Exposed

IT ISN’T OFTEN THAT WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SEE A sexual predator in action, as he or she explains away their reasons for showing up to meet a thirteen-year-old girl. Yes, we have seen some of them on television news programs, shows specifically set up to demonstrate to us how easy it is for predators to communicate with our children and how very eager they are to meet with them in person. Those deviants are often seen fleeing from the cameras or using the typical excuse that they never had anything to do with a child before and that they would not have had sex with the one they showed up to meet. Sounds like the same old story from people who don’t want to be arrested and prosecuted for breaking the law in such a disgusting and immoral way.

My story takes the sexual predator’s explanation one step further. I bring you right into the courtroom where you will see what a sexual predator actually claimed as he sat on the witness stand and spun his tale for the jury.

Dennis Joseph, also known on AOL as Dsax25, first instant messaged thirteen-year-old Lorie, Teen2hot4u, in July 2005. In describing who he was, he used his real first name (Dennis) and his real location (72nd St. by Central Park). He discussed his real profession (musician) and even told the young girl that he was married. It was obvious that he wanted to impress her and make her like him. So he bragged about his accomplishments, probably thinking that this young teen would be so enamored by him that she would allow him to lure her out of her house to meet him. He even attempted to entice her by revealing the more impressive locations where he played his music, Broadway, Carnegie Hall, and various other places where he traveled to with his band. And, in fact, Dennis Joseph really did play at impressive locations. His band’s website, www.MartyStevens.com, lists him under what appears to be his stage name, Dennis Stevens. Next to his picture, there is a biography that says he is a “world class musician” and that he “has played at Carnegie Hall” and “conducted at Avery Fischer Hall.” It continues that he has “performed with such celebrities as Ashford and Simpson, Stevie Wonder, Bill Cosby, Sting, and the Billy Strayhorn Orchestra.” Even more impressive, the site states that he “was featured on stage in the Broadway show Fosse, and plays on the soundtrack for Martin Scorcese’s film, The Aviator.” Dennis Joseph let the young girls he chatted with know all about his “impressive” credentials in an apparent attempt to groom them into being with him.

But, Dsax25 didn’t stop there. He chatted a great deal about sex, graphically describing each and every sexual act he wanted to perform with Lorie, “69, oral sex, bondage, doggie style, tantric sex, [and] mutual masturbation.” Yet, when it came time for him to testify in a court of law and explain how and why he would talk to a young girl the way he did, he claimed it was all part of a fantasy world where people make up everything they say in order to role-play or have cybersex on the Internet.

Dsax25 first approached Teen2hot4u in her usual Internet chatroom hangout, “I Love Older Men.” He moved in on her the same way that many others had: complimenting her, talking about her interests, and letting her know how much more understanding men are than boys. It was his grooming method, and he continued to instant message Lorie and email her at least fifty times over the course of less than two months. His chats quickly became sexually explicit, leaving little to the imagination. After communicating with the young girl for several weeks, he then moved on to one of her friends, a thirteen-year-old gymnast named Julie, also known as Agent Berglas. Dsax25 had suggested meeting Lorie, but she never agreed. However, when he asked Julie to meet him, she complied.

On August 31, 2005, Dennis Joseph ventured out to attend two meetings in Manhattan. The first was about business. Then, he headed for his second meeting, one that would forever change his life.

He boarded the C train, which stopped near Franklin Street. He exited the train and asked someone for directions to his destination, the place where he was to meet the young thirteen-year-old girl he knew as Julie. He headed south until he arrived at a place called the Franklin Street Café. There, he stood looking around for Julie, when he suddenly felt a tap on the shoulder. That was when his nightmare began.

Instead of seeing the little girl he had planned to meet, he came face to face with an FBI agent. Other agents soon arrived and Dennis Joseph found himself face down on the ground in handcuffs. He was arrested, searched, and brought in to FBI headquarters in Manhattan for questioning and processing where he acknowledged that he thought Julie was thirteen.

Due to his background in music, his specialty apparently being saxophone, a New York Post newspaper article detailing his arrest was entitled “Sax Pervert.”

Dennis Joseph was charged with using the Internet to attempt to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity. In order to prove their case, the government had to show three things: that Dennis Joseph used a means of interstate commerce, i.e. the Internet; that he attempted to entice a minor to engage in a sexual act; and that had he succeeded in engaging in the sexual act with the minor, it would have been a violation of New York law. Two prongs of the government’s case were not in dispute: one, there was no question that Dennis Joseph used the Internet to chat with the young girl; and two, sexual contact with a person under the age of fourteen is a crime under New York law. The only thing left to prove was the intent of the defendant.

Dennis Joseph retained the same defense counsel as Jason Corso, also known as “Profphoto j,” the first man I had turned over to the FBI. Corso pleaded guilty. Dennis Joseph took the other option of going to trial. His claim was that everything he said to Julie and Lorie was merely role-play. In other words, he was apparently going to try to convince the jury that he had made up a persona and playacted the entire time, claiming that his only interest was in cybersex, or, in his words, “tantalizing conversation.”

His trial was somewhat more interesting than others I have taken part in, because this defendant took the bold step of testifying on his own behalf. He wanted to lay his cards right out on the table for the whole world to see, as embarrassing as that must have been. But, I suppose he felt that a little humiliation was better than going to prison.

