Perverted Justice Foundation, Inc.,[1][2] more commonly known as Perverted-Justice (also known as PeeJ), was an American organization based in California and Oregon which investigated, identified, and publicized the conduct of adults who have used chat rooms and other social media in order to solicit online sexual conversations and in-person meetings with minors. Their website serves as an archive of collected data on these investigations, which they make available in order to assist law enforcement and the public in understanding the behavior and child grooming techniques of online hebephiles.
The activity of the Perverted-Justice organization included online volunteers carrying out sting operations by posing as minors (the age range portrayed by the decoys is usually 10–15) on chat sites and waiting for adults to approach them. After obtaining the identifying information of the adults who are seeking sexual contact with minors (the adult seeking the minor may offer their telephone number or other details so that a meeting can be arranged), the organization would then pass the information on to law enforcement.[3] Perverted-Justice's methods are controversial, and critics have labeled these actions harassment and possibly legal entrapment.[4][5][6][7][8][9] The site additionally attracted media attention, both laudatory and critical, as a result of their collaboration with Dateline NBC on a series of televised sting operations called To Catch a Predator.
Perverted-Justice also operated a site that targets groups and individuals it identifies as being involved in the pedophile activism community,[10] a site that provides information to abuse victims on their legal recourse,[11] a site that gives advice to minors on dealing with grooming on the internet,[12] and a site that targets organizations that Perverted-Justice believes allow pedophile activists to use their services.[13] The foundation also offers free online training to law enforcement officers[14] and has an intern program for college students.[15]
In late 2018, Perverted-Justice announced that, from the beginning of 2019, they would be formally ending decoy operations, and effectively cease all other operations afterwards. They also announced that they would be converting the official website to an archive of past operations and collected data, and removing other site features such as the forums. The data they proposed to compile and make accessible on the website, including thousands of formerly unseen chat logs, is available for research purposes in order to assist anti-pedophile groups and law enforcement with regard to understanding the behavior and techniques of online pedophiles.[16]
Perverted-Justice was set up in 2002 by Frank Fencepost and Xavier Von Erck (born Philip John Eide).[17][18][19] The organization says that its online operations have led to 623 convictions as of October 8, 2018,[20] with over 200 more currently awaiting trial, and an average of 25 arrests a month for the year of 2006.[21] In 2006, the organization reported annual income of US$825,000 (equivalent to about $1,247,000 in 2023), with Von Erck earning a salary of $120,000 (equivalent to about $181,000 in 2023).[22]
The site originally started with the posting of chat logs to shame people who engaged in sexual chats with purported children. Some members of the site allegedly went further by harassing the targets of their chats in real life, as well as their friends, neighbors, employers, and family.[23] After a falling-out over a vitriolic chat log with a phone verifier in 2004, Fencepost was dismissed from the site. "Xavier became much more oriented toward getting pedophiles arrested rather than just making them complete social pariahs in their neighborhood," says Fencepost.[24]
Von Erck said he got the idea for the website while watching people attempt to groom young girls in chat rooms in Oregon. He says Perverted-Justice is a computer watchdog agency that works closely with law enforcement agencies. "The media likes to use the term 'vigilante' because it gets attention, but we don't consider ourselves vigilantes. We cultivate cooperation with police and work within the law to get justice, not outside of the law."[25]
Perverted-Justice functions by supporting volunteers who act as informants in chat rooms where minors can typically be found. The volunteers' public profiles have youthful-sounding usernames, young ages, and pictures of children. The administrators of the site say they do not initiate online contact with the users,[26] and refuse to act on tips from the public as a result.[27] If a user starts chatting to the volunteer and turns the conversation to sex, the volunteer responds positively and encourages them to divulge personal details, particularly a telephone number, ostensibly needed to verify their identity so that a meeting can be arranged.
In the past, around this point the chatlog and details would be published on the site. Volunteers on the site's forums would then engage in "follow-up", attempting to identify and notify family members, employers, and neighbors. However, in December 2003, the organization set up its "Information First" program, in which interested police departments could contact Perverted-Justice, and any "busts" made within that department's jurisdiction would be sent straight to them without being posted to the website.[28] In the early days of the program, Perverted-Justice.com did not initiate contact with the police, professedly because officers were skeptical that its information could be used in a court of law.
Since July 2004 when they facilitated their first conviction, the site's operators switched to a policy of cold calling local police with the information they obtained.[29] If a government agency is interested (police, FBI, military CID, etc.) then the chatlog and other information is not posted to the site until after a conviction has been reached.
