Here's what happened when the 'Predator Poachers' came to Evansville

EVANSVILLE — When a Texas-based group of self-described "predator poachers" arrived in Evansville on Dec. 12, they knew the man they'd received sexually charged messages from while posing as a minor online likely would not face immediate prosecution.

That's because the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor's Office has stated publicly that it cannot condone the actions of "vigilante" groups for "many legal and safety reasons."

But if the man wouldn't be arrested for alleged child solicitation, at least he would endure a very public and live-streamed humiliation, said 23-year-old Alex Rosen, the group's leader and the host of Predator Poachers LIVE.

"There's nowhere we won't go," Rosen told the Courier & Press during an hour-long telephone interview last week. "We were in Evansville; right now, we're in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And yeah, I mean, we pretty much pose as minors online, and predators from all over the country message us."

Rosen, of Houston, Texas, confronted the man from Evansville in person and on camera while his cadre live-streamed the footage to an audience of devoted fans who tune in, Rosen said, for a variety of reasons. Some watch Rosen unmask would-be child abusers in real time purely for entertainment, while others – who suffered as children at the hands of abusers – watch to achieve a state of catharsis.

The group's target in Evansville has not been charged with a crime. Because of that, the Courier & Press isn't publishing his name. But according to Facebook Messenger chat logs Rosen publicly shared, the man appeared to have asked who he believed to be a 13-year-old girl for nude photographs.

• "Hey bea-utiful (sic) young lady," the first message he sent reads. "How are you doing??? Great to be Facebook friends with you ❤️"

• "Heyyyy (sic)!! How old are you?" an adult member of Rosen's group who was posing as the minor, known as a decoy, replied.

• "I'm 55, hbu (how about you)???" the man said.

The decoy said she was 13 years old and asked where the man lived. He said he lived in "Evansville Indiana."

In a carefully crafted series of texts that Rosen said were worded to avoid what could later be construed as entrapment, the decoy played along.

• "Hope you don't mind talking to an older guy," the man wrote to the decoy in one of the texts. "Don't worry sweetheart, I'm harmless!!! I'm not a perv or anything!!! Just really love ❤️ to be your friend!!!"

He then asked for "pics."

The man would later go on to ask the fictitious 13-year-old girl to send him nude photographs of her genitalia. He wrote that she aroused him and told her she was his "weakness," the messages show.

Man likely won't face charges

But the man Rosen said was behind these messages likely won't face prosecution for his alleged interactions with the decoy. Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers has publicly questioned the veracity of investigations conducted by civilian-led groups such as Rosen's.

Moers' stance was made clear in March after an Indianapolis-based outfit, with whom Rosen has collaborated in the past, streamed footage of their members confronting an Evansville man they accused of soliciting sex from a minor.

The group, Predator Catchers Incorporated (PCI), employed similar tactics to Predator Poachers LIVE: A decoy posed as a 14-year-old girl online, and when the fake account began receiving sexually charged messages from adults, PCI logged the evidence.

One of the accounts that messaged PCI's decoy allegedly belonged to an Evansville man. PCI members traveled here and confronted him during a widely viewed video they published on YouTube.

Vanderburgh County sheriff's deputies promptly arrested the man and booked him into the jail. Deputies later wrote that during a police interview, the man admitted he drove to an Evansville drugstore for the purpose of meeting up with a girl he believed to be 14.

But he wouldn't face prosecution. Moers' office dismissed the charges against him, and in a public letter, Moers addressed "vigilante groups."

“Actions by private, untrained – and sometimes armed – individuals who confront others pose a serious risk to the community, themselves, and can undermine legitimate investigations and cases which they are not privy to,” Moers wrote at the time.

The public letter questioned whether evidence obtained by groups like PCI and Predator Poachers would be admissible in court, and noted that law enforcement officers undergo years of training to conduct complex and often nuanced investigations involving child solicitation and sexual abuse.

After stop in Evansville, Rosen and his group confront Knox County man

Rosen knew of Moers' position before he and his team traveled to Evansville in mid-December. He had talked to one of PCI's leaders about their experience in Vanderburgh County.

But the messages Rosen's group received from the Evansville man were "very damning," Rosen said. Normally, his group – while continuing to pose as a minor – would agree to meet the adult on the other end of those messages in person. But in this case, their target was "wishy-washy" about doing so, Rosen said.

"When it came to just sending lewd photos and just getting very sexual in messages, and the sheer volume of what he was texting, we felt that he could, potentially, have child porn," Rosen said. "We thought maybe we could get him on that and at least see what transpires here."

It's a tactic Rosen's group has employed before in jurisdictions where prosecutors seem unlikely to take up a child solicitation case brought to them by a civilian group. During an on-camera confrontation, Rosen will attempt to coax the individual into admitting they possess child pornography.

With the on-camera admission secured, Rosen said law enforcement can do little else but take up an investigation and, hopefully, a prosecution.

Rosen claims his group's work has netted arrests in 44 states and convictions in 33, though the Courier & Press could not verify the data. Court records, however, backed up the fact that Predator Poachers LIVE have contributed to arrests, including in Knox County, Indiana, where Rosen traveled shortly after his brief stop in Evansville.

"It's crazy how different this place is from Evansville," Rosen wrote in an online post.

Rosen said he confronted a man in Knox County who sent "nudes" to one of Predator Poachers' decoys. Knox County sheriff's deputies arrested the man after Rosen's group informed them of the allegation.

Court records identify the man Rosen confronted as David Alan Wilson. Wilson was charged on Dec. 13 with vicarious sexual gratification involving a victim under the age of 14 years old, a Level 4 felony, the records show.

The Courier & Press requested additional court documents in the case, which is ongoing. Wilson was scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 22.

Who is Alex Rosen?

Rosen has more than 200,000 followers on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. The self-described Libertarian told the Courier & Press he's "very, very right wing" and conservative.

He's drawn ire for having used a racial slur and criticizing LGBTQ people, and the incidents have elicited scrutiny from Houston's press corps. Two days after Rosen's visit to Evansville, Texas Observer reporter Steven Monacelli reached out to Rosen for comment regarding some of the controversies.

Rosen shared Monacelli's written request to his X account.

"Do you have any comments on your past use of racial slurs?" Monacelli asked, according to Rosen's post. "Do you have any comments on your description of LGBT as a 'cult?'"

In his post sharing Monacelli's message, Rosen told Monacelli he would "answer all of [Monacelli's] questions in person, on camera. Let me know if you want to come to me or if I need to come to Dallas."

The pair sparred in the comments.

The Courier & Press asked Rosen some of the same questions: Had he used a racial slur on camera in 2019? Rosen admitted he had.

"I'm Jewish, and I'm the first person to make a Holocaust joke," Rosen said. "So yeah, I mean, I said it, but I'm not apologizing for it. Because, you know, people say that word has power. I mean, I don't think making Holocaust or Jew jokes has any power."

Is the work he does on Predator Catchers LIVE inherently political and tied to right-wing discourse attacking LGBTQ people, particularly people who identify as trans? What are Rosen's thoughts about Moers, a Republican, questioning groups like his own?

"I don't think going after predators should be political, I'll put it that way," Rosen said. "But, yeah, the rule of thumb is that Republican prosecutors tend to take up our cases more than Democrat ones."

What Moers, Evansville police have to say about groups like Predator Poachers

Rosen told the Courier & Press he brought the evidence compiled by his group regarding the man they confronted in Evansville to the Evansville Police Department, a claim backed up by public records.

An EPD report reviewed by the Courier & Press cites Rosen as having told an EPD officer that his group "posed as a 13-year-old girl online and started speaking with (the alleged offender) on or around Oct. 23."

The report goes on to state that officers advised Rosen to "follow up with the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor's Office."

It also says EPD officers provided a copy of the report to the local FBI field office, which has "an EPD Task Force Officer assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program."

After Rosen's visit to Evansville, and his public posts criticizing the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor's Office, the Courier & Press reached out to Moers for comment. She said she hadn't heard of Rosen or his group.

"We have a team of trained individuals, law enforcement and a top-notch child advocacy center who work together tirelessly day in and day out to identify and prosecute those that prey on children – and they do so in the correct way and for the right reasons – and not for personal notoriety," Moers wrote.

Moers went on to say that "predator catcher groups" did not understand the legal and investigative methods needed to "handle these matters correctly."

"If these groups are passionate about catching child predators, I invite them to join their local child advocacy center or law enforcement team," Moers' statement concluded.

Rosen denied that he or his group members do what they do to achieve notoriety. He said that after confronting "hundreds of people," he could "count on two hands the amount that were being investigated by law enforcement."

"And when they were already being investigated by law enforcement, they either used our evidence or our video to speed up the process of that person getting arrested or prosecuted," Rosen said.

What does the EPD think of civilian-led groups like Rosen's?

Department spokeswoman Sgt. Anna Gray wrote in a statement to the Courier & Press that the EPD has specialized units dedicated to investigating child solicitation and abuse.

"We are bound by law to properly investigate these crimes and we have to operate in those parameters of the law to successfully and legally bring forth charges to those individuals who are responsible for these awful crimes," Gray wrote. "We don't get a second chance to take a case to court and get a successful conviction, and therefore we must do things right the first time."

Gray said she had full confidence in both the EPD's detectives and the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor's Office, adding that she does "not pay attention to the naysayers who don't understand our process."

Rosen said he appreciated his interactions with Evansville police and felt the officers he spoke to were serious about investigating the incident he brought to them. But Rosen said the officers implied they might not be able to do much, at least right away, because he belonged to a civilian-led group.

The Courier & Press has not verified Rosen's claims about his conversations with EPD officers.

On Tuesday, Rosen and his group were active on X, cataloging their confrontations around the country during a days-long "pedo-catching trip."

During that time, Rosen claims to have identified a home health worker in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who admitted to having molested a 3-year-old while babysitting the child.

On Monday, Rosen took to X to post a screenshot of online court records, which he said showed that a soccer coach his group confronted the previous night "has been arrested and is pending charges."

Rosen said he's open to people questioning and critiquing his group's tactics, and that he understands that law enforcement has to conduct an independent investigation in order to stage a successful prosecution. But he argued Predator Poachers' methods worked and produced results.

"We like getting their confession on camera," he said.

Houston can be contacted at houston.harwood@courierpress.com

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Here's what happened when the 'Predator Poachers' came to Evansville