A Philadelphia man was arrested after two online child predator catchers led police to his boat docked in Egg Harbor Township.
Roger Tomes, 56, was sitting on his deck shirtless at Graef’s Boat Yard on Longport Boulevard when Cameron Decker and Shafiq Blake approached with cameras, asking who he was waiting for.
“Somebody I met online,” he replies.
When asked how old she is, he replies, “I don’t know. I didn’t catch that part.”
“You know she told you twice she was 15, right?” Decker says.
Tomes acknowledges that, but insists they were just going swimming.
Decker asks if he knows even that is against the law: “It’s called luring a minor.”
That is now the charge Tomes faces, township police announced Tuesday.
Decker and Blake run two YouTube channels focused on catching child predators. They were involved in the arrest of a retired Pennsylvania high school math teacher in Atlantic City last week.
In that case, the man admitted to sending a picture of his genitals to the person he believed was a 15-year-old boy.
Tomes was more careful about what he said to the person he thought was a teen girl he hit up on Grindr, Decker says in the video.
But it wasn’t just swimming Tomes had in mind when he asked the “girl” to Uber from Atlantic City to the boat yard over the Longport Bridge, Decker said.
After finding out the girl’s age, he messages “her”: “I’m cool people, but you’re kind of young for me. I could get in a lot of trouble for hanging out with you.”
He then asks her to send a selfie holding up two fingers and he’ll do the same.
Tomes told the girl he was 44 in Somers Point with “good party material,” Decker says in the video.
The “material” was “just weed,” Tomes says, agreeing when Decker says, “Just weed and alcohol?”
Decker then informs him even that is contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a criminal charge.
Tomes goes inside his boat after a while. When a police officer arrives to question him, he comes back out now with a shirt on.
The officer comes back and explains that he will follow Tomes to the police station, and that the YouTubers can follow him.
Tomes is charged with second-degree child luring and was released on a summons under bail reform, Capt. Heath Per said.
The investigation was conducted by Patrolman John Beattes, and Detectives Jacob Hunter and Paul Janetta.
