Chris Hansen is WARNING Parents on the Darkest Cover-Up Right Now

Hey, guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. And the initial conversation starts on roll likes because that's where kids are. And again, parents can shut down this chat feature. And you're not supposed to be able to chat if your age is too far apart. But kids fear that out. Yes. And this has been going on for 15 years now. We interview a man who's now 30 children of his own military guy. I can deadlift 716 pounds. Woody. And he was abused 15 years ago. He was a boy on roll likes and was brought to tears this tough guy was telling the story about, you know, being grew by this predator medium turns out he was an older guy and he tried to sexually assault him. And now he's, you know, got legal action against roll likes. How do we always use this term right recently so when we're describing how these predators win over the trust of their victims and it's called grooming. But there's all different ways that it occurs what on row blocks where you're dealing with something on the internet, which is also like what you've dealt with. It's the same grooming. I mean, it follows a template. It's either an older guy pretending to be somebody who's younger or it's an older guy who's going to co opt and convince this child that he can provide something that the child needs or wants. And little by little breaks down the traditional barriers that exist between adults and children in our society and convinces them to do something they shouldn't do. Is there a common kind of thing or like key that gets unlocked that's a bad way to put it where the Rubicon every time it's the moment it gets crossed or does it really. I think there are similarities. But you know, each case is different. Each child is vulnerable in their own way. Are they from broken home. Are they currently having disagreements with their parents or their home one's raging. Do they want to be viewed as somebody older. Do they want freedom. Do they want money. Do they want jewelry. I mean, it's these guys know how to push the buttons. And the problem is that this child may be in just a momentary location of vulnerability. But if the predator hits them at the exact right moment, it's a disaster. That's right. Right. Two days other way. They're over it. You know, it's like sex torsion. You know, the next act you're mentoring, we have it true blue is sex torsion. And we examine all these cases where young men or boys are online. And they think they're talking to an attractive young woman. They trade naughty photos and it turns out it's not a young woman. It's an extortionist in Nigeria. And now the guy wants money. And the kids got $500 in gift cards and gives all that away. And then there's no more. And he says, well, you know, F you kill yourself. These kids are so caught up in the moment. They think this guy is going to, you know, publish the naughty photos. And they can't get it out of their mind that this is a momentary thing in two weeks. Graham is not going to see it in two weeks. Nobody's going to care. But in the moment, the social media footprint, their presence, their identity is so intertwined with their ego that they don't see it. And in 15, 16 year old boys are killing themselves. I've sat with four sets of parents. There's a state legislature in South Carolina, Brandon Guffy, son killed himself. Same thing. And he goes and talks to people all the time about this. And he tells kids, look, first of all, your junks probably out there already if you're, you know, so don't even don't even think about that being a problem because nobody cares. And you can go to Nick Mac, National Center for Missing Exploited Children, and they'll help you scrub the Internet of anything you may have sent inadvertently or anything you were tricked into Sunday. They can do that. But the point of it is these kids who kill themselves because of a momentary sense of shame. If they wrote it out for another week. They're applying to colleges. They're back with their girlfriend. Oh, stupid. And so to me, a lot of this comes back to parents. And parents have to say, not blaming parents, but parents have to create an environment where if their child gets lured into something, they feel comfortable enough to say, look, I have to, I need your help to get out of this. And the parents are going to yell at them, they can call them stupid after the fact or tease them about it or whatever it becomes a joke at some point. What's not a joke is when the kid shoots himself in the head. Yeah. It's not a joke when the kid hangs himself in the closet. And man, I tell you, having kids of my own, you know, being out of the danger zone, nothing would ruin me, would destroy me like the death of a child. I could do, I'm a tough guy, I could deal with a whole lot of stuff. But losing a child at 15, 16 years old, anytime, you know, a child's death precedes yours, it is, it is life altering. And the fact that they even get through this and can be advocates for other kids and other parents is nothing short of amazing to me. And I have nothing but enormous respect for all those parents who deal with this. And for those who sat for the documentary, which is, like I said, coming out after Roblox. Yeah, we'll have that link down below by the way, but yeah, I can't, I don't have kids in my own yet. I really look forward to having them and you can't know what that's like until you do. No, until you do. And I, you know, I hope I, I never know what it's like. And I hope no other parent has to go through it again, but it's, it's, it's absolutely the most painful thing I can imagine. What about when you are, of course, you feel awful for every parent you sit with and they're devastated and that's, that's, that's a given. But how difficult is it when you're sitting with these parents who are devastated after the fact and it's one where you're here in the story and you're seeing all the places where like they should have had more guardrails on there or they should have known or they should have monitored this or that. Well, you asked the question in a very sensitive way because it'll list it a response that'll help another parent from know how to not go through it. But, you know, I don't go out to blame. Right, parents, you know, I don't know what my kids did 24/7. I'm sure they had close calls. I had close calls that my parents ever found out about. I mean, yeah, inches from dead. I grew up in an era where, you know, you walked out with a BB gun or a bow and arrow and went to go play around in the woods for six hours when you're 10 years old. You know, we weren't, we weren't very tightly regulated, you know, and is the, the oldest of three and the only boy, you know, there are elements of your life where you were sort of raised by wolves. You know, you had your buddies and your pals, it was, you know, Lord of the Flies, we had a ball. Nobody ever got seriously hurt. Do we come close? Did you almost lose an eye? Did you almost crash a mini by, yeah, all that stuff. But for the grace of God, you