Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Anthony Greene and Truckers Against Predators is the latest wannabe vigilante group trying to make names for themselves

This douchebag is Anthony Green and his PJ Wannabe site is Truckers Against Pedophiles. He should be locked up for engaging in illegal sting activities. He should also be arrested for trying to incite a riot. Fuck this piece of shit.

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/07/18/a-st-louis-trucker-is-on-a-mission-to-trap-pedophiles-hes-already-bagged-6

A St. Louis Trucker Is on a Mission to Trap Pedophiles. He's Already Bagged 6
Posted By Danny Wicentowski on Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 8:53 am

It was past 2:30 a.m. Saturday, and from behind the camera of his smartphone, professional trucker and newbie pedophile hunter Anthony Green observes his target pull up in a white pickup truck. He follows the truck to a BP gas station parking lot in north St. Louis.

The trap has been laid, and now Green is ready to spring it shut.

"There he is," he says into the camera, which is streaming the footage to Facebook and thousands of viewers. "He's a sick-looking fuck."

A St. Louis native and founder of Truckers Against Predators, Green performed five prior stings between launching the group July 7 and that morning's livestream. It was third to take place in St. Louis. The sting locations have followed Green's trucking routes, resulting in recorded operations in Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and Missouri.

In St. Louis on Saturday, the target of the early-morning sting is a 46-year-old man, a local bartender "into BDSM," Green tells the viewers, adding that the man had brought along condoms — sheepskin — for a supposed tryst with a fourteen-year-old girl. The girl, of course, is actually a decoy working with Green. With the camera in selfie mode, Green describes to his audience how the man had texted about his desire to take the girl's virginity and have anal sex.

In the span of little more than a week, Green has confronted multiple targets in parking lots, berating and shaming them in front of a growing online audience. In one case, in Texas, the target left the scene in police handcuffs.

Each time, Green tells the men they are being filmed "for your safety and mine." In some cases, his videos show these men admitting what they'd done. Others deny and deflect, or cry, begging Green to give them another chance.

In the footage from Saturday, Green flips the camera view to the front-facing mode, which reveals the target of the sting: a clean-shaven, middle-aged man with a distinctively curled black mustache. (Since he has not been charged with a crime, RFT is not naming him.)

Green, camera rolling, greets the man by name. The man halts.

"You and me need to talk," Green tells him. "You know, the things you were worried about when you talking to the decoy..."

"Goddamit," the man says in a deflated voice.

It's an exchange that should be familiar to anyone who's seen To Catch a Predator — especially that iconic TV moment when host Chris Hansen emerges from a side room, and the cameras zoom in on the suddenly sweat-slicked face of a man realizing he's walked into a trap, as Hansen drops the now-infamous line, "Why don't you take a seat right over there."

Green doesn't use the line, and he's certainly no ultra-composed, TV-ready reporter like Hansen. On the Facebook video from Saturday, Green opens by telling the man that he's not a cop, but then adds, "I work with police."

Then Green really lays into him:

"The fuck are you thinking man? Did you read the things you were saying to this girl? We could totally take everything to your boss and everything else. I'm interested in why in the hell you're trying to ruin a little girl's life that's a virgin."

The man with the mustache just stands there, taking Green's verbal barrage. He drops his head to his chest, repeating, "I don't know man, I don't know."

 Anthony Green, the trucker behind Truckers Against Predators. - SCREENSHOT VIA FACEBOOK

Reached by phone a few days after the sting, Green explains that he's a longtime fan of citizen-led efforts to identify and publicly shame child predators, especially a group called The Ultimate Decoy. Dozens of other groups are active across the U.S. and overseas, with the hunters generally uploading videos of confrontations with men — and it's always men — who are lured into the trap by decoys acting as minors.

"I just feel like there's a movement, there's at least twenty different hunter teams in the country," he says. "We just based ours around trucking because that’s what I do."

Indeed, Green follows a long line of similar efforts. The most prominent, NBC's To Catch a Predator, had just a two-year run from 2006 to 2008 before being canceled in the wake of a target, a prosecutor, committing suicide. The Internet group NBC worked with, Perverted Justice, had a track record predating the show, and boasted more than 100 convictions.

But the show came under heavy criticism. Beyond the civil rights issues, an expert later told the New Republic, it was simply dangerous. “We see situations that in a second turn volatile,” James Drylie, a professor of criminal justice at Kean University, told the magazine. “Imagine hearing: ‘lights, camera, action, you’re on TV.’ A person can just explode — they’re looking to escape and they’ll use any means.”

That hasn't happened yet to Green. (He says he carries a firearm for protection during the stings.) It also doesn't take a TV production to seek out targets. It's depressingly easy.

Here's how Green sets up a sting: First, decoys identifying themselves as adult women will post on various social media and messaging apps — apps like MeetMe, Whispr, Musicly.ly, MeetMe, LiveMe and Plenty of Fish, he alleges, are "terrible safe havens for pedophiles." These initial posts aren't explicitly geared towards predators, but rather offer an innocuous invitation, something like a 26-year-old woman in town for a night and looking to hang out.

"Within ten minute we'll get 80 to 100 responses," Green says. After two or three messages, however, the decoy "reveals" that she's not 26, but fourteen. At that point, about 50 percent of the respondents stop communicating, Green says.

Overall, Green claims that his decoys are currently working 100 concurrent conversations, all with men who appear interested in meeting up with girls only a few years older than Green's own twelve-year-old daughter.

After the initial contact, the decoys arrange a meeting — always a public place, preferably late at night or early in the morning, to reduce the possibility of bystanders interfering, Green says.

He adds, "It’s definitely dangerous." Green claims that he consulted St. Louis police officers before launching Truckers Against Predators earlier this month. An officer told him not to get involved, he says, for the sake of his own safety.

But Green says the risk is worth it. The trucker says he himself was sexually abused as a child, and he believes that citizen-led hunter groups are doing vital work, raising awareness that predators exist online and in real life, in great numbers, and that they're constantly looking for victims.

"These people are your neighbors," Green says. "Whenever I meet one of these guys, I feel like I've actually saved a child that night. And instead of them meeting up with a little kid, they meet up with a 350-pound man."

For Green, perhaps the hardest part of the job is keeping his cool when getting face-to-face with the sort of person who would drive to a gas station at 2:30 a.m. with condoms and the intention of taking a fourteen-year-old girl's virginity.

On Saturday night, Green admits, he lost his composure. On the video — which, as of this writing, has nearly 40,000 views — he spends more than ten minutes castigating his target, telling him that he'll likely be raped in prison and that maybe he should just jump off a bridge.

At one point, Green threatens to call the cops to the gas station if the man keeps evading his questions. Later, Green appears to yell toward some bystanders, informing them that the man had tried to have sex with a fourteen-year-old. Off-camera, someone shouts back, "Knock his ass out!" and "You should be killed motherfucker!" and "Cut his balls off!" 

"Do you know how bad I want to turn this camera off right now," Green asks the man. "There's no curing people like you. None. No fucking cure." 

