engine, which came back with several Web pages for local teens. Many offered personal details, such as the girl who says "Hey — I'm at Naperville Central."

"There's no reason they should put all that stuff on there," he said. "Look at it — she puts her birthday."

A short time later, he signed onto to an IM account as a 14-year-old girl and waited.

It didn't take long for inquiries from strangers to pop up on screen.

"Look, I've got eight guys wanting to talk to me," Wistocki said.

At one point the number jumped to 18. Some of messages were likely "horny teenage boys" who wanted to chat with a girl. But Wistocki encountered adults, as well.

One man claiming to be a teen wanted a picture. A visit to that person's profile showed he was 24 — not 19, as he had claimed.

Another man also asked for a photo. He didn't have one of his own, but he had a webcam. When the video stream opened, a middle-aged man in a red T-shirt was busy typing away at his computer — possibly carrying on more than one conversation at once.

He and Wistocki traded messages back and forth, each one only a few words or letters long. In the world of IM, abbreviations can say a lot, such as the common inquiry of "asl." It's like a whole other language — one that Wistocki had to study to become familiar with the shorthand and slang.

"Yeah, I watch a lot of MTV," said 39-year-old Wistocki, who also learns by reading teen blogs.

A minute or two into the conversation the man began asking inappropriate questions of Witsocki's teen girl — wanting to know if a boy has ever walked into her locker room at school and about her and her classmates' personal hygiene habits.

"Tell me this guy isn't a predator," Wistocki said.

By then the detective had activated special software on his computer that allows him to record the webcam images, which, along with the transcripts, can be used later as evidence.

"I can play with him all night and start a case on him," Wistocki said. "But there's just so many."
From message to manipulation
Wistocki has cases all over the U.S., he said. Typically it takes two to five months from initial contact with a predator for an arrest to be made.

Last year a 38-year-old New Mexico man — who worked as a machinist making bombs for the Department of Defense — was arrested and charged with one count of child luring and five counts of child pornography after trying to persuade a Naperville teen to meet for sex.

The 13-year-old girl — a straight-A student involved in school athletics — encountered Thomas H. Kaufmann after posting some of her artwork online. In her profile, she included her home and wireless phone numbers, as well as her IM name. In August 2004, Kaufmann, who said he was 24, contacted the teen, said he liked her art and sent her a $125 gift card to buy a scanner so she could post more. He told he not to tell her mother.

Soon questions became more personal. He sent her naked photos of himself and asked her to do the same. She would stay home between 3 and 6 p.m. to take his phone calls because he would become upset if she didn't talk with him, Wistocki said.

"He's really grooming her," Wistocki said, using a term for predators' tactics, "when they work them up into a frenzy and know they can start manipulating them."

Kaufmann suggested they meet for sex. She wanted him to leave her alone, but he refused, saying he would go to the Department of Children and Family Services and have her mother sent to jail because the teen took naked photos of herself.

The girl started to struggle at school, quit her activities and began dressing poorly. Wondering if her daughter was on drugs, the girl's mother looked through the teen's room and found the gift card. The girl confided in her school counselor, and authorities were notified.

Wistocki took over the girl's identity and began corresponding with Kaufmann. Working with investigators in the New Mexico Attorney General's Internet Crimes Against Children Unit, he continued to gather evidence.

Kaufmann was arrested Feb. 11, 2005. Kaufmann pleaded no contest and was sentenced Oct. 26 to a suspended sentence of nine years and five years supervised probation. He was required to register as a sex offender and participate in a long-term sex offender treatment program. He was forbidden from having a computer in his home and from accessing the Internet in any manner.

Less than a week after sentencing — on Halloween — Kaufmann's probation officer made a surprise visit.

"He had a whole new computer system and a poster-size picture of my victim on the wall," Wistocki said.

Kaufmann is now serving nine years.

Wistocki praised the cooperation between law enforcement agencies in helping catch predators. The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force comprises more than 125 law enforcement agencies nationwide.

"ICAC is just so powerful in what we can do to protect these kids," Wistocki said.

Authorities also work with Internet companies such as AOL and MySpace to watch for suspicious behavior.

"We understand each other, and we all know we're doing this for children," Wistocki said.
Job takes a toll
Dealing with the disturbing details of these types of cases can be difficult. One predator sent a young girl Victoria's Secret underwear; another a pair of underwear stained with semen. Sickening gestures, but actions that help build the cases against them — and bring in federal authorities because the items were mailed through the U.S. Postal Service.

In the last four cases in which predators were arrested for arranging to have sex with a minor, Wistocki discovered that each arrived at the meeting place with the same items: lubricant, digital camera, hotel reservation and Viagra.

While that may have been a common denominator, the backgrounds of predators can vary.

"I've had priests, cops, firemen, Fortune 500 vice presidents, grandpas," he said. "Butcher, baker, candlestick maker. The Internet allows these closet predators to come out."

Although he encounters all types of behavior in his investigations, there are still cases that are more difficult than others.

"Last year I investigated a priest in Naperville, and that was probably the hardest case I've ever done because I had the parish screaming at me to leave him alone."

Wistocki, who attended Catholic grade school through college, went to his own priest for advice during this time.

"You need to treat him like any other child molester," he was told. "But you have to find the truth."

At the end of the investigation, it was determined that the allegations were unfounded.

"It was a very difficult case for me to get through," he said.

Although Wistocki's job can be trying, he does it to protect the children, he said.

"I believe I really do God's work," Wistocki said. "There are not a lot of police officers who can handle doing that."

Contact staff writer Kathy Cichon at kcichon@scn1.com or (630) 416-5114.