Jilliane Hoffman (27 page)

63

Around the Palm Beach headquarters of LEACH – Law Enforcement Against Child Harm – veteran Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Detective Mike Hicks’s nickname was ‘The Dick Magnet’. And for good reason. Nine times out of ten, within just a few minutes of logging on to the internet and entering a chat room, pervs were on Mike like flies to shit. His record was forty-five seconds for a full-on proposition, faster than any other computer decoy on the LEACH task force.

At 5′10,″ 211 pounds and forty-nine years of age, Mike certainly didn’t look the part of a fourteen-year-old girl who LOVED Joe Jonas, the color fuchsia, M & Ms, rainbows, Weimeraner puppies (soooo cute!) and riding roller coasters all day and night. Or, for that matter, one who HATED all things Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana (go away now, PULEEZ!!), Social Studies (who really cares WTF happened 500 years ago??? Talk to me about TODAY
), smelly guys (Get AXE. Use it!), and plastic people who didn’t even know HOW to tell the TRUTH. And he looked absolutely nothing like his perky, long-locked, brunette, blue-eyed MySpace profile picture.

When LEACH was formed almost ten years ago in response to the then-nouveau crime of internet trolling by innovative sex predators, the computer age was already up and running, but, like most befuddled middle-agers with a new-fangled gadget that technologically changed every two weeks, Mike wasn’t. Looking back, he probably would’ve been content just marveling through the next few decades at what a cell phone could do, but Mike had two really pretty girls who just so happened to turn into teenagers in 1999. Unable to vote, drink, smoke or even swear, at twelve and thirteen, Sherry and Lisa already knew far more about how to work the foreboding lump of metal and disk drives that sat on a desk in the family room than he did. And what really bugged him was that they knew it, too. They knew the secret acronym text jargon, and had AOL Instant Messenger accounts before he even knew what the hell Instant Messenger was. Because he was a cop and because he vividly remembered all the shit
he’d
done as a kid that his parents still knew nothing about, when his own offspring became teens, he’d vowed he would never be so willfully ignorant. So when LEACH formed and requests for techie decoys made the rounds through the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, he signed up for the war without even knowing what OMG stood for. It was supposed to just be a short stint to get him up to speed and through the rest of adolescence. Ten years later, here he still was. His kids were grown and long gone, yet every year he seemed to get a little bit younger. Eleven was the new thirteen. But of course, no one could’ve imagined back then that farty Mike Hicks would be a more believable teenager than he was a middle-aged cop and soon-to-be Grandpa.

Today his name was Janizz, but her friends all called her Skittles. She was almost fourteen – blowing the candles out on December 16! – lived in Riviera Beach and loved to meet new people. Janizz entered the hot tub, a local South Florida chat room on TeenSpot.com. The topic of conversation was simply, ‘Have fun and relax in the hot tub. Everyone’s welcome.’ There were thirty-one members chatting.

Within seconds, a half-dozen responses erupted at lightning speed on the screen. Mrpimpin16, lowtone, sykosid, drinkpoison, nastyboy, zzzzho. And within a minute, a small gray window opened at the top.

TheCaptain is requesting a person to person chat with you: … what up there? Long time, no c Janizz. where u been?

The Captain. Mike knew that screen name. He’d chatted with him in a few rooms before, under different names, of course. The guy was pretty aggressive, if he remembered right. He checked his log. Sure enough, Janizzbaby had chatted with TheCaptain before, too. He clicked the chat button.