During his later interview, Green tells RFT that he regrets involving the bystanders and that he won't do it again — not out of sympathy for the target of the sting, but because one of those bystanders could have taken matters into their own hands. That wouldn't be good for Green.

"If someone would have hurt him, I would have been held responsible," Green says. Still, he understands the impulse to hurt predators. Considering his own experience as a sex-abuse victim, he says that if he was in the bystander's position, "I might take a swing at him. I might." 

Green maintains that he's not a vigilante, and that he's not out to bring violent retribution on the predators he hunts. He wants arrests. However, to date, only one man — a target in Texas — has left the scene of a sting in police custody.

"I'm working closely with police to try to attain arrests," Green says. "If a DA doesn't want to pick up charges because I'm not a police officer, then what I'm going to do is not expose them live. What I'm going to do is still expose them, but I’m still going to give all of the chat logs to the police up front, beforehand, so they can do their sting."

Reached Monday by email, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Michelle Woodling says that the department is aware of the Saturday incident.

"We have nothing further at this time as the investigation is ongoing," she writes.

It's not clear whether Green's sting operations will lead to charges in Missouri. The state statute defining the crime of Enticement of a Child seems expressly written to exclude non-police sting operations. The statute includes a provision that reads, "It is not a defense to a prosecution for a violation of this section that the other person was a peace officer masquerading as a minor." So what if the other person isn't a police officer at all? Is that a defense? Would the evidence gathered prior to the live-streamed confrontation give police legal cover to arrest the perp, or, for that matter, for a prosecutor to issue charges?

Green thinks it should.

"The law is kind of gray," he admits. "If the police don’t want to pick up prosecution, then we’re going to go to the public and get 100, 200,000 signatures and we’re going to go to the state legislature to try to get the law changed."

Yet even in the absence of prosecution, Green is making an impact. According to people posting on the Saturday video, the mustachioed man is an employee of several local bars, most recently Hendrick's BBQ in St. Charles. A manager there Monday hangs up on a reporter when asked about the man by name. Hendrick's told a concerned citizen who reached out via private message that the man was no longer an employee.

For Green, the social result — the public awareness — makes his own efforts worthwhile, even the guy doesn't end up behind bars.

"I feel like internet justice is sometimes is better than criminal justice," he says. "These men are not innocent; they are attempting to meet a child for sexual activity. I'm not a vigilante, and jail is really what I want, but I definitely think there’s a big value of the internet exposures. Maybe more so than jail."


Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Judge to Vukovich: "Vigilantism is not something that we accept in America"



This scumbag got 23 years for his 3 attacks.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2018/02/26/anchorage-man-who-attacked-sex-offenders-sentenced-to-23-years-in-prison/

Anchorage man who attacked sex offenders sentenced to 23 years in prison
Author: Tegan Hanlon  clock Updated: 12 hours ago  calendar Published 17 hours ago


At an Anchorage Superior Court hearing for Jason Vukovich, who was sentenced Monday for attacking three registered sex offenders, his older brother Joel Fulton said that despite counseling, he has not yet recovered from what the two men experienced as children.

"I'm never going to get better — never," said Fulton, who has a successful career in cybersecurity in California.

At the two-day hearing that started Friday, Vukovich's lawyer, Ember Tilton, argued for a more lenient sentence for his 42-year-old client, who attacked three men in June 2016, saying to a victim he was an "avenging angel" for abused children. Tilton said Vukovich continues to suffer through mental and emotional turmoil resulting from a childhood of physical and sexual abuse.

But the prosecutor, Patrick McKay, argued that there was no excuse for Vukovich to target and attack three strangers, beating one man so badly with a hammer that he fractured his skull and knocked him unconscious.

"We're lucky we're not dealing with a murder charge," Assistant District Attorney Patrick McKay told the judge. "People do not get to take the law into their own hands just because they don't like a particular group of people or a particular person."

As part of a plea deal, Vukovich had previously agreed to plead guilty to first-degree attempted assault and a consolidated count of first-degree robbery. In turn, prosecutors agreed to dismiss more than a dozen other charges against him stemming from the attacks.

Early Monday afternoon, Superior Court Judge Erin Marston handed down his sentence to Vukovich: 25 years in prison, five years fewer than the maximum. He also sentenced Vukovich to five years' probation.

"Vigilantism is not something that we accept in America," he told Vukovich. "It's not something that we accept in this community and it is just simply something that will not be tolerated."

The men Vukovich singled out and attacked were complying with the law, Marston said. They had gone through the court system, received their sentences and put their names on Alaska's public sex offender registry, where Vukovich found their addresses.

"It was not the purpose of the registry to allow people to do their own brand of justice," Marston told Vukovich. "The purpose of the registry was to keep the community safe."

McKay said that in the summer of 2016, Vukovich, recently released from jail, carried a notebook with a list of nine names that he planned to target. Vukovich said he collected the names from acquaintances. He said they told him the people were "pedophiles."

Over five days in June, Vukovich entered the homes of three of the men, uninvited. He hit two of them with his fists, and another man with a hammer. The attack left that victim with a lasting traumatic brain injury. It's hard for him to string words into sentences. He lost his job. He can't pay his rent.

"My life is changed forever," he told the judge.

McKay said Vukovich also stole from the three men he attacked.

On Monday, Vukovich apologized.

"I realize now that I had no business assaulting these individuals or taking the law into my own hands," he said. "I should have sought mental health counseling before I exploded."

Vukovich has cycled into and out of jail for decades.

As a child, he said, he and his siblings were abused by his adoptive father, Larry Lee Fulton.

"He was a pretty terrible person in general," Vukovich told the judge. "He liked to administer beatings with various implements — belts, eventually a two-by-four that he had custom-made — and he used to like to disrupt the night by coming in to sexually assault (me)."

Fulton was found guilty of second-degree abuse of a minor and in 1989 received a three-year suspended sentence — meaning he didn't have to serve any active time in a prison cell.

Vukovich's older brother, Joel Fulton, eventually ran away from home and later he did the same.

Their paths diverged.

Fulton went to college and later got a PhD. He lives in California with his family, where he said he has good job as the chief information security officer at a data analytics software company. He said he still receives counseling to deal with the trauma of being physically and sexually abused as a child.

Vukovich turned to drugs and crime.

Vukovich told the judge that he regularly used methamphetamine. He has eight prior felony convictions, McKay said.

Fulton told the judge he wasn't friends with Vukovich and had spoken to him at most twice over the past two decades. Still, he said he wanted to help him and he asked the court system to do the same.

"Have mercy on him," Fulton told the judge. "Help him."

While Judge Marston expressed sympathy for the brothers' childhood experiences, he said Vukovich has ultimately proved he is dangerous and "willing to hurt people."