Apparently, Dennis Joseph’s attorney, Robert Altchiler’s, strategy was to discredit me, as well as the other witnesses. I understood his need to do that, but there was just no way he was going to succeed, mainly because he had one big problem—his client was guilty and the evidence was in black and white!

Altchiler had given a forceful opening statement, probably planting some very arduous seeds into the jurors’ minds. He told them about a woman named Stephanie Good, a “very nice lady.” But, he also made sure to explain that I am “not trained the way that FBI agents are trained to do investigations like this.” While he put the suggestion before the jury that I am “not trained,” he also let them know in no uncertain terms that his client, Dennis Joseph, “is an expert” on the Internet, because “he has actually seen profile, after profile, after profile.” His comment was most likely meant to open the door for a discussion about what he referred to as my “sexually-charged profile,” Teen2hot4u.

Then, Altchiler took his description of my actions one step further; “Stephanie Good has a plan,” he explained, “because . . . she needs to now create a crime. And that is what she is intent on doing.” In essence, he was saying that I needed to find material for this book. So, he presented to the jury a picture of the events that had transpired between Lorie, Julie, and Dsax25 to make it appear as though I had gone after his client and pressured him into the arms of FBI Agent Berglas, disguised as Julie. Altchiler insisted that I had done everything I could to “lure” his client to contact Julie when, in fact, Dennis Joseph jumped at the chance to move on to another thirteen-year-old girl after Lorie continuously said that she couldn’t meet him. And, Altchiler claimed that his client suspected very early on that Julie and Lorie were really adults. He said that one reason his client believed this was because Julie’s picture was of a girl with long nails, and his “client, who spends a tremendous amount of time studying women’s bodies, noticed immediately” that “this is no gymnast.” Here’s why that theory was problematic. Agent Berglas used the childhood picture of a close friend of mine, Dorothy Welch. And Dorothy, in fact, was a gymnast as a teenager. But, she was also involved with something else. She loved having long nails. So, she had them as long as she could. And, when Dorothy did gymnastics as a teenager, she did it with long nails.

There was also something else that this “expert” suddenly claimed, one year after chatting with Julie. He said that the two pictures that she had sent him of herself were of two different girls. However, they were not. One was taken of Dorothy at a theme park and the other was taken the same year during a holiday when she was dressed up. Dorothy was called to testify and I would imagine that it was a big surprise to Dennis Joseph when he had to face the truth in front of the jury; he was no expert!

Altchiler also said that at some point in time, Dsax25 stopped communicating with Teen2hot4u. He used that as proof that Dennis Joseph was only fantasizing and would never have met Lorie. The truth is, there had been many gaps in our communications besides the six days between our last chat and the day Dennis Joseph showed up to meet Julie and was arrested. As a matter of fact, one gap was three weeks long!

My theory is that had Julie put off meeting Dennis Joseph, he would have bounced back to Lorie. However, because Lorie had never agreed to Dsax25’s suggestions of meetings, and because she began telling him things like how she wasn’t feeling well, she had to go to the dentist, and that it hurt to have a cavity fixed, he got bored and moved on to Lorie’s good friend Julie, Agent Berglas in disguise.

But, Altchiler posed a different theory. He accused me of “pushing” Julie on his client. I assume that his intention was to influence the jury to believe that I was trying to convince, or induce, his client, a man who claimed that he had no interest in having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl, to have sex with Julie. In truth, I did mention my friend Julie to Dsax25 throughout some of our communications. It’s that simple. I didn’t ask him to have sex with her. I merely mentioned her. I didn’t have her contact him, and just like any other sexual predator who is hunting for young girls to have sex with, Dsax25 jumped at the chance to chat with her. He emailed her first. He instant messaged her first. Nobody forced him to communicate with her. He did it because he wanted to. When Altchiler kept pounding at me on the witness stand about “pushing” his client to talk to Julie, my response was honest. Here is how the dialogue went:

Altchiler: And again, at this point you are powerfully trying to influence him towards Julie?

Me: He had just said to me, “My God the things I could do to you, make your whole body tingle. So, I mention Julie again, because I don’t want him to make my body tingle. I want him to make Agent Berglas’ body tingle.”

As you can imagine, there were quite a few chuckles in the courtroom. We volleyed back and forth, with me often deflecting the ball back into Altchiler’s court. He seemed to mischaracterize chats in an apparent attempt to convince the jury that I had been breaking the rules that the FBI had laid before me. The judge often stopped him in his tracks, as did the prosecutor. In the end, I left the witness stand feeling that I had accomplished what I had set out to do; I had told the truth and it came across loud and clear. I doubt that Altchiler was very pleased with me.

Altchiler’s other apparent trial strategy was to try to convince the jury that his client had some sexual limitations that not only prevented him from having sex with a minor, but that it would also prove he would have never even tried. It appeared as though he wanted the jurors to get the message that in the event that Dennis Joseph might have actually ventured out to meet a child for sex, well, that was nothing more than a set-up, because according to Altchiler, Agent Berglas and I enticed and lured his client into breaking the law. In other words, we had entrapped him.

On July 11, 2006, Dennis Joseph took an oath to tell the truth. Then, he sat in front of the jury in a federal courthouse and spun his web of deceit.

