A suspected pedophile joked that he hoped he wasn’t being arrange by predator hunter Chris Hansen as he organized to satisfy a 14-year-old woman — simply to seek out Hansen ready for him with police.
Tyler Devault, 33, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was one in every of a “Nasty 9” nabbed in a significant sting operation throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia that will likely be featured on the collection “Takedown with Chris Hansen,” Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler revealed in a video assertion Monday.
Whereas talking on-line with an undercover officer he thought was a younger teen, Devault stated he didn’t “wish to see Chris Hansen from the present ‘To Catch a Predator’ there ready for him,” the sheriff stated.
Devault — who pretended to be 19 — arrived for the deliberate, pervy rendezvous with a “piping sizzling” pizza — simply to seek out his nightmare was true, with Hansen there ready.
He was taken into custody by the police.
Detectives had “dozens” of on-line conversations with potential predators, who believed they have been talking to an underage boy or woman and propositioning them for intercourse in Harford County, the sheriff stated.
Every of the suspects was met by Hansen and Harford County deputies and was taken into custody.
One, Nicholas Fountain of Collegeville, Pennsylvania, owns two daycare facilities, Gahler stated.
He got here into contact with an undercover deputy posing as a 14-year-old boy on a Reddit thread titled “Boys Ask Dads.”
“After I was first approached about conducting this operation, it was my honest hope that we’d come up empty-handed, that we’d discover there have been no predators that wished to terrorize our children right here in Harford County, and that the operation would finish with zero arrests,” Gahler stated.
“However sadly, that was not the case in any respect.”
Hansen, who rose to fame as host of the “To Catch a Predator” section of “Dateline NBC,” launched “Takedown with Chris Hansen” on his streaming service TruBlu in 2022.