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Idiots in Ireland & the UK are wanting their registries to be made public. These vigilante scumbags are the reason why

Vigilante douche George Keenan did not like a dose of his own medicing
The BBC exposed a few of these scumbags. It is amazing that any loser believes that these pathetic excuses of humanity are "heroes." Al they have proven, however is that vigilantes are all cowards yet they are prone to violence. Sharon Shanks and George Keenan are among those exposed as filthy scumbags in this BBC report. By the way, one of these vigilante scumbags has been arrested and will be prosecuted, with more to follow. Round these thugs up!

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-43024711

Self-styled 'paedophile hunters' revealed
By Kevin Magee
BBC News NI investigations correspondent

Some of the leaders of self-styled paedophile-hunting groups operating in Northern Ireland have been identified for the first time.

There are increasing concerns about the methods many of the groups use, and their lack of accountability.

The so-called paedophile-hunting groups target people online who they believe are sexual predators.

They confront them and broadcast the encounter live on the internet, then call the police.

There have been more than 100 incidents of that nature reported to police in Northern Ireland, but no-one has been charged as a result and there have been no convictions.

Former senior police officer and child protection expert Jim Gamble warned that some of the tactics used by the groups are criminal.

"Anyone live streaming these incidents is not about the justice of catching someone who represents a threat to children," he said.

"They are about the self-publicity and the self-centred approach about themselves, much more than about making children safer."

All of the groups keep their identities hidden.

'On whose authority?'

BBC News NI approached two of the people involved in setting up the "hunting groups" in Northern Ireland to ask them for an interview.

Sharon Shanks, from south Belfast, is behind the group called Justice Reborn Northern Ireland and she uses the alias Chelsea Lewis.

Ms Shanks declined to do an interview, saying in an online message that she was unhappy that "journalists and news stations have so far called the hunting groups vigilantes".

"Our identity we keep to ourselves so meeting isn't an option," she said.

During one confrontation that she posted live online, Ms Shanks is overheard using explicit offensive language and threats of violence against a man who came across the scene.

When approached by the BBC just after she had broadcast other live footage on Facebook of herself interrogating a man she had alleged was a paedophile, Ms Shanks refused to answer our questions.

We wanted to ask about the methods her secret group used, and on whose authority she had been detaining people who she believed to be paedophiles.

She declined to answer any questions.

Instead, Ms Shanks pulled on a scarf and was driven way at speed.

There are up to 10 different, self-appointed paedophile hunting groups operating in Northern Ireland.

Often they are in competition with one another, but sometimes they join forces.

'Won't answer questions'

One of those who introduced the concept of "paedophile hunting" to Northern Ireland is 34-year-old Belfast man George Keenan.

He uses the alias James SJ O'Neill and was linked to a group calling itself Silent Justice.

One of his targets last August was a man in County Antrim.

Two days after he was confronted, the man took his own life.

His family said they wanted to maintain a dignified silence.

Mr Keenan recently had a public falling out with other paedophile hunting groups in England and, in an expletive filled video, issued various threats of physical violence against them on Facebook.

Mr Keenan declined a request for an interview using his own name and identity.

BBC News NI approached him in west Belfast to ask him on whose authority he was confronting people he thought were paedophiles.

When asked if any of his actions resembled those of a vigilante, he replied: "Are you serious? Get out of my sight, leave me alone.

"Stay away from anybody that I have previously worked with.

"You are harassing people, I am not here to answer your questions.

"You are absolutely disgusting. Get out of my space right now."

Later the same day, Mr Keenan led a group of people to confront BBC investigations reporter Kevin Magee in a coffee shop in Belfast.

Mr Keenan claimed he had been able to mobilise more than a dozen people from various paedophile hunting groups.

For a short time they blocked off Botanic Avenue and published the episode online.

Eyewitness account: 'Terrible, outrageous behaviour'

A mother-of-two has told of her terror when her home was mistakenly surrounded by a group of masked paedophile hunters.

The self-appointed gang surrounded the house in the Springfarm estate in Antrim in January, claiming that a paedophile was living there.

But the group had made a mistake - they had picked the wrong house.

The 34-year-old woman, who asked not to be named, said she was "absolutely terrified" when members of the gang approached her home.

Her 66-year-old mother and two young children, aged seven and three, were in the house with her.

"A crowd of people got out of cars and they started banging and kicking at my front door - one of the women was screaming," she said.

"They were all saying there was a paedophile in the house, but there was no man in the house, just me, my kids and my mother.

"It was terrible, it really was outrageous behaviour - we felt really intimidated.

"One of the children was hiding under the bed and my mother was petrified and shaken afterwards.

"Now she doesn't want to leave the house."

The woman had only recently moved into the house.

'Job for police'
Neighbourhood watch co-ordinator Seamus Davis went to the house when he heard the commotion.

He said: "There were three or four cars full of people.

"I said: 'Look you're in the wrong place' - and they called me a paedophile lover.

"I told them I hate paedophiles as much as anybody else, but this way you are doing is totally wrong - this is a job for the police.

"You are behaving like a bunch of vigilantes."


Monday, January 22, 2018

The registry inspires yet another man to kill, this time in Nevada


How many more people need to say this before pro-registry schmucks finally admit the registry promotes violence?

https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/homicides/las-vegas-man-says-he-killed-over-dislike-of-sex-offenders-report-says/

Las Vegas man says he killed over dislike of sex offenders, report says

By Mike Shoro Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 21, 2018 - 12:17 pm

A Las Vegas man told his neighbor he killed two homeless people behind a central-valley swap meet because one of them was a sex offender, court documents show.

“The neighbor explained he had been sexually assaulted as a child and took offense to sex offenders,” 32-year-old Michael Thompson’s arrest report said.

Prosecutors charged Thompson with two counts of murder Thursday in the Dec. 26 shooting deaths of Rhonda Ballow, 27, and Alfred Wilhelm, 53, court records show. Thompson remained in Clark County Detention Center on Friday evening.

Detectives learned that a woman’s neighbor told her he killed a man and a woman behind the swap meet on the 2900 block of West Washington Avenue, near Rancho Drive, according to the arrest report.

The neighbor told the woman he killed the man because he was a sex offender and killed the woman because she refused to leave, the report said.

Nevada sex offender registry information shows Wilhelm was convicted of first-degree rape in Hawaii in April 1984.

The woman told police she didn’t believe her neighbor at the time because of his substance usage habits. Through her story, the report said, nearby security footage and other witness accounts, police identified Thompson as a suspect.

A Las Vegas city marshal told police other people who lived near the swap meet named Thompson as the shooter. The report said a witness said he watched a man matching Thompson’s description shoot Wilhelm twice. The witness and another man ran off and heard more gunshots. They met up with Thompson and exchanged cigarettes.

The witness returned to the area about 45 minutes later, the report said.

“(He) observed Rhonda crawling down the loading dock ramp asking for help,” the report said.

The witness told police he didn’t see her during the initial gunshots and didn’t know she was shot. He left and didn’t call for help, the report said.

Police initially spoke with Thompson on Jan. 5 after a witness to the shooting spotted him inside a convenience store, the report shows. Homicide detectives briefly spoke with Thompson and asked for a DNA sample. Thompson said he had heard of the homicide but had no information on it. He also declined to provide a sample.

