The “Wolf Project” Lured Purported Predator Into Their Set Trap
PLEASE LISTEN TO THE POWERFUL AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH WOLF FOUNDER GABRIELLE HOPKINS HERE:
APD’s November arrest for alleged online solicitation of a minor by Alameda resident, David Baldwin Carlson, came as an important accomplishment to police, a community safety victory for Alameda residents and an absolute joy to Gabrielle Hopkins, the grounded, inspired 25 year old founder of The Wolf Project (WOLF) whose volunteer, citizen group was instrumental in snaring the twisted predator.
Carlson’s single count felony case is now wending its way through The Alameda County Courts with Carlson appearing before Judge James Cramer in Dept. 112 of The Wiley Manuel Courthouse on Dec. 20th.
Carlson came to court for a “Progress Report” hearing, and was represented by Alameda County Public Defender Jennie Walters Otis, with Deputy District Attorney John Joseph Mifsud present for The People Of The State Of California.
Carlson appeared in connection with respect to a charge of violating California Penal Code Section 288.2 (a): Harmful Matter Sent with the Indent to Seduce a Minor, related to his untoward and unwitting advances over Instagram to a team of Wolf Project portraying themselves to be a naïve, vulnerable fourteen year old girl.
ANN is waiting for a reply from Mr Mifsud and Ms. Otis for more on Carlson’s legal status in the Courts and for more details on the case, but the real story — of one young woman’s vision and resolve to fight the rising tide of online child predators and inform parents about how at risk their kids are in cyberspace– lies with Ms. Hopkins and the organization she founded.
The WOLF Project came into existence just over a year ago, designed as a force to do what the vast majority of online social media sites don’t do or don’t do well on their own: police and disallow their chat and content posting sites to be exploited by online child sex predators and traffickers.
WOLF’S core mission is simple at heart, but involves great amounts of time, patience and painstaking effort in its mission to gather enough incriminating evidence of pervert’s criminality to report to police agencies.
The trained volunteers, which number around 1,500, are divided into subgroups, called “fleets, ” composed of five to six members and communicate with each other on a private domain called Discord
The fleet members work together to create “bait” accounts containing content designed to lure in men and women who stalk the internet for their youthful victims.
Each bait account will put in information common to teen online posts in social media, as age and bio, # teen, # middle school and other content that “will fall in line with current youths, ”she said.
WOLF runs about 100-120 active fleet accounts at any given time, with each getting about three pedophile “hits” per week or so.
While any online site may be the prowling grounds of the online child stalker –the extensively used Instagram was the host site in the Carlson case–there are types even more populated with twisted online child exploitation perpetrators.
“Another way we come across these people is with anonymous chat sites as Chatroulette,” said Hopkins, referring to a site whose design is to provide one to one communication that is sheltered from anyone outside the two parties.
A quick visit to the site’s homepage readily shows how it attracts unwitting youths and malevolent perpetrators to utilize it and take advantage of such compartmentalized and protected interactive features designed to create a hidden venue.
Chatroulette’s homepage, depicts a cartoon image of what appears to be the face of a young teen girl in a black beret looking somewhat ambivalent and slightly ill at ease.
The image seems to be almost a Freudian slip of sorts as a queasy foretelling of the discomfort and dangers that naïve, innocent and unwitting youngsters may face.
Above graphic: A screenshot of the shady site, “Chatroulette’s” invitation for people, including unwitting minors, to enter into their domain and “allow” folks to communicate with them in what can be the hunting grounds for the twisted and depraved.
Paradoxically, the page offers an introductory offer of features designed to bring kids and others in, especially the conniving sickos who look for prey.
“Camera is needed for the video chat. We value your privacy. Only partners will see your content, ” it reads blithely enough on the surface level.
But deeper, down in the dark and steamy reaches of such a compartmentalized space, lie the very same site features that child exploitation perpetrators look for: a hidden domain away from the vigilant or prying eyes of others and the capability to have live, interactive visual contact a place and the capability to trade photos and other graphic information of a sexual nature.
Once the youth hits the “accept” button, a façade feigning the power of personal choice and control, the youngster enters a realm that is anything but acceptance or consent.
Sites as Chatroulette “are absolutely crawling with predators,” says Hopkins, “so we will take those outsourced websites and try to move (the suspect) to either a Snapchat or Instagram account.”
With the trap accounts baited, “the predators often file in within a couple of hours of some of these accounts being made,” Hopkins, commenting on the obsessive, overeager nature of such deviants.
The recently shuttered Omegle, which advertised one of its benefits with an open speech forum style offer to prospective users to “Chat with random strangers online – it’s fun, it’s a new experience every time. Use Omegle now! “
Omegle’s founder, Leif K-Brooks, recently shut down the site due to operational fatigue and the corrupting influence of just the kinds of predators which The Wolf Project seeks to fight.
