The Last Undercover (33 page)
Using my cane, I hobbled toward the front door and was shocked when who should open the door but the defendant himself. He greeted us and invited us inside. Like every con man I ever met, he loved to talk, and I peppered him with questions about the home and its history. He readily admitted he was the sole owner and claimed he and his wife were planning to remain in the area. He said they were using their sizeable equity in this property to buy a larger home. His admissions, all caught on tape, were perfect. With our objective completed, it was time to have a little fun.
He and the Realtor gave us a tour of the residence, answering questions as we asked. When my “fiancée” inquired about a gardener, I pretended to become incensed. We had already told the defendant that one of the bedrooms would be for her mother, who would be moving from Europe to live with us after the wedding. I said there would be no need for a gardener. My fiancée acted confused. Then I said in the rudest voice I could manage, “She’s not living here for free. She can cut the grass!”
My undercover fiancée played the scene beautifully and offered up a quick, though weak, defense for my “future mother-in-law.” Later in the conversation, the Realtor asked about children. I immediately responded, “Children will not be a problem.” My fiancée said in a quiet, cowed voice, “We have to talk about a family.” I responded again in an arrogant, loud voice, “Children will
not
be a problem!” The Realtor, embarrassed for my fiancée and, I suppose, her client, said, “Maybe you two should talk about this some other time.” Maybe you had to be there, but it was a classic scene. We quickly excused ourselves to get to my “rewrite conference.”
After we left the residence and turned off the tape, we had a great laugh over our successful assignment. And the biggest joke of all was that our “destitute” defendant was now facing a federal perjury rap.
S
imilarly, my NAMBLA act, though it was going on several years by the time of the Miami conference, was starting to pay off in potentially prosecutable admissions and actions by certain members.
After I returned from Miami, I sent Jeff Devore, the Orange County minister and chiropractor, the following e-mail on November 16:
How about [getting together] the week after Thanksgiving? I’d love to meet with you and meet another BL. I can come to OC or Long Beach. Can’t wait to tell you about the conference. It was great. Met some new people who like to travel. Found a very safe haven, that’s cheap and close. Maybe you and your friend would be up for a trip. I know it will be FABULOUS!!!!
Jeff never responded, which worried me. There is always a danger in pursuing any subject too aggressively. The line between criminality and entrapment is subjective with each judge. I took one more chance. On December 15 I sent the following:
Haven’t heard from you in a long while. Hope all is well. Is this your Friday to be in Beverly Hills? I’ll be up there this weekend and thought maybe you and your other friend could hook up. I know it’s kinda late notice but let me know. If not, maybe after the first of the year. Want to share with you what happened at the conference and I have some news that may interest you.
If we can’t make it this week, have a Merry Christmas. Be safe.
I was surprised when he called the next night, one of the few phone calls we ever had. We agreed to meet. What followed was evidentiary pay dirt. Referencing a conversation we had in February, almost nine months earlier, when Jeff and I last met, Jeff said, “You said you lost your whole collection when your computer crashed. I made a CD with some pictures you might enjoy, if you’re interested.” My response was an enthusiastic “Yes.” I wasn’t sure what he had in store for me, but I was looking forward to the little gift he wanted to present.
On December 17 we met at a deli on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. He came alone. His Long Beach BL friend wasn’t able to meet with us, but Jeff assured me we would meet soon. Jeff quickly handed me his special present: a CD labeled “Youth 4Bob.” A special present indeed: if it contained prosecutable images, he had just violated federal law. I tucked it away. We ordered and Jeff talked about his journey or, I should say, his regression.
He told of meeting an eleven-year-old from the United Kingdom on the Internet and that they “chatted” last night. But they did more than chat. Both had Web cams. Jeff and his eleven-year-old friend “real-timed” masturbation. Jeff, the ordained minister and father of three, said, “We sat there jerking off together.” He now described himself as a boy lover who preferred ten- or eleven-year-olds. He was securely back in the BL fold and didn’t deny it. He was also escalating by trying something new to satisfy his desires.
