The Last Undercover (34 page)
I suggested that when writing a check or money order for the deposit, they should include “Johnny Rockets” in the memo section so we would all be identified with the same travel group. The implication that this “huge travel agency” couldn’t keep a few names straight played into the belief that this was a massive organization dedicated to feeding the sexual fantasies of American pedophiles.
Todd complained that his e-mail to the travel agency had not been answered but thought that might have been because he had not mentioned Johnny Rockets. I didn’t correct his impression.
Todd and David wanted to invite Steve Irvin, the schoolteacher from Pittsburgh, but neither had a contact number. Todd felt safe inviting Steve after meeting him in Miami.
We agreed to another conference call the next week, playing on my supposed paranoid belief that phone calls were safer than e-mails. They weren’t, really, when they were being recorded verbatim, but my phone buddies didn’t need to know that.
I wound up the conversation, excited by what I had just recorded. But . . . had the criminal admissions come too easily? The excitement and willingness of both David and Todd was far beyond what I expected from cautious members of a suspect organization. I wondered if this wasn’t what we called a “blue on blue” situation—one undercover cop unknowingly pitted against another. David initiated the criminal conspiracy with his travel talk within only a few minutes of arriving at the Miami conference. Although I didn’t suspect either of being an actual law enforcement official, I suspected that one, especially David, could be an informant. Miami was the first conference he ever attended, and his actions were far different than the way I behaved in New York the year before, as a first-time attendee. Was he “working off a beef,” needing to produce results immediately? I also entertained the idea he was conducting some type of educational study of boy lovers and we were all part of his research. These thoughts would linger in the back of my mind as the investigation proceeded.
In an attempt to placate my concerns, my San Diego case agent researched our files and contacted the Chicago and Dallas offices. Neither David nor Todd was a known informant for the FBI; our counterparts in those offices were unaware of any operation at any level of law enforcement targeting NAMBLA members or “travelers.”
The e-mails continued. David contacted his friends Bob and Morgan and was still awaiting a response, he told me. Todd had nothing on Steve Irvin. When Todd tried to e-mail Paul, it was returned as undeliverable, the same response I received. Between a bad address and Paul’s mother’s vigilance on the phone, I was starting to eliminate Paul Zipszer and his muscular physique from my most-likely-to-be-arrested list.
Todd and I spoke again by phone on December 14. The evidence mounted as the recorder ran. He was preparing to make reservations for his return flight to Dallas following our four-day excursion, and asked me what time the boat would be returning from Ensenada on the Wednesday morning following our sex tour. I wanted to tell him that booking a return flight was the least of his worries, but I resisted the urge.
Todd told me his expectations for the trip included spending time with a “special little friend or a couple.” Todd wasn’t interested in “multiple friends at the same time” but did “want more than one” while he was there, unless he decided his first kid was “the most incredible thing around.”
In most undercover assignments, playing the role of a criminal requires certain legally imposed restrictions as well as practical, self-imposed restraints. Entrapment is always an issue with any undercover operation. For example, is the person predisposed to commit the crime? Did the government merely create the opportunity to violate the law, a violation the individual would have committed if given the opportunity by someone in the criminal element, or did the government somehow induce the violation from someone who was otherwise disinclined?
Self-imposed restrictions are a bit different. A judge or juror might ask, Is the undercover agent more despicable than the criminal? Agents are judged by their language, demeanor, and dress. Whenever possible, I try to imagine my grandmother sitting on the jury. Would she be offended? Would she judge me to be as criminally culpable as the defendant? Typically, I try to let the target drop the f-bombs—although, as I’ve already said, when you’re working the streets and need to blend in, you can’t always talk like a choirboy. Still, there’s a difference, in my view, between protective camouflage and being gratuitously or habitually foulmouthed. Let the bad guy make the suggestive comments and racial slurs, whenever possible.