know, and you've got to count on that, you need a little luck raising a kid. And, but sometimes you don't have that lucky stroke. And sometimes the kid makes a bad decision. And sometimes you're not there to catch it. And so all you can do is try to create an environment where the kid feels open enough where he can say, hey, you know, I got a prom here. You need it. We need to fix it up. And then that's, that's the best advice I can give. And even that's not foolproof. But that's why I harp on all these safety issues on Roblox. And Roblox is going to be all mad. And, you know, we do more than any other platform. And it's fine. Great. Good on you. But let's, let's tighten this up. And by the way, let's talk about it. Let's hear from these victims. Let's hear from the lawyers trying to hold the company accountable. Because that discussion creates awareness and a dialogue that needs to take place just like the predator investigations, the takedown investigations we do, all of this stuff. It's about awareness and dialogue. And if I can light a fire under people and get them to talk about it with their kids, then I won. One of, if not the most common DMs I get on Instagram are many of you asking me what my favorite books are. Well, today's your lucky day, because if you use the link in my description below to join my newsletter, I'm going to give you my top 10 book recommendations right now. Also, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make money producing content from the show, you can do so via the discord link in my description below. And finally, you can join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes via the Patreon link in my description below. As always, please take one second to hit that subscribe button. If you haven't already, I really appreciate that. Also, the like buttons, a big help. And you can join my newsletter via the link in the description. Well, it's also you make a great point that the company should want to sit down with you and should want to be transparent to fix the problem. And that's a mistake. And they do sit down with other people. But again, it tends to be, you know, with people in the tech world. Where it's friendly. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't count. I'm saying like with someone like you who's really trying to solve this problem. If I could see outside of you, if I could see from their perspective with some of these class action lawsuits and stuff like that with lawyers, you know, those lawyers are doing their job and they're representing usually families whose kids were victims of one way or another. Exactly. So I'm not blaming the lawyers or anything like that. But I could see from the company's perspective how it might get, like, scared it to even address it. I mean, you also see a pattern of behavior in the part of rural blocks where they, you know, they're trying to hire the spokesman for the Republican Attorney's General Association, they try to get people in law enforcement to be on their team. They donate money to the alliance of Attorney's General. We're the solution here, they throw a lot of money around when they should maybe be throwing a little more awareness around, I think. Now what, I mean, you talked about it a little bit ago, that there's tools, kids, or they're smart with tech, they can just get around it and stuff. But you know, that's one of the scariest things about becoming a parent for me is like, it just gets worse every year, all the different resources and tools in places someone can get hurt. And like you said, you got to have some luck as a parent too, you can put a helmet on your kid and have him go through life that way or be a helicopter, they have to be able to defend for themselves. And they need to learn those skills, I mean, you know, I always look at it this way, you know, cavemen maybe survived and saber-toothed tigers were on the earth, you know, civilization was initiated to continue and, you know, there's a God and most days things go well. But you know, bad stuff can happen, kids can get preyed upon on games like Roblox, 84-year-old women can disappear, you know, for no fault of their own, I mean, bad stuff happens out there and the more we talk about it, but don't live, you know, behind lot gates all the time, you have to go live your life. But you have to be aware of these potential things and you're right, it gets more challenging every year. I mean, we had, I mean, my oldest son was, who's 34 now, you know, when he's in high school, there's World of Warcraft and you had to be on a computer to do it, phones weren't that sophisticated and tablets weren't really around then, so you get to sit on the computer and do it in a common area of the house and when his bedtime was bedtime, well, I can't, I'm letting the phones down. Well, who are the fellas? Well, everybody goes, well, get to bed and the story, right? Play another day. Yeah, it'll be more fellas to play with it. But, you know, now God, it's just overwhelming and I think it's important for parents not to try not to be overwhelmed by the technology. To limit your children's exposure, you limit the methods that can be used for adults to approach your child, turn off the chat function, look over their shoulder, understand the games. You know, if it's a bathroom game, because I'm playing it, if it's a game, you know, where there are games like that that have been on Roblox historically, the bathroom game and it's like a bathroom game. You walk your character walks into a bathroom and sees different things and you go to different levels and it's sexually aggressive and it's not appropriate for kids. But there was a point where kids had access to that, you know, Roblox is indicated that's tried to shut that down, but, you know, in a platform like that, or in Discord or in a lot of different places, you know, there are dark corners of those platforms where kids can get into trouble. Well, that's the thing and that's what's really disappointing that's coming through and what you're saying and it's not just the transparency or the lack of transparency access, or point that you made. It's like, you know, even when I tried to play Devils Advocate two minutes ago, you can cite the sources of a shit they do. It sounds like they don't really want to solve the problem. I don't think Roblox wants predators harming children on their platform. I don't think so. I mean, these people have kids too, right? But how much do they want to solve it? I think in general, you know, anything that limits engagement is bad for business. And so I don't believe they found the right balance. Now again, these things that they have done have been helpful and I'm sure they prevented some engagement between adults and children. But, you know, I mean, maybe I'm asking too much at the company. I don't think I am and this has been going on for 15 years. And the other question is, had we not been barking about this for the last six, eight months, had these lawsuits not been filed, had these attorneys general not gotten involved? Would this