He spoke of his work at the church with the youth, teaching a program called “Our Whole Lives,” a joint project with the Unitarian Church and the United Church of Christ, a “lifespan sexuality education curriculum.” I needed to be sure the boys he was teaching were safe. I inquired and he denied engaging in sexual activity with any of the youth at the church.
When the discussion returned to his online chats, he said, “One of my fantasies has been to be with someone like [his eleven-year-old cybersex partner], and I figure that’s as close as I can get. . . . I would never do that . . . get with an eleven-year-old.” Then he added, “After I did that, I was so glad that I had; that is something I wanted for a very long time.”
Jeff didn’t take the bait when I pitched him on our trip to Ensenada. He said he would think about the invitation and described it as a potentially “life-changing experience.” I assured him it most definitely would be. He said he would contact his Long Beach BL friend and see if he was interested. We parted that afternoon, planning to meet again.
We never did. Neither Jeff nor his friend joined us on the “trip” to Mexico. But “Youth 4Bob” contained all we needed for a federal prosecution. The CD contained one hundred graphic sexual images and eight movies of boys in sexually explicit acts, all violations of federal law, the distribution of which carries a minimum mandatory prison sentence of five years. The disc also had twenty-five images of “erotica,” images that presented disturbing, full-frontal nudity of boys, though not rising to the level of “pornography” for federal prosecution purposes. Within a few months, if things went well, Jeff might learn that whether or not he joined us on the February trip, his actions on December 17 would have been a life-changing experience.
D
avid, Todd, and I set up the first of several conference calls for December 12. The call was better than anything the FBI could have expected; it lasted almost forty-five minutes, with both Todd and David making valuable admissions. Todd set up the three-way from his office.
David’s humor was evident from the beginning of the call as he complained that my “mother,” who I said was living with me, was going to inherit the estate upon my untimely demise. When I joked that my real reason for going to Mexico was to find an eleven-year-old to whack my mom, Todd chimed in, “So we’re going to be co-conspirators in two different crimes. One we’ve already discussed and one is murder. This is going to be messy.” The divorced dentist from Dallas had just admitted he knew that the purpose of our planned trip was illegal.
David said in an earlier e-mail that he had to go to Washington for a consulting job. I suggested that David worked for the CIA, which became a running joke. At one point, David and I even discussed the type of recording equipment we used to monitor conversations. When David said he used the sixty-minute tapes to record our calls because he didn’t “want to bother with changing tapes,” Todd laughed, saying we would have to “bs for another fifty-four minutes before we get serious.” Little did they know or suspect that all of our calls were being recorded.
Todd talked about his phone call from Peter Herman warning against traveling. According to Todd, Peter said, “Todd, you’re a fine, upstanding man, and I just don’t want you to do it.” This, too, I knew, would defeat defense arguments of entrapment.
Todd and David attempted to contact Paul Zipszer, but were never able to get past his mother, whom David described as “trailer trash.” Todd said her voice made her sound as if she had been “smoking since age negative eight.” They claimed the third-degree she subjected them to caught both of them off guard. Whatever their complaints, Paul’s mother exhibited a mother’s protective instinct; she tried to keep her thirty-nine-year-old son out of trouble.
I lied when I told them I had recently read an article in the
Los Angeles Times
stating that criminal matters were a low priority with the FBI because they were concentrating all of their resources on terrorism. David responded, “Thank you, 9/11.”
Although I thought through my basic plan for the travel package, I was flying by the seat of my pants during the call. I said I contacted the travel agency and they forwarded me an application requiring a $200 deposit. The total cost of the trip was $620. I told them my imaginary friend described the facility as similar to the bed and breakfast in Miami. Todd asked questions about the size of the boat and the length of the trip. I again punted and said I would check with my friend for all the “juicy details.” When David asked what happened to the boat after we landed, I said it remained, so we had access to it throughout our stay. We could use it for whale watching or fishing.