Before Perverted-Justice's "Information First" program and cold-calling policy became standard, logs that received no interest from law enforcement agencies were posted directly to the website. In November 2006, after the site's 100th conviction, Perverted-Justice announced that chat logs would no longer be posted unless law enforcement was involved first, as "Information First" agreements were sufficient to cover most U.S. residents caught in a sting. The complete unedited chat logs, which usually contain sexually explicit content and obscenities (and sometimes are annotated with comments from the Perverted-Justice volunteer) are now posted to the website only after the person's legal case has been resolved. The current follow-up process consists of notifying a community of the offender's status once a person has been arrested and convicted.[30]
To begin the follow-up process, the site's volunteers do a reverse-directory lookup to obtain their target's name, as well as checking on the Web for any other information they can find about them. They then post the target's name, address, and photograph if available, on the website, as well as the chat log: a record of the conversation they had with the volunteer. In a process called "Follow-up," additional volunteers on the site's forums, operating under rules and restrictions set up by Perverted-Justice administrators, will contact the target's family, friends, neighbors, and employer to alert them to the website posting.[31]
All telephone numbers are removed from the site's main pages after two months (though still available on the site's forums), to avoid another case like that of the Milwaukee bank teller, who received a threatening phone call from a man who had obtained her number from the website. The woman had never been online or even owned a computer, and was forced to change her number, which had previously been registered to the subject of a Perverted-Justice sting.[32]
Volunteers also take part in what the site's operators call "group media busts," where people are invited to a house by a self-proclaimed minor, who is actually a Perverted-Justice volunteer. When they arrive, they are greeted by a television news reporter. The first of these events were conducted in late 2003, in co-operation with investigative reporter John Mercure at Milwaukee's WTMJ-TV, whom the site credits with initially conceiving the concept. Similar events with other local news organizations took place in the following months.
In November 2004, the site teamed up with Dateline NBC in New York City to conduct a large sting operation, or "group media bust," entitled To Catch a Predator. Dateline rented a house and wired it with hidden cameras, while volunteers posed as minors in chat rooms, telling users who talked to them that they were home alone. "Within hours there were men literally lining up at our door," Dateline reported. In two-and-a-half days, 18 men showed up at the house after making a date with a Perverted-Justice volunteer.[33]
After the third installment of To Catch a Predator, Perverted-Justice hired an agent and put the group's services out for bid to several television networks. NBC came out ahead and continued the highly rated series.[34] Since then, the To Catch a Predator series of reports has grown into a widely recognized phenomenon, with busts all over the United States and numerous references and parodies in the media.
Perverted-Justice's website documents convictions that include disorderly conduct, indecently soliciting a child, attempting to entice a juvenile to travel with intent to engage in sexual act, transporting child pornography, and possession and dissemination of child pornography. According to the official website, Perverted Justice contributed to at least 623 convictions while stating that the actual number is likely closer to 650.
Perverted Justice formerly ran a website targeting individuals and groups involved in the online pedophile activist community. The site's stated objective was to "house our voluminous research regarding the identities and pursuits of those in the pedophile activist community". It listed a number of arrests of pedophile activists that it stated were based on its profiles.[35]
They have also built a list of "corporate sexual offenders", which they define as "[a]ny company who is informed of pedophiles using their service to advocate the lifestyle of child/adult rape which then does not remove the pedophiles from their service", with corresponding lists of pedophiles who make use of the services.[13]
Perverted-Justice volunteers also worked to match up MySpace profiles with convicted sex offenders from state registries and alert MySpace officials to their presence. They say they have identified almost three thousand such profiles, most of which have been deleted.[36]
Perverted-Justice, as well as its volunteers, have been commended over the years by a number of individuals and organizations, including many active-duty law enforcement officials and child-safety advocates.
Active-duty law enforcement who have worked with the website on arrests have also gone on record speaking about the organization.
Perverted-Justice and its volunteers have been criticized over the years by several individuals and organizations. Individuals opposing Perverted Justice see it as an organization that encourages extrajudicial violence and harassment against individuals who have not yet been convicted of any crime in the legal system. Also, NBC journalist Stone Phillips from a Perverted Justice related event conceded that, "in many cases, the decoy is the first to bring up the subject of sex",[citation needed] leading to claims of illegal entrapment by the targets of Perverted Justices actions.
According to Von Erck, Bruce Raisley, a private pilot and software developer made graphic violent threats against Perverted-Justice contributors and volunteers, and threatened to expose the online identities they used when posing as children. Raisley stated that he was a former Perverted-Justice member who left the group after he discovered that Perverted-Justice used a photograph of his son in a Perverted-Justice decoy profile, and failed to get a swift response from law enforcement. Allegations were made that Von Erck had "set out to destroy [Raisley] by posing as a woman, seducing him online with graphic sex chats, posting the transcripts on the web, and threatening to release a purported video of the individual masturbating."[59] Raisley was lured to an airport waiting area, where he was secretly photographed by associates of Von Erck. The photos were later posted online along with a warning against further threats and attacks.[19] In 2010, Raisley was convicted of orchestrating a DDoS attack against sites carrying the story.[79] Raisley was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay $90,383 in restitution for the attacks.[80]
In late 2018, the official site announced that they would end active decoy operations at the start of 2019. In addition to formally ending the chat room decoy operations that they were well known for, Perverted-Justice founder Xavier Von Erck announced that the organization would be suspending all active operations in 2019.[16] The Perverted-Justice website is no longer functional as of June 2024 in terms of viewing predators' chatlogs.
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"Every waking minute he's on that computer," said his mother, Mary Erck-Heard, 46, who raised her son after they fled his father, whom she described as alcoholic. Mr. Von Erck legally changed his name from Phillip John Eide, taking his maternal grandfather's family name, Erck, and adding the Von.
Sometimes the fake names become real. A few years ago, Phillip John Eide, the founder of Perverted Justice, legally changed his name to that of his alter ego, Xavier Von Erck.
Though he wasn't molested himself, Von Erck felt robbed of his childhood by his father and legally changed his name from Phillip Eide to eradicate the last vestiges of his paternal namesake. "My dad was an alcoholic scumbag commercial fisherman who hit my mom," he says. "She left him when I was one, and he went on to impregnate ten more women up and down the West Coast. His name is garbage."
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