have happened? I mean, would they have made the advancements in security that they have made? I would argue no. And again, you're letting a company legislate its own safety. This is also a place where like my brain now, I want to look at everything. How do you think I can opt to my eyeballs? I can only imagine. For seven, eight months now. I can only imagine. But like, I mean, just to try to understand it, you know, and you know, thankfully, you know, we've got people who dig into this, who make it their business to be, you know, on the inside of it. And, you know, both in law enforcement and lawmaking. But, you know, there, there's, I had a conversation with the Florida attorney general, sharp guy. Who's that? And it's James Authmire. Okay. And he's not in the first episode, but he'll be in the second episode, and I did a podcast episode with him too. People can check it out. Yeah. Let's make sure we have a seat with Chris Hansen and predators I've caught. And we have video versions on the have a seat with Chris Hansen YouTube channel. But he was very careful in the course of my interview, but indicated that there may be some information that was requested via criminal subpoena, right? You subpoena these things in criminal cases that may have not been properly turned over. Now, he was very careful, so I don't want to overstep into there. But it sounded to me as somebody who's covered these cases for a very long time that there could potentially be liability there based upon the Florida attorney general's investigation. So we'll see how that plays out. That's something to think about, huh? Well, yeah, I mean, I'm glad there's some out there who are really trying to do something about it. And it's not just it's Florida, it's Louisiana, it's Kentucky, Tennessee, I believe South Carolina. I think it's up to about eight different states now. It does concern me, though, like I remember three years ago, Sean Ryan, when he was on my show in episode 148, he was, he was talking all about this. And it's like, you can't even believe this is real. But you have legislators and some other states who are trying to argue to use like terminology, like maps, like minor attractive, that's just, that shouldn't even be in the, right? In the, in the sphere of a discussion, there's no legitimacy to predators, pedophiles, criminals, being classified as somebody who's got, you know, some sort of legitimate attraction to a minor, we create laws to protect minors from being sexually exploited. And some of the ages may seem arbitrary to predators. But the reality is we have to draw a line. And society does the best it can to protect children from being tricked into situations where they're sexually exploited. And that's why we have an age of consent. And if a child is below that age of consent, even if they say yes, they can't give permission to be sexually exploited. All right. And that's why we have these laws. So here's a weird one that I think about a lot now, because it's actually extremely realistic. So in a lot of marriages in America, there's a common age difference of two or three years. Yeah. Like there's a very common trend of, not always, but you know, it's like common that the husband will be, you know, 35 and the wife will be 33 or 32. Now imagine their high school sweethearts, right? The husband meets the wife when he's a junior and she's a freshman. And they begin dating and they're teenagers and they're interacting as teenagers do. Then one day he's a senior and he turns 18 and she's 16. What's the, well, typically there's a sunset clause in these. So in other words, you know, the age of consent is 16. If you're talking about somebody who's within two years of, if you're talking about somebody who's five years older, then then it's a different set of circumstances. So that the law is try to address that situation. You know, you bring up an interesting point. You know, there was a documentary done recently on the looking at the whole tecacher predator take down experience and, you know, there, it's one director's point of view, right? And there's some good things, productive things out of it and I cooperated with it. There's some things that were left out that I thought were important. But one of the critical aspects, the aspects that were critical of my investigations was that in one case, there was an 18-year-old who was caught trying to hook up with a 15-year-old. And he was criminally prosecuted, but the case was sent to diversion. And the question, the interviewed the kid's mother who got busted and she was critical of us in our investigation and claimed that he couldn't go to his high school graduation because of the embarrassment of getting caught. Well, there's a big age difference between 18 and 15, right? 18 and 15, first of all, is not 30 and 33. That's right, right? When you were 18, did you date it? 15 year olds. Of course not. That wouldn't be right. You know, and it was illegal. It was against the law. So do I feel sorry that this 18 year old couldn't go to his graduation? I feel sorry for a 13 14 or 15 year old kid who could have been sexually exploited by the 18 year old who then wasn't in mentally healthy shape to go to their high school graduation. So I don't have a lot of sympathy in these cases. I mean, to me, it's pretty common sense. Yes. Right. Now, what about this other one? This is another one I think about a lot. Are you familiar with the Josh Getty situation? Yes. So that's different. Right. And I, here's why it's different. Here's a young man was 21 when he was 19. He was 19. Okay. So he was 19. And he's in a club. Right. And he's approached by a girl in the club in the club who if I have the story street says that she's the same age. I think she said she was 21. 21. Yeah. I think so. Check it on that in the comments. But yes. So what is his due diligence to suggest that a woman who has had to show ID to get into the club was lying to him in tent you're talking about. Yeah. I don't think he was setting out to be a predator. Agreed. I think he was a 19 year old guy who met a very attractive young woman and just assumed that she was of the appropriate age because of where this happened. Now, and she looked at too, Chris. Like I saw the pictures. I saw the pictures. Now I'm not one to defend predatory activity, but I don't think in this case. And you look at the totality of the case. Young guy playing in the NBA. You shouldn't get a break for that because he's an athlete celebrity. Right. But he should also have some consideration for being targeted because of that. And this wasn't a situation where he was and again, my understanding is that it wasn't a situation where he was plying somebody with drinks to take advantage of them. If anybody was taking advantage, that's a different story. Yeah. There was a different power dynamic. To me, it's about the power dynamic who had power in that situation. Yes. And I think it was equal in that situation. And so, I think he got a stern talking to and there were a number of conversations and I think he'll be checking