Todd asked if the boys would be joining us on the boat trip from the States to Mexico. I explained that the boys were locals and would meet us at the resort. In fact, we were to specify the age range so we would be matched up with boys within the preferred range who would perform the desired sexual acts. Both Todd and David laughed at this; such “shopping” was different than anything they’d ever done.
David explained about his Acapulco experiences. He had a friend who owned a house near the beach. Either his friend would obtain the boys for David or David would stroll the gay beach and pick up a willing juvenile. David described his success as “hit or miss,” depending upon whether the local police had recently done a sweep, limiting the number of boys working the sands. David said when police dragnets didn’t interfere, the selection was large.
Todd’s desired age range was twelve to fourteen, he said, and David wanted “prepubescent” boys.
David contacted a Bob in Los Angeles. David described him as a BL whom he had never met in person, but David knew through friends that Bob traveled to Thailand. David’s second friend was Morgan. He wanted to go but was interested in meeting boys
and
girls. I said I would check and assumed someone had a sister, so that should not be a problem. Why not jail another pedophile, even if he wasn’t 100 percent BL?
When the issue of costs came up, I scrambled for the piece of paper on which I had roughed out the figures. I told Todd that when I spoke with the travel agency, I didn’t record the call, as David would have, so I had to find my notes. David requested that I just forward my notes after having them notarized and include my fingerprint and DNA analysis. We continued to joke about collecting evidence of our conspiratorial wrongdoing.
It was really my decision to determine how much to charge for the trip. I needed to make it realistic, yet I didn’t want to price anyone out if he was truly committed to traveling in violation of the law. Knowing the judicial system, I also knew I needed to make it expensive enough that the travelers couldn’t argue in court they merely wanted a cheap respite from Chicago winters. Even though accepting a free trip would still be in violation of the law, forwarding a down payment or partial payment was almost irrefutable evidence of intent. I checked online to determine resort prices in the Ensenada region and determined that $70 per night for lodging seemed appropriate. Since this was a bed and breakfast, I settled on $25 per day for meals, bringing the cost per day to $95. For no particular reason, I assessed each traveler a $240 charge for the boat—hey, it was my trip, right? I also noted that my “friend” suggested that additional entertainment and gratuities would roughly work out to about $50 per day, but would vary with each traveler, depending upon what activities they chose to do with the assigned boy. Those added details provided a sense of authenticity.
Todd wanted to take the four-day trip the first time, with the longer stay on a second junket. I suppose he wanted to make sure he was getting value for his money before committing to the lengthier package.
The issue arose as to whether we could get six travelers and whether we wanted to buy out the boat with just the four of us: David, Todd, my imaginary friend, and me. David described this as a worst-case scenario, still hoping we could find six. Trying to add realism, I expressed concern that I didn’t want to be on the boat with people we didn’t know or trust. Todd and David agreed.
Todd kept pressing for more details my “friend” relayed. I essentially made up info off the cuff. I said he had traveled twice, and both experiences were similar. The resort furnished the boys who spend the night with the travelers in their respective rooms. You can spend time alone with the boy or team up for group activities, I told them. You could pal around on the beach, lounge in the room, or go into town. The police look the other way as long as there is no abuse. David endorsed my friend’s assessment; he described sex tourism as the “biggest moneymaker these boys have” and said the police recognized this, allowing it to happen. I told them my friend said he kept the same boy throughout the trip, but one traveler turned his boy back in and received another. I said the boys allowed themselves to be videotaped, but David cautioned against it—you can’t be too careful, after all.
I told Todd and David my friend even said you could get multiple boys if that was your desire. David confirmed that one time he had “three boys in Thailand.”
I said the trip sounded “perfect” and Todd agreed: “It sounds great to me.”
So far, so good.
HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?
B
oth Todd and David were concerned about customs and whether to take passports. They were satisfied with my explanation: since we were not going into Mexico through a port of entry, we would be avoiding customs. We would be slipping in and out of the country undetected, and even if boarded by customs on the high seas, there would be no contraband onboard.