A registered sex offender from Lower Township is jailed on a luring charge after a video showed him waiting to meet a teenage boy.
John Deangelis, 56, was arrested Thursday, on a charge of child luring, Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey Sutherland and Lower Township Police Chief William Mastriana announced Friday.
No details about the video were released, but video posted on the Facebook page of a self-described predator hunter shows a man who appears to be Deangelis allegedly waiting to meet up with the boy Sunday.
“So you didn’t say that you’re gonna meet a guy and play around?" Robert Davis asks the man from behind the camera as the video begins. "A 15-year-old child.”
The man, his arms folded across his chest, says he doesn't know who Davis is.
As the suspect argues about the age of the person he was messaging, he soon finds out how Davis knows the boy say he was "15 about to turn 16."
"You were messaging me," Davis says.
"I was messaging you?" the man replies.
"Yeah, that was me the whole time," Davis says.
"So you were portraying somebody else," the man replies.
"No that's what I do, I catch predators on the Internet," Davis replies
Actually, it's the first time Davis — who recently moved to the Villas — has caught anyone this way, he told BreakingAC. He was inspired by
POPSquad, a Connecticut-based movement that stands for Prey on Predators.
"It was a new project I’m starting," Davis said of him joining the cause. "But the cops won’t let me do it again."
When asked why he would be meeting up with a teen, the man replies: "Cause I wanted to meet somebody who was young and who was energetic."
Davis said he had no idea the man he was messaging was a convicted sex offender, listed on the Megan's Law registry.
He pleaded guilty in Burlington County Superior Court to a 1993 charge of aggravated sexual assault of a minor older than 13 but younger than 16, court records show.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1995. It was not clear when he was released.
Deangelis, who now lives in the township’s Villas section, is currently in the Cape May County Correctional Center on the second-degree luring charge.
VIDEO POSTED BY ROBERT DAVIS
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