Dozens Held in Long Beach Sting

Capping an undercover sting operation, the Long Beach Police Department on Sunday announced the arrests of more than three dozen alleged sexual predators suspected of using Internet chat rooms to try to have sex with children under 14 years old.

Police worked with the Internet watchdog group Perverted Justice and the NBC newsmagazine “Dateline” to set up the sting, which mirrored ones conducted over the last two years by other law enforcement agencies throughout the nation.

Sgt. Lee DeBrabander, a Long Beach police vice unit supervisor, said he and other officers reached out to Perverted Justice after seeing how successful the program was for other departments. He said he hopes the publicity of the sting will deter others from preying on children.

“We want everyone to know that Long Beach police are enforcing these laws and if you’re an adult trying to have sex with a child ... you will go to jail,” DeBrabander said.

As part of the sting, volunteers from Perverted Justice set up fake computer identities of youngsters ages 11 to 13. Police said the suspects contacted the decoys in regional Internet chat rooms over the last two months. The suspects then arranged to meet the decoys in person, often after sending sexually explicit messages, police said.

On Friday, men started showing up at a house in Long Beach expecting to have sex with a child, police said. Instead, they were confronted by a camera crew and reporter from “Dateline.” Police arrested the suspects as they attempted to leave the residence. Most gave up without incident, police said, but some tried unsuccessfully to run away.

By the time the sting ended Sunday evening, police had arrested 38 men ranging in age from 22 to 50. They were all from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Ventura and San Diego counties.

Police booked the men on suspicion of attempting to have sex with a minor under the age of 14. They were interviewed by detectives at a makeshift booking area in the parking lot of a hardware store near the site of the sting. The suspects were then taken to the Long Beach Jail, where they were each being held in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Among the suspects arrested were an electrical engineer, a warehouse manager, a pizza deliveryman and a car salesman.

One 32-year-old man who was arrested was stunned to learn he had been duped.

“My life is over,” he said as cameras rolled. “How would you feel if somebody set you up?”

Det. Louie Galvan said he interviewed one suspect Sunday who was relieved by his arrest.

“I’m glad it’s finally over,” Galvan quoted the man as saying. “He said he wants to get help.”

Another suspect, it seemed, failed to learn from a previous arrest: He was nabbed in another sexual predator sting involving Perverted Justice and “Dateline” months earlier.

Although law enforcement officials Sunday praised the efforts of “Dateline,” some journalism experts have criticized the program for jeopardizing its neutrality by partnering with a group that acts as an arm of the police. “Dateline” plans to air the Long Beach sting in an upcoming show. No date was announced.

Police said the Long Beach operation resulted in the second-most arrests of all the stings done in conjunction with Perverted Justice and “Dateline.” The most successful sting was in Riverside.

Sgt. David Cannan, a Long Beach police spokesman, said sexual predators are a serious problem “that are not going to just go away.... To protect our children, we need parents who take an interest in, and monitor, what their children are doing on the computer.”

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matt.lait@latimes.com