A man suspected of being a pedophile expressed regret about being caught by Chris Hansen during an attempt to meet a 14-year-old girl, only to find Hansen and the police waiting for him.
Tyler DeVoto, aged 33, from Gaithersburg, Maryland, was among those dubbed the “Nasty Nine” in a major sting operation that took place across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. His arrest will feature in Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler’s series “Takedown with Chris Hansen,” as detailed in a video statement released on Monday.
“I really didn’t want to see Chris Hansen from ‘To Catch a Predator’ there,” the sheriff said, referencing DeVoto’s conversation with an undercover officer impersonating a teenager.
DeVoto, thinking he was meeting a 19-year-old, showed up with pizza for what he believed would be a casual encounter, only to realize the grim reality of his situation when he saw Hansen.
He was subsequently taken into custody.
The sheriff noted that detectives had engaged with numerous underage boys and girls in Harford County, conducting “dozens of online conversations” with individuals they suspected might be seeking sexual encounters with minors.
Every suspect who met with Hansen and Harford County deputies was arrested.
One notable case involved Nicholas Fountain from Collegeville, Pennsylvania, who owns two daycare centers. He had been in contact with an undercover agent posing as a 14-year-old boy on the Reddit thread “Boys Ask Dads.”
Chris Hansen, who rose to fame as the host of NBC’s Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator,” began the “Takedown with Chris Hansen” series on his streaming platform, TruBlu, in 2022.
Gahler remarked, “When we were first approached about conducting this operation, we really hoped to come away without any arrests and ensure that no predators were lurking in Harford County. But unfortunately, that was not the case.”