After further investigation, police arrested Thompson on Jan. 16. The report said he told police he didn’t leave his house the night of the shooting. Thompson asked for a lawyer once police said they saw him on security footage near the swap meet at the time of the shooting.

Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter.

Monday, January 1, 2018

Alaska vigilante wants his arrest to serve as a deterrent to other vigilantes

Jason Vukovich speaks to a reporter at the Anchorage jail on Dec. 19. Vukovich was charged in 2016 with assault after a string of attacks against registered sex offenders. (Loren Holmes / ADN)


I'm skeptical this man feels any real remorse, except maybe remorse at not getting away with it. Hopefully, he'll get the full 25 years to figure it out. 



https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2018/01/01/anchorage-man-who-attacked-sex-offenders-says-he-wants-his-story-to-serve-as-a-deterrent/

Anchorage man who attacked sex offenders says he wants his story ‘to serve as a deterrent’
pencil Author: Tegan Hanlon  clock Updated: 3 hours ago  calendar Published 3 hours ago

An Anchorage man who attacked three registered sex offenders last year said he wants his story "to serve as a deterrent" to anyone tempted to turn their pain into violence or take the law into their own hands.

That's what he did in the summer of 2016. He now faces up to 25 years in prison.

"If you have already lost your youth, like me, due to a child abuser, please do not throw away your present and your future by committing acts of violence," Jason Vukovich wrote in a five-page letter sent to the Anchorage Daily News in November.

For the past year and a half, Vukovich's case has moved through the Alaska court system. He agreed to plead guilty to first-degree attempted assault and a consolidated count of first-degree robbery. In turn, prosecutors agreed to dismiss more than a dozen other charges against him as part of a plea deal, according to court records.

Vukovich is now awaiting his sentencing, which is currently scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. However, his attorney has recently requested more time to prepare, so the court date will likely be pushed further into 2018.

In the meantime, 42-year-old Vukovich said his views have transformed since last year. In both the November letter and an interview at the Anchorage jail in December, he said he wants to correct a message he communicated last fall, when he sent another letter to ADN and proposed an unconventional plea deal from his jail cell.

Then, he said he would plead guilty to the 2016 assaults on one condition: that his sentence be no longer than the combined prison terms of his three "alleged victims" — all of them listed on Alaska's public sex offender registry for crimes related to children — plus the sentence given to the man who Vukovich says molested him as a child.

Now, Vukovich says he wants to tell people, "There is no place for vigilante justice in an ordered society."

He said he also wants to deter others from following the path he did. He said he was abused physically and sexually as a child. He never got help and had "no self-worth." He turned to crime and cycled in and out of jail cells for decades.

"I'm far from perfect — a flawed and imperfect individual like everyone else," he said during an interview in a small room in the Anchorage jail. "However, it's important to me that someone else who was born and raised in Alaska who had a similar upbringing doesn't end up with this outcome because quite candidly, it sucks."

Three attacks

In December, Vukovich wore a yellow prison uniform, his arms covered in tattoos, his dark hair slicked back. Three teardrops are tattooed under his left eye; he says they stand for "the three doors of the mind." Above his right eye, there's a Latin phrase, which he said means "fraternity of angels."

Prosecutors say that in June 2016 Vukovich carried a notebook with a list of names, including Charles Albee, Andres Barbosa and Wesley Demarest. Over five days, he entered the homes of the three men, uninvited, and hit them, sometimes with his fists and in the case of Demarest, with a hammer, knocking him unconscious. He also stole from them, taking items including a truck and a laptop, according to a bail memorandum signed by assistant district attorney Patrick McKay.

In an interview last year, Demarest said Vukovich called himself the "avenging angel" for children hurt by abusers.

Vukovich told police that he targeted his victims based on their listings on Alaska's sex offender registry, according to the memorandum. The online registry includes their home addresses, work addresses and convictions.

Vukovich carried out his first attack the day after he got out of jail.

He said he had heard about the three men "through the grapevine," but did not know them personally. He said he felt like he had to confront them.

"I thought back to my experiences as a child and felt the overwhelming desire to act," he wrote in his November letter. "I took matters into my own hands and assaulted three pedophiles."

A history of crime

Vukovich was born in Anchorage in 1975.

He said he never knew his biological father. Around age 4, his mother's husband adopted him and, he said, later abused him.

"Both of my parents were dedicated Christians and had us in every church service available, two or three each week," he wrote. "So you can imagine the horror and confusion I experienced when this man who adopted me began using late, late night 'prayer' sessions to molest me. Also, he beat me with a custom made 2×4."

Vukovich identified his adoptive father as Larry Lee Fulton. A court document filed by Vukovich's attorney in an earlier criminal case also details his childhood of abuse and molestation by "Mr. Fulton." A 1989 Anchorage Daily News article said Fulton was found guilty of second-degree abuse of a minor but received a three-year suspended sentence — meaning he didn't have to serve any active time in a prison cell.

Vukovich wrote that after the sentencing, his family moved to Wasilla and he was homeschooled. He said he received no counseling; no one ever checked in.

"When I was a little kid in my house, if some tatted-up guy would have kicked the door in and beat up the guy that was molesting me, I would have said … 'Yeah! Woo! I knew it! I can't believe it! Thank God,'" he said. "Because nobody cared."

His brother ran away, he said, and later he did the same.

Vukovich's mother could not be reached for this article. According to a letter she sent Vukovich in jail this year, Fulton is dead, his ashes scattered in Alaska.

Vukovich said he moved to Washington state around age 16 with no form of identification. He started to steal to support himself, mostly from gyms where he knew people left their wallets unattended.

"From that point on, I turned into a thief," he said.

He said he was arrested for the first time about five months after he got to Washington. Then again nine months later. He said he worried that if he went to a homeless shelter or somewhere else to get help, they would call his parents and send him home to Alaska. So he kept stealing.

"Being a thief and a liar fit nicely with my lack of self-worth, my silent understanding that I was worthless, a throw away," he wrote in his letter. "The foundations laid in my youth never went away."

Vukovich said he spent later years moving often, following construction jobs. If he got laid off, he would return to stealing.

"Time and again, my choices reflect a lack of concern for myself and others," he wrote. "Many, many nights I simply wanted to die."

According to court documents filed in Alaska, Vukovich has a criminal history in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and California. Vukovich said he moved back to Alaska about a decade ago.

Here, he has been convicted for a string of charges including theft, possession of a controlled substance and assaulting his then-wife. Asked in December about the 2008 assault charge, he denied abusing his wife or their two children. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.

"She and I probably had a couple of wrestling matches," Vukovich said.

'A simple man'

Vukovich described himself as "a simple man."

"I'm a complete and utter failure by worldly standards, but I've learned a lot," he said in the jail interview.

