24 pedos off the streets thanks to this 
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/lo...0,125456.story
Arrests in Net sex sting
Some of the 2 dozen charged showed up at rental house where they thought they were meeting teens
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BY SAMUEL BRUCHEY
STAFF WRITER; Staff writer Carl MacGowan contributed to this story.
February 15, 2006
During a monthlong sting of online sex crimes, Suffolk detectives said they netted two dozen Internet pedophiles by posing in chat rooms as young boys and girls and inviting men for dates to a rented house in central Suffolk.
Caught in the sting were men between 20 and 47 years old from New York City and Long Island, including several students, a young actor, a plumber, an Army lieutenant colonel and a West Islip firefighter who used the online moniker "evilfireman."
Police said all of the men engaged in sexually explicit conversations online with people they thought were minors. All were charged with attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor, a felony.
One man asked a detective posing online as a 13-year-old boy if he had ever had sex with a man, while the fireman asked an officer posing as a 13-year-old girl to call him at the firehouse, police said.
Thirteen of the men showed up at the house, most with condoms, police said. Others brought video equipment and child porn, police said.
"There was a time when parents only had to worry about their kids walking to school and back; well, those days are gone," Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said during a news conference in Yaphank announcing the arrests. "These sexual predators can get to your children within the four walls of your home. That's a very scary concept."
The operation began with seven detectives from Suffolk's Computer Crimes Unit setting up phony online profiles of 12-, 13- and 14-year-old boys and girls and visiting chat rooms hosted by America Online, Yahoo and other service providers.
"We just went where the children go," Computer Crimes Det. Sgt. John Cowie said.
Army Lt. Col. Douglas Winckelmann, 47, of 300 E. 93rd St., Manhattan, asked a detective posing as a 13-year-old boy if he had ever had sex with a grown man, Cowie said. Winckelmann then sent a photograph of a naked man, saying it was he, Cowie said.
Winckelmann, who was freed on $25,000 bail after his arrest last month, was one of 11 suspects who did not actually go to the house. A spokeswoman at his Bayside Army base, Fort Totten, said he'd been suspended.
Thomas Johnson, the firefighter, didn't go to the house either. But, Johnson, 24, of 70 Claire Ct., West Babylon, used a computer at home and another at the West Islip firehouse to chat up a detective posing as a 13-year-old girl, police said. Johnson told the girl to call him and gave a firehouse telephone number, police said. A call to the firehouse seeking comment was not returned.
Johnson's attorney, Tom Spreer of Babylon, said his client engaged in the chat for "entertainment."
Newsday attempted to contact all of the suspects or their attorneys, but only a few could be reached for comment.
Christopher Dashevsky, 27, a Ronkonkoma mechanic who was arrested at the rented house, said he was innocent. Dashevsky said someone else used his work computer.
Attorney Philip Murphy of Bay Shore, who is representing Selden landscaper Dennis Vlismas, said his client is "severely mentally and emotionally impaired, and I don't think he understood the import of the information that he downloaded onto his computer."
Using the house made it easier for police to arrest the suspects, Cowie said. It was not used to entrap the suspects, Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said.
"Merely affording somebody the opportunity to commit a crime in New York is not entrapment," Dormer said. "When our investigators go online posing as 13-year-old boys or girls, and in some cases 12 years old, they are immediately hit on. They do not reach out to anybody. They just put their screen name up and they get hit."
Staff writer Carl MacGowan contributed to this story.
The suspects
The following were arrested in a sting by police for alleged online sex crimes.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/lo...0,125456.story
Arrests in Net sex sting
Some of the 2 dozen charged showed up at rental house where they thought they were meeting teens
Email this story
Printer friendly format
Breaking News Alerts
Be the first to know when news happens on Long Island.
Click here to subscribe.
BY SAMUEL BRUCHEY
STAFF WRITER; Staff writer Carl MacGowan contributed to this story.
February 15, 2006
During a monthlong sting of online sex crimes, Suffolk detectives said they netted two dozen Internet pedophiles by posing in chat rooms as young boys and girls and inviting men for dates to a rented house in central Suffolk.
Caught in the sting were men between 20 and 47 years old from New York City and Long Island, including several students, a young actor, a plumber, an Army lieutenant colonel and a West Islip firefighter who used the online moniker "evilfireman."
Police said all of the men engaged in sexually explicit conversations online with people they thought were minors. All were charged with attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor, a felony.
One man asked a detective posing online as a 13-year-old boy if he had ever had sex with a man, while the fireman asked an officer posing as a 13-year-old girl to call him at the firehouse, police said.
Thirteen of the men showed up at the house, most with condoms, police said. Others brought video equipment and child porn, police said.
"There was a time when parents only had to worry about their kids walking to school and back; well, those days are gone," Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said during a news conference in Yaphank announcing the arrests. "These sexual predators can get to your children within the four walls of your home. That's a very scary concept."
The operation began with seven detectives from Suffolk's Computer Crimes Unit setting up phony online profiles of 12-, 13- and 14-year-old boys and girls and visiting chat rooms hosted by America Online, Yahoo and other service providers.
"We just went where the children go," Computer Crimes Det. Sgt. John Cowie said.
Army Lt. Col. Douglas Winckelmann, 47, of 300 E. 93rd St., Manhattan, asked a detective posing as a 13-year-old boy if he had ever had sex with a grown man, Cowie said. Winckelmann then sent a photograph of a naked man, saying it was he, Cowie said.
Winckelmann, who was freed on $25,000 bail after his arrest last month, was one of 11 suspects who did not actually go to the house. A spokeswoman at his Bayside Army base, Fort Totten, said he'd been suspended.
Thomas Johnson, the firefighter, didn't go to the house either. But, Johnson, 24, of 70 Claire Ct., West Babylon, used a computer at home and another at the West Islip firehouse to chat up a detective posing as a 13-year-old girl, police said. Johnson told the girl to call him and gave a firehouse telephone number, police said. A call to the firehouse seeking comment was not returned.
Johnson's attorney, Tom Spreer of Babylon, said his client engaged in the chat for "entertainment."
Newsday attempted to contact all of the suspects or their attorneys, but only a few could be reached for comment.
Christopher Dashevsky, 27, a Ronkonkoma mechanic who was arrested at the rented house, said he was innocent. Dashevsky said someone else used his work computer.
Attorney Philip Murphy of Bay Shore, who is representing Selden landscaper Dennis Vlismas, said his client is "severely mentally and emotionally impaired, and I don't think he understood the import of the information that he downloaded onto his computer."
Using the house made it easier for police to arrest the suspects, Cowie said. It was not used to entrap the suspects, Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said.
"Merely affording somebody the opportunity to commit a crime in New York is not entrapment," Dormer said. "When our investigators go online posing as 13-year-old boys or girls, and in some cases 12 years old, they are immediately hit on. They do not reach out to anybody. They just put their screen name up and they get hit."
Staff writer Carl MacGowan contributed to this story.
The suspects
The following were arrested in a sting by police for alleged online sex crimes.
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