In praising Omegle’s self-policing of illegal content by the likes of the suspect in this case, Brooks wrote, “Omegle’s moderation even had a positive impact beyond the site. Omegle worked with law enforcement agencies, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to help put evildoers in prison where they belong.
But that was not enough, apparently to prevent the site from being a haven for online child predators.
Even though Omegle is out of commission, plenty of others still may play host to those whom The Wolf Project is designed to trap.
The “ITech Post” a media news and information reporting company says that “Apps like Kik, Skout, Whisper, Grindr, Tinder, Chat Avenue, Wishbone, Chatroulette, Omegle, Paltalk, Yubo, Hot or Not, and DOWN are allegedly being used by online predators to target vulnerable minors. “
The ever wary WOLF fleet gathers info from multiple sites and suspect persons over time and compiles it.
When content shared by the target subject rises to the level that it breaks the law in terms of explicit content by the fleet, WOLF will pass the information on to local police, anywhere from one to eight times per week.
In this case, the alleged perpetrator became the victim of his own twisted designs.
His ‘conversations’ in the bait account lasted several months and, in this case, Carlson became more engaged and increasingly provided personal information that eventually crossed the line into the kinds of illegality WOLF looks for.
Along the way, WOLF obtained his first name, which was part of his handle on Instagram , the widely popular social media site Carlson used in this case, and one among the many which other online child predators use .
After not hearing back from the pseudo victim for two days, he mentioned his educational achievements and his place of work affiliated with the grocery industry and shortly thereafter he crossed the line into illegality and “asked for/and or provided nude photos,” including those of his male genitalia on June 16 of this year, Hopkins said.
Based on that, a fleet member, trained in trying to elicit personal information and tracking down added information about the perpetrator, found him on Facebook.
“Alameda was our fist arrest,” said Hopkins with deserved pride, and added that WOLF is working on a couple more that are close to arrest in Texas.
The bait account victim does not respond to requests to provide any such photos and all fleet members are trained to pose as innocent youths who say things along the lines of “I don’t understand what you mean, I don’t really know about that stuff” and so on.
WOLF provided all incriminating evidence against Carlson to APD which then conducted its own investigation until they obtained and served the search and arrest warrants just under five months later.
Hopkins said that WOLF was in the dark about APD’s investigation progress, despite inquiries for updates, and was beginning to think that what seemed to be a major victory had come to a dead end.
“We reported it, and after not hearing back, we thought it was dead,” said Hopkins.
Hopkins profoundly believes, as does Chief Joshi, that youngsters are not well protected when they enter, usually with parental consent and awareness, into the untamed and largely under-policed environment of the internet world.
“ I am a survivor of sexual abuse and sexual assault, so I grew up realizing how helpless victims feel, and especially how helpless child victims feel. I just always vowed that I would do something about it,” in the context of “all the pain our children are going through with all the wild access to the internet” she said with respect to what inspired her to found WOLF.
Hopkins sees WOLF as a means to offset the lack of education of kids and parents alike to protect the would-be prey of depraved online stalkers.
“So, we’re going to do our part in making sure that the people who don’t respect us will at least fear us,” she said with determination and a hint of menace.
Before WOLF can get the evidence to a level suitable to report to police, they must have something as a request from the stalker to acquire a nude photo or send one or other types of explicit wording as in the Carlson case.
The there is the task of making a positive identification.
“We have to a location, we have to have an age, we’d like to have a birthday, we have to have a legal name, and once we have that it’s a green light, ” she said.
While WOLF is not legally bound by the constraints of entrapment laws which constrain what law enforcement can do in seeking incriminating evidence against a suspect, the group does abide by those standards to avoid the appearance of inducing a suspect to do something more than he or she intended.
Doing so readily feeds into an entrapment defense used in court to get evidence dropped in a criminal prosecution.
Then there is another legal wrinkle in how WOLF operates.
Some District Attorney’s offices are not comfortable in prosecuting cases developed using “civilian work” and so In some cases, as the ones in Texas, law enforcement actively joined with WOLF and made its own bait accounts to “work aside us,” with both avoiding any type of entrapment violation, said Hopkins
When it comes to the kinds of wording that perpetrators will use, WOLF and law enforcement enter into a kind of gray area, according to Hopkins.
“Unfortunately, it’s not illegal for a grown adult to flirt with a minor, as long as they aren’t asking for sexual conversation added in. They can say ‘I think you’re really sexy’. That’s not illegal, unfortunately.”
But if the online prowler says or asks about aspects that are expressly of a sexual nature, “that’s the crossing of the line,” Hopkins said.
But another line was crossed with respect to the Alameda prosecution.
This time, it was a good, hopeful, and slightly ironic one.
Hopkins burst out in tears of joy and gratitude before posting a video of her moment of relief and triumph on Tik Tok, “with me just bawling.”
“I cried my eyes out, “ she said, her voice resonating with passion and purpose at attaining this one, first, powerful victory.
“I just hope that that’s not the best day of my life,” said this survivor of sexual assault.