Janizzbaby:	grounded
TheCaptain:	sux. Y?
Janizzbaby:	tell me bout it. came home at midnight.
TheCaptain:	bad girl.
Janizzbaby:	no. usually im really good ☺
TheCaptain:	oohh. Good girls gone bad. 12AM How old r u again?
Janizzbaby:	14. Blowing the candles out in december. U?
TheCaptain:	17. Blew them last month. ur bad-12AM W/AO special?
Janizzbaby:	I wish
TheCaptain:	they call me the dreammaker
Janizzbaby:	where u been? Waiting on me 2 come back 2 the tub?
Janizzbaby:	at least ur honest
TheCaptain:	kiddin! I wuz missin u … now that I know ur looking 4 s/o special …
Janizzbaby:	I never said that
TheCaptain:	didnt need 2. U shudnt b out by urself @ nite. psychos r everywhere
Janizzbaby:	oohh. Do I look scared? Jus having fun
TheCaptain:	I seen ur pix. hot. Psychos b looking 4 u!
Janizzbaby:	thanx. I think
TheCaptain:	ur hot, is all im saying. U need 2 b protected.
Janizzbaby:	and who’s gonna do that?
TheCaptain:	im looking 4 work ☺
Janizzbaby:	hmmmm …
TheCaptain:	ill make sure u don’t get in no trouble. Have u home and in bed rt on time. Mom will luv me ☺ All moms do
Janizzbaby:	F* her. there r others?
TheCaptain:	not if I got u. im a 1 woman guy.

It was an interesting, delicate dance of words. To successfully prosecute a person under the Computer Pornography and Child Exploitation Act for luring or enticing a minor to engage in sexual conduct over the internet, certain magic lingo had to be said and it couldn’t be said by Mike. The number one defense to an 847.0135 charge was entrapment. In simple terms, the ‘Boo-hoo! I wouldn’t have said all those nasty things, but for the coercive, manipulative undercover cop making me say them!’ defense. Mike knew to be careful. And patient. No inducing, encouraging, soliciting, persuading. The invitation to hook up had to come from the bad guy. Thirty minutes and a whole lot of BS later, it came.

TTA was text for ‘Tap That Ass’, which was street slang for ‘I want to fuck you.’ That qualified as magic lingo.

Being too available or too pushy might spook him. It could be a tip-off Janizz was a cop.

PBLHS stood for Palm Beach Lakes High School. He had obviously found Janizzbaby’s profile.

MCD stood for McDonald’s.

Janizzbaby:	I know it
TheCaptain:	ill b in a new black bmw. 4:30
Janizzbaby:	ooh – dinner. You have to do better than MCD
TheCaptain:	I will. I got a special place we can get to know each other.
Janizzbaby:	wheres that?
TheCaptain:	they change the sheets.
Janizzbaby:	I’ll wear s/t nice
TheCaptain:	not 2 much
Janizzbaby:	ur bad. got 2 b home by 9. No joke there
TheCaptain:	plenty of time
Janizzbaby:	im a virgin …
TheCaptain:	ill be gentle, like I said ☺ nice and slow
Janizzbaby:	GTG. TLK-2-U-L-8-R.
TheCaptain:	r we on?
Janizzbaby:	yeah. k. U better not bring no friends, though
TheCaptain:	jus me
Janizzbaby:	no cameras, either
TheCaptain:	k
Janizzbaby:	k. bye

Mike left the chat room and notified the rest of the task force about Friday’s set-up on McDonald’s. He subpoenaed the registration info for TheCaptain’s screen name from TeenSpot.com, but didn’t expect much. More often than not, cyberpredators used a fake email with an untraceable ISP address; the only way to find them was to lure them out into the light and catch them red-handed. But a live catch also helped refute the ‘it wasn’t me on the computer saying all those vile things’ defense. It also helped nix any entrapment defense, because showing up to meet the fourteen-year-old virgin pretty much demonstrated independent thought. As he wrote out his report, Mike got to wondering who this Captain might be. Just who might step out of that new beamer Friday afternoon? He’d seen just about every walk of life pull up in every car imaginable – from Ferraris to jalopies – and nothing and no one ever surprised him any more. Just a few years ago, it was the Miami TV weatherman, Bill Kamal, arriving at a restaurant with a smile and a glove compartment full of condoms to pick up the fourteen-year-old boy-toy he thought he was meeting for a romp in the hay. A couple of months back, it was a federal prosecutor from northern Florida who showed up at the airport in Michigan to meet a five-year-old with a Dora the Explorer doll and a jar of petroleum jelly in his pocket. Mike knew it could be anyone on Friday, from his own lieutenant to a bank CEO.