ID going forward. I think so as well. But that was like the point being that was the rare one where I agree with you. I think so. And trust me, you're not going to need sympathy out of me. Right. So I have to, you know, but you bear these things in mind and you have to put yourself in that situation as a young fellow. And, you know, you put your, is it the father of, you know, two boys, you put yourself in that situation and you preach to them growing up that, you know, no means no. And you show respect for women. And, you know, if it's a gray area, you know, it was meant to be, it'll meant to be a different day. But don't ever, you know, assume things. And it's important to tell young men that a boy's had. But to me, that situation, again, without having reported on or talked to anybody intimately involved in it was exactly that. Yeah. There are one thing I've learned though in the studio, unfortunately, is that there are, you know, we obviously have our own problems here in America to be very clear. But, you know, there's, there are cultures around the world that openly normalized us. And I'll explain, let me give an exact example. I'm sure you're familiar with it. But I have had maybe seals sitting in that chair, army rangers sitting in that chair, Delta Force guy sitting in that chair, all who served the years in Afghanistan. And they all tell the same story. Oh, yeah. And you'll hear the same stories from people at Quantico where they host Afghans to study military techniques. You know, these are people who are supposed to be fighting on our team. But there's a different culture in some respects. And and, you know, it's, it's, I mean, watch the movie Kite Runner. What do you do about that? I mean, well, I think you certainly can't condone it. Of course. Do you go to war over it to try to change another culture? I don't know that that's the answer. I think you don't condone it. You don't look the other way. But you don't, you know, again, you hope that their society changes. I guess you use diplomacy and care and stick. And, you know, if it's if it's something that outrageous, you say, look, you're only getting American money if you change the policy. Right. Or you encourage people to change their behavior. And, you know, economic inducements work. And so you try to work that way. But it's, you know, we have to worry about our world first and then change culture overseas. Or you change the culture overseas that affects our world. And, and I think these are, you know, you do these in terms of what's most critical, what's most pressing and what's most dangerous to us at this moment. Yeah. Now, there's moments, I say this all the time, but there's moments in here in different podcasts that just stick with you, right? Where you're talking to someone and some point comes up and the way they say something to me and the gravity of the point is just like, whoa, and that's wired into me. And I had one of those with Andy Boost-Monte last year who used to be in CIA, definitely still is. But I was asking him about some of the worst shit he ever saw out in the field. And he talked about, you know, meeting with some fucking general or something in the middle of Africa who had all these eight-year-old, nine-year-old, 10-year-old child soldiers around him, who they were playing up on drugs, who they were sexually abusing, all these awful things. And then the soldiers who were watching over them had been the same child soldiers that had that happen to them. And it was just a giant cycle. And I said to him, I said, Andy, how do you fix something like that? And there was a long pause. And he sat back and he was just like, this is going to sound so bad. And I'm like, go ahead, say it, he goes, you just got to kill him all. You just got to get a reset. Well, sadly, sadly, he's probably right. It's so ingrained into the civilization that that's the way it works. That's the way it worked for them. It's way it worked for their brothers and their parents. And, you know, I've been to Sierra Leone. And I've been to that part of the world. And, you know, we didn't see wars or battles or what Andy described. But we saw the remnants of it. We did a story on al-Qaeda using blood diamonds to fund terrorism. And we talked to the guys who were doing the investigation. And we went back to the places where it all happened. And, you know, you got a realistic dose of it. But what he described was exactly, you know, you can see some of this in the movie blood diamond. It's very realistic. And that's the clash of culture that we have. And it's very tribal there in other parts of the world. Afghanistan is the same way. I mean, it's warring tribes and factions. And this goes back generations before America was America. So how do you change that? It's very difficult to change. And there's a certain truth to what he says. We don't do that because we're a civilized society. We try to handle it the way we should handle it. But, you know, it's ingrained. There's no question. Now that we see, though, that the problem that like normal folk out here, we're seeing that the problem is wider than we're ever even imagine though here at home. We're talking about other places, but here at home, we got problems like this. It's like at least we're arresting people. At least we're being proactive in doing these kinds of investigations. At least we're creating content like this podcast where we're discussing it. And we're, you know, we're not just treating it as a dirty little secret. Right. You know, we're exposing it. We're discussing it. And again, in my mantra, we're creating awareness in a discussion that perhaps didn't exist before. So, you know, if somebody listens to this or watches the dangerous games documentary on Roblox or watches in the takedown investigations, you know, they they get something out of it. Yeah, I get, look, these predator investigations. It's a collision. It's a collision where somebody gets caught committing a felony in real time. They get interrogated by me and or law enforcement. They get coughed, arrested, sometimes tased or maced and off they go. And there are darkly humorous elements of it that I lean into because I've learned over 20 some years that it gets people's attention. And again, if it gets people's attention, then we're learning something for us. Right. Now, I agree with you. There's work that gets done like what you do, like what law enforcement does where justice is served. And I don't want to understate that because it does happen and we see people, whether it be the doctors or the lawyers or the truckers or whoever it is, doing these things face justice. And we should continue to see that. But you strike me as an optimist as well on, on, you have to be, you can, you can, you can do this kind of reporting, an aption optimist. You can do this kind of reporting without being able to escape it and ski down a mountain or to cook a meal and forget about it for a minute or watch something silly on television or, you know, hang out with your kids or your wife or your, you know, your