The NAMBLA case was especially challenging in this regard. Jurors who have any familiarity with TV may forgive a rough-talking undercover agent and may even expect it. Chances are the juror might also resort to foul language in certain circumstances. But throughout this role, I was burdened with passing as a BL, yet not personally detailing sexually explicit acts that would sicken or disgust the jury. This was especially difficult because we needed the targets to discuss the specific sexual acts they desired to perform. We needed details, not generalities. How could I elicit those specifics from their lips without shocking the jury with my own language? It was a constant dilemma.
I preferred the targets to speak in graphic street terms, but I needed to remain almost clinical. I hoped to get each target to detail his desires in the coarsest language, especially concerning his sexual history with underage boys. Yet, at the same time, I knew that if I explored that topic with a suspect, I might be expected to discuss my sexual history as well. On the one hand, I knew that if I portrayed myself as a virgin, my credibility would be destroyed; yet, if I provided lurid details of alleged previous sexual encounters, a jury might view me as disgusting and just as bad as the defendants I was trying to implicate. It was a most difficult line to maneuver.
Based upon my correspondence with incarcerated members who participated in the pen-pal program, I was convinced that if I graphically discussed my history, our targets would respond in kind. I decided, however, to take the high road and tried to skate around the questions as they arose.
Todd, for example, wanted to know my expectations for the trip. My response was cautious. “I hope that I can find someone that wants to love me and let me love them. . . . It’s been a long time since I’ve really been able to spend quality time alone with someone.”
Todd told me he had “never spent quality time. . . . It’s been experiences I can count on a few fingers, and then it’s been rushed or an environment where it was scary because you were afraid you were gonna get caught. . . . So, never have I spent what I would describe as quality time with the age group that I desire. I’m very excited.”
The youngest boy Todd had been with was thirteen, he told me, “ten days away from his fourteenth birthday.” Todd met him at a health club when Todd was attending dental school. Todd was working out and noticed the boy inside the club. When the boy left the club, he “motioned with his head to come outside, and, boy, did I drop everything.” Todd followed the youngster into the grocery store and stood by the magazine rack, so as not to miss him if he left the store. The boy picked up a magazine and Todd followed him into a closed restaurant deli area of the store. They talked for about two minutes, then went to Todd’s car, he said. They drove to a quiet neighborhood where they engaged in mutual oral sex. “It was awesome,” Todd said. Todd met him again when the boy was fifteen.
When I broached the subject of anal sex, Todd said, “I’m very into that kind of stuff, absolutely. I can’t imagine a typical ten- to twelve-year-old having the ability to accommodate in that way.” But he was looking forward to anal sex. I countered, saying that I “just like to be held and caressed. . . . I want to be able to experience everything that I want to experience.” I was trying to keep the conversation general yet still encouraging to Todd, in case he wanted to make more admissions.
Todd had known for a long time that he was a BL, but was also attracted to women earlier in life. He grew less attracted to women over the years, however. When younger, he was desirous of having children and thought that he could make marriage work. He loved his wife and described their sex life as “good.” But, as the marriage progressed, his wife “gained weight and grew less attractive” to him. This was one of several problems that led to the divorce.
Todd said that while he was working as a nurse’s aide there were opportunities to touch the penis “for like a half second” while bathing a kid, and that “was exciting!”
When I said this travel opportunity was going to be exciting and could be a regular event like the one depicted in the movie
Same Time Next Year
, Todd responded with a laugh. “Same time next month. . . . How about May? How about September?”
To maintain my cover story and in order to discourage any homosexual advances, I told Todd, “Body hair just turns me off.” Todd said he didn’t like body hair anywhere, except “pubic is fine, little bit of underarm is fine and that’s all I want. . . . So, really, I guess I ought to request twelve- and thirteen-year-olds and take it that by the time they’re fourteen, there could be a greater likelihood of hair.”
Todd continued to press me for details of my “friend’s” trip. Again, I made up the details as we spoke, glad that I would have the opportunity to review the conversation in order to keep my facts straight for subsequent calls. My friend went with a group, I told him, but knew no one prior to the trip. I described individual rooms featuring king-size beds in a large, well-appointed hacienda atmosphere. When I said he traveled as recently as October, Todd was relieved to learn there was no police action resulting from the excursion.
The one aspect of my work that has always troubled me is that almost all my efforts result in destruction rather than growth. I’m not an architect who can point to an edifice I designed; I’m not a writer who can pull my book from the shelf and display it to friends—well, until now, that is. The point is, my work, my arrests, often lead to destroyed families and shattered lives—oftentimes innocent lives.
At some point in this investigation, the day would come when at least two children, an ex-wife, parents, and loved ones were going to see on the evening news or read in their morning paper that their dad, their friend, their son, their ex-spouse had been arrested for planning to have sex with boys. It would be devastating to have to face the neighbors, the children at school, the friends at church or at the market. Yet, time and time again, men and women are willing to subject their loved ones to such humiliation because their desires to commit crimes outweigh their love of decency.
Make no mistake: I know my work may make the streets safer. I was honored to carry a badge and aid the incarceration of those who seek to destroy the fabric of society . . . but I still have feelings for the innocent casualties of my work—especially the families of those who choose to step outside the boundaries the law imposes on society.
Our next “three-way” was on December 19. David enjoyed making a sexual reference to our group calls, and I enjoyed the overwhelming evidence I collected with each conversation. Todd’s office phone had the capability to make the conference call, so he always made the connection. There was some delay in getting us all connected on this particular evening and I joked it gave David enough time to turn on his recorder. Mine was already running.
David complained about the six-degree-below-zero temperature he was experiencing in Chicago, and I was reminded that I needed to move the trip along for fear he might take advantage of one of his free flights and visit me in warm Southern California. I was not prepared to entertain a pedophile for much more than the time it would take to arrest him, so I hoped to redirect the conversation away from his complaints about his local weather.
Early in the call, David dropped an unexpected bombshell. The FBI was still attempting to fully identify those we were targeting and based upon all David said, we assumed he was an international flight attendant. However, David revealed he only flew part-time, enough to maintain his flying privileges with American Airlines, and that his full-time occupation was as a psychologist. He mentioned having a degree in psychology at the Miami conference but never said anything about practicing. As it turned out, though, in addition to working at several Chicago-area hospitals, he did consulting work for the Department of Health and Human Resources in Washington, D.C. In a way, David was a Fed.
We were still trying to attract more passengers for our Mexican excursion. David said neither of the two friends he invited to join us on the trip would be coming. I expressed my concern—genuine—that the friends might object to the actual purpose of our trip and contact law enforcement. David assured us they were not concerned with the activity itself, just the timing. They would be available for a future trip. Todd was pleased when I said I contacted Jeff Devore and he was interested. Todd said he “hung around him quite a bit in New York” and hoped Jeff would join us. David had not yet contacted Paul, but said he would. When I suggested Bob, the attorney from Atlanta, both Todd and David opposed contacting him but never clearly explained why.
Their opposition raised another problem with the investigation. Obviously, the FBI wanted to snare as many as would commit to the scenario, since it was our position that all members of NAMBLA, especially those who attended the conference, were predisposed to have sex with minors. But, as the undercover agent, I could not overtly go against the wishes of Todd and David without possibly alienating them from participation. I also needed to be careful that my greed would not result in someone sensing the sting, then alerting all the others and blowing the investigation.
Both Todd and David were having problems connecting with the undercover travel agency and had not yet sent their deposits. I offered to assist in contacting the agency. In an effort to get David to commit to the type of sex acts he wanted on the trip, I asked him what he was expecting. With a hearty laugh, he said, “Warm weather.” I offered that Todd wanted anal intercourse, and David responded, “That would be nice, but not necessary . . . icing on the cake, but I’m not holding my breath.” Todd interrupted to say that he didn’t believe a typical ten- to twelve-year-old could “accommodate that.” David, however, didn’t see that as a problem.