A guilty pleasure many people have is watching Dateline's To Catch a Predator. We assume so, because it's on a lot and because there's nothing as satisfying as watching people try to weasel their way out of chatroom transcripts and out of the clutches of swamp things. So we're glad that the Asbury Park Press and Staten Island Advance are keeping tabs on the show.
The APP detailed the recent filming of a sting at a rented New Jersey home (the real estate agent is now worried the show will drive down the price), which became the biggest Northeast sting: "They came from all walks of life — a New York University student, a retired firefighter, a school bus driver, an Air Force mechanic — and ranged in age from 21 to 60." In fact:
Another took the train from New York City to the Bay Head Junction station wearing an oversized SpongeBob SquarePants jacket and, prepared with a large bottle of KY lubricant, walked the two miles to Mantoloking.
And according to the website of Perverted Justice, the foundation that lures potential pedophiles, the sting's predators "came from all over New Jersey, New York and, eerily enough, Pennsylvania." The website has it italicized, so clearly, Perverted Justice was expecting more scumbags from NY and NJ.
The Advance mentioned the two Staten Island residents nabbed in the sting: 21-year-old Zigfield Rivera and 46-year-old Anthony Palumbo (the NYU student is 27 year old Malic K. Washington and a "Kazuo Akutso" of "29th Street, New York" was also on the list). But the Advance also raised mentioned the ethical questions that surrounds Dateline's involvement and the instance of one Texas prosecutor killing himself when a Dateline crew was waiting outside his home. Eep. Does that mean we can't laugh at the To Catch a Predator moment in 30 Rock?
