Before There Was "To Catch a Predator" . . . There Was R. Stephanie Good

by Robin Sax

The numbers say it all: each day 2,500 children go missing in the United States, while one out of every five children has been solicited online by sexual predators. Inspired by her own child’s near tragic encounter with a sexual predator, R. Stephanie Good, a highly trained lawyer, house-mom and accomplished author, was compelled to take action.

In 2003, she began a harrowing collaboration with the FBI to track down sexual predators on the Internet– a journey into a perverted underworld that has resulted in the arrest and federal conviction of dozens of sexual offenders.

As Stephanie soon discovered through her undercover work, these predators are more often than not the last ones we would expect, lurking right next door and, frighteningly, having access into our own homes through the Internet. . . .

Sephanie's shocking story is told in EXPOSED: The Harrowing Story of a Mother's Undercover Work with the FBI to Save Children from Internet Sex Predators.

Stephanie worked closely with the FBI agents of Squad C-20, which handles crimes gainst children. Her frightening exposé follows Stephanie as she logs on to chat rooms using the fictitious user profile of a teen-aged girl. She is usually bombarded with instant messages in mere minutes. EXPOSED follows closely as Stephanie participates in Internet chats . . . disguises her voice to conduct wiretapped telephone conversations . . . takes part in dangerous arrest situations where federal agents swoop in to nab a perpetrator who believes he is meeting a minor girl for sex . . . and also as Stephanie comes face-to-face with some of the predators in federal court where she has been called to testify against them.

EXPOSED describes every detail of the process, with excerpts from the actual transcripts of her online chats and telephone conversations with the predators, and the meticulous care that Stephanie employs in her investigations to ensure that everything is done by the book – the results of which have earned Stephanie a 100 percent conviction record.

“Sexual predators have an addiction and will stop at nothing," she says. "And I will stop at nothing to find them and turn them over to the FBI. The fact is that my odds are much better than theirs. While there is no doubt that the Internet has dramatically increased the access of child predators to their young prey, it has also increased the chances that law enforcement officials will catch them.”

Some of the hundreds of predators arrested because of Stephanie’s work, and profiled in EXPOSED, include:

Steven Dovas - a respected teacher, lecturer, well-known filmmaker and commercial animator who had been praised for his work on projects and children’s television segments with Nickelodeon, HBO and Sesame Street. Steven pleaded guilty to the charges, and was sentenced to five years in federal prison and five years supervised release, a $10,000 fine and attendance in a sex offender program.

Jason Corso - a manager of Mutual of Omaha bank. Stephanie participated in the arrest after Corso insisted that Stephanie phone him from the shopping mall where he had scheduled the meeting. After she phoned him with her location, he arrived only to find a swarm of FBI agents awaiting him. Corso pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison, and three years probation.

John Hamilton - a baker from Kentucky. Hamilton, believing Stephanie to be a 15-year-old girl, purchased a bus ticket for Stephanie to leave her family in New York and meet him in the Midwest, where he would take her to his home and make her “disappear off the face of the Earth.” Stephanie says, “To this day, Hamilton is the most disturbed individual that I have had the unpleasant experience to come across on the Internet." Hamilton was sentenced to three years in prison and five years of probation.

Matt Brand - a thirty-six year-old teacher who arranged to meet 13-year-old "Stephanie" at the Port Authority bus terminal. He did not plead guilty, and Stephanie testified at his trial. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

Dennis Joseph - a forty-year-old musician who played at Carnegie Hall, conducted at Avery Fischer Hall, and performed with celebrities Ashford and Simpson, Stevie Wonder, Bill Cosby, Sting, and the Billy Strayhorn Orchestra. He was also featured on stage in the Broadway production of Fosse and played on the soundtrack for Martin Scorcese’s film, The Aviator. Stephanie testified against him at two trials. He was sentenced to ninety-seven months in a federal prison.

“Sexual predators are among us every which way we turn,” warns Stephanie, “and they are not who you often envision. Nobody ever expects the well-dressed businessman who lives next door and buys your child’s girl scout cookies, the soccer coach who pats a kid on the head after a great play, the school bus driver who pulls up to the house to drop off a child in the rain, the teacher who stays after school to tutor a child, the pediatrician, friends, siblings, or even a spouse. But the truth is they are most often the people we least suspect.”

EXPOSED is a chilling story, revealing one mother’s near-tragic personal story that compelled her to make a difference in the hunt for Internet sexual predators.

And R. Stephanie Good is a fine new addition to the lineup at Women in Crime Ink. Because her bio was not posted on launch day, here is more about the professional background of our newest contributor:

R. Stephanie Good, author of Law School 101: Survival Techniques from Pre-Law to Life as an Attorney, and co-author of the New York Times best seller Aruba: The Tragic Untold Story of Natalee Holloway and Corruption in Paradise as well as A Rush to Injustice: How Power, Prejudice, Racism, and Political Correctness Overshadowed Truth and Justice in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, received her BA in Political Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She continued her education at Hofstra University School of Law in New York York where she earned her JD and an LLM in international law.

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