family, and you have to have that skill. You must have it because, you know, you can't spend your life even as a young family in the studio, you gotta go and do stuff. - That's right. - You gotta cleanse your mind and you gotta refresh yourself and develop a recharge of energy to go out and do it a different day. I mean, we travel a lot to go do these stories. I have for many years, I've got four million miles on American Airlines and two million on Delta. I mean, I've seen the road, I've been around the world. And it can, you can, you can, you can, you can wear you down if you're not fit, both mentally and physically. Which you gotta be up to the challenge, you know, some of the stuff, people say, how do you travel and do all this stuff? Getting airplanes like shaving to me. It's just something you do before you go to work. And that's it. And you can't get bogged on it. You know, again, there were way worse places to be stranded than, you know, Delray Beach, Florida. But we were there for that charity, child rescue coalition and, you know, it was down there a couple days. Now, there were stuff I needed to be doing back here. And I had to cram a lot of stuff and including this fine podcast with you into fewer days than I had to do a lot of stuff. But you can't, you gotta get over it. You can't get so bogged down in the process as you don't see the bigger picture and the importance of what it is that you do. And also, you gotta realize that sometimes you have to change the way you do it. Just because we did it this way for years and years, that doesn't mean that we're gonna do it this way forever. We have to adapt, look at what, you know, from the first investigation, Beth Page Long Island, we do our predator investigation in a whole different way. - Yes. - But guess what? Everybody's getting prosecuted. 99% successfully prosecuted. Now, sometimes that may result in a plea agreement and probation and sometimes it may mean going to prison for life, depending on the factors involved. But it's happening. And but we've had to adapt to the changing, you know, technology platforms to the changes in the law, to our ability to set up cameras in different places. I mean, all kinds of factors involved. But you can't just say, okay, we've already, we've done it this way since 2004. This is the way we're all gonna do it. That's not how light works. You've adapted, medium, styles, things you're going after. It's great. - All kinds of things. - And you're right. I too am an optimist and I'm glad you are. I suspected that and I think you make an amazing point and that's important. The reason I'm bringing it up at this moment though is because I understand people out there listening right now who are feeling really cynical and let down not because Chris Hansen has felt. Chris Hansen's done his job, but like we see powerful people, you talk about people going to jail. None of those people. - Well, you wonder why people believe in all these elitist conspiracy theories. - That's right. - That's because look at what has come out in the Epstein files. - That's right. - Look at this. You know, and still, less wexner claims that he didn't know that Epstein was doing anything wrong. Didn't, didn't become aware of any crimes until he decided to cut him loose. You know, is that possible? - You, you were not, as you said, you're not technically like a trained psychiatrist and you're not a trained body language expert, but I would argue there's probably not a lot of people in the world from a body language and psychiatry expert of like predators like you who has the experience on the ground. - Oh, you see it. I can read their faces when I see them. - Right. - I know exactly what they're gonna say. - Right. - So when you see less wexner's five hour deposition, you're watching him huddle and move his arm, blink rate, it fucking fine. - What does it say? - Tony says. - Yeah, I'm gonna ask him. - I'm gonna kill you. - Yeah. - What are your thoughts? - Well, I mean, I don't have any smoking gun, but why does a man, a billionaire, a titan of industry sign over a power of attorney to Jeffrey Epstein? Now, that was his MO. If I'm gonna handle your finances, I need power of attorney. I need to be able to act quickly to markets. I need to move money around, I need to do the stuff. He would say that to other clients. But I mean, if you believe the accounts, and I have no reason to disbelieve this particular one, I mean, I mean, wexner essentially signed over that Upper East Side, New York home. - That's right. - The biggest single residential piece of property on the island of Manhattan. - That's right. - $10. - Why do you do that? - Why? - Well, 'cause the guys got something over your head, or you want them quiet or happy. Or he's making you so much money, you don't care. Let's take the least objectionable reason. He's making you so much money, you don't care. He's giving you tax advice. He's got shelters. All right, but what happens when he's a convicted sex offender in 2008? Is that when he cut off contact, or did it happen after that? - That's what he alleges he cut off. - That's what he alleges. - But even 20 some years before that, like you said, power of attorney, hand in over the biggest townhouse in New York City. - And what you don't know, that he's got girls, and he's abusing his relationship with you to run around with these models and recruit people. And there's a lot of suicides involved here. That French modeling agent, he was into this up to his eyeballs, Epstein. - On a live themselves. - Yeah. - I don't think I believe that, but-- - Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I tend to be a little less conspiratorial. I mean, I understand why people are asking questions, and I did see some documents today where prosecutors refer to it as the Epstein murder, not the Epstein suicide. So I was at a Freudian slip, or is it more? But when you drip, drip, drip, these revelations and documents, it's every day, there's gonna be something different. - And it also, I would imagine, I think you were even citing some examples, correct me from Rambo, like you've seen the things that happen like in the modeling industry, in particularly, in how these young women and actually girls, like 15, 16, quite literally, get trafficked to men through the people that run these places, which is not to say automatically, therefore less whex, and there's guilty because he has Victoria's secret, but it's certainly quite a coincidence now. - Yeah, but I mean, if you're gonna be a guy who goes after to try to exploit those people, where you're gonna go. You're gonna go where there's a healthy supply of them. - Yeah. - And star-eyed girls who wanna be the next Victoria's secret supermodel, and have a career after that are very vulnerable. - Absolutely. It's like when you pray, that's some of the lowest stuff. When you pray on someone's ultimate fears or dreams, which are the opposites technically with each other. You are, and that's what all these guys do. Regardless of who they are or when they're grooming