This is The Zone of Disruption! This is the I AM RAPAPORT: STEREO PODCAST! His name is Michael Rapaport aka The Gringo Mandingo aka Captain Colitis aka The Disruptive Warrior & he is joined by Chris Hansen (10x Emmy Award Winning Television Journalist & Host of To Catch A Predator) on the I AM RAPPORT: STEREO PODCAST & they're bere to discuss: What he's working on today, Getting started, being at Michigan State with Magic Johnson, how To Catch A Predator started & the process, his views on sex crime law, second time offenders, Sick F*ck of the Week with Chris Hansen, Idaho Murder Case, a one man show in Las Vegas, Sick F*ck Documentaries, True Blue Streaming Network, Predators I've Caught & a whole lotta mo'! This episode is not to be missed!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yes, Brendan Being and Iron Rapports Stereo Podcast is here.
We have no Fear. On today's I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast,
(00:20):
we have a guest, a special, fantastic, very interesting, iconic
news man, Chris Hanson, the host of To Catch a Predator.
This is a fantastic interview. We're talking about how that
show even got started, the pop culture phenomenon that it became.
(00:42):
End This is fantastic. Chris Hansen does the sick Fox
of the Week with me on today's I Am Rappaport
Stereo Podcast. Miles Jordan Ak the Bleach Brothers. Start this
puppy off with something real nice. Yes, Start this puppy
off with something real loud. Yes, start this puppy off
with something real fun. This is the I Am Wrappaport
(01:05):
Stereo Podcast. Coming up. Special guest, Chris Hanson. I'm wrap
Ports Stereo podcast is here. Have no fear. I am very, very,
(01:25):
very very excited to be with my guest today, Chris Hansen.
Did you see that snap technique I liked in Michael,
I liked it a lot. It gave me energy. Now
I'm just telling you right now, you have your own network.
You have shows that that snap technique. It's patent, it's cold,
so if you if you steal it, you use it.
(01:48):
I'm just telling you right now, lawyers will be knocking
down your door hunting me as the predator Boom Chris Hansen, newsman,
ten time Emmy winner, and in a weird way, I
was thinking about this and in a weird way, pop
culture phenomenon from your show To Catch a Predator. I
(02:12):
appreciate you being here. Well, thank you for having me.
It's great to be here now. Normally I don't fact
check on the iron wrap or stereo pockets. We pride
ourselves on that, but just to check out, yeah, it's
it's it's too good to check out. I wanted to
get all your stuff out. You have now created a
streaming network and entire network, True Blue Streaming, you have
True Crime Nation. You have which is an update of
(02:34):
To Catch a Predator. You have Predators I've Caught with
Chris Hansen, which is your podcast. Because podcasts are like assholes.
Everybody's gonna have one. Everybody's gonna have one, and some
people have more than one. UM and you have a
one man show that you're working on in Las Vegas.
You have stuff going on up to Wa Zoo. It's good.
(02:55):
It's it's a good time to be me, you know,
and and it's um. I've got a great team working
on all this stuff. And clearly, as you know, crime
stories are more popular than ever, and we try to
do them in an impactful way, whether it's the new
Predator investigations or the many other crime stories documentaries were
(03:16):
working on, where we take people inside the crime, where
they hear things they would normally hear and see things
they wouldn't normally see. Now, when you got started, you
got started as a newsperson. I started as a reporter
on radio in radio in college, and then was lucky
enough my last year in college at Michigan State to
get a job at the NBC station and Lansing. So
(03:38):
I was a straight news reporter for many, many years
until well. And I still think the Predator franchise has
been news, but clearly, as you mentioned, it's different because
it's achieved this iconic stature and pulp culture that I've
never experienced before with any other franchise. You went to
college just real quick. At the same time, a gentleman
(03:59):
um who did okay in the NBA. He was pretty good.
Irvin something. Matt, Yeah, Matt Magic Johnson. You were you
were at the same class, did you? Were you ever
physically in a class with him? I was never in
a class with him, but I'd see him around campus.
He left after sophomore year to become a millionaire at
the Lakers. I stayed and worked for seventy an hour
(04:21):
and at w JAM radio. But it all worked out,
and I've seen him many times of the years. He's
a gracious, lovely human being and truly charismatic. Truly charismatic.
His whole family is, and he runs his business that way.
But he's a lovely guy to be around. And I've
had the pleasure of sitting next to him at n
C two A tournaments and and seeing him at different functions.
I stayed pretty active at Michigan State, so yeah, he's
(04:43):
a wonderful, wonderful guy, real quick with magic. What was
it like, I mean, there wasn't Twitter, there wasn't everybody
taking pictures. But what was it like being in college
with somebody who was truly a college star? He was
a star. We knew him in high school. I went
to Brother High School and I didn't play basketball. I
played football, But my buddies who played basketball played against
(05:04):
him in the state championship game our senior year, I
believe it was, and it was tied, and this was
before the three point shot, and so Kevin Smith, who
was a classmate of mine, launches this half court shot
to tie it up and put it into overtime, and
brother Rice my high school lost in overtime to uh
(05:25):
Lansing Everett in Irvan Magic Johnson, So he was like
he was. It was cool because at Jennison field House
did he stand out as a player like? Was he obviously?
Like I mean he had gotten the nickname in high
school he did in college. I mean, he was just
one of those lovely characters with a million dollar smile
who just went out there every night and played the
game and was a superb team leader. I never heard
(05:49):
anybody say anything bad about Magic Johnson in college. And
you hear bad things about athletes who head gets too
big or don't remember their roots, but not once. The
funniest story I ever remember about Magic in college was
he had this beat to hell Buick Electric and Detroit.
Growing up, we called it adducing a quarter and the
(06:12):
guys around town and the gas stations, would you know,
do a solid and tape it up or fix it
up or get it Everybody knew he was going to
be just fine, but you got to get him to
Jennison from where he was living and gas station attended.
A mechanic asked him one day when he was talking
about going pro, and he said, you know, what are
you gonna do? You're gonna stay ago, He goes, man,
I don't know whether to go for the money or
(06:33):
stay for the honey. Magic said that that's funny, all right,
talking about Magic Johnson, and then the segue here boom
into the predators. When you're bring me up to speed,
remind me. Remind everybody how the show To Catch a
Predator started and what you were thinking when you first
started doing the show. It was originally a segment. It
(06:56):
was a segment on Daylock and I had become aware
of online washdog group called Preferred Justice, and at the time,
it's contributors would go online, exist in chat rooms and
if an adult, they would posed his kids, and if
an adult hit on them and made a date, they
would post as much as they had on this guy
(07:16):
on their website. Perverted Justice dot Com. So I started
to think, what if we could combine their efforts as
decoys and we rented a house and we used our
ability to wire it with hidden cameras and microphones. What
would happen? It could be pretty compelling. So I pitched
the story and they bought it. Day Lyne bought it,
and we set up a home in Bethpage, Long Island.
(07:38):
We rented it from a retired NYPD guy, and we
didn't have a collaboration with law enforcement at the time.
We just did it. I had a security guy, Ron Knight,
who was a retired NYPD lieutenant who were at NBC
and security. He was there and we just did it.
So I'm driving to the stinghouse and I'm wondering, I'm daydreaming, getting,
(08:00):
you know, through traffic on the throg Snake Bridge. What
if nobody shows up? What if We've just wasted tens
of thousands of dollars and the networks money? And with that,
my producer Lynn Killer causes, where the hell are you?
Two guys are supposed to be here in forty five minutes,
And within two and a half days, seventeen guys surfaced
in that investigation, including a New York City firefighter trying
to have sex with a child. Seventeen people showed up
(08:22):
the first day NET in that first thing in two
and a half days. What were you thinking the first
time you had to encounter one of these people. I
was just trying to keep my heart in my chest,
which was in my throat because again, you know, we
had taken the knives out of the kitchen, we had
taken security precautions, but you know, you're really operating without
a net here. And so the first guy comes in,
(08:46):
and I have the transcripts and the assistant producers trying
to keep track of all the chat logs on the
dining room table in the next room. And I confront
the guy and it goes pretty well, and the guy
just leaves right. The second guy comes in, same thing.
Third guy comes in, and I grabbed the wrong transcripts,
so I'm going to go, you know, knuckle down on
(09:06):
this guy. And so it says here you want to
do this, that and the other thing with a thirteen
year old girld named Beth. No, No, it wasn't me.
Excuse me, go back to the next transcript. A fourteen
year old named Susanne, No, that wasn't me. And finally
in the third transcript, you're doing like take one, take two,
tip three, and I got the right transcript about the
third time, so it's oh, yeah, that's me. Okay, well
let's continue. But it was very unpredictable. We finished and
(09:29):
I thought, oh my god, you know, not only have
we exposed something that needs to be exposed, we have
the opportunity to create awareness and a dialogue in the
most compelling way. And it's great TV. By the way,
were you I mean you said you were nervous, but
when you're you've probably gotten more comfortable with it. When
(09:50):
you're confronting these people, when you're exposing them, do you
feel like something could happen? Do you feel bad for them?
Do you feel ashamed for them? Like, like what's going
through your mind? I feel bad for their families, I
feel bad for their significant others, I feel bad for
(10:11):
their children, and sometimes I experienced some empathy for them.
But at the end of the day, if we weren't
there and a child was there, there would be the
commission of a rape. And if we catch the guy,
and almost universally they say, well, this is their first time,
or we were just there to you know, save the
(10:32):
kid or whatever I can predict without fear of contradiction.