Dennis Joseph discussed his main interests, muscles and bodybuilding, and said that he spent a lot of time searching the Internet for bodybuilders and pictures of muscular women. It must have been difficult for jurors to believe his claims since neither Julie nor Lorie’s profile contained anything to indicate that they were either muscular or interested in bodybuilding. In fact, when Dsax25 mentioned to Lorie that she “might have some muscle” on her, she responded that she wasn’t “so muscular.” However, Dennis Joseph spent days testifying about his obsession with muscle flexing, even going as far as to confess that whenever he chatted, he had a picture of a female bodybuilder in the center of his screen to focus on. The following is some of his testimony. I often comment throughout the following pages in order to clarify inconsistencies or sometimes just give my opinion. Certain parts may be edited for purposes of space, however nothing that changes the context of testimony has been deleted.

ALTCHILER: Who is Dsax25?

DENNIS J.: Dsax is really a version of myself. My personal fantasy online has developed to be a version of myself that does things I can’t really do. I can’t have tantalizing conversations in real life, but I can do them as Dsax25. I can’t have any kind of casual sex or any kind of really kinky off-the-wall kind of sex in real life, but I can do that online as Dsax25 online. My age as Dsax25, although it implies 25, I can be any age that’s appropriate to whatever situation I’m chatting about. My marital status can be any situation that I want that’s appropriate to what I’m chatting about.

The things such as bodybuilding, music, movies, those muscles, and I would pretend that my arms were 18 or 19 inches; that my chest was 50 inches; that, you know, I could bench three or four hundred pounds. And I would give a description of things that I had read in bodybuilding magazines or, you know, use my imagination to come up with something that would sound realistic.

But, he didn’t seem to be using his imagination when he was telling Lorie all about himself and his life, did he?

ALTCHILER: Did anyone teach you nuances or did anyone give you an education about how it worked?

DENNIS J.: No. There is no education. You get the software. You install it. And you just go and do, and you learn from experience.

ALTCHILER: . . . what led you to seeing [Lorie’s] profile?

DENNIS J.: I searched the database for female bodybuilders that were online, female weightlifters that were online, female power lifters that were online, ran through my hierarchy of muscle-related topics. Whatever profile popped up that I sent a “hello” to, probably didn’t respond.

Anyone who frequents AOL would know that it is highly unlikely that Dsax25 could wade through all of those databases and not be able to find one single person with whom to chat at any given time of day.

DENNIS J.: So, I would look in the next step for me was looking in the adult sex theme chat rooms on the part of America Online that’s with all the chat rooms. And, under “Special Interests,” there’s several chat rooms that I would look through, titles such as “Dominant women,” “Older women.”

He has now claimed to have searched through at least two chatrooms without any luck!

DENNIS J.: Eventually, I got to “I love older men.” I got to the chat room. I’m not actually going into the chat rooms. I’m clicking on a button that allows you to see the names of all the screen names that are in each chat room.

In this particular chat room, there were two names, Gary something or other. I don’t remember what it was, and Teen2hot4u.

I have been going into the chatroom “I Love Older Men” for four years and there has never been one time when only two people were in there. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been in that particular chatroom when there weren’t at least twenty or more people in there. I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty that it has never happened. But, I am certain that Teen2hot4u has absolutely never been in “I Love Older Men” with only one other person.

ALTCHILER: When you saw [Lorie’s] profile, what was your reaction to it?

DENNIS J.: Well the screen name Teen2hot4u is a very sexually suggestive screen name. It’s a sexual come-on for anybody who knows anything about cybersex, that’s an I-want-to-role-play, I-want-to-cybersex profile.

So, from this profile where almost everything —every single criteria that you can fill out has something sexual about it, combined with a really suggestive and sexual screen name. In an adult theme chat room, make it absolutely clear to me that this person was interested in cybersex.

The way that the profile is constructed is crafted as a complete tease from top to bottom. Everything is sexually suggestive. Everything is—has—seems to have a purpose to it. And my conclusion from that is that this is an adult.

I created the following profile for Teen2hot4u. It has evolved over a period of time. There were many things happening on the Internet that led me to add various items, but it has remained this way for a few years now (some Web-specific formatting like colors and fonts have been eliminated for inclusion here):

Name LORIE

Location NYC an anywhere as long as its with u

Gender Female

Marital Status IM 13 SO ITS JUS ME

Hobbies & Interests BOYZ

Favorite Gadgets BOY TOYZ / BOY TOYZ / BOY TOYZ

Occupation SCHOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL AN

I HOPE I GET FIRED!!

Personal Quote Lifes like this . . . uh huh . . . its all been

done b4

Say it aint so

DONT BOTHER ME WITH ASL

CAUSE ITS BORIN

IM 5’3 GREEN EYES BROWN HAIR

AN YEAH I GOT BOOBS BUT

THATS ALL U NEED 2 KNOW . . .

oh, an if u dont wanna send a pic . . .

dont ask for mine!

an if ALL u wanna do is cyber. . . ur a

looza. . . yugh!

There is one glaring clue in the profile that lets readers know right up front the most important detail about the person who created it. If you scroll down to the fourth line next to “Marital Status,” you will see that it says, “IM 13 SO ITS JUS ME.”

Dsax25 claimed that he saw Lorie’s profile as that of an adult woman who wanted to role-play on the computer. What he meant by that was that Lorie was an adult who wanted to make believe that she was thirteen, and that her fantasy was to talk about sex to an older man who would agree to treat her as a thirteen-year-old girl. In my opinion, that explanation was a well-thought-out defense, one that he came up with after the fact to find a way out of the mess he had gotten himself into by talking the way he did to a young girl. Let’s continue looking at the profile, because this was a big part of Dsax25’s defense. Most people who are familiar with Internet chatrooms, especially ones where people are trolling for sexual partners, know that there are standard questions that are asked almost ritualistically. The first is “a/s/l.” As I mentioned earlier, this means that the person wants to know the age, sex, and location of whomever they are trying to contact. After hundreds of guys ask those same questions, it gets old. I have lost my patience for the redundant requests that come so often that I wonder if there is a script these guys follow, so I put specific comments into the profile in the hopes that people will read them and be discouraged from asking about those things. For a/s/l, I add the comment, “DON’T BOTHER ME WITH ASL CAUSE ITS BORIN.”

Another seemingly important question that men in search of young girls almost always ask Lorie is “What size are your [and this word comes in many variations from breasts to . . . please excuse the terminology . . . tits]?” I realize that Lorie is supposed to be a young teen girl, but there is only so much daily degradation that I can put up with from those degenerate misfits. So, I added a comment into the profile that I believe sends the message to most people with an ounce of human intelligence that I really don’t want to answer that question. This should be a deterrent, “AN YEAH I GOT BOOBS BUT THAT’S ALL U NEED TO KNOW.” I think that makes it pretty clear that that’s as far as the breast conversation is going to go; however, Dsax25 claimed that the statement was an open invitation to talk about the young girl’s breasts.

The most common request Lorie gets is for her picture. It is also common for a girl to send one and not get one in return, thus the reason for “OH, AN IF U DONT WANNA SEND A PIC . . . DONT ASK FOR MINE!”

The one comment that Dennis Joseph’s attorney specifically focused on during the trial was this one: “an if ALL u wanna do is cyber, ur a looza . . . yugh!” I created that one to keep away the guys who think it’s fun to masturbate while chatting online about sex. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to spot those deviants, because they almost always ask the same questions in the beginning of a chat. For example, “What are you wearing right now?” “Are you home alone?” “Can anyone see what you’re typing?” “What color panties do you have on?” They get crude really quickly and it only goes downhill from there. I realize that anything written online is up for interpretation, but I did create that statement to drive those people away. I thought it would send a strong message that the young girl was not going to sit there and type sexual comments to them while they do whatever it is they want to do to themselves.

Dennis Joseph’s attorney saw it as a clear message that Lorie did want to cyber, but that she also wanted more. That was a point of contention for him. Altchiler tried to push the issue that I was really into cybersex, that my profile as a teenager reeked of sex, and that his client had no choice but to go after me because I was so enticing. In other words, and this is my own translation after seeing transcripts of the testimony, his client has a compulsion to instant message people who he perceives as having sent out a sexual mating call by posting a profile, and it doesn’t matter that the profile belongs to an apparent minor; Dennis Joseph still had no choice but to respond. If my interpretation is correct, he apparently thought that the inability to control himself was a defense that would keep him from getting into trouble. It’s an interesting point of view, if you’re into fantasy, role-playing, and baloney!

The rest of the profile apparently wasn’t an issue, at least from the defense’s point of view. When you step back and look at it objectively, as the jurors apparently did, and you hear the explanations for the comments in it, it is fairly easy to interpret it the way I meant it to be understood. For one thing, it looks like a lot of the teenagers’ profiles on AOL. And, in spite of Altchiler’s insinuations that it was “sexually suggestive,” I have had many conversations with Agent Berglas about Lorie’s profile. I recently interviewed him for purposes of this book and he reiterated his feelings that my profile is fine for the work that we do, and that he “never thought it was oozing with sex.” He said it was “more like a thirteen-year-old girl’s profile would be.” He “never had a problem with it” and “he never thought it was jeopardizing any investigation,” and the proof of that is that “not one defendant [of ours] has ever been acquitted.”

The way the profile is written, coupled with the different colors and the language used, has obviously led all of the other people I have turned over to the FBI, as well as many others, to believe that they are chatting with a child. I’m not going to dispute the fact that there are those people who question whether or not I am a cop or working with the FBI, but that usually happens right before we are about to meet and the predator begins to think twice about with whom he has been communicating. However, not one time in the entire four years plus since I began identifying sexual predators, has anyone ever even remotely suggested to Lorie that she is an adult who merely wants to role-play as a child. That has only come out at trial—after a sexual predator was arrested.

I can only suggest from my vast experience on the Internet that Teen2hot4u’s profile screams young girl. And, to those people who are so bold that they risk going after the person who created it on the off chance that it really belongs to an adult who wants to role-play, I say, you deserve what you get when you get caught! To put it plainly, if you are not a sexual predator and you are not looking to get arrested, don’t take a chance on role-playing with a person who clearly identifies herself as a thirteen-year-old girl. You should say to yourself, “I had better stay as far away from her as possible!” Many people do stay away. Rarely, someone instant messages Lorie prior to seeing her profile, but when they do, and they find out that she is thirteen, if they are not a sexual predator, they say good-bye. That’s the end of the chat. I do not have to cut them off. I do not have to end the chat or sign off. They do it.

Dsax25 didn’t end the chats. He continued chasing after Lorie for several weeks, and he never once suggested that he was role-playing; not a hint, not a clue, and not any indication that he didn’t truly believe that he was chatting with a young girl. I never wavered in my claim to be thirteen, even injecting comments about my “mom” and “gramma” into the chats. In fact, every single thing he said indicated to me that he not only believed that he was communicating with a young girl, but that it turned him on to chat with one. Then, one year later, Dennis Joseph had to come up with a defense. I believe he had finally found the opportunity to role-play and fantasize, and it was so unbelievable that the jury didn’t believe him. The following pages contain more of Dennis Joseph’s testimony and questions from his defense attorney, Robert Altchiler. Mixed in are more of my comments or clarifications, as well as comments from the trial judge. The testimony is edited for space, but the context remains the same.

DENNIS J.: I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of doing role-play, this whole thing with someone pretending they’re 13. I was definitely uncomfortable with that. You know, I wish I would have stopped it, but I didn’t, and I just—you know, it was just a pretend thing and I just kept it going, just trying to—I don’t even know.

I find it odd that he was so uncomfortable role-playing with a young girl, yet he kept it going for several weeks.

DENNIS J.: Two minutes into the first conversation, I’m already making suggestive comments and we are now nine minutes into this conversation, and I have made a whole bunch of suggestive—“long beautiful legs, extremely attractive.” The world in the chat room moves really fast, talks about sex very quickly.

Dsax25 never chatted with Lorie in a chatroom. It was all done in private instant messaging sessions initiated by him.

DENNIS J.: And, you know, I really think this is an adult—I can’t be one hundred percent sure. And, you know, I didn’t expect her to say anything other than, “yeah, I’m 13,” because that is who she wants to be . . . And, so, I have to stay with the 13, and I said, “Oh God—and I wouldn’t be able to touch you, what painful torture.” She says, “How come?” And I, again, I say, “Because I bet you look so beautiful and delicious, my eyes would be caressing every inch of you, longing to touch your beautiful skin, your gorgeous legs and stomach. But, I couldn’t.” And she says, “How come?”

ALTCHILER: Why are you writing these things at this point?

DENNIS J.: I—I am—same thing. It is the conversation that I’m after. It is not real. This is the way I chat. I—I do it with everybody. I have never been in this situation before, but this—this is what I do on the Internet, on the role-play on American Online. And it is just conversation. It is just chatting. I didn’t think it meant anything.

ALTCHILER: Go on.

DENNIS J.: So, I say “I could get arrested.” She says “ooo, well, my mom would kill me so I wouldn’t tell her.” Which was an interesting answer. I mean she didn’t, like, recognize that there was any kind of danger for me in it at all; you know, the whole notion of police or anything. Her only concern was her mom, which is fine.

That should have been a signal that he was talking to a child! A thirteen- year-old would be more afraid of her mother finding out what she was doing than of the police arresting some guy she’s chatting with on the Internet. He seemed to be trying to convince the jury that a real child would have been deeply concerned about his potential legal problems. At the same time, I would imagine that the jurors were concerned that Dennis Joseph never appeared to give a thought about the danger he might have been putting a thirteen-year-old girl in by talking to her the way he did.

DENNIS J.: So, you know, I went ahead. “Oh my lord, I can tell you would tease the shit out of me, make me dying to touch you.” She said, “Well, if you wanted me to,” which was a good answer for me for role-plays, because teasing, you know, tantalizing is teasing, that kind of thing. And I like that. So I said “Tease me, I love to be teased.” And she said, “If I met you, I would.” And that is, you know, that is a role-play answer, absolutely, “if I met you I would.” . . . It is generally never phrased as “if I met you, I would.”

First he claimed that Lorie’s response to his comment “Tease me, I love to be teased” or “If I met you, I would,” was a role-play answer. Then, he seemed to contradict himself by suggesting that “it is generally never phrased like that.” What was the jury to think? Was Lorie’s response a role-play answer or not?

DENNIS J.: I would have expected something like, you know, “well, I would love to tease you, how could I tease you?” Or, “Would it tease you—what would you think if I did this or what would you think if I did that?” But, you know, it is still a role-play answer. So I question, “Well, what would you do?” She says, “Whatever you want.” And I say, with a smile, “Well that’s a dangerous statement.” And she says “Why?” And I say “Well I would definitely like to see your legs, maybe some of your abs,” because, to me, that is like reminiscent of the bodybuilder that I am currently looking at in the middle of the screen while this is going on.

ALTCHILER: How do you know that while you’re having this Instant Messaging session chat there are muscle women on your screen?

DENNIS J.: Because that’s first and foremost of what I do when I go to the computer for this kind of purpose, is look at those pictures. And I’m always looking at those pictures. And I’m always channeling as much as I can, all of the instant messages into the woman that I’m looking at in the middle of the screen, and I use that as imagery for whatever I’m doing.

When he “channeled” thirteen-year-old Lorie’s chats into the muscular woman on the screen, was he actually envisioning an adult or a child? You might have your own opinion on that later on after finding out about some of the pictures that Dennis Joseph was actually looking at online.

ALTCHILER: In any of these chats that you are going to testify about—and you have seen, you know, so far in the case—have you had any of these chats without having those muscle pictures on the screen?

DENNIS J.: No. Never would be.

ALTCHILER: Please continue.

DENNIS J.: “I would definitely like to see some of your legs, some of your abs.” And then “Teen2hot4u” gives a response that is the complete opposite of the responses she gives when she is really excited about something. When she is really excited about something, there was a giant open mouth [an emoticon which is a tiny picture with a face on it] smile, there was a kissie face [emoticon], there was an extended everything [meaning “everythinnnnnn”] which are clearly, you know, that is what I like, talk like that. Those are the responses I like. This is not even “okay,” this is just “k,” which, is interpreted by people who do a lot of cybersex

PROSECUTOR: Objection.

The objection is due to Dsax25’s comment about how a lot of people interpret “k.” He can only speak for himself.

DENNIS J.: My interpretation is that is not what I wanted to hear. So I come back with what I think would be a better answer for her. “Saying whatever you want to an older, experienced man, there are so many things I have done that I would think of doing to you, but shouldn’t.” . . . Now she is more excited, she says, “Cool, like what?” And then I decided to sort of kind of just lay it on the line and, you know, see what is going on here, and send a barrage of, you know, different topics that you could talk about; “sixty-nine, oral sex, bondage, doggie style, tantric sex, mutual masturbation,” et cetera. And, in the same minute, she gives me a response, immediately, “What is tantric?” And, that response told me a lot of what was going on here.

In essence, as Altchiler discussed in his opening remarks, what Dennis Joseph appeared to be saying was that because Lorie only asked him what tantric was, he was “thinking that she was definitely not a thirteen-year-old.” Dennis Joseph said he was talking to a number of other people at the same time, and he was focusing on a picture of a muscular woman during the chats, yet he expected the jury to believe that he was also in deep thought about every word the teen said to him while analyzing who she must have been in real life. From my years of experience on the Internet, when people are role-playing and doing cybersex, they have a goal and they achieve it any way they can without worrying about who the other person is in real life. Someone who is not a child predator would not be doing it with Lorie, a person who clearly identified herself as a thirteen-year-old girl. Dennis Joseph’s actions were not indicative of role-playing. As mentioned earlier, he sent Lorie his real picture and told her details about himself that were all true. And, that is why this next exchange is so significant.

ALTCHILER: Why do you use your picture?

DENNIS J.: Well, like I said before—I think it was yesterday—“Dsax25” is just basically a version of me. I am not, you know, my picture is fine, where I live is fine. You know, I’m quite proud of the fact that I’m a musician; people find it pretty impressive. I play at Carnegie Hall. I live on the upper west side of Manhattan. Most people are really impressed by that. There is no reason for me to, you know, have to make something up. It is easier to remember who I am and what I do. And, it is just, you know, it is just conversation.

Just conversation? Remember when he said, “My age as Dsax25, although it implies 25, I can be any age that’s appropriate to whatever situation I’m chatting about. My marital status can be any situation that I want that’s appropriate to what I’m chatting about.” He talked about pretending that he had huge arms and could bench hundreds of pounds and how he would use his imagination to come up with something that would sound realistic. He was claiming on one hand to be into role-play, cybersex, and fantasy, while at the same time the jury was seeing that he told Lorie all about his real life.

The following is his comment about receiving Lorie’s picture.

DENNIS J.: Well, the picture itself, definitely could be a 13, 14 year old girl. But, all of the other clues that I have had in the conversations from her screen name and profile, her reactions to different various things that she said, and her reaction to my picture, over balanced to the side that she is not a kid.

He acknowledged that the picture could be that of a young teen and he had not heard anything from the “girl” to indicate that she was an adult who was role-playing. Judging from the way his testimony was going, the other clues he was referring to included his interpretation that her answer “k” meant that she was disappointed about one of his comments to her, and that a smiley face was an indication that she wanted to talk about sex. He eventually brought up his comments about meeting.

DENNIS J.: I say, “And then let’s talk about meeting,” which is her fantasy.

He claimed that having a meeting was Lorie’s fantasy. To prove that, he kept referring back to a previous chat when he said to her, “tease me, I love to be teased,” and she responded, “If I met you, I would.” He used her comment to say that she was the first one to bring up a meeting, something I’ve been instructed by Agent Berglas not to do. However, Dennis Joseph didn’t mention the fact that, earlier in the same conversation, he commented about “not being able to touch you” and “I bet you look so beautiful and delicious, my eyes would be caressing every inch of you, longing to touch your beautiful skin, your gorgeous legs and stomach.” None of the evidence presented at trial demonstrated that Lorie had ever suggested having a meeting with Dennis Joseph. I merely said the word “met” before he did, and it was in the proper context, because he had given me every indication that what he planned to do, he would do face-to-face and not online in some fantasy scenario that he had apparently created to impress the jury. On the other hand, there was solid proof to dispute his claims that Teen2hot4u was the one pushing for a meeting. While he continued to claim that everything he said to Lorie was all part of “role-playing,” the fact is, on a number of occasions he mentioned to her that he planned to be in her neighborhood. For example:

DENNIS J.: “I’ll be in [your area] on Monday.”

And, in fact, he really did have a meeting scheduled for that Monday right near where Lorie lived, but he explained it away to the jury like this:

DENNIS J.: Although I’ve been doing this role-play now for like a month-and-a-half, I’ve never been comfortable with the thought of the fact that she wants to be 13 and—but I’ve been doing it anyway. And now, she’s talking about meeting, and meeting, and meeting, and I kind of just called her bluff, you know. I’m going to be [in your area Monday].

ALTCHILER: All of these chats, these role-playing chats that you’ve had over the years, have you ever actually had a meeting?

DENNIS J.: Not with anyone I’ve ever chatted with, no.

Of course, there was no way for the prosecutor to verify many of the claims he made regarding what he had or hadn’t done before in connection with his Internet relationships.

ALTCHILER: Please continue.

THE COURT: I’m not clear on what you’ve been saying here. You’re the one who says, I’ll be in [your area] Monday, and that’s, I gather, you tell us that’s to suggest that you have a meeting? That’s what you’re telling, giving that possibility that’s where you could have a meeting, right? I’m just taking that answer that I’m not quite clear about, right?

DENNIS J.: Yeah, it’s suggested in there, yes.

THE COURT: That’s the suggestion, that there could be a meeting on Monday?

DENNIS J.: Yes.

THE COURT: Now, she hasn’t said anything about a meeting before that?

DENNIS J.: Yes, she has.

THE COURT: Where?

DENNIS J.: On August 9.

THE COURT: No. No. No. I’m talking about the chitter chat that you have in the minutes preceding the statement on 8-17 on Exhibit 77. She doesn’t say anything there.

DENNIS J.: Well, not on that particular day.

THE COURT: That’s my question.

DENNIS J.: But it’s in the scenario that she set up.

ALTCHILER: Right. And how many times before that point did she bring up meetings?

THE COURT: No. That’s not what we’re talking about.

ALTCHILER: That’s what we’re talking about, Your Honor, because his answer before was in response to her repeatedly bringing up meetings. He put that out there. If we’re going to be accurate, that was his testimony.

THE COURT: She hadn’t brought up the meeting that day which is what I was trying to clarify.

Here is what was happening. Dsax25 brought up meeting Lorie when it was clear that he was the only one in that chat talking about a meeting, but Altchiler apparently thought that by throwing out the idea that Lorie had previously pushed the idea of meeting his client over and over, the judge and jurors would forget that she hadn’t and think that Dsax25 had only brought it up because she had been twisting his arm to meet her all along. Thankfully, the chats spoke for themselves and the jurors had heard and read every word of them.

The testimony continued:

DENNIS J.: “So, if we met, tell me what you would envision, what would happen?”

Because again, she likes to tell me that she likes when I talk about all these scenarios but she hasn’t said anything herself. And cybersex is best when it’s things coming from both sides, so I wanted to hear something from her.

He has just commented that he hadn’t actually engaged in cybersex with Lorie, but he insisted that she had somehow communicated to him that she liked when he talked about sex.

DENNIS J.: So, she says, “Well, like the stuff you said is cool,” which is the same comment about all the kinds of sexual things I’ve said.

I use words like “stuff” for a reason. I leave my comments vague, and in that way, the door is left open for him to take it where he wants the conversation to go. He could have interpreted “stuff” to be about his music or sports, but because he wanted the chat to go in a specific direction, he now, one year later, claimed that “stuff” opened the door for sex talk and showed him that this was what the girl wanted from him.

DENNIS J.: So, I comment, “That would get extremely hot quickly.” She says, “I guess.” And then she asks me, “What would you do? So, she puts it back in my lap once again, so I have to do the work.”

He has to “do the work.” I think this is where he probably lost the jury, because he had claimed that all he wanted was cybersex, yet he spent several weeks pulling words out of Lorie in an effort to get her to engage in it with him, to no avail.

DENNIS J.: So, I say, “Well, I want to go at your pace. There’s quite an age and experience difference between us.” Again, now, she sends me a very clear message that’s the opposite of the emoticons, that’s a disappointed, that’s-not-the-answer-I-want-to-hear “k.”

In that moment of deep thought, the one where he was having a few other conversations, the one where he was fixated on a “muscle-builder” in the middle of his screen, at that moment where he was so entrenched in Lorie’s every word, he decided that a thirteen-year-old girl’s response of “k,” which is short for “okay,” was a sign of disappointment, rather than a simple sign showing that she was in agreement with him.

DENNIS J.: She doesn’t want to hear that. She wants to hear something more graphic, more exciting. So, I can do that, too.

ALTCHILER: Please continue.

DENNIS J.: So, I do something kind of over-the-top, “I’d love to rip your clothes off and take you over and over and over in all sorts of ways,” and she smiles. [sends an emoticon] Again, that to me was a response of an adult, you know, pretending, role-playing, trying to act like someone who’s inexperienced, who understands what rip your clothes off and take you over and over is all about.

Apparently, his explanation wasn’t very convincing:

THE COURT: The smile, that’s what that said?

DENNIS J.: The smile. That’s what that said.

THE COURT: That’s what that’s saying. Okay.

I wasn’t in the courtroom when Dennis Joseph testified, so reading the transcripts was the first time I saw his testimony. In my view, he was simply making up stories to justify his behavior. Every one of his claims appeared to be manufactured out of the most innocent of comments or emoticons that Lorie had sent to him. The fact that she had held his interest for so long when she wasn’t engaging in the kind of talk that he claimed to have wanted must have spoken volumes to the jury, but, the defendant wasn’t finished testifying yet. He had a lot more time to put his foot in his mouth and he didn’t disappoint anyone.

ALTCHILER: Now, I’m going to ask you to take us through both of these chats that took place on August 22, so if you have to, pull one of them out to lay them side by side, because I’m going to ask you to take us through the things that were happening simultaneously that day.

DENNIS J.: Okay. At about 10:04, about eight minutes after I had emailed Teen2hot4u . . . [she] sends me an instant message that says she got my email. And I say, smiley, and I say, “Well, I hope you liked the last email.”

ALTCHILER: Now, just for clarification purposes, is that 10:04 message from Teen2hot4u.

DENNIS J.: Yes.

ALTCHILER: To you?

DENNIS J.: Yes.

ALTCHILER: Is that the first time that she has instant messaged you at the beginning of an instant messaging session?

PROSECUTOR: Objection.

THE COURT: Come to the sidebar. (At the sidebar) Seems to me that something was brought to all of our attention the other day that this Teen2hot4u at 10:04 was in response to something from him about five or six minutes earlier.

ALTCHILER: Which it says—

THE COURT: What?

ALTCHILER: —Judge—

THE COURT: But your question was, is that the first time she initiated with you. And the answer is, it isn’t.

ALTCHILER: It is.

THE COURT: It is not.

ALTCHILER: It is an instant messaging chat.

THE COURT: No, I know, but your question is, as in this context of who starts these off, this was not started off with that. And, we know that from something that happened the other day and, therefore, your question is without foundation.

ALTCHILER: It is entirely, 100 percent accurate.

THE COURT: No, it is not accurate.

ALTCHILER: Of course, it is.

THE COURT: It is not accurate. You’re leaving out background in order to indicate an impression that is unsure. I’m not going to permit it, period.

ALTCHILER: That is entirely untrue.

THE COURT: Counsel, is there any question about that?

PROSECUTOR: No. In fact, the witness just testified that it was in response to the email, and he didn’t like the answer, so he started doing, “is this the first time?”

ALTCHILER: No, I didn’t.

PROSECUTOR: Just for clarification, you led and created a different impression.

THE COURT: You put that as a leading question, and it isn’t so, and I’m not going to permit it.

ALTCHILER: That’s fine. The evidence—first of all, it is self-evident that it is in response to an email and I think I’m clarifying that point.

THE COURT: No, you—look, please read back the question. (read back) [Is that the first time that she has instant messaged you at the beginning of an instant messaging session?]

THE COURT: And that is creating an impression that she started the sequence off which was, in fact, started by his email, [eight] minutes earlier.

THE COURT: I’m not going to permit that. I’m going to tell the jury that it is based on something that came [eight] minutes earlier.

ALTCHILER: Why are you going to tell them that?

THE COURT: Why? Because your question is erroneous, wrong, creating a false impression, and you know it.

ALTCHILER: I’m going to ask for a mistrial then based on the Court’s intervention before in trying to lead the jurors to believe—

THE COURT: No.

ALTCHILER: —that my client was not accurately testifying.

PROSECUTOR: That is completely, that is completely inaccurate.

THE COURT: You are not accurately putting the question.

ALTCHILER: It is right there in the email.

THE COURT: Do you want to correct yourself?

ALTCHILER: I’ll correct it myself.

THE COURT: Fine. There is an email six or eight minutes before, the other way.

ALTCHILER: Look at the instant message.

THE COURT: Sir, all I’m—

ALTCHILER: No, I—

THE COURT: Sir, just you be quiet, or I’m going to find you in contempt for talking while I’m talking. Now, just be quiet. You created the impression, with that question, that this is one where she began the thing. She did not begin it, and you know she did not begin it, and yet, you’re trying to keep it in there that way. And, I’m not going to let it happen. Now, do you want to correct it?

ALTCHILER: Yeah, sure.

THE COURT: All right.

ALTCHILER: What I said was 100 percent accurate.

THE COURT: No, it wasn’t.

ALTCHILER: Of course it was.

Do I really need to comment?

The jury listened and watched as Dennis Joseph continued to trip over his own words trying to explain why he had said things like “I would love to touch and kiss you all over, lick you between your thighs, on your clitoris, and make you orgasm”; “I bet you will make a lot of noise when you come”; “I thought about us both naked, sitting, you playing, stroking my cock while we kiss and I caress your breasts, your nipples. And then, when I’m fully hard, turn you around and sit on me, facing away, hold you tight and lift you up and down on me while you have your legs spread wide and straight. . . .” Those words were actually said to his next intended victim, thirteen-year-old Julie, Lorie’s friend. In fact, at trial, Dennis Joseph had to explain his actions towards not just two teen girls, but other people with whom he chatted who also identified themselves as young girls, including a man who said he was a ten-year-old female.

But this was just Dennis Joseph’s direct examination. This is where the defense attorney is supposed to put his client’s best foot forward, allowing him to come up with what he had hoped would appear to be rational reasons for his criminal behavior. This is the defendant’s only hope, because when cross-exam begins, no holds are barred.