them, that's exactly what they do. To these kids, it's like, God, I was still totally stupid when I was 25. And I just imagined like, what if I was in the wrong place, wrong time when I was like 14, you know? - Well, everybody's got close calls. I mean, you know, I grew up pretty fat. I was on television at 20 years old. So, you know, I was a reporter. And we saw a lot of fun when you run around and do what young men do. But, you know, I had a pretty solid sense of responsibility pretty early on, but you're right. I mean, 13, 14 years old, you think you're a grown man, but you're not, and you're vulnerable. And I think, you know, a woman from Eastern Europe who's very attractive and has a shot, is told by a French modeling agent that you're the next big thing. But, this is kind of how it works, and you need to meet my friend Jeffrey. I mean, crazy. - He's got your doing this all day long. - It's crazy. - Do things like, remember South Park made the episode Nambla? - Yeah. North American man, boy, love, association, something like that. Things like that really exist. - Oh, Nambla? - Absolutely it exists. Absolutely. It has been around a long time, and the FBI had pretty much extinguished Nambla. Big investigations until the advent of the internet. And suddenly they could communicate without being detected. But, oh, that's a real thing. That's not conspiracy pizza stuff. Wow. That's what, and that's, again, this is where I try to stay an optimist on society, but, oh, it gets hard. - I mean, these stuff like cruises, you know. - Cruises. - They get a yacht, and they have this stuff. The FBI did stings on this stuff. Before everything went digital, and they'd put out pamphlets and, you know, back page ads on newspapers, and they'd put these things together, and they'd sting these guys. But they'd put them out of business, almost, and then suddenly they're back at it with the internet. - What are the most important things, like we were talking about the Roblox example, which is online, but, you know, if you had one, two, or three, just main pieces of advice for parents to be on the lookout for their kids' safety when it comes to predators, what would those be? - I would say that you need to be aware of what they're doing online. You need to look over their shoulder. They should not have a device in their bedroom at night. And you have to start at the very moment they have access to the internet. Whatever age that is, by telling them there are grownups on the internet who like to trick kids. Kids do not like to be tricked, and that'll get their attention. And then you have to ratchet this up incrementally as they get older and more curious. And they want to show their independence. And you gotta say, look, I heard this today, I heard that today. I remember very early on in the Predator Investigations. We had a dozen middle schoolers on risers. And I said, show of hands. How many of you have been approached by an adult and made you feel uncomfortable? Nine out of 12. How many of you told your kids to their little parents? Yeah, their parents. And I said, why? Well, we're afraid they're gonna take the computer away, the internet away. And that was the most telling thing I've ever heard. I, you know, I try to be careful, I always say this, but a common phrase people will throw around is if I were blank, then I would blank about something very serious. And I don't know that you fully know that about most things until you actually experience those things. But one thing I think about being a future parent that I feel very strongly about is something you kind of cited earlier, which is an even more stereotypical example, which is like, if my kid were at a party when they're 16 or 17, they were a little drunk and something was wrong, they could get you. And I'm not gonna, you're not punished, right? And there's that trust. I've had that speech when my kids were in that age group. Right, I think you make an amazing point that there needs to be parents should feel comfortable without, you know, pushing that boundary too far. If you know what I mean, like having repeat offenses and shit like that. But I think parents should be comfortable to be able to have that conversation about online stuff, too, whether it's- - Right, it's, look, stuff's gonna happen, right? This is the nature of the internet. Stuff, well, if you're on the internet long enough, something will happen, that's right. But the reason I'm gonna allow you to stand the internet is that if something does happen, you come to me and tell me about it. I'm gonna beat you up, we'll get a solution together. You know, I took my dad's advice many years ago. You know, your job is not to be your kid's friend. It's to be their father. And so you're gonna make decisions that are unpopular. They're gonna stop off to their room. They're gonna call you names. They're gonna be an argument, bad language is gonna be used. But you gotta stay calm. The whole, the trick to being a parent is to get your kids to do what you know is right for them. What you want them to do and make them think it's their idea. That's the deal, that's all it is. Yeah, that's all it is. And if you can do that, you win. It's a good advice. Yeah. What were your favorite stories you worked on before? You became Chris Hanson, the catcher predator. You know, there's so many, and back in those days, we were allowed to travel internationally and do things, but probably the most impactful story, I think, was when we teamed with an NGO and went to Cambodia with the International Justice Mission, IJM. And they were investigating Americans going over to Cambodia and other places to commit sex tourism with underage kids. And we infiltrated a brothel in Svapak, about 11 kilometers outside of Padampen. And our producer and our hidden camera guys posed as sex tourists. We went in there and set up a party. And we had local authorities as part of it. And we put this together and we rescued about 37 girls. And in the course of the investigation, we caught an American doctor over there who I later confronted in Guam in a parking structure where he would travel as an anesthesiologist, right? So, you know, we picked him off and we caught him like we had him on camera talking about, he thought he was on a tourism show and he was talking about how he likes to go over there. Then we had him on hidden camera talking about the young girls and then I lowered the boom on him in a parking garage in Guam and just tore him from year to year. Did he get prosecuted? He did not shockingly, but in that story, two important things happened, but a lot of important things happened. But two detectives in Vancouver, Canada, were watching the story when it aired the first time on day line. And they recognized the background in the brothel. And they said, you know what? And they call each other watching it separately. And they said, this looks like the background on the videotape we took from the guy we arrested for beating up a sex worker. Follow this, no. They look at it, they go over to that brothel, they match it, and it turns out the guy they were arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia, for beating up a sex worker had also been to that same brothel in Svaypak. And they arrested him and he took a seven year plea for sex tourism. And then we went back four years later to check on the girls who were rescued. And eight or 10 of them were in a bridge school. I mean, they looked like a million bucks in the school addresses. They go to school every day. And I'm sure there was long-term damage. And I interviewed them. And of course, there was a translator involved. My commir is not fluent. And so we finished up the interview. And they said, well, when you were leaving, going back to America, I said, well, tomorrow, or day after tomorrow. And I said, can we go to the airport with you to say goodbye? I said, absolutely. It's fine with the people here at the bridge school. It's fine by me. So now they do their minds really understand who I am or what I did, or all they know there is there in a better place. And I had this tall American had something to do with it, right? And I'm not looking to take credit for it, but if they want to go to the airport, if the school folks say it's okay, it's okay with me. And the guy pulls me aside. He said, well, it has more to do with the fact that the only dearie queen in the entire country of Cambodia is at the airport. I said, no ego problems there. Send them NBC can pay for eight banana splits on that. - So we go to, and we're filming this, right? Because it's part of the deal. But we've gone back and how these girls doing. And we're eating the banana splits and we're communicating as best as we can and we go time to say goodbye and we're doing the whole Asian goodbye thing and honoring each other. And the Panopin Airport has a two-story glass wall when you go in to check in and then go through security. And so they follow me and they've got their hand, I said goodbye, it was a set goodbye a hundred times, right? So now they've got their hands against the glass, weeping. And I go back and put my hands against the glass. Now I'm weeping, the cameraman who's been with me in the most horrible places in the world is weeping. The producers weeping and everybody's weeping and we leave. And we filmed about that and we put it in the story. It was quite powerful, but those are things, things like that, you know. And there's you know, there's some fun stories along the way too. I mean, there's some crazy things that happen. I mean, after the Oklahoma City bombing, we were on the trail of Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols and John Doe number two, we thought that was a thing. And there was a mysterious figure named Andrea Strasmeyer who was associated with all these people. And he was on the gun show circuit and he had gone back to Berlin. And everybody wanted to find this guy and I got a tip and I went in to talk to our executive producer at the time and I said, look, I can't be certain, but I think I know where this guy is. He said, well, what are you, what are the odds? I said, I think it's 60% we find him because you got four days. So, the producer and I get on a plane, we fly to Berlin. Now we got four days in Germany to find this guy. On day one, we find about nine, 15 in the morning. It gives us a 30 minute interview. We get video of him on the subway in Berlin and we're done. So, now we got three days to go score on it and carry out a drink here in Berlin and we had a ball. But, you know, it's an amazing business to be in. And it's been an amazing time to experience it at all. You know, I've gotten to go to places I never dreamed of going and expose things. I never knew existed and to tell that story and to work with amazing people at NBC and in between. And now, you know, and to have a situation where we have true blue where we own the content. We own the distribution of the content. We have a bit of a relationship with Fox News and the podcast or on the Fox platform. And so, life is great. You know, we've got it. It's very busy, but it's very fulfilling. And, you know, I drive a great deal of satisfaction. And to have some control over the editorial part of it too. And the business part of it, you know. And I'm not, you know, I'm not the CFO. I'm partner, partner owner, I'm the brand, I'm the brand. I'm the brand, but that's my job. I don't need to do the rest of the stuff. I've got people who do that for me. And so I get to be the brand and go out and do the stuff. So it's good. It's very fulfilling. When you were doing cases like that, though, where you're tracking like ongoing investigations into crime, which obviously you still do today. But I'm saying, you know, now you work directly with lawns. enforcement when you do this stuff, but back then, how did you handle a situation where you as a journalist were actually getting somewhere in the investigation and getting to like a key component of it and then having to make the choice as to whether or not to loop in law enforcement on it or have you go hit it first? Well, I think you make those decisions on a case by case basis, but you have to put justice in a criminal prosecution ahead of, you know, there are ways to do it simultaneously. I mean, there's always a way to figure it out so that you get what you need and law enforcement gets what it needs. I've never been in a situation where I couldn't figure it out. Now, I've been in a situation where, unknowingly, I've been ahead of law enforcement. What was that? It's happened many times, but you either slow down and let them catch up or you help them with what you found. You know, so a bad guy goes to jail, but you know, this is the stuff they don't teach in journalism school. This is the stuff you have to figure out, you know, in the process of it, you know, I remember being a reporter in Detroit and the police chief was on trial for corruption, and I remember an investigator telling me that somebody had come over to do some workouts kitchen in a tin foil brick, tin foil covered brick of money fell out of the ceiling and she said, oh, I found my poker money. Well, it was money that was stolen from the department. Oh. And so I'm in the elevator with the assistant US Attorney who's prosecuting the case before the trial, and I tell the story, and he looks weird and just kind of shoves off after the trial. They convict him. He said, I got to tell you something. He goes, I did not know about that story until you told me in the elevator. I said, you're fucking kidding me. He says, well, no, we figured it out. I would have found out. But so here I am as a reporter, knowing about the cash of cash in the kitchen of the former police chief of the city of Detroit and you know, the guy who's prosecuting the case wasn't aware of it. So, you know, you figure stuff out along the way. Some poor desk jockey got chewed the fuck out right after that for sure. Were you with NBC working out a New York when 9/11 happened? Yes. I was with NBC. I went to Detroit to go to NBC in 1993. So, but you were here in New York? Yeah. Well, I