They've done this before, many have done it before. And
now maybe we've caught a couple of first time guys,
but very few. And when you talk to therapists and
people who study this in law enforcement, these guys are
out there. So when you would do the show, would
they get arrested. In the first two investigations, No, with
(10:56):
the one in Long Island. In Long Island, they already
got so many things going against it. The fact that
you had to like just add insult to injury and
remind everybody that to catch a predators started on Long
Island and seventeen people showed up, right, it's just you know,
shout out to Long Island. So the firefighter was prosecuted
(11:16):
by the FBII. Other than that, these guys were in
the wind. Because we didn't collaborate with law enforcement on
the front end, it became very difficult. Now the second
one in suburban Washington, d C. Law enforcement did go
after these cases after the fact. There was the rabbi
who got busted, there was an army guy who got busted,
some others who were prosecuted and did time in that case.
(11:39):
But it became very clear that, you know, we couldn't
let these guys just walk out and be in the wind.
We had to do something different in order to be
socially responsible. And it was very unfulfilling from a pure
television production standpoint to see these guys walk off and
you know, trolling an umbrella into the sunset. Did you
ever have anybody that it got Like, obviously there's security
(12:03):
with you that we don't see on camera, but was
there any situations that um maybe got cut out or
maybe that's you know, you need to remind stuff where
like they want to fight or they weren't run away,
and maybe you bring it like it becomes a collab,
it becomes to catch a predator with Chris Hansen and
maybe we get Dog the bounty hunter going after them. Well,
in one of the recent investigations that's up now on
(12:25):
True Blue, we had a guy to walk in who
got snotty with me right away and he tried to
bolden when they bolt, the law enforceunate gets him. Now,
sometimes I get another shot at the apple if I
can figure out a way to get in there, even
though they've been taken into custody, which was the case here,
and the guy was just really really arrogant, and you
(12:49):
can't do this, you can't put me on television. And I'm,
you know, holding a vial of lubricant that he brought
with him to you know, have anal sex with a
fifteen year old boy in his face. So I'm not
going to back down. And he's acting like he did
nothing wrong. The ham away and I turned the crew
and I said, I'll bet you money, I will guarantee
you that this guy is into position of authorities at
(13:10):
a cop. He's a city councilman, he's executive with the company.
And sure enough, the cops, the Genesee County Sheriff's Department
in Michigan, searches his car. They find three guns, handcuffs
in his police credentials. He was a police officer, and
he had been a school administrator, and he had been
a juvenile probation officer. So what do you think was
going on there? Shit has doing to catch a predator,
(13:35):
and all the stuff you've done in the crime world
changed your outlook on humanity. You know, I'd like to think, Michael,
that I keep a pretty good sense of being a
regular guy about it. I mean, I don't wake up
every morning and think, Okay, this guy in the subway
(13:57):
is going to be this guy or that guy. I
try not to put people into categories or look at
the whole world is dirty. I mean, I've done a
pretty good job, I think, and my family would be
a better judge of this, but I've done a pretty
good job. I think of compartmentalizing it and being that
guy when I've got to be that guy, and being
the guy who shucks the oysters on New Year's Eve
(14:19):
when it's time to shuck the oysters and turn it off.
Did you shuck oysters? I did? It was a master shucker. Okay,
so you're a master shucker. I don't know, but I
was that not. I didn't cut myself. I had a
new kit, and everything happened like how many oysters did
we cracked cracked open? Probably? Where was this? We have
a home in Michigan. We have a partner in the
city and home in Michigan, and so we were across
(14:41):
the street from a lake. It's in Detroit, but it's
more in the country. Okay, Yeah, it's a crime pace
crime it's you wanted a network. So so how many
oysters did we shock? We were close to two dozen.
I went to a dozen, Well, who's eating like two dozens? Like,
I mean two dozen, I would have that. I would
have had everybody in the family was eating, and there
(15:03):
was only four of us there. Can people are spread out.
My kids are older, you know. So I've got a
kid in Florida. I got one of Brooklyn, we had
one of Chicago, we got one of Michigan States. Still,
so whoever, we only had four of us there, so
one doesn't eat oysters. So I was saying, I set
out to buy three dozen. And the way they hit
at the stories that Papa Joe's shout out to Papa
Jo's shout great store. And I went in there and
(15:25):
thinking they must have good oysters. They had everything else
is good. And they actually had bushels of oysters out
in front of the seafood kind of where you could
grab them. They give plastic glove and you have a
bag and you fill up the oysters. And I handed
him Harvard Man. He said, you know, if you get
four more, you get five extra free. So maybe thirty
There were none laughs, good as there should never be
(15:47):
the oysters left um again because you have, you know,
this lane of crime shows, crime podcasts and to Catch
a Predator UM the show. Do you have opinions on
sex crimes? What is your opinions? I know each state
is different, but do you think they're harsh enough? What
(16:10):
is your take on it? Because you must understand it
differently because you have in agenda, You're like, you see
it so closely, UM and a different like you're almost
as close as you know, we're closer than being a count.
You to me, it's specifical. You know, this is a
specific thing. Take on the laws, I I they very
state to state and Georgia they're very good. Georgia is
(16:31):
the hardest. Georgia is among the hardest. And we did
a sting down there years ago and these guys went away.
I mean, there's no plan down there. In California, the
first one we did, it was viewed by that particular
judge as a TV reality show sting, so a lot
of the guys had slaps on the wrist. Later they
enacted much stricter laws because we did two more investigations
(16:52):
in California and the guys did uh time. But they
have grown stricter. Years ago, I testified in front of
Congress about all this and the solutions to it and
what do you do? And and I think we want
in American society a one size fits all solution. Lock
them up, do whatever you're gonna do, find the treatment
(17:15):
program that works, or you know, monitor them forever. And
the truth of the matter is that these guys aren't
all one guy. And I'm not a therapist, I'm not
a cop, but I've come face to face with five
or some of them, and I think they break down
into three categories. There's the hardcore heavy hitter who would
be doing this with or without the Internet. This is
(17:36):
the guy who's at the food court at the mall,
the bad you know, cub Scott leader, the bad little
league coach, was looking for opportunities every minute of the day.
Then there's a young socially inept offender who's early twenties
who says stuff online it wouldn't say face to face.
(17:57):
And they figure, well, if she's thirteen of fortune, now,
if this works out on a couple of years, she'll
be older, it'll be okay. They view it as a
Romeo Juliet situation. And these guys they can probably be treated,
monitored and wrapped down the nose and never offend again.
But then there's this interesting middle category. This is where
you find the doctor, the cop, the rabbi, the military officer.
(18:23):
These guys have an urge or predilection to have sex
with somebody who's under a blowy or girl, but they
wouldn't act on it without the Internet. And again you
have this anonymity, this access, this addictive quality, and at
some point these guys crossed the line between fantasy and
reality and they're knocking on our door. And these guys
(18:44):
are the most complicated in terms of treatment. Some you know,
will be in so much trouble that there'll be a
shame that you know, they'll just live a life of quiet,
shame and horse Some will reoffend, some will go straight
and you know, open up a business and I'll homeim
to say do you want to go on my podcast
or do you want to you know, talk about this
and say no, there's no benefit for me in this.
(19:06):
I just live in my life. Some are very angry.
I mean I get threats all the time, you know
from the people that from some of these guys, you've
caught people that are second time offenders on your shows
we have, so we had. It doesn't happen a lot,
but we had one guy show up in Riverside, California, California,
the first sting we did in collaboration with law enforcement
(19:29):
the Riverside kind of Sheriff's department, and we had so
many guys in that particular sting. We had fifty one
guys in three days, which was a shocking number and
we could barely keep up with it. God, So this
guy walks in. He's got a star on the side
of his head, and he's slow, you know, and he
was in the show, but he didn't have a leading
(19:51):
role because you know, it didn't really go anywhere from
a storytelling perspective. Several weeks later, we're in Long Beach,
californ Yeah, and the same guy, Michael seiberg Sever's name
shows up in the chat and he wants to meet
the girl and says, I can't come on Friday because
(20:13):
I've got a court date. I can go on Saturday.
The court date was from the Riverside bus. So in
the meantime, we do a background surge and we find
out that he had done a year in jail for
a violent assault. How how can this time he's making
the movie sold a kid or just a violent assault
and some adult adult on fight. Now. I'm being serious
about this because I think it's an important question, and
(20:34):
I know it's kind of you know, listen, I know
you're a straight news guy. Is what they say about
child predators in jail true? Like do they get are
they treated as the bottom? And do you know about
like certain people that have been arrested that put in
jail that have gotten the treatment that everyone sort of
hopes that you hear about these myths. You don't know
if it's true, not true, but everybody sort of you know,
(20:54):
says when they have any true knowledge of real they
go there the bottom of the bottom child offenders, a rapist.
I think generally that's true. And I can tell you this.
One of the guys arrested in the suburban Washington d C.
Case investigation who was prosecuted by the FBI, so he
did was doing federal time. So there one night in
that he got five and a half years, five almost
(21:16):
six years. They're in the prison TV room Federal Correction
facility and they're Washington predator reruns and his segment comes
up and they're looking, and they're looking and they figure
out that guy is that guy and he had a
rougher go from then on. Do you know how rough?
(21:39):
I don't know how rough, but you heard it's rough.
I heard from very reliable law enforcement sources that it
was rough. Podcast. Why are there not? Or maybe there are,
(22:18):
but it's just on the show Female Predators Sexual Predators,
We've never had one in any of our investigations that
we've never never we had one where a guy said
I'm bringing my girlfriend or wife along, and we think
that was a ruse to you know, con the decoy
posing as an underage girl into doing what he wanted
her to do. The therapists tell us that it's because
(22:41):
when you talk about female predators, you're more likely to
see the teacher student scenario. The female predator doesn't get
off on the anonymity the way the male predator does.
And so it's happened. And I'm aware of cases. We've
never seen one in eighteen years of doing these. You
just never had you never had your your stuff. I
don't think it's I don't think it's anywhere close to
(23:04):
being like the mail on female or male on mail predators. Now,
I would be remiss I don't know if that's the
right word if I didn't tell you. The Iron Wrap
Ports stereo podcast has an award winning segment. Okay, Chris,
it's called the sick Fuck of the Week, which is
inspired them for you. But yes, and I just wanted
(23:26):
to let you know. Like, one of the reasons why
I was so excited to have your is because what
I should have done. What I should have done is
pull some sick fox and the sick Funk of the
Week segment on the Iron Wrap or stereo podcasts. It's
a certain somebody with a certain genes quas, so I
stay away from anything that's too violent, like I like, well,
I don't we say I like i'd say we the
(23:48):
think tank at the Iron Wrap pers stereo podcast. Um,
there's a certain amount of um animal um. What is
the word um with the animals um beast reality. I've
got You're sick funk of the week. You got a
sick funk of the week. Please please. This is an
I am Rappaport stereo podcast exclusive. I have Chris Hansen
(24:10):
bringing you the sick Fuck of the Week. This is
an award that is earned, not given, earned, not given.
It's called the sick the fun of the one. He's sick,
really fucking sick, man, just fucking whack line. Make them.
You smell like a sick funk. You look like a
(24:33):
six A supposed to be on a plane. You sick?
You doing? Hey, man, leave that chicken alone, Leave the
chicken alone? What are you doing to the chicken that
doesn't belong in a chicken? We had a guy in
our suburban Washington d C. Investigation who had chatted for
(24:55):
days and days with somebody he thought was a young
teenage girl wanting her to involve her dog in the
sex acts. Very specific and precise requests involving her having
sex with the dog and then him having sex with
her afterwards. Now he walks in, and I've got the transcripts.
(25:21):
He's a military guy, military intelligence officer, walks in and
the first thing he says is, and you can hear
him mutter it. The mic picks it up, where's the dog?
So he comes in and I lay into him the transcripts,
and you know, there's talk of a dog. There's talk
(25:42):
of the girl having sex with the dog. There's talk
of you using that in wait so you can have
sex with the girl because she's a virgin. And he
you know, I got a problem. I've got issues. I
gotta figure it out, and I'm When he goes away
for four years now, I find him and I reach
out for the podcast and he basically says, don't ever
(26:03):
call me again. Fair enough, his significant other, he was married,
the wife died and he's dating this other woman calls
me and says, this gets weird. I'm a bit of
a fan and I think it'd be good for him
to do the interview. So we go through this for months,
back and forth, and he lays into me, you ruined
(26:26):
my life, blah blah blah, And I said, Joe, let
us review the facts of the case. You wanted to
have a girl to have sex with the dog so
that she would be lubricated so you could take her
human virginity. Right, So you're gonna be mad at me
you did this, and what would have happened if I
wasn't there with my crew and you found a girl
(26:48):
and this guy it wasn't his first rodeo, right. So
he ultimately says he'll do the interview. Then they go
radio silent, and we went to this particular part of
the country looking for them because I thought I could
find him and talk him into it, and they were
nowhere to be found, and so who knows. And now
they've changed numbers and they you know, they're not in
(27:09):
touch anymore. So I I my current opinion is they
probably won't do it, but I would like to is
as much as he is the sick funk of the week, clearly,
I would still like to sit down and interview him
and figure out, well, you know, where have you fixed yourself?
How did you fix yourself? He was in intensive therapy.
He did I think four years in prison, and it
(27:31):
was federal time because he got convicted by a military
tribunal because he was in one of the early investigations
where police were not involved in the actual sting. Oh man,
that's that's disturbing. But I mean, the federal government took
it so seriously, the military took it so seriously, the
army that they put out a press release saying, you know,
we refer this case to the U. S. Attorney's Office,
(27:54):
and they successfully prosecuted and he did serious time. Wow,
that's a true blue fucking the week, and that's what
we do with the I M N P stereo pockets. Man,
that's glad to be helpful. Yeah, so you started a network,
an actual television streaming network, true blue streaming network. How
(28:14):
did you start a network? And tell me about the network.
So the network focuses, as you would imagine by the name,
on crime reporting, crime documentaries. We also have a big
selection of documentaries done by other people. You know, if
you go to it, it looks like Netflix for crime.
But it's a partnership with a fellow named Sean rec
(28:37):
who owns Transition Studio. And Sean had done Murder in
the Park and done the White Boy documentary, and I
had about White Boy d Richard Worshi Jr. And I
had broken that story a million years ago as a
reporter in Detroit. You broke it because you were from
the because I was a reporter at Channel seven Action News.
(28:57):
So he reaches out many years later and says, look,
I'm doing this documentary. Can I interview you? I said yeah, absolutely,
So five six years ago we do this interview and
the documentary ends up being a big deal, so it
gets a lot of attention, and he circles background and says, look,
I have this idea for a crime streaming network. I've
done it already with American Gospel TV, which is the
(29:21):
most successful streaming network you've never heard of. He had
a producer who did a documentary called American Gospel about
questionable practices in the gospel world in the Christian Church,
and it was more or less as something to reward
him for all the crime reporting this producer done. Sean
funded it. It becomes a huge grassroots hit, and then
(29:44):
that producer comes back to him says, I want to
do a streaming network. I think this would be Biggs.
All right, I'll do it huge. So Sean had already
done this. He had the template down in a you know,
smaller version for American Gospel TV, which remains hugely popular
but very selectively targeted. So when he approached me on
(30:05):
this it was a no brainer. I mean, this is
to control the content, to control the distribution of the content,
to own the content, and to avoid the bureaucracy of
large networks. Michael, the last two big projects I did
for Discovery plus Love the People a Discovery have done
(30:26):
a ton of work at Discovery Love Love, Love Them,
but one was twelve months from pitch to air, which
was lightning fast for them, and the other was almost
two years, the Peter and Igard investigation in Onisian. In
real life it takes forever. There's A meetings and B
meetings and C meetings and green light meetings. And now
I called Sewan and say I need a crew on Thursday.
(30:49):
I'll give an example. We have this documentary show series
coming out called The Facebook Fiend. This guy was on
social media targeting young women, creating relationships, stealing money, and
in many cases physically and sexually assaulting them. These young
women got together and they came to me, directly to
(31:09):
me and said, this guy is out there. He's a
bad guy. I do all the interviews. Now again there's
no writing pitches. I called Sean and tell him what
it is. We have the people coming too the studio.
We interview all the people. We figure out which law
enforcement agencies should be prosecuting this. This one agency in
Washington State makes a case, they get a warrant. We
(31:34):
find out this guy is staying up with somebody in
Queens and working in Brooklyn. Well, guess what happened this morning?
At seven am? The U S marshals went in, grabbed
his ass and took him to the n y p
D where he will go through a hearing as we speak,
and will be taken back extradited to Washington State to
face charges. In this case. This is from late summer
(31:57):
fall too, January three. Because as you know, and reading
the subtext of what you're saying, dealing with networks and
network executives and researchers and development, it's a pain in
the ass. It is. And I understand, especially something that
you do that you understand that you sort of crafted
and creating on your own. It's not rocket science in
(32:19):
terms of the way it's presented. It's not. It's forty
years of knowing who to call and what to do
and being able to expedite this. It's the best of
all worlds. It's the best of local news where you
get a tip at four pm, and it's the lead
at six and the best of the network shows where
millions of people have access to it. And you know,
(32:41):
I presented this first at Crime Con in Las Vegas
this summer and the people in the audience and we
had a clip of the Facebook feed and we had
a clip of the new Petitor series and the people
got it five thou people got it instantly. What else
do you want to do want the network? Like? Is
there a sort of godfather? Is there a sort of
(33:05):
opus that you want to do at the network? Um?
In your head? Like what would be your dream thing
in terms of telling stories at True Blue streaming network? Well,
we're doing it now. I think the ultimate goal will
be able to be able to throw a switch and
go live. For instance, the Idaho accused murderer. Talk about
(33:28):
that one, Well, that's a fascinating case. So as you know,
there was an arrest in Pennsylvania the other day, and
um he was connected to the killings of the four
students in Idaho, and um, the case is fascinated the
world really, And there was this feeling that maybe the Moscow,
Idaho PD wasn't up to the task and was late
(33:49):
getting the bi Well, none of that is true. They
did a great job, and they did everything they were
supposed to do, and they held things close to the vest.
And guess what it looks like they cracked the case right.
And good on them because I don't see anything that
they did except good solid police work. And I've followed
these cases for forty years. So what I want to
(34:12):
do is get True Blue to the point where we
can flip a switch and you know, when the Moscow
Police does their news conference, it's on all our platforms.
When this guy is in court, it can be on
all our platforms. And then we have the people, not
just me, but other people in the group to um
to talk about in comment on it. So we have that,
and we have the news magazine True Crime Nation, which
(34:34):
is within True Blue, which I want to see, you know,
turn into a weekly event where we break news and
people quotas and and we're well on our way to
get there. But it's a great way. It looked at
the end of the day. The same enterprising techniques that
we applied to producing and reporting Predator, we're just taking
(34:54):
enterprising techniques and applying them to the distribution of this
very unique branded content that we have and and nobody
else can really do it. I mean, people are I mean, look,
Dan Abrahams is doing it with Long Crime. He's doing
great job over there. But he figured it out. I've
figured it out. Other people are figuring out in their
own niches like that's more you know, courtroom stuff. But
(35:14):
they do a lot of other great work as well.
But you know there's some collap going on there. I mean,
he and I know each other. He he knows where
it's going. I know where it's going. Did you hear
about this case? I'm sure you did, which I'm sure
is going to be discussed more. It was over the holidays,
an attractive twenty two year old girl from Bensoner's Brooklyn Um.
