Published: July 24, 2008 09:28 am      

Man arrested in W’burg for luring ‘minor’

Perverted Justice organization poses as ‘12-year-old girl’ online, leading to arrest of Tenn. man

By Sean Bailey / Staff Writer

A Tennessee man was arrested Tuesday night for allegedly luring a minor to a Williamsburg restaurant for a sexual encounter.

Instead of finding the “12-year-old girl” he met on the Internet, 48-year-old Billy Williams of Knoxville found officers from the Kentucky Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations and the Williamsburg Police Department who arrested him for first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor/illegal sex act.

According to a press release from Attorney General Jack Conway’s office, Williams had been communicating with an online decoy from Perverted Justice.

The decoy posed as a 12-year-old girl.

Perverted Justice, according to its Web site, is a non-profit organization whose mission is “to address and counter the attempts of Internet predators and pedophiles from having success abusing children.”

The organization is best known for its “Dateline NBC” specials in which members of the Perverted Justice crew pose as young children online, luring potential pedophiles to locations where law enforcement is standing by.

To date, Perverted Justice’s Web site states that 279 predators have been convicted since 2004 as a result of the group’s work.

Williams is currently lodged in the Whitley County Detention Center. According to Conway’s office, if convicted, Williams could spend up to 10 years in prison.

“This arrest was the result of collaboration between investigators at the state and local level,” Conway stated in the press release. “I appreciate the fact that, working together, we were able to execute this arrest and keep Kentucky families safe.”