His attorney, Ember Tilton, said he believed Vukovich should be under some type of correctional supervision "for a very long time," receive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and participate in a program for violent offenders. He did not believe his client should be treated like a number and handed a "cookie-cutter" sentence.

"I don't think he needs to be punished," he said. "He's already been punished. This whole thing started out as the punishment of a child who didn't deserve to be treated in that way."

When people don't have the opportunity to address childhood issues, he said, they don't behave well. Vukovich certainly didn't, but he needs help, he said.

"The cycle will continue in society, not just for Mr. Vukovich, but for others if we can't do something to stop it," he said.

McKay, the prosecutor in the case, said Friday it was not be appropriate for him to comment on Vukovich's letter or the upcoming sentencing at that time.

Demarest, one of the men Vukovich attacked, said that he would prefer it if Vukovich "is not walking around while I'm alive."

Demarest said he has a lasting traumatic brain injury. It's hard for him to string words into sentences. He lost his job. He can't pay his rent.

"It just pretty well destroyed my life," he said. "So, he got what he wanted I guess."

Vukovich said he did not intend to injure Demarest as seriously as he did and "regrets that deeply."

He said he hopes one day to have some freedom, but what's important to him is to share his story so people avoid the "pitfalls" and "traps" he walked into when he channeled his pain and hate into crime. He advised people who have suffered abuse to talk to someone who loves them, not to act out.

"I began serving my life sentence many, many years ago, it was handed down to me by an ignorant, hateful, poor substitute for a father," Vukovich wrote.

"I now face losing most of the rest of my life due to a decision to lash out at people like him. To all those who have suffered like I have, love yourself and those around you, this is truly the only way forward."

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Loseranna vigilante found guilty of only 2nd degree murder for killing registrant (only the male; of course, the female will get far less time)



The murderer said he wasn't sorry for committing premeditated murder. Throw the book at these two!

http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/courts/article_58c4a8e6-e066-11e7-8dd4-8b2b93f853fc.html

Jury finds Jace Crehan guilty of 2nd degree murder in 2015 killing of his girlfriend's convicted molester
BY JOE GYAN JR. | JGYAN@THEADVOCATE.COM  PUBLISHED DEC 14, 2017 AT 1:35 PM | UPDATED DEC 14, 2017 AT 2:49 PM

Jace Crehan, who confessed to fatally stabbing and strangling his girlfriend's convicted molester inside the man's Zachary trailer and stuffing his body into a 55-gallon container, was found guilty of second-degree murder Thursday in the brutal July 4, 2015, slaying.

Crehan, 23, of Walker, faces a mandatory term of life in prison when he is sentenced Jan. 18 by state District Judge Tony Marabella. He will remain in custody until then.

His girlfriend, Brittany Monk, 20, also of Walker, pleaded guilty earlier this year to manslaughter, testified for the prosecution at Crehan's trial and will be sentenced the same day by the judge. She faces a sentence of up to 40 years. Crehan did not testify in his own defense.

Monk, who was nearly seven months pregnant with Crehan's child at the time of the crime, admitted participating in the killing of Robert Noce Jr., 47, a former boyfriend of her mother.

It took an East Baton Rouge Parish jury of seven women and five men only about an hour to convict Crehan, who showed no emotion as the verdict was read. The vote was 11-1. Crehan's grandparents cried when the verdict was announced in court.

District Attorney Hillar Moore III, whose office previously rejected Crehan's offer to plead guilty to manslaughter, said justice was served by a criminal justice system that worked.

"You don't want people going out and taking justice into their own hands," he said.

Crehan's defense team had fought for anything from an outright acquittal to manslaughter.

In their closing arguments Thursday to the jury, prosecutors Eli Abad and Darwin Miller said the choices Crehan made are why he was prosecuted for second-degree murder.

Miller told the panel that Crehan exacted "vigilante" justice when he broke into Noce's trailer in the pre-dawn hours and attacked a sleeping Noce.

In his own closing argument, Franz Borghardt, one of Crehan's attorneys, called the slaying a "revenge" killing committed in the heat of passion.

Noce, just 13 days before he was killed, pleaded "no contest" in state court in Baton Rouge to sexually molesting Monk as a child and was put on probation for five years. He raised her for about a decade. A no contest plea carries the same weight as a guilty plea in criminal court but cannot be used against a defendant in civil court.

In post-arrest communications with The Advocate, Crehan portrayed himself as Monk's "guardian, her protector, her hope."

Crehan, in recorded conversations with authorities that the jury heard, said what he did wasn't wrong. "I feel a lot better. It's not regret. Is it remorse? I'm not sorry for what I did."

Abad, as he did in his opening statement to the jury Monday, reiterated to jurors Thursday that the case was about choices and consequences.

"They had a specific purpose. They had no legal reason to be at this trailer," he said of Crehan and Monk. "They were there to find Robby Noce. They were there to inflict pain of the worst kind."

Abad argued that Noce was asleep in his bed and had provoked no one.

Crehan's attorneys said Monday at the start of the trial that the case resembled a Shakespearean tragedy. They portrayed Crehan and Monk as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

Miller scoffed at that suggestion Thursday while addressing the jury.

"We do not live in a country where we as a society are allowed to take the law into our own hands to do justice," he said. "That's what happened here. This is not a Shakespearean tragedy. This is not a Hollywood movie. This is the killing of a human being, whether you like him or not."

Monk testified Tuesday she thought Noce, who she called "daddy" while living with him, would serve 10 years behind bars.

"Revenge is an act of passion, and this is very much an act of passion," Borghardt told the jury. "We don't believe this is second-degree murder. We believe it's something else."

Borghardt argued that Noce turned Monk into a "sex slave” as a child, even paying her for sex.

Crehan, he said, considered Noce a "potential threat" to his then-pregnant girlfriend.

"It would have been easier (for Crehan) to cut bait and leave, but he loved her," Borghardt said.

He acknowledged to the jury that Crehan and Monk, who were engaged at the time, "concocted a very, very bad plan." But he said they never intended to kill Noce, only to rough him up and send a message that they were not to be bothered.

"There was a loss of control," Borghardt said. "When they confronted `daddy' it was just too much."

Monk testified that Crehan did a Google search to confirm Noce was still living at the same South Vernon Road address that she remembered. The couple then drove to a Walmart and bought blue latex gloves and batteries for walkie-talkies before going to Noce's trailer, she said. They wore black clothes, and Monk put her long hair up in a bun to avoid leaving any at the scene.

Monk, however, discarded the gloves she wore in the barrel where Noce's body was found inside the trailer, and her DNA was found on the gloves.

Saturday, November 25, 2017

The judge needs to give this wannabe ax murderer the ax



Note this is the SECOND time is waste of humanity assaulted someone on the registry.

http://www.hudsonstarobserver.com/news/crime-and-courts/4363940-hudson-man-charged-attacking-sex-offender-ax

Hudson man charged with attacking sex offender with ax

By Mike Longaecker on Nov 22, 2017 at 4:15 p.m.

Authorities allege a rural Hudson man on Tuesday attacked a sex offender for the second time since 2016 — this time going after a convict with an ax.

The suspect, Brad A. Couet-Kamrath, alleged broke down the door of a sex offender’s apartment, then struck him with the blunt end of an ax, according to a criminal complaint. Prosecutors charged Couet-Kamrath with three felonies in connection with the Nov. 21 incident: first-degree recklessly endangering safety, aggravated battery and bail jumping. He’s also charged with misdemeanor criminal property damage.

According to the complaint:

St. Croix County sheriff’s deputies were called at 9:27 a.m. to 1102 County Road A in Burkhardt, where a man, later identified as resident Brandon Langel, reported someone broke into his apartment and hit him in the back of the head with an ax. A deputy examined Langel’s head and found a 3-inch wound matching the approximate size of an ax’s blunt end. Langel told the deputy he was sleeping at the time of the assault.

The deputy went to another unit in the complex that appeared to have fresh damage on its exterior wall — including a hole similar in size Langel’s wound.

A man, described as loud and aggressive, answered the deputy’s knock on the door and stepped into the hallway. The man, later identified as Couet-Kamrath, had a bandaged hand, smelled of alcohol and told the deputy to take him to jail.

After bringing him to a squad car, the deputy returned to the room and found an ax inside the apartment with blood on the handle.

Though he didn’t initially talk with authorities about the incident, Couet-Kamrath told the deputy “I know this is already a felony but I want to point out I hit him with the dull side, not the sharp side of the ax” while being driven to jail.

Couet-Kamrath, who recorded a 0.29 blood-alcohol level at the jail, also made remarks about how nothing being done about sex offenders living in his building angered him.

John Kucinski, an attorney with the state’s public defender’s office, shed light on those remarks during Couet-Kamrath’s initial court appearance Wednesday. Kucinski alleged Langel had harassed Couet-Kamrath’s girlfriend and that he “couldn’t take it anymore.”

The incident was the second time Couet-Kamrath was charged with assaulting a sex offender at the complex. The first incident occurred Aug. 11, 2016, when he allegedly punched an offender Couet-Kamrath accused of leering at teenage girls. In that incident — for which he was charged with felony substantial battery — Couet-Kamrath allegedly punched a man with an open hand. A criminal complaint in that case states the man told Couet-Kamrath, “If you need to, go ahead,” just before the punch.

Couet-Kamrath was convicted of misdemeanor battery in that case and was sentenced to a year on probation.

St. Croix County Circuit Court Judge Eric Lundell set Couet-Kamrath’s cash bond at $5,000. He’s due in court again on Dec. 1.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Encyclopedia on the ropes, begging for money after getting sued for their lies

The victim industry actually quotes ED as a reference when bashing some anti-registry activists. So I'm having a very hard time finding a fuck to give that this shitty website is in legal trouble. After all, you might find some wonderful, thought-provoking articles like...


And did you know?


Oh, don't forget their defense of James Fields, the white Supremacist who killed that girl in Charlottesville:



After over 3 months, ED is barely 14% of their $50,000 goal with 4 months to go. I hope they lose and lose big. I hope they disappear once and for all. Good riddance.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Police are investigating murder of registrant as a HATE CRIME. In Louisiana, of all places.

I believe every crime against a registered citizen should be treated as a hate crime. But considering this is Jindal country (even though he hasn't been in office for a while), I'm shocked the police even hinted at treating this as a hate crime,.

http://www.ksla.com/story/36173712/registered-sex-offender-shot-to-death-when-answering-knock-at-door

Registered sex offender shot to death when answering knock at door
Saturday, August 19th 2017, 5:27 pm EDT
Saturday, August 19th 2017, 7:46 pm EDT

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) -
The Sabine Parish Coroner has released the identity of a man shot to death when answering the door.

The body of 72-year-old Jerry Wayne Scott was found in the doorway at his home in the 1300 block of Matthews Lodge Road in Many on Saturday morning, according to Sabine Parish Assistant Coroner Ron Rivers.

Rivers said that Scott's body was found lying face up on the living room floor of his mobile home.

It is believed that Scott went to answer a knock at the front door of the home when an unknown gunman fired a single shot through the storm door.

The gunshot hit Scott in the upper chest, killing him instantly.

Investigators are treating the incident as a hate crime. Scott was a registered sex offender in the state of Louisiana. He was charged with simple kidnapping in 1981 and 1994. He was charged with indecent behavior with juveniles and sexual battery in 2004.

No motive has been established. No word on suspects.

An autopsy has been scheduled at University Health on Sunday morning to determine the exact cause of death. 

Saturday, July 1, 2017

Broke BAANC Mountain: "Bikers Against Abused and Neglected Children," another Ohio group of thugs, runs the same tired vigilante playbook

BAANC Members are rather easy to spot....
It seems that Ohio has had more than its fair share of idiotic vigilante scumbag groups over the years and now another group of wannabe have popped up online. "Bikers Against Abused and Neglected Children" sounds like they're against children (not surprising they didn't put much thought into the name) is just another group of online trolls that like to cosplay as bikers on weekends and act tough. On the surface, they run a 501(c)3 that apparently raises money through gambling and alcohol (promoting vices that attract hardened criminals, thus keeping in line with the pseudo-biker theme) to raise money for some kid's toys and "legal expenses for victims." (I don't know what that's supposed to mean, seeing as how crime victims don't generally have any legal expenses unless they mean they are helping to sue people, but even then, that is questionable.) They're running their "charity" out of their own home at 9413 State Route 99 N, Monroeville, Ohio 44847. 

Obviously, if that was all there was to the story, then I wouldn't be writing this article. They started an online attack as response to my appearance on the Ashleigh Banfield show. They spammed the Facebook page run on my behalf then proceeded to make a few veiled threats. After dealing with other vigilante groups over the years, it is easy to see a pattern develop. 

First, they start by finding whatever bad info they can find on you, never considering it was also written by losers like themselves who don't necessarily care about being accurate:

Yeah, anyone who quotes Encyclopedia Dramatica [a garbage satirical site run by Anonymous rejects] as a valid resource is automatically dumber than a Trump voter. [Many BAANC members/ supporters LIKE THIS ONE are Trumptards. That's no surprise.] Anyways, continuing with the playbook, the next step is to target anyone that is a member of the page:



Again, they act as if we've never dealt with a vigilante group before. Newsflash, folks. Unlike my main website, this blog and my social media pages are run by more than one person. As much as these folks hate it, I don't just sit at home 24/7. While I and the editors at my FB page were out enjoying life, the losers at BAANC spent all day spamming the page. Of course, those remarks were promptly deleted and they took to crying over it. Too bad.

The most important point is that they took to engaging on doxxing, a threatening behavior online:


There is no need to specifically mention one's workplace without a reason, and that reason is obviously to target people with harassing calls to one's workplace. Since BAANC is slow in the head, I have taken the liberty of highlighting where the threatening action was made:


It seems this behavior has not been isolated, either. The following was sent to me by one of BAANC's victims:


And while BAANC claims they are a non-violent group, Their posts say otherwise:


It seems they have even lowered themselves to lame impersonation too:



Seriously? That's kids stuff! Their tactics are pretty lame, quite frankly. After all, there's THIS clown who actually thinks voting 10 times on a media poll will somehow change the US Supreme Court's opinion on Packingham v NC, a UNANIMOUS decision guaranteeing a registrant's right to use Facebook:



I should mention they even tagged a guy who actually believes in the universally debunked Satanic Panic stuff, but I think I've already shown sufficient evidence to prove they are a bunch of phonies. 

Be wary of groups like these. Immediately report these fuckers to the police every time they engage in harassment. 

Names associated with this vigilante scumbag group. They claim "12k members" but in reality, only a handful of these fucktards actually are involved with this pseudo-biker gang. I guess I should add an addendum here and point out that because these folks all came at the same time to bombard the FB page wit various crude, vulgar, even threatening remarks, this would lead any reasonable person to assume everyone on the list is connected to this online vigilante group. Either way, the following names were all blocked from further harassing communications on FB:

Craig Shilling
Laurie Fulk Keller
Rynae Dawson
Lisa Noble
Sara Tuttamore
Josh Kaman
Gary Anthony
Malinda M Taylor
Rick Masters
Dustin Evans
Julie Weyandt
Sue Papenfuss McClure
Steve Collins
Lee Bickley
April Keller
Hannah Maynard
Maile Zinn
Candi Noftz
Kurt Knowles
Angela Moll
Jeffrey M Gauchat Jr
Kat Reisert
Duane Cyr (admits to having multiple accounts, violating FB TOS)
Joan Tennant
Alyssa Holliday
Fred Lesher
Veronica Webb
Kimberly Cole
Brandon Bragg

Here's a screenshot so a certain complainer who is claiming she wasn't a party to this coordinated attack. Maybe the complainer should pick a better group to follow in the future and be more mindful of her online behavior before attacking others:


Tuesday, June 27, 2017

FACEBOOK POLICY ALLOWS DEATH THREATS AGAINST REGISTERED CITIZENS (In fact, it seems to encourage them)

In light of the New York Times story that came in my newsfeed [“Facebook, Free Expression and the Power of a Leak”], I decided to explore the issue of Facebook little further. The New York Times piqued my interest by adding a link to an article from The Guardian newspaper [Revealed: Facebook's internal rulebook on sex, terrorism and violence]. Through this article, I was able to find that The Guardian has published the rulebook for determining what constitutes a “credible threat of violence” on Facebook [Facebook's manual on credible threats of violence].

This policy information is important to know because FB is filled with vigilante groups, many of them have been featured on this particular blog over the years, including vigilante biker gangs, online hate groups, and individuals organizing to cause harm to registered citizens. However, it is apparent from the leaked reports that only a small number of individuals are actually protected by Facebook. In fact, only a handful of people are considered “vulnerable persons” that are protected from speech a moderator might consider a “credible threat of violence.”

Vulnerable persons include: heads of state, next in line for head of state, candidates for head of state, specific law enforcement officers, witnesses and informants, people with a history of assassination attempts, people listed as targets on hit lists created by banned dangerous organizations, activists, journalists, homeless people, foreigners, Zionists, and in the Philippines, drug users and dealers.

According to the Facebook manual, posting “someone shoot Trump” should be removed, but telling people to “kick a person with red hair” or “snap a bitch’s neck, make sure to apply all your pressure to the middle of her throat” is completely allowed. Also, based credible threat of violence is expected to include an “achievable time.” Plus, statements that include “next time I see you,” “sooner or later,” or specific time frames should also be removed, but we know that’s rarely the case. In addition, certain groups could be considered vulnerable by region. Facebook warns moderators to also eliminate threats against vulnerable targets, outing affiliation, singling out targets, aggregating targets, and calling for street justice depending on the region. Also, accompanying a threat with a picture of a firearm supposedly violence Facebook policy as well.








Perhaps the most damning evidence of all that Facebook allows vigilante violence to be advocated on their website is in the section of “non-credible threats.” Included in this list of non-credible threats is, “advocating for capital were cruel and unusual punishment for crimes Facebook recognizes.” Next to this statement is a text bubble saying “hang child molesters.” They use another example of non-credible threats of violence on the next page, with another text bubble saying, “Pedophiles are going to experience the electric chair! They deserve it anyway!!”



Since this is directly from Facebook’s hidden policy on removing credible threats of violence, the strong implication here is that Facebook advocates violence against registered citizens because they don’t consider us a vulnerable class of people. To use threats against registered citizens as an example of what is allowed on Facebook shows the indifference that Facebook employees have against many other unpopular groups of people as well. This should be a huge cause of alarm for those of us in the anti-registry movement who rely on Facebook for expressing their First Amendment rights.

I personally believe that the only way this is going to change is through a lawsuit. For far too long, Facebook has been deleting the accounts of registered citizens while allowing hate groups like those profiled on AZUnites to proliferate, recruit, and continue to operate online. There’s no telling how many vigilante attacks have occurred because of this. And, in light of the recent Packingham case, the rights of registered citizens should be taken more seriously by Facebook, who should already have a great responsibility of protecting the rights of all of its users. More and more, news media outlets are turning to Facebook only commenting as the way to share ideas among viewers. Even my recent interview with Ashleigh Banfield was a Facebook only comment section. Thus, like it or not, the ability to respond to, to advocate, or to express a dissenting opinion requires a Facebook account in many instances. And registered citizen should be able to express their viewpoints without fear of reprisal from online vigilante thugs. The question is, who has the resources and is willing to take on this challenge?

If anyone is willing to accept my challenge, I am more than happy to share the information that I have gathered over the years as part of any litigation against Facebook. I have taken it upon myself to collect as much information as possible on numerous vigilante groups across the country. Obviously, much of that information can be found on this blog, but much of it I have not posted publicly because many were direct threats against me. Thus, in the event somebody actually sues Facebook, feel free to contact me at iamthefallen1@yahoo.com.

Friday, June 23, 2017

Xavier Von Erck from Perverted Justice still offers up a heaping pile of BS in his reasons for backing off of harassing anti-registry activists

Somehow, von Jerk flew this under our radar, but it is god for a giggle. He claims his group backed off of what he called "pedophile activism" (which obviously included legal reformists which had nothing to do with age of consent laws) because of "a nice string" of alleged victories. In reality, they backed off because workuing with real LE means they could no longer engage in criminal activity, like harassment and slander.

Not much else to say about this but to have a chuckle at Von Jerk's expense. Well that and being shocked the rat man popped up in this decade at all.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7bd37e/whatever-happened-to-nambla

According to Von Erck, his group of internet activists have lost interest in NAMBLA. "We shuttered our spin-off that was dedicated to exposing pedophile activists some years ago after a nice string of exposures, arrests, and convictions," he told me.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Online vigilante scumbags take note: You CAN be convicted of a crime

This isn't RSO related but relevant here because this girl was convicted of a crime for using the Internet for the purpose of goading someone to commit suicide.

No doubt there will be an appeal, so we'll have to see what those courts decide.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/suicide-texting-trial-michelle-carter-conrad-roy.html?_r=0

Guilty Verdict for Young Woman Who Urged Friend to Kill Himself
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JESS BIDGOODJUNE 16, 2017

TAUNTON, Mass. — For a case that had played out in thousands of text messages, what made Michelle Carter’s behavior a crime, a judge concluded, came in a single phone call. Just as her friend Conrad Roy III stepped out of the truck he had filled with lethal fumes, Ms. Carter told him over the phone to get back in the cab and then listened to him die without trying to help him.

That command, and Ms. Carter’s failure to help, said Judge Lawrence Moniz of Bristol County Juvenile Court, made her guilty of involuntary manslaughter in a case that had consumed New England, left two families destroyed and raised questions about the scope of legal responsibility. Ms. Carter, now 20, is to be sentenced Aug. 3 and faces up to 20 years in prison.

The judge’s decision, handed down on Friday, stunned many legal experts with its conclusion that words alone could cause a suicide.

“This is saying that what she did is killing him, that her words literally killed him, that the murder weapon here was her words,” said Matthew Segal, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which raised concerns about the case to the state’s highest court. “That is a drastic expansion of criminal law in Massachusetts.”

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Ms. Carter’s defense team is expected to appeal the verdict. Legal experts said that it seemed to extend manslaughter law into new territory, and that if it stood, it could have far-reaching implications, at least in Massachusetts.

“Will the next case be a Facebook posting in which someone is encouraged to commit a crime?” Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge and Harvard Law professor, asked. “This puts all the things that you say in the mix of criminal responsibility.”

Judge Moniz unspooled his verdict in a packed courtroom, which was silent except for his voice and Ms. Carter’s gasping sobs. By the time he told Ms. Carter to stand up, and pronounced her guilty, the two families seated on either side of the courtroom’s aisle — Ms. Carter’s and Mr. Roy’s — wept, too.

The verdict concluded an emotionally draining weeklong trial in southeastern Massachusetts involving two troubled teenagers who had built a virtual relationship largely on texting from 2012 to 2014. Ms. Carter, then 17, started out encouraging Mr. Roy, 18, to seek treatment for his depression but then abruptly changed, and in the two weeks before he killed himself on July 12, 2014, she encouraged him, repeatedly, to do it.

For all the scrutiny during the trial of their texts, the judge based his guilty verdict on a phone conversation.

Once Mr. Roy drove his truck to a remote spot at a Kmart parking lot, the two ceased texting and instead talked on their cellphones. When Mr. Roy, with fumes gathering in the cab of his truck, apparently had a change of heart and stepped out, the judge said, Ms. Carter told him to get back in, fully knowing “his ambiguities, his fears, his concerns.”

“This court finds,” the judge added, “that instructing Mr. Roy to get back in the truck constituted wanton and reckless conduct.”

But the phone conversation was not recorded, and the only evidence of its content came three months after the suicide in a text from Ms. Carter to a friend.

“Sam his death is my fault, like honestly I could have stopped him,” Ms. Carter wrote. “I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because it was working and he got scared.”

She said she then instructed him “to get back in.”

The prosecution made this phone call, as described in Ms. Carter’s text, the heart of its case. And the judge accepted it as factual and incriminating.

The defense strongly argued that there was nothing to substantiate what Ms. Carter had said on the phone and insisted that Mr. Conrad, who had tried to kill himself before, was determined to take his own life, regardless of anything Ms. Carter did or said.

Judge Moniz acknowledged that Mr. Roy had taken steps to cause his own death, like researching suicide methods, obtaining a generator and then the water pump with which he ultimately poisoned himself. Indeed, Judge Moniz said that Ms. Carter’s text messages pressuring him to kill himself had not, on their own, caused his death.

Instead, the judge zeroed in on the moment that Mr. Roy climbed out of his truck.

“He breaks that chain of self-causation by exiting the vehicle,” Judge Moniz said. “He takes himself out of that toxic environment that it has become.” That, the judge said, was a clear indication that Mr. Roy — as on his previous suicide attempts — wanted to save himself.

But, the judge said, Ms. Carter had a duty to help Mr. Roy after she had put him in danger by ordering him back into the truck.

“She admits in a subsequent text that she did nothing, she did not call the police or Mr. Roy’s family,” the judge said. “She called no one. And finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction: ‘Get out of the truck.’”

The verdict stunned many legal specialists because suicide is generally considered, legally, to result from a person’s free will.

Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University, said the decision surprised him because the manslaughter charge seemed “a stretch” to begin with. Because Ms. Carter was not at the scene, and Mr. Roy ultimately acted alone, he said, it was difficult to prove she “caused” the death.

Ms. Gertner of Harvard said that likely grounds for appeal would be that the verdict had “extended the law of involuntary manslaughter to an arena into which it hasn’t been extended before — the notion of liability with respect to a suicide for someone who failed to act, who wasn’t present, who didn’t provide the instrumentalities for the suicide and the concept of a failure to intervene are all unique and that’s what would be litigated.”

At its core, the case was about two troubled teenagers and the fatal path their online relationship took.

Mr. Roy was a gentle but deeply depressed teenager who worked as a tugboat captain. He had graduated from high school with a college scholarship, but worried about the social anxiety he might experience there.

Ms. Carter was a high school student with homework to finish and a love of the television show “Glee,” but she said her life was controlled by an eating disorder. She too was wrought by social anxiety, desperately seeking the approval of friends whom she admired but worried did not truly like her.

When Mr. Roy told Ms. Carter in June 2014 that he was considering suicide, she told him he had a lot to live for and urged him to seek help.

“I’m trying my best to dig you out,” Ms. Carter wrote.

“I don’t wanna be dug out,” Mr. Roy answered, adding later, “I WANT TO DIE.”

By early July, she began to embrace the idea. “If this is the only way you think you’re gonna be happy, heaven will welcome you with open arms,” she wrote.

They talked at length about how he could kill himself with carbon monoxide. “If you emit 3200 ppm of it for five to ten mins you will die within a half hour,” she wrote. In the last days of his life, she told him repeatedly, “You just need to do it.”

Prosecutors said Ms. Carter wanted Mr. Roy to kill himself because she wanted the sympathy that would come as the “grieving girlfriend.” Ms. Carter’s lawyers cast her as a naïve teenager who wanted to help people and was not even on the scene when Mr. Roy took his life

But the prosecution argued in its closing — and evidently Judge Moniz agreed — that Ms. Carter’s physical absence was immaterial.

“The phones that we have now allow you to be virtually present with somebody,” Katie Rayburn, an assistant district attorney, said, adding, “She was in his ear, she was in his mind, she was on the phone, and she was telling him to get back in the car even though she knew he was going to die.”