Perverting Justice

Von Erck co-founded PJ with a friend, Frank Fencepost (still another anonymous figure). Fencepost was an active and popular contributor to the site until three months ago, when Von Erck decided to remove every trace of him, including Fencepost's participation in Phoenix busts that he orchestrated with TV media in tow.

The reason Von Erck gave in a communiqu to his followers was that Fencepost had crossed the line. He had threatened to ruin the life of the woman he was dating, also a PJ member, and Von Erck had the instant message log to prove it.

Von Erck posted several excerpts from online conversations between Fencepost and the unnamed girlfriend on the Perverted-Justice Web site.

Von Erck explains that Fencepost blew up at his girlfriend when she threatened to contact another married PJ member Fencepost had been sleeping with. He offers this private conversation he monitored as evidence that Fencepost was unfit for service:

"I will walk into your work and shit on your desk. Then I'll start getting really serious. I won't hesitate for a second."

Later in the conversation, Fencepost allegedly rages, "Any variation on this theme and you'll be looking for work, trying to make your house and car payments, picking up pieces and goin' 'what the FUCK just happened?' And you KNOW how fast I'm capable of making that happen."

Fencepost, it seems, was attempting to use the same tactics on a girlfriend that PJers use. Von Erck objected and erased him from PJ cyberspace.

"Our mission at Perverted-Justice.com is very clear," says PJ's ultimate authority figure. "We go after online predators. One of the largest things we demand is civility and carrying yourself in a professional manner when it comes to 'the law.' If a contributor is doing something I believe breaks the law, I remove the contributor."

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The concept of innocent until proven guilty doesn't have much relevance on the Internet. Neither does the notion that the state should be the judge of culpability, rather than what amounts to an angry mob.

Although Perverted-Justice has managed to snare several of what appear to be genuine, honest-to-God pedophiles, what most of its victims are guilty of is sleazy conversation, of entertaining a fantasy about having sex with a young girl (a.k.a. the "Lolita complex").

In a legal sense, no one knows what's really going through a mark's head as he asks for her bra size, if her parents are home, if she sucks cock.

If PJ contributors can pretend to be young girls, couldn't their victims pretend to like young girls?

This is what a Tempe man claims was his situation.

Brian (New Times has chosen not to publish the real names of PJ's victims) spent his childhood on the East Coast before moving to Tempe with his family. He's in his early 20s and has a broken arm that makes it hard to type, so he's reluctantly agreed to meet at a Denny's.

After sinking deep into a booth, his eyes sweep the room once, then again, before he speaks. Although it has been several months since Perverted-Justice invaded his life, and most of the harassment resulting from that invasion has subsided, he's still concerned about popping back up on PJ's radar screen.

Of the 21 Arizona men snared by Perverted-Justice New Times attempted to contact over several months, only Brian was reached. Most have gone deeply underground, fleeing the accusatory and often threatening calls and e-mails from PJ and its followers.

The experience clearly weighs on Brian and, although he's articulate and polite, his gloomy voice sounds like Eeyore's, if the cartoon donkey were on downers in the rain.

Shame dominates Brian's expression at first, but, as he speaks, there's clearly a sense of injustice and outrage percolating underneath.

Wincing, he admits that what he did was wrong, but he questions whether a fantasy not acted upon -- which was busted by a vigilante group, not a police organization -- warrants the punishment he's faced.

He was a happy person, he insists, before all this began. He had a bright future and good friends. Then, one afternoon at the library, he started messing around in a chat room, and his life as he knew it was over.

"All during the chat, I didn't believe it was a minor I was talking to," he insists. "I thought it was someone fooling around and playing with me."

And it turns out he was right.

Brian's excuses for his behavior are typical of PJ's victims, and are categorically dismissed as ridiculous by Von Erck. Perverts don't role play about this sort of thing, Von Erck says.

Giving out a phone number and agreeing to meet, which most PJ targets do (although very few actually get around to attempting physical contact before they are notified by PJ that the jig is up) is "not role-playing," Von Erck contends.