wasn't in New York. I was actually in Toronto on an unrelated story. And I was watching. It was actually, it was a story on a plane that made a dead stick landing on the island of Tersera. This A320 or A320 in Airbus was flying from Toronto to Portugal to Lisbon, and there was a mechanical issue, and it was bleeding fuel, and the pilot didn't figure it out, and they just thought they had an imbalance, so they opened the valve to put fuel in the other tank and it all let out, and they ran out of fuel at 30,000 feet. And so this pilot was able to circle the plane, and they have a device that pops out that generates power. He was able to circle the plane and navigate, and without power, for 30 minutes, make a dead stick landing at an Air Force Base, a joint use Air Force Base on the island of Tersera, which is in the A's or is. So we're in the middle of doing that story, which is the kind of story we do occasionally for a day line, and we've done the interviews, and some of the guys went out for a few pops at night, and I stayed in for whatever reason, and was up early, went for a run, and all dressed up ready to go. And I'm watching the television monitor in the hotel room, and there's smoke coming out of one of the towers of the World Trade Center, and I call the office, I say, "Date, what's going on?" We think a pilot hit a heart attack, and crashed into the building, and stand by, but we think you're just going to go on to Colorado to work on the next story. I said, "All right, well, let me know." Second target's hit. And I call back, and I'm on my way. So I browsed everybody up, and we get to the airport, and they're canceling flights. I said, "Just get a rental car to the producer. Just go get a Hertz car." And we're in Toronto. So I said, "Fine." I said, "We're headed south. Let me know what's going on." So we're monitoring this the whole way. I'm calling sources and you try to get information, and we get to the bridge to go into Buffalo, and I said, "Look, we can either go to Boston or we can go to New York." He said, "We got a ton of people in New York. Boston's where two of the planes came from. We need information from there. So go there." So we went there, because that's where Muhammad Ata and his crew got on the plane from Portland, Maine. They changed planes to the Boston. And Boston, at the time, had a notoriously shoddy security setup, and they exploited it in every possible way. So we reported from Boston for two days and jumped on a train, reported from New York and Washington for the rest of it. But we were very involved in it. You go to ground zero at the time. I did not at the time, because there were people down there, and they didn't need any more people down there. I mean, we were doing stories on the big picture stuff. There's no reason for me to be there. We had other reporters over there day to day. You could go up to the roof at 30 Rock and do your stand-up and see it, right? The background still smoking. But we would do the money trail and how all this other stuff worked, and backgrounds, and all the hijackers, and how they solved the case. We're doing long-form versions for the network, really, because it was in situations like that, Dateline served as the long-form producers and stories. It's amazing that all of these years later, with something that we all watch happen alive as well. It was this, I was a very little kid, but I remember it vividly. It's unforgettable. Well, my kids were living in Connecticut at the time, and my kids could go down to the end of the point and look, see, 38 miles across and see the smoke come up, and everybody knew somebody who was killed. That's right. But it's amazing that all of these years later, we still don't have so many answers about it, and most importantly, like the families who lost people, still even through court haven't been able to get answers on things. Well, I think we did a lot of reporting on that, what did the CIA know, what was shared with the FBI. Why didn't we know that these guys met in Kuala Lumpur, and then some of our guys showed up in meetings in San Diego, taking flight lessons, and who was the 20th hijacker. Those are all the stories we did in the aftermath of it, and we did some very good reporting there. But it's a different world now. We have different cooperation, different level of intelligence, and I hope we don't get backslide into where we were. Now you got this two-port documentary coming out on our blog. Yes. So it's coming out bi-weekly, is that right? Yes. So the first episode, which is an hour, and a very compelling hour, if I do say so myself, the editors did a phenomenal job, and I can't take credit for that, but I did all the interviews. That is out now on TrueBlue. Watch TrueBlue.com for details. That's my streaming crime network. And then in two weeks' time, the second part of it when this is coming out. So probably right about the time this year, as part two will be out, and that's another hour. And then my prediction is that so much will come out of both of them that will probably generate a third hour. Great. Okay. Because that was going to be my next question. I would imagine this is an investigation you're going to continue. Yeah. We're staying on it. I feel about this investigation. This Roblox story is like to catch a predator in 2026. Same DNA, different battlefield. That's a good way to put it. Would you be open to, let's say, these two come out? And obviously, it's like, well, Chris Hanson really went in on Roblox, and there's righteous public anger from it. Would you be open to now if Roblox re-approves you? Absolutely. I told him in the emails back and forth, I said, they clearly thought that this was going to be an unfair project for them because of who we interviewed. They don't like Schlepp. They don't like the Attorney General in Louisiana. And I said, well, the best way to deal with that is to come on and talk. They said, no, we're not going to do that. So I said, if you change your mind, I will accommodate. If they call me tomorrow and said, we want to be interviewed, I'll be on a plane to San Mateo. All right. Give them a call. Let's go. Yeah. Of course. They know that. Well, now they definitely know. Yeah. We got on the record. Yeah. But this has been awesome, man. Yeah. I appreciate Julien. It was fantastic and great experience. And I appreciate the long-form conversation and appreciate everything you do. Well, I'd love to do it again at some point. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm in. Absolutely. I'm in work. All right. Thanks so much. Everybody else, make sure you go check out Chris's documentary on Roblox. That's going to be linked down below. We'll also link your podcast and everything as well. Make sure we have everything in there. But that said, give us a thought. Get back to me. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help. And if you'd like to check out this clip, full podcast episode, that link is in the description below or right here. And finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below.