Perverting Justice

"I believe PJ's intentions were good, initially," Morrow says. "[PJ members wanted] to protect the Internet, to protect children from perverts. But their mission went astray right from the onset because of personality traits. They say they want to poison the well of chat rooms, but they are not accomplishing this. Instead, they drive real perverts underground."

Morrow says that, like many people, he was initially a supporter of Perverted-Justice. Indeed, he was "very impressed" by what they were undertaking. "When you first go to PJ, you look at the site and go, 'Wow, these guys are heroes.'" he says. "I found it, and I thought, 'This is awesome!' I have three kids, [and I felt] these guys are doing such a great thing. It [still] looks like a great thing on the surface."

But what the general public -- and especially the broadcast media -- tend to overlook, Morrow says, is what happens in PJ's follow-up forums. This is where the core group of diehard PJers use Internet sleuthing skills to uncover whatever information they can about the mark of the moment and those around him. This is information they use to humiliate the victim, and it ultimately ends up destroying many people's lives, when what the mark has done is possibly verbalize a fantasy.

"It's a big, dirty, stinky, smelly cesspool," Morrow says, "and the more time you spend wading in it, the stinkier it gets."

Morrow says he and the other 150 members of Corrupted Justice regard PJ as the most active and dangerous group of vigilantes on the Internet.

Morrow is quick to explain that he and his group in no way support pedophilia, and would have little problem with PJ if its members simply posted information on cyber-altercations and left it at that.

"This has grown into something quite dangerous. They are using vigilante tactics and anonymity to destroy people's lives. The victim loses his job, family, neighborhood and any respect anyone ever had for him. It drives people to the brink of suicide. I've spoken personally to a few people who, if not for very quick help, suicide would have been a very real possibility."

Referring to the fact that PJ hides its own members' identities with a vengeance and broadcasts the identities of its victims with that same zeal, he says, "Regardless of what these [marks] are, they are tried, convicted and hanged without due process, without someone saying, 'I'm the one accusing you.'

"Hundreds of people have their personal information posted, who have never done a damn thing," Morrow says, including neighbors, a family's grown children, employers, friends.

Morrow describes his nemesis, Von Erck, as a highly intelligent "master debater." The pun is intended.

"A lot of people in Perverted-Justice look upon him as a god," Morrow says. "In his mind, every bust that happens, he's responsible for."

Von Erck's control of his site and his followers is absolute, Morrow maintains. "He's a dictator."

Von Erck, Morrow says, responds to critics posting on PJ's site by banning them. End of conversation.

"He makes it very clear that it's his site -- and not a democracy. No one has a right to do anything he doesn't want them to do."

Von Erck is the sole spokesman for PJ, and he won't allow his members to post anything related to PJ on other sites, Morrow says.

"They call us 'pedophile enablers,'" Morrow says. "They don't want to give us the time of day."

Corrupted Justice, on the other hand, allows anyone to post on its site as long as he or she doesn't list personal information.

Von Erck calls Morrow's claims "silly," but he's still not about to divulge his identity or tell anyone whether he or his members have any credentials that qualify them to pass such harsh judgment on their marks.

Morrow is one of the few critics of Perverted-Justice willing to go on the record. Naturally, when reputations are ruined at the drop of a hat, naysayers are reluctant to identify themselves; why should they list their names, they argue, when Von Erck and other PJ members lack the courage to list theirs?

A married Tempe businessman and current CJ member in his mid-20s says he, like Morrow, was at first impressed with the Perverted-Justice site. "My initial feelings were pretty good. I was like, 'a site that actually preys on online predators!'" He says he soon came to the conclusion, however, that the harm PJ does greatly outweighs the good.

"Good concept, lousy execution, and the results they obtain are slim to none," he says. "They harass people to no end, call them 'baby rapers,' ruin their lives by contacting their families and places of work . . . the extent they take it to is ridiculous."

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PJ hopes to take things even further. In the future, it wants to expand what has been its very limited role in law enforcement by somehow managing to get a higher percentage of its victims prosecuted.

Here's Von Erck bragging about his organization's activities: