Credit: PA State Police
A sex offender was arrested after a sting by an online predator hunting group, according to court papers.
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Alex Rosen of the online vigilante-like group Predator Poachers contacted the Penndel Borough Police Department to report alleged attempted child exploitation on the evening of January 18. Bucks County Detectives were summoned to the police station, according to authorities.
County investigators said they were told Rosen’s group had been in touch with an account featuring a woman’s name on Facebook. Rosen pretended to be a 13-year-old girl on Facebook and interacted with the account.
The Facebook user advised Rosen’s fake account that they were in Penndel Borough. Rosen, using the fake account, said the 13-year-old girl was at the Dollar General on Old Bristol Pike in Falls Township’s Morrisville section on January 18, detectives said.
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Predator Poachers was reported to have the Dollar General “under surveillance” and Joseph Slover, 42, and a woman arrived at the store, detectives said.
The group confronted Slover after they arrived to meet a 13-year-old girl, detectives said.
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Slover and the woman he was with left the Dollar General, returning to their Penndel Borough residence on Crescent Street. The Predator Poachers group arrived at the home, approached the two, and called borough officers, detectives said.
County detectives interviewed Slover, a sex offender who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl who was deaf in 2014, and found he was currently on parole. Slover admitted to creating the Facebook account and a private page called “Naughty Girls Only,” authorities said.
“Slover admitted that he had received images of children who listed their ages as under the age of 18 and admitted sending images of himself and [a woman] naked and engaging in sexual acts,” detectives wrote in court papers.
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Slover said he used his cell phone to create the Facebook page and lure a girl into sending him naked images, detectives reported.
Slover was convicted of sexually assaulting the 15-year-old deaf girl in 2016, according to public records.
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Slover was charged in January with photograph, film, and depict on a computer sex act; child pornography; and criminal use of a communication facility. District Judge Daniel Baranoski preliminarily arraigned and jailed Slover on 10 percent of $2.5 million.
Slover waived his right to a preliminary hearing on Wednesday and will head to trial.
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The Predator Poachers group has posted numerous videos of them confronting adults alleged to have shown sexual interest in what they believed were children. The group and their controversial methods have been featured in numerous news reports across the nation.
Earlier this year following the group’s activities in a western locality, authorities in Washington state urged residents to leave investigations in the hands of “professionals,” according to The Columbian newspaper.
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Editor’s Note: All individuals arrested or charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The story was compiled using information from police and public court documents.
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