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I-Team Investigation: Internet Predator Ads

By Katie DeLong

Wisconsin's top law enforcement official is launching a new campaign to protect our kids on the internet. TODAY’S TMJ4’s Senior Investigative Reporter John Mercure and I-Team have seen it firsthand: men trolling Wisconsin chat rooms looking for underage sex. They’ve also sickeningly witnessed those men showing up at a home hoping to hook up. The Wisconsin Attorney General says enough is enough. In recent years, the I-Team has worked with law enforcement to document internet predators who talk dirty online and then show up at a borrowed house hoping to have sex with an underage girl. Geoff Groehrig is one young men the I-Team caught up with. Waukesha County Sheriff's Deputy: "Sheriff's department. Put your arms in the air and turn around. Put your arms up in the air and turn around. You're under arrest." “I didn't do anything,” Groehrig said. Waukesha County Sheriff's Deputy: "Don't resist. Just stop resisting, sir." Adam Miller also showed up after talking dirty to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl. When he discovered us, not his underage hook up, he fled. Miller was convicted of a felony. TODAY’S TMJ4’s stings and the daily work of Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s staff has the attorney general ready to act. "We need to protect those that are least capable of protecting themselves and the children certainly are the number one people in that category,” Van Hollen said. Van Hollen doubled the number of agents on the Wisconsin Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and his office is launching a new TV and radio ad campaign. "We're putting all the resources we can towards this. If we can spend a few dollars to keep a child from being sexually abused, not only are we protecting that child now and in the long term, we are making sure we save our state resources down the line from all of the problems that will occur because of the abuse the encounter," Van Hollen said. "We just want to send a message to them as strongly as we can by prosecuting them that just because they're behind the computer screen in the safety of their own home, they're not safe. We're going to find out who they are and take them off the streets,” Van Hollen said. The new TV and radio ads are airing throughout Wisconsin. Despite the new ads, experts say the first and last line of defense remains parents, who need to be vigilant about what their kids are doing online.