(35:35):
Her last name was second Dino. I just remembered it
because I was like some Italian names. They I'm like
second Dino Um. She uh confessed to killing her father
with a knife, and she was like, you know, it
looks like almost like an Instagram girl, like a cute
twenty two year ago. This seems like a case that's
going to turn into something. We're looking at that right now.
This is the case where the father, the uncle, whoever
(35:57):
it was, was selling pictures or head pictures stored as
the same. That is that I know, I've got to
look into it, and I don't want to speak before
knowing you know completely about the case, but I think
there was another there was a motive there, and a
couple of cases like that floating around right now, and
the other thing that we're producing a huge project on
is this sextortion talk about kids who get tricked many
(36:20):
times by internet scam artists half a world away in
in Western Africa into transmitting, you know, essentially portographic pictures
of themselves. And there's a case outside of Cleveland, seventeen
year old track star grad student who you know, has
what he thinks is a girl. Send him some video.
(36:41):
He sends video back. This is on Instagram. By the way,
this isn't in some weird dark web training, you know, bizarre.
This is on Instagram. And then this extortionist, sex stortionist says,
give me a hundred dollars, send me gift cards to
all this, to all that, and the kid kills himself
in his parents home. So now the parents have to
(37:02):
celebrate Christmas. This happened right before Christmas without their son.
And the word that they're trying to get out. And
what we're going to show in this in this series
we're doing is that these kids have to you know,
so what if somebody's got a picture of you, what
are they really going to do with it? How are
they going to harm a seventeen year Okay, they're going
to send it to grandma. What's grandma gonna know that? Right?
Just tell your parents what's happened and go to the police. Now,
(37:24):
the odds of catching somebody in an internet cafe and
lagos or benin or quote of awe are very remote.
But the danger that it realistically poses to a child,
in terms of somebody tricking you into showing a picture
of yourself of a sexually charged nature, that danger is
remote too. And we have to get the message out
(37:45):
to kids and parents to say, hey, look, everybody as up.
But when you and I were growing up, you know,
the worst thing he had was you know, speaking into
you know, Mr West's garage and grabbing his playboys out
of the secret box by the chevelle. You know, these
cameras and social media are the whole different world, and
they're good at these car artists are good at exploding
(38:07):
an adolescent's mind and helping them up and making them
feel that I gotta act now or then when they
run out of money. You know what, kids got more
than a hundred bucks. So is this specifically? Is this
a specific show called sextortion? I don't know what it's
gonna be called, but it'll be on True Blue and
it will be It's we're producing a major project that
we'll talk about all this, investigate it, and we're gonna
(38:28):
take it as far as we can. We've got uh
some cases on the West Coast where we know who
was behind them. We're going to expose those people and
we're not only going to do it for True Blue,
but we're gonna produce something that schools can use around
the country because it is it illegal Essentially if you're
under age, if you send a picture of yourself even
(38:51):
to a friend like a boyfriend girlfriend that's sexually of
sexual nature, isn't that become you forget getting the transmission
of child pornography is illegal, So even if you're sending
it to a child, it's illegal. Oh shit. Kids need
to know about that. They do and it happens at
(39:11):
school that across the country where they can friends they
can wow. You know when you sit down with the
(39:36):
Predators later on on the podcast Predators, I have caught
with Chris Hansen, Like you mentioned it a little earlier,
but what is essentially your agenda, like what is your
your thought process of what are you trying to get out?
What I try to do is immerse myself in the video.
(39:57):
In the chat logs, we try to find his uch
out about that person. We try to get them to
sit down and talk to us, which we've not been
able to do yet, but a number of cases are close.
And we tell that story. I tell it in my
own voice. I don't write a script. It's a total
immersion experience. And then I just tell this story, you know,
with antidotes that I've not shared before, and then we
(40:20):
get into where the guy is, what he's done. I've
been able to get a couple snippets of audio recorded
with them, and those are interesting to people who followed this.
And there's a whole community called the TCAP community, which
is the acronym for to Catch a Predator, and they
follow this stuff very closely, and they report occasionally to
(40:44):
me about one they or another. There are subreddits about
this um. You know, people watch you know, these characters
very closely, and there's one in particular. His name is
Lauren Armstrong, surfaced in an investigation we had in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
And this guy has become iconic and they call it
because he said, oh God, oh God when he was
(41:04):
getting arrested. When I confronted c A. W D. There's
a Church of cod they call it. He lives up
in Maine. He's out and we've been back and forth
trying to negotiate a way to do an interview, and
he's got some cocka maybe you know, conditions he wants
met and hopefully he'll drop those and we'll be able
to do the interview, but it will be in a
(41:24):
major event for these people who all this. Do you
watch these other documentaries? Another fantastic Iron Wrappers stereo podcast episode,
We did our twenty sikest fucking documentaries of all time
and that was just the first twenty. But like don't
funk with cats? Are you able to watch some or
(41:46):
is that sort of like you do enough of this
in your own I watch him and because I'd like
to see what, you know, what other content creators are
doing and how they put it together. You know, some
of them like making a murder, you know, serious questions
raised about that. In fact, sean rec Transition Studio, my
partner in Trew Blue, has the flip side of that
(42:08):
in a major documentary that's going to be coming out
very soon. It shows what really went on in that
first documentary. And how skewed it was, and how what
the point of view was, and how they messed with
the facts. And they go back, those producers who go
back and with it together, and it's really eye opening.
What about the Staircase? Did you watch that? I did?
(42:28):
Who do you think killed? What do you think it was?
The Eagle? Do you think the guy did it? I
can't remember his name. I know who you're talking about.
It's been a while since I've seen you don't need
his name. But then there was like crazy theories. I
have a lot of questions about that case and I
need to take a closer look at it before I,
you know, I make any pronouncements on it. But I
it was fascinating material, crazy, you know, but it um
(42:53):
and it said that template in a lot of ways
for a lot of other documentaries because of you know,
when they did and how they did it. It was
twelve hours or ten hours. At first it was eight
hours and then they did ten Where I was, I mean,
this was like talk about Godfather Apocalypse night. But it
was all it was all everybody was talking about in
my business for a long time. I mean, it set
set the standard in many ways for some of these documentaries. Yeah,
(43:14):
I agree. Now you're also doing a one man show,
which I'm what the hell is this? Excited? So I
was approached the same fellows who produced my podcast had
a relationship with the South Point Casino in Las Vegas,
which is off the strip, but they do a lot
of amazing shows. They have all the rodeos, they're the
major equestrian facility. It's a very nice, clean casino. They've
(43:38):
got great restaurants, they do the Pro Bowling Tour, they
have NASCAR our team. And I was approached to do
a multimedia one man show called Have a Seat with
Chris Hansen. And so we're gonna be out there February third, fourth,
and fifth, and we're putting the finishing details on the
show and it will take people inside these predator cases
(43:59):
and is big video screens, and we've got material that's
never been shown before, and and it's gonna be highly polished,
highly produced, and I think the goal would be too
you know, we'll see how it goes in Vegas. I'm
excited about it. It's something totally out of my comfort zone.
But it's interesting. If you had asked me twenty years
ago what I ever do a show in Vegas. I said, well, no,
(44:21):
I'll talk to the homicide convention in Vegas. I've done
stories that we did a series for Dateline called Vegas Undercover.
I've done that, but I never in a million years
imagined that I would do a one man show. Having
said that, I'm very excited about it. I think it
you know, you know, in your business and your side
of the business that you know, you get a role
and it pushes you to think and be creative and
(44:42):
to maybe work without a net once a while, and
it makes you better in every other aspect of what
we do. And it's become a multimedia world. It's not
just you know, at least I think it my phase
of the game, having been in it forty years, It's
not just one job anymore. It's the podcast, it's the network,
(45:02):
it's the show within the network. It's being on the phone.
It's you know, putting these projects together, you know, and
and it's their long days, but they're very rewarding days,
and you know, and that's where I'm at in the career.
I've got you know, my kids are grown, you know,
so I have this time and this energy and why
not spend it you know, why not have some fun
(45:24):
with it. I try to joe people in the world
they wouldn't normally see because you started off as a newsperson.
What is your take on the news on local news,
on cable news, on Fox News, CNN, fake news, real news.
There's so many resources. There's podcast, there's YouTube, there's sub stack,
(45:47):
there's you know, all sorts of stuff, like what is
your sort of point of view on the news? Do
you believe these guys? I do? Where do you get
your news? I get my news from everything from the
New York Times and the New York Post to the
Washington Post. They have the top seven that comes out
every day that I find is a good read. You know.
(46:08):
I have a few, you know, alternative sources. You know,
I gather the news myself. But I still believe in
local news. I think local news is important, both newspapers
and television. My second son, my second oldest, is a
reporter for the Fox station in Orlando. He's out there
gutting out every night, and he cares. He cares whether
it's a Florida man story or somebody wrestling a bear
(46:30):
out of their kitchen, or whether it's a major story
about the former president of Brazil hiding out in Orlando.
It's he cares, and the other young people working at
that station care very deeply about it. I mean, there's
a television aspect to it. Yes, everybody's trying to get
to the next highest market and maybe to the network.
But he cares, and I think most people in local
(46:51):
news truly, truly care. They're out there in the streets
trying to tell you what the hell is going on
in your community. And I think in the newspapers now
you take it to the next level, and cable news
that a whole different shooting match. I mean, you you
have people exploiting the divisions in society to get ratings.
Now everybody is allowed point of view, right, the editorial
(47:12):
page and the Detroit News growing up was different than
the Free Press. One was lefty, one was writing. You know,
we knew that, but you read both and you came
up with your own opinion. You know. I pride myself
and the fact that my conservative friends think I'm a
wildlife liberal and my liberal friends think I'm too far.
You know, nobody really know, and I keep it that way, right,
and my kids were raised that way. But we're not
(47:34):
going to go buy into flying some flag, you know,
in front of the house, because that's the flavor of
the day. If you think it through before you buy
in any bullshit. You know, I got you and before
I let you go, I've heard that you have fitness goals.
You're about getting in shape. Walk me through the routine,
you know, let me through where Chris Hansen goes to
get those fucking games. I about a year and a
(47:57):
half ago, started going to a trainer just blocks from
this studio named Robert Brace, who's got a whole felosh.
He's great, he's great. He's guy. Was a ballet dancer,
British guy. Then he was a pastor in Harlem, and
then he got into this in a big way. And
he teaches and embraces a very specifically tailored physical fitness
(48:21):
program for individuals and a lot of guys you know,
in the media and entertainment and women to go there.
And he's just got me on a very centered program.
I've been you know, I've always been athletic, but it
was more of a you know, get on the peloton bike,
make sure I get my steps in. But I wasn't
doing weights, and I wasn't boxing, and do it through
the routine. Don't be humble. Walk me through what's going
on in the gym there? What goes on the gym?
(48:42):
I get there, I hit the treadmill. Depending on when
they're like on eight seven, like we could speak running,
I do six miles an hour for you know, six
minutes or five for five if it depends on how
rough they want to treat me that day, and then
get off. I'll do some boxing, you know, and they've
got me south, are you convince your writing? And you
(49:04):
know I grew up in in the Detroit area, so
we all know how to fight. But shout out the
time crump Jim, Yeah, okay, go ahead, exactly, walk me
through it and then um, they'll go some more cardio
than to waits ship, you know, so do that. It's
an hour, it's a full hour. And then um stretching
And at my age, yes, stretching has become so important.
(49:25):
My stepdaughter got a new puppy. In the puppy of
course within two weeks fractured. It's right with your leg
and has a cast on. He's great, he's getting around,
but he's a great dog. But you know, you bend
over to grab the dog because I was taking him
for a walk. And you feel your back because you
hadn't stretched that day. Well, today we worked on a
lot of stretching. The back feels great. You gotta keep
those hips looped. You gotta keep you got, you gotta
(49:47):
keep the you gotta keep them all moving. You know.
It's uh. And then the other thing that I do
if I'm in the city, especially is I'll get steps
in a day, and to keep moving, and to watch
the diet. You know, I was a pig over Christmas
and eating desserts and you dog, I mean just you know,
we get disgusting. One night I had Christmas just you
(50:09):
don't even want to know, but you do. Well we
have besides that, the oysters are not a problem. That's
just pure protein. But we we had the crab legs.
And then I go on to this bakery and gotten
all the different desserts and key line. What do we
talking about? Everything? So you get the little and get
every kind imaginable. So it's cheesecake, and it's key Line
pie and chocolate flowerless cakes and all the little ones.
(50:33):
But the cookies, cookies too. Oh yeah, we had cookies
you had all that. Yeah, but the killer is we
get these pizzas from Chicago, these lou male naughties, you know,
the deep dish, and they sent them to the house
on dry eyes. You put them in the freeze and
you put them in the other for four to five mists.
They come out just like you're at the restaurant. So
they and then you know, but they're the deep cheese
and a sausage and they have one that is the
(50:56):
Chicago Italian beef with palapenos in it. Yeah. So this
all happened over the brawl. Havn't not. I'm off it now,
but we we we all say we're off it now now.
I asked Chris Hanson the hard hitting questions. He asks
his people the hard hitting question, the hardest hitting question.
And I'm looking right into the camera. You box, you stretch,
(51:17):
you do the weights. You're on the treadmill, Chris Hansen,
do you plank? I can plank? What are we talking about?
Because I I'm just gonna I'm not bragging. I'm not bragging.
But you probably already heard about this already six minutes. Chris.
And if you asked me, do you think I could
(51:37):
do a six minute plank. Before I did a six
minute plank, I would say, you know, you could you
say I'm obviously fit because you could you see it, right,
you just see it. It's like I'm even even in
the stick Cashmicks, where do you see sort of like
everything it's a glow. It's an aura. Six minute plank.
That's impressive. I don't know that I've ever done a
six You can do it. I probably could get there.
(51:59):
I usually as a part of the training routine, I'll
do a one minute at the end. After of course, no,
we gotta do more. We gotta do more because you
know why. The thing about planking is that it's mental.
Oh it's mental. And if I could fucking do it, yeah,
you could fucking do it, and I wanted to because
you're a businessman. I'm thinking about doing my own fitness
and the fitness model is going to be if I
(52:21):
could fucking do it, Yeah you can do it. Well,
it's true. I mean, you know, if you had asked
me at the beginning of starting with Robert Braise, if
I could do all the stuff that I was doing again,
you know, I skier, you know, play tennis and ron
and get steps in and all that stuff. But you know,
the stuff that he's got me doing is way above
my normal what I thought my tolerances would. Yeah, and
(52:44):
I enjoy it. You know, everybody wakes up and you
know it's like I got a other stuff to do,
and then you get through that work on it's like, wow,
you know, I feel really good about myself. Now I
can go, you know, slay the rest of the day,
especially traveling. I mean you probably travel fair bit and
you gotta you gotta be fit to travel. You gotta
get your mind right and um, you know, just get
(53:06):
through it. Chris Hansen True Blue Streaming Network. Where do
we find the True Blue streaming and get all the
information you need? A watch True Blue dot Com. But
it's not there's an app. It's on Roku, it's on
all the platforms. But if you got to watch True
Blue dot Com t r U b L you it'll
lay it all out for you. The podcast True Crime Nation,
(53:27):
that's the news magazine on the network, and the podcast
is Predators I've Caught with Chris Hansen. And then the
one man Show in Vegas. We have a seat with
Chris Hansen Live. That's gonna be fun. I think so.
I'm excited. We're gonna go back out there in two
weeks to rehearse, but I think I think it'll be good.
I wish you all the best of all of Michael.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time
to come. This is fun. Uh and uh, you know,
(53:49):
like everybody's a fair last question, people see you on
the street. I mean, you haven't a usual fame because
you're not just a newsperson. You have this culture fame
when people see you on the street. People ask me
this all the time, but it's a little different with you.
What do people say? People scream with you those predators
(54:10):
or sometimes sometimes go get him. Sometimes you know, you
look just like Chris Hanson. I said, you know, I
get that all the time. Goes you sound like I'm
you know, like I said, that's just the way you talking.
Says well, I'm in that kind No, I'm really no
way anyway. I wish you luck with the network. That
ain't an easy task. No, but it's it's it's good,
it's all it's all clicking. It's prime. Um. I appreciate it.
(54:34):
Happy New Y're good luck with everything, and and thank
you so much. For the sick funk of the week man.
That was a big surprise. I had that in my back.
That was a big surprise. I'm Wrappport Stereo Pockets. I'm out,
Chris Hanson, thank you so much, my pleasure boom. I
want to thank Chris Hansen. Follow him. He's doing all
(54:54):
kinds of things. I appreciate you taking the time. I
appreciate you breaking down the sickest funck of the week
and so much more with me, Chris Hansen Special Guests
of the Iron. Rapp Reports Stereo Podcast. Tell a friend
to tell a friend, subscribe, rate, review, Puff Puff past
this podcast along Miles jourdan Ak, the Bleached Brothers. Take
(55:17):
us out with something real nice. Take us out of
here with something real loud, but most importantly and this
iconic museum quality. I am Rapp Reports stereo podcast with
something real funky. I am Wrapp Reports Stereo Podcast. I
am out
Yes, Brendan Being and Iron Rapports Stereo Podcast is here.
We have no Fear. On today's I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast,
(00:20):
we have a guest, a special, fantastic, very interesting, iconic
news man, Chris Hanson, the host of To Catch a Predator.
This is a fantastic interview. We're talking about how that
show even got started, the pop culture phenomenon that it became.
(00:42):
End This is fantastic. Chris Hansen does the sick Fox
of the Week with me on today's I Am Rappaport
Stereo Podcast. Miles Jordan Ak the Bleach Brothers. Start this
puppy off with something real nice. Yes, Start this puppy
off with something real loud. Yes, start this puppy off
with something real fun. This is the I Am Wrappaport
(01:05):
Stereo Podcast. Coming up. Special guest, Chris Hanson. I'm wrap
Ports Stereo podcast is here. Have no fear. I am very, very,
(01:25):
very very excited to be with my guest today, Chris Hansen.
Did you see that snap technique I liked in Michael,
I liked it a lot. It gave me energy. Now
I'm just telling you right now, you have your own network.
You have shows that that snap technique. It's patent, it's cold,
so if you if you steal it, you use it.
(01:48):
I'm just telling you right now, lawyers will be knocking
down your door hunting me as the predator Boom Chris Hansen, newsman,
ten time Emmy winner, and in a weird way, I
was thinking about this and in a weird way, pop
culture phenomenon from your show To Catch a Predator. I
(02:12):
appreciate you being here. Well, thank you for having me.
It's great to be here now. Normally I don't fact
check on the iron wrap or stereo pockets. We pride
ourselves on that, but just to check out, yeah, it's
it's it's too good to check out. I wanted to
get all your stuff out. You have now created a
streaming network and entire network, True Blue Streaming, you have
True Crime Nation. You have which is an update of
(02:34):
To Catch a Predator. You have Predators I've Caught with
Chris Hansen, which is your podcast. Because podcasts are like assholes.
Everybody's gonna have one. Everybody's gonna have one, and some
people have more than one. UM and you have a
one man show that you're working on in Las Vegas.
You have stuff going on up to Wa Zoo. It's good.
(02:55):
It's it's a good time to be me, you know,
and and it's um. I've got a great team working
on all this stuff. And clearly, as you know, crime
stories are more popular than ever, and we try to
do them in an impactful way, whether it's the new
Predator investigations or the many other crime stories documentaries were
(03:16):
working on, where we take people inside the crime, where
they hear things they would normally hear and see things
they wouldn't normally see. Now, when you got started, you
got started as a newsperson. I started as a reporter
on radio in radio in college, and then was lucky
enough my last year in college at Michigan State to
get a job at the NBC station and Lansing. So
(03:38):
I was a straight news reporter for many, many years
until well. And I still think the Predator franchise has
been news, but clearly, as you mentioned, it's different because
it's achieved this iconic stature and pulp culture that I've
never experienced before with any other franchise. You went to
college just real quick. At the same time, a gentleman
(03:59):
um who did okay in the NBA. He was pretty good.
Irvin something. Matt, Yeah, Matt Magic Johnson. You were you
were at the same class, did you? Were you ever
physically in a class with him? I was never in
a class with him, but I'd see him around campus.
He left after sophomore year to become a millionaire at
the Lakers. I stayed and worked for seventy an hour
(04:21):
and at w JAM radio. But it all worked out,
and I've seen him many times of the years. He's
a gracious, lovely human being and truly charismatic. Truly charismatic.
His whole family is, and he runs his business that way.
But he's a lovely guy to be around. And I've
had the pleasure of sitting next to him at n
C two A tournaments and and seeing him at different functions.
I stayed pretty active at Michigan State, so yeah, he's
(04:43):
a wonderful, wonderful guy, real quick with magic. What was
it like, I mean, there wasn't Twitter, there wasn't everybody
taking pictures. But what was it like being in college
with somebody who was truly a college star? He was
a star. We knew him in high school. I went
to Brother High School and I didn't play basketball. I
played football, But my buddies who played basketball played against
(05:04):
him in the state championship game our senior year, I
believe it was, and it was tied, and this was
before the three point shot, and so Kevin Smith, who
was a classmate of mine, launches this half court shot
to tie it up and put it into overtime, and
brother Rice my high school lost in overtime to uh
(05:25):
Lansing Everett in Irvan Magic Johnson, So he was like
he was. It was cool because at Jennison field House
did he stand out as a player like? Was he obviously?
Like I mean he had gotten the nickname in high
school he did in college. I mean, he was just
one of those lovely characters with a million dollar smile
who just went out there every night and played the
game and was a superb team leader. I never heard
(05:49):
anybody say anything bad about Magic Johnson in college. And
you hear bad things about athletes who head gets too
big or don't remember their roots, but not once. The
funniest story I ever remember about Magic in college was
he had this beat to hell Buick Electric and Detroit.
Growing up, we called it adducing a quarter and the
(06:12):
guys around town and the gas stations, would you know,
do a solid and tape it up or fix it
up or get it Everybody knew he was going to
be just fine, but you got to get him to
Jennison from where he was living and gas station attended.
A mechanic asked him one day when he was talking
about going pro, and he said, you know, what are
you gonna do? You're gonna stay ago, He goes, man,
I don't know whether to go for the money or
(06:33):
stay for the honey. Magic said that that's funny, all right,
talking about Magic Johnson, and then the segue here boom
into the predators. When you're bring me up to speed,
remind me. Remind everybody how the show To Catch a
Predator started and what you were thinking when you first
started doing the show. It was originally a segment. It
(06:56):
was a segment on Daylock and I had become aware
of online washdog group called Preferred Justice, and at the time,
it's contributors would go online, exist in chat rooms and
if an adult, they would posed his kids, and if
an adult hit on them and made a date, they
would post as much as they had on this guy
(07:16):
on their website. Perverted Justice dot Com. So I started
to think, what if we could combine their efforts as
decoys and we rented a house and we used our
ability to wire it with hidden cameras and microphones. What
would happen? It could be pretty compelling. So I pitched
the story and they bought it. Day Lyne bought it,
and we set up a home in Bethpage, Long Island.
(07:38):
We rented it from a retired NYPD guy, and we
didn't have a collaboration with law enforcement at the time.
We just did it. I had a security guy, Ron Knight,
who was a retired NYPD lieutenant who were at NBC
and security. He was there and we just did it.
So I'm driving to the stinghouse and I'm wondering, I'm daydreaming, getting,
(08:00):
you know, through traffic on the throg Snake Bridge. What
if nobody shows up? What if We've just wasted tens
of thousands of dollars and the networks money? And with that,
my producer Lynn Killer causes, where the hell are you?
Two guys are supposed to be here in forty five minutes,
And within two and a half days, seventeen guys surfaced
in that investigation, including a New York City firefighter trying
to have sex with a child. Seventeen people showed up
(08:22):
the first day NET in that first thing in two
and a half days. What were you thinking the first
time you had to encounter one of these people. I
was just trying to keep my heart in my chest,
which was in my throat because again, you know, we
had taken the knives out of the kitchen, we had
taken security precautions, but you know, you're really operating without
a net here. And so the first guy comes in,
(08:46):
and I have the transcripts and the assistant producers trying
to keep track of all the chat logs on the
dining room table in the next room. And I confront
the guy and it goes pretty well, and the guy
just leaves right. The second guy comes in, same thing.
Third guy comes in, and I grabbed the wrong transcripts,
so I'm going to go, you know, knuckle down on
(09:06):
this guy. And so it says here you want to
do this, that and the other thing with a thirteen
year old girld named Beth. No, No, it wasn't me.
Excuse me, go back to the next transcript. A fourteen
year old named Susanne, No, that wasn't me. And finally
in the third transcript, you're doing like take one, take two,
tip three, and I got the right transcript about the
third time, so it's oh, yeah, that's me. Okay, well
let's continue. But it was very unpredictable. We finished and
(09:29):
I thought, oh my god, you know, not only have
we exposed something that needs to be exposed, we have
the opportunity to create awareness and a dialogue in the
most compelling way. And it's great TV. By the way,
were you I mean you said you were nervous, but
when you're you've probably gotten more comfortable with it. When
(09:50):
you're confronting these people, when you're exposing them, do you
feel like something could happen? Do you feel bad for them?
Do you feel ashamed for them? Like, like what's going
through your mind? I feel bad for their families, I
feel bad for their significant others, I feel bad for
(10:11):
their children, and sometimes I experienced some empathy for them.
But at the end of the day, if we weren't
there and a child was there, there would be the
commission of a rape. And if we catch the guy,
and almost universally they say, well, this is their first time,
or we were just there to you know, save the
(10:32):
kid or whatever I can predict without fear of contradiction.
They've done this before, many have done it before. And
now maybe we've caught a couple of first time guys,
but very few. And when you talk to therapists and
people who study this in law enforcement, these guys are
out there. So when you would do the show, would
they get arrested. In the first two investigations, No, with
(10:56):
the one in Long Island. In Long Island, they already
got so many things going against it. The fact that
you had to like just add insult to injury and
remind everybody that to catch a predators started on Long
Island and seventeen people showed up, right, it's just you know,
shout out to Long Island. So the firefighter was prosecuted
(11:16):
by the FBII. Other than that, these guys were in
the wind. Because we didn't collaborate with law enforcement on
the front end, it became very difficult. Now the second
one in suburban Washington, d C. Law enforcement did go
after these cases after the fact. There was the rabbi
who got busted, there was an army guy who got busted,
some others who were prosecuted and did time in that case.
(11:39):
But it became very clear that, you know, we couldn't
let these guys just walk out and be in the wind.
We had to do something different in order to be
socially responsible. And it was very unfulfilling from a pure
television production standpoint to see these guys walk off and
you know, trolling an umbrella into the sunset. Did you
ever have anybody that it got Like, obviously there's security
(12:03):
with you that we don't see on camera, but was
there any situations that um maybe got cut out or
maybe that's you know, you need to remind stuff where
like they want to fight or they weren't run away,
and maybe you bring it like it becomes a collab,
it becomes to catch a predator with Chris Hansen and
maybe we get Dog the bounty hunter going after them. Well,
in one of the recent investigations that's up now on
(12:25):
True Blue, we had a guy to walk in who
got snotty with me right away and he tried to
bolden when they bolt, the law enforceunate gets him. Now,
sometimes I get another shot at the apple if I
can figure out a way to get in there, even
though they've been taken into custody, which was the case here,
and the guy was just really really arrogant, and you
(12:49):
can't do this, you can't put me on television. And I'm,
you know, holding a vial of lubricant that he brought
with him to you know, have anal sex with a
fifteen year old boy in his face. So I'm not
going to back down. And he's acting like he did
nothing wrong. The ham away and I turned the crew
and I said, I'll bet you money, I will guarantee
you that this guy is into position of authorities at
(13:10):
a cop. He's a city councilman, he's executive with the company.
And sure enough, the cops, the Genesee County Sheriff's Department
in Michigan, searches his car. They find three guns, handcuffs
in his police credentials. He was a police officer, and
he had been a school administrator, and he had been
a juvenile probation officer. So what do you think was
going on there? Shit has doing to catch a predator,
(13:35):
and all the stuff you've done in the crime world
changed your outlook on humanity. You know, I'd like to think, Michael,
that I keep a pretty good sense of being a
regular guy about it. I mean, I don't wake up
every morning and think, Okay, this guy in the subway
(13:57):
is going to be this guy or that guy. I
try not to put people into categories or look at
the whole world is dirty. I mean, I've done a
pretty good job, I think, and my family would be
a better judge of this, but I've done a pretty
good job. I think of compartmentalizing it and being that
guy when I've got to be that guy, and being
the guy who shucks the oysters on New Year's Eve
(14:19):
when it's time to shuck the oysters and turn it off.
Did you shuck oysters? I did? It was a master shucker. Okay,
so you're a master shucker. I don't know, but I
was that not. I didn't cut myself. I had a
new kit, and everything happened like how many oysters did
we cracked cracked open? Probably? Where was this? We have
a home in Michigan. We have a partner in the
city and home in Michigan, and so we were across
(14:41):
the street from a lake. It's in Detroit, but it's
more in the country. Okay, Yeah, it's a crime pace
crime it's you wanted a network. So so how many
oysters did we shock? We were close to two dozen.
I went to a dozen, Well, who's eating like two dozens? Like,
I mean two dozen, I would have that. I would
have had everybody in the family was eating, and there
(15:03):
was only four of us there. Can people are spread out.
My kids are older, you know. So I've got a
kid in Florida. I got one of Brooklyn, we had
one of Chicago, we got one of Michigan States. Still,
so whoever, we only had four of us there, so
one doesn't eat oysters. So I was saying, I set
out to buy three dozen. And the way they hit
at the stories that Papa Joe's shout out to Papa
Jo's shout great store. And I went in there and
(15:25):
thinking they must have good oysters. They had everything else
is good. And they actually had bushels of oysters out
in front of the seafood kind of where you could
grab them. They give plastic glove and you have a
bag and you fill up the oysters. And I handed
him Harvard Man. He said, you know, if you get
four more, you get five extra free. So maybe thirty
There were none laughs, good as there should never be
(15:47):
the oysters left um again because you have, you know,
this lane of crime shows, crime podcasts and to Catch
a Predator UM the show. Do you have opinions on
sex crimes? What is your opinions? I know each state
is different, but do you think they're harsh enough? What
(16:10):
is your take on it? Because you must understand it
differently because you have in agenda, You're like, you see
it so closely, UM and a different like you're almost
as close as you know, we're closer than being a count.
You to me, it's specifical. You know, this is a
specific thing. Take on the laws, I I they very
state to state and Georgia they're very good. Georgia is
(16:31):
the hardest. Georgia is among the hardest. And we did
a sting down there years ago and these guys went away.
I mean, there's no plan down there. In California, the
first one we did, it was viewed by that particular
judge as a TV reality show sting, so a lot
of the guys had slaps on the wrist. Later they
enacted much stricter laws because we did two more investigations
(16:52):
in California and the guys did uh time. But they
have grown stricter. Years ago, I testified in front of
Congress about all this and the solutions to it and
what do you do? And and I think we want
in American society a one size fits all solution. Lock
them up, do whatever you're gonna do, find the treatment
(17:15):
program that works, or you know, monitor them forever. And
the truth of the matter is that these guys aren't
all one guy. And I'm not a therapist, I'm not
a cop, but I've come face to face with five
or some of them, and I think they break down
into three categories. There's the hardcore heavy hitter who would
be doing this with or without the Internet. This is
(17:36):
the guy who's at the food court at the mall,
the bad you know, cub Scott leader, the bad little
league coach, was looking for opportunities every minute of the day.
Then there's a young socially inept offender who's early twenties
who says stuff online it wouldn't say face to face.
(17:57):
And they figure, well, if she's thirteen of fortune, now,
if this works out on a couple of years, she'll
be older, it'll be okay. They view it as a
Romeo Juliet situation. And these guys they can probably be treated,
monitored and wrapped down the nose and never offend again.
But then there's this interesting middle category. This is where
you find the doctor, the cop, the rabbi, the military officer.
(18:23):
These guys have an urge or predilection to have sex
with somebody who's under a blowy or girl, but they
wouldn't act on it without the Internet. And again you
have this anonymity, this access, this addictive quality, and at
some point these guys crossed the line between fantasy and
reality and they're knocking on our door. And these guys
(18:44):
are the most complicated in terms of treatment. Some you know,
will be in so much trouble that there'll be a
shame that you know, they'll just live a life of quiet,
shame and horse Some will reoffend, some will go straight
and you know, open up a business and I'll homeim
to say do you want to go on my podcast
or do you want to you know, talk about this
and say no, there's no benefit for me in this.
(19:06):
I just live in my life. Some are very angry.
I mean I get threats all the time, you know
from the people that from some of these guys, you've
caught people that are second time offenders on your shows
we have, so we had. It doesn't happen a lot,
but we had one guy show up in Riverside, California, California,
the first sting we did in collaboration with law enforcement
(19:29):
the Riverside kind of Sheriff's department, and we had so
many guys in that particular sting. We had fifty one
guys in three days, which was a shocking number and
we could barely keep up with it. God, So this
guy walks in. He's got a star on the side
of his head, and he's slow, you know, and he
was in the show, but he didn't have a leading
(19:51):
role because you know, it didn't really go anywhere from
a storytelling perspective. Several weeks later, we're in Long Beach,
californ Yeah, and the same guy, Michael seiberg Sever's name
shows up in the chat and he wants to meet
the girl and says, I can't come on Friday because
(20:13):
I've got a court date. I can go on Saturday.
The court date was from the Riverside bus. So in
the meantime, we do a background surge and we find
out that he had done a year in jail for
a violent assault. How how can this time he's making
the movie sold a kid or just a violent assault
and some adult adult on fight. Now. I'm being serious
about this because I think it's an important question, and
(20:34):
I know it's kind of you know, listen, I know
you're a straight news guy. Is what they say about
child predators in jail true? Like do they get are
they treated as the bottom? And do you know about
like certain people that have been arrested that put in
jail that have gotten the treatment that everyone sort of
hopes that you hear about these myths. You don't know
if it's true, not true, but everybody sort of you know,
(20:54):
says when they have any true knowledge of real they
go there the bottom of the bottom child offenders, a rapist.
I think generally that's true. And I can tell you this.
One of the guys arrested in the suburban Washington d C.
Case investigation who was prosecuted by the FBI, so he
did was doing federal time. So there one night in
that he got five and a half years, five almost
(21:16):
six years. They're in the prison TV room Federal Correction
facility and they're Washington predator reruns and his segment comes
up and they're looking, and they're looking and they figure
out that guy is that guy and he had a
rougher go from then on. Do you know how rough?
(21:39):
I don't know how rough, but you heard it's rough.
I heard from very reliable law enforcement sources that it
was rough. Podcast. Why are there not? Or maybe there are,
(22:18):
but it's just on the show Female Predators Sexual Predators,
We've never had one in any of our investigations that
we've never never we had one where a guy said
I'm bringing my girlfriend or wife along, and we think
that was a ruse to you know, con the decoy
posing as an underage girl into doing what he wanted
her to do. The therapists tell us that it's because
(22:41):
when you talk about female predators, you're more likely to
see the teacher student scenario. The female predator doesn't get
off on the anonymity the way the male predator does.
And so it's happened. And I'm aware of cases. We've
never seen one in eighteen years of doing these. You
just never had you never had your your stuff. I
don't think it's I don't think it's anywhere close to
(23:04):
being like the mail on female or male on mail predators. Now,
I would be remiss I don't know if that's the
right word if I didn't tell you. The Iron Wrap
Ports stereo podcast has an award winning segment. Okay, Chris,
it's called the sick Fuck of the Week, which is
inspired them for you. But yes, and I just wanted
(23:26):
to let you know. Like, one of the reasons why
I was so excited to have your is because what
I should have done. What I should have done is
pull some sick fox and the sick Funk of the
Week segment on the Iron Wrap or stereo podcasts. It's
a certain somebody with a certain genes quas, so I
stay away from anything that's too violent, like I like, well,
I don't we say I like i'd say we the
(23:48):
think tank at the Iron Wrap pers stereo podcast. Um,
there's a certain amount of um animal um. What is
the word um with the animals um beast reality. I've
got You're sick funk of the week. You got a
sick funk of the week. Please please. This is an
I am Rappaport stereo podcast exclusive. I have Chris Hansen
(24:10):
bringing you the sick Fuck of the Week. This is
an award that is earned, not given, earned, not given.
It's called the sick the fun of the one. He's sick,
really fucking sick, man, just fucking whack line. Make them.
You smell like a sick funk. You look like a
(24:33):
six A supposed to be on a plane. You sick?
You doing? Hey, man, leave that chicken alone, Leave the
chicken alone? What are you doing to the chicken that
doesn't belong in a chicken? We had a guy in
our suburban Washington d C. Investigation who had chatted for
(24:55):
days and days with somebody he thought was a young
teenage girl wanting her to involve her dog in the
sex acts. Very specific and precise requests involving her having
sex with the dog and then him having sex with
her afterwards. Now he walks in, and I've got the transcripts.
(25:21):
He's a military guy, military intelligence officer, walks in and
the first thing he says is, and you can hear
him mutter it. The mic picks it up, where's the dog?
So he comes in and I lay into him the transcripts,
and you know, there's talk of a dog. There's talk
(25:42):
of the girl having sex with the dog. There's talk
of you using that in wait so you can have
sex with the girl because she's a virgin. And he
you know, I got a problem. I've got issues. I
gotta figure it out, and I'm When he goes away
for four years now, I find him and I reach
out for the podcast and he basically says, don't ever
(26:03):
call me again. Fair enough, his significant other, he was married,
the wife died and he's dating this other woman calls
me and says, this gets weird. I'm a bit of
a fan and I think it'd be good for him
to do the interview. So we go through this for months,
back and forth, and he lays into me, you ruined
(26:26):
my life, blah blah blah, And I said, Joe, let
us review the facts of the case. You wanted to
have a girl to have sex with the dog so
that she would be lubricated so you could take her
human virginity. Right, So you're gonna be mad at me
you did this, and what would have happened if I
wasn't there with my crew and you found a girl
(26:48):
and this guy it wasn't his first rodeo, right. So
he ultimately says he'll do the interview. Then they go
radio silent, and we went to this particular part of
the country looking for them because I thought I could
find him and talk him into it, and they were
nowhere to be found, and so who knows. And now
they've changed numbers and they you know, they're not in
(27:09):
touch anymore. So I I my current opinion is they
probably won't do it, but I would like to is
as much as he is the sick funk of the week, clearly,
I would still like to sit down and interview him
and figure out, well, you know, where have you fixed yourself?
How did you fix yourself? He was in intensive therapy.
He did I think four years in prison, and it
(27:31):
was federal time because he got convicted by a military
tribunal because he was in one of the early investigations
where police were not involved in the actual sting. Oh man,
that's that's disturbing. But I mean, the federal government took
it so seriously, the military took it so seriously, the
army that they put out a press release saying, you know,
we refer this case to the U. S. Attorney's Office,
(27:54):
and they successfully prosecuted and he did serious time. Wow,
that's a true blue fucking the week, and that's what
we do with the I M N P stereo pockets. Man,
that's glad to be helpful. Yeah, so you started a network,
an actual television streaming network, true blue streaming network. How
(28:14):
did you start a network? And tell me about the network.
So the network focuses, as you would imagine by the name,
on crime reporting, crime documentaries. We also have a big
selection of documentaries done by other people. You know, if
you go to it, it looks like Netflix for crime.
But it's a partnership with a fellow named Sean rec
(28:37):
who owns Transition Studio. And Sean had done Murder in
the Park and done the White Boy documentary, and I
had about White Boy d Richard Worshi Jr. And I
had broken that story a million years ago as a
reporter in Detroit. You broke it because you were from
the because I was a reporter at Channel seven Action News.
(28:57):
So he reaches out many years later and says, look,
I'm doing this documentary. Can I interview you? I said yeah, absolutely,
So five six years ago we do this interview and
the documentary ends up being a big deal, so it
gets a lot of attention, and he circles background and says, look,
I have this idea for a crime streaming network. I've
done it already with American Gospel TV, which is the
(29:21):
most successful streaming network you've never heard of. He had
a producer who did a documentary called American Gospel about
questionable practices in the gospel world in the Christian Church,
and it was more or less as something to reward
him for all the crime reporting this producer done. Sean
funded it. It becomes a huge grassroots hit, and then
(29:44):
that producer comes back to him says, I want to
do a streaming network. I think this would be Biggs.
All right, I'll do it huge. So Sean had already
done this. He had the template down in a you know,
smaller version for American Gospel TV, which remains hugely popular
but very selectively targeted. So when he approached me on
(30:05):
this it was a no brainer. I mean, this is
to control the content, to control the distribution of the content,
to own the content, and to avoid the bureaucracy of
large networks. Michael, the last two big projects I did
for Discovery plus Love the People a Discovery have done
(30:26):
a ton of work at Discovery Love Love, Love Them,
but one was twelve months from pitch to air, which
was lightning fast for them, and the other was almost
two years, the Peter and Igard investigation in Onisian. In
real life it takes forever. There's A meetings and B
meetings and C meetings and green light meetings. And now
I called Sewan and say I need a crew on Thursday.
(30:49):
I'll give an example. We have this documentary show series
coming out called The Facebook Fiend. This guy was on
social media targeting young women, creating relationships, stealing money, and
in many cases physically and sexually assaulting them. These young
women got together and they came to me, directly to
(31:09):
me and said, this guy is out there. He's a
bad guy. I do all the interviews. Now again there's
no writing pitches. I called Sean and tell him what
it is. We have the people coming too the studio.
We interview all the people. We figure out which law
enforcement agencies should be prosecuting this. This one agency in
Washington State makes a case, they get a warrant. We
(31:34):
find out this guy is staying up with somebody in
Queens and working in Brooklyn. Well, guess what happened this morning?
At seven am? The U S marshals went in, grabbed
his ass and took him to the n y p
D where he will go through a hearing as we speak,
and will be taken back extradited to Washington State to
face charges. In this case. This is from late summer
(31:57):
fall too, January three. Because as you know, and reading
the subtext of what you're saying, dealing with networks and
network executives and researchers and development, it's a pain in
the ass. It is. And I understand, especially something that
you do that you understand that you sort of crafted
and creating on your own. It's not rocket science in
(32:19):
terms of the way it's presented. It's not. It's forty
years of knowing who to call and what to do
and being able to expedite this. It's the best of
all worlds. It's the best of local news where you
get a tip at four pm, and it's the lead
at six and the best of the network shows where
millions of people have access to it. And you know,
(32:41):
I presented this first at Crime Con in Las Vegas
this summer and the people in the audience and we
had a clip of the Facebook feed and we had
a clip of the new Petitor series and the people
got it five thou people got it instantly. What else
do you want to do want the network? Like? Is
there a sort of godfather? Is there a sort of
(33:05):
opus that you want to do at the network? Um?
In your head? Like what would be your dream thing
in terms of telling stories at True Blue streaming network? Well,
we're doing it now. I think the ultimate goal will
be able to be able to throw a switch and
go live. For instance, the Idaho accused murderer. Talk about
(33:28):
that one, Well, that's a fascinating case. So as you know,
there was an arrest in Pennsylvania the other day, and
um he was connected to the killings of the four
students in Idaho, and um, the case is fascinated the
world really, And there was this feeling that maybe the Moscow,
Idaho PD wasn't up to the task and was late
(33:49):
getting the bi Well, none of that is true. They
did a great job, and they did everything they were
supposed to do, and they held things close to the vest.
And guess what it looks like they cracked the case right.
And good on them because I don't see anything that
they did except good solid police work. And I've followed
these cases for forty years. So what I want to
(34:12):
do is get True Blue to the point where we
can flip a switch and you know, when the Moscow
Police does their news conference, it's on all our platforms.
When this guy is in court, it can be on
all our platforms. And then we have the people, not
just me, but other people in the group to um
to talk about in comment on it. So we have that,
and we have the news magazine True Crime Nation, which
(34:34):
is within True Blue, which I want to see, you know,
turn into a weekly event where we break news and
people quotas and and we're well on our way to
get there. But it's a great way. It looked at
the end of the day. The same enterprising techniques that
we applied to producing and reporting Predator, we're just taking
(34:54):
enterprising techniques and applying them to the distribution of this
very unique branded content that we have and and nobody
else can really do it. I mean, people are I mean, look,
Dan Abrahams is doing it with Long Crime. He's doing
great job over there. But he figured it out. I've
figured it out. Other people are figuring out in their
own niches like that's more you know, courtroom stuff. But
(35:14):
they do a lot of other great work as well.
But you know there's some collap going on there. I mean,
he and I know each other. He he knows where
it's going. I know where it's going. Did you hear
about this case? I'm sure you did, which I'm sure
is going to be discussed more. It was over the holidays,
an attractive twenty two year old girl from Bensoner's Brooklyn Um.
(35:35):
Her last name was second Dino. I just remembered it
because I was like some Italian names. They I'm like
second Dino Um. She uh confessed to killing her father
with a knife, and she was like, you know, it
looks like almost like an Instagram girl, like a cute
twenty two year ago. This seems like a case that's
going to turn into something. We're looking at that right now.
This is the case where the father, the uncle, whoever
(35:57):
it was, was selling pictures or head pictures stored as
the same. That is that I know, I've got to
look into it, and I don't want to speak before
knowing you know completely about the case, but I think
there was another there was a motive there, and a
couple of cases like that floating around right now, and
the other thing that we're producing a huge project on
is this sextortion talk about kids who get tricked many
(36:20):
times by internet scam artists half a world away in
in Western Africa into transmitting, you know, essentially portographic pictures
of themselves. And there's a case outside of Cleveland, seventeen
year old track star grad student who you know, has
what he thinks is a girl. Send him some video.
(36:41):
He sends video back. This is on Instagram. By the way,
this isn't in some weird dark web training, you know, bizarre.
This is on Instagram. And then this extortionist, sex stortionist says,
give me a hundred dollars, send me gift cards to
all this, to all that, and the kid kills himself
in his parents home. So now the parents have to
(37:02):
celebrate Christmas. This happened right before Christmas without their son.
And the word that they're trying to get out. And
what we're going to show in this in this series
we're doing is that these kids have to you know,
so what if somebody's got a picture of you, what
are they really going to do with it? How are
they going to harm a seventeen year Okay, they're going
to send it to grandma. What's grandma gonna know that? Right?
Just tell your parents what's happened and go to the police. Now,
(37:24):
the odds of catching somebody in an internet cafe and
lagos or benin or quote of awe are very remote.
But the danger that it realistically poses to a child,
in terms of somebody tricking you into showing a picture
of yourself of a sexually charged nature, that danger is
remote too. And we have to get the message out
(37:45):
to kids and parents to say, hey, look, everybody as up.
But when you and I were growing up, you know,
the worst thing he had was you know, speaking into
you know, Mr West's garage and grabbing his playboys out
of the secret box by the chevelle. You know, these
cameras and social media are the whole different world, and
they're good at these car artists are good at exploding
(38:07):
an adolescent's mind and helping them up and making them
feel that I gotta act now or then when they
run out of money. You know what, kids got more
than a hundred bucks. So is this specifically? Is this
a specific show called sextortion? I don't know what it's
gonna be called, but it'll be on True Blue and
it will be It's we're producing a major project that
we'll talk about all this, investigate it, and we're gonna
(38:28):
take it as far as we can. We've got uh
some cases on the West Coast where we know who
was behind them. We're going to expose those people and
we're not only going to do it for True Blue,
but we're gonna produce something that schools can use around
the country because it is it illegal Essentially if you're
under age, if you send a picture of yourself even
(38:51):
to a friend like a boyfriend girlfriend that's sexually of
sexual nature, isn't that become you forget getting the transmission
of child pornography is illegal, So even if you're sending
it to a child, it's illegal. Oh shit. Kids need
to know about that. They do and it happens at
(39:11):
school that across the country where they can friends they
can wow. You know when you sit down with the
(39:36):
Predators later on on the podcast Predators, I have caught
with Chris Hansen, Like you mentioned it a little earlier,
but what is essentially your agenