2008 Woodie Awards
Grad student arrested on TV for sex offense
An investigative report by WFMY airs 10 arrests - one man from UNCG
Chloe Johnson
Issue date: 11/14/06 Section: Campus News
You may think you are chatting to someone online who is your age, lives in Winston-Salem and goes to church every Sunday - but really that person may be 10 years older than you, divorced with two kids and looking for sex on a Sunday.Local television station WFMY2 approached this issue nationally on a program called "Apartment X." The series was created from a real life investigation about catching internet sex predators and began its run the first week of November. The outcome? Ten men arrested for several charges in relation to soliciting a child by computer.
One of the men was Michael Silva, a UNCG student.
Silva, 27, is a graduate student who served as assistant for the Department of Counseling and Education. He was arrested during the "Apartment X" investigation.
Tanya Rivera, WFMY reporter, said she came up with the idea to catch the internet sex predators while talking with a friend one day. With the help of the Guilford County Sheriff's Office, WFMY began the investigation in July.
Undercover sheriff's deputies 'chatted' online pretending to be a 14-year-old girl. Along the way, many men chatted back casually, eventually dominating the conversation with sexual comments, pictures and even actions. The deputies continued the online correspondence and waited until they were told, "We should meet sometime," or "When should we meet?" Law enforcement then arranged an apartment for the men to come and meet the 'girl,' which happened to be called Apartment X.
"Guilford County deputies had been talking online with possible suspects for months," explained Rivera. "Some of the men who made their way to Apartment X made contact with the deputies just days before, others weeks before."
The apartment was wired with six hidden cameras and microphones, and undercover deputies surrounded the apartment while the men entered.
"They were everywhere - in the apartment, outside the apartment, in the parking lot," said Rivera. "They wanted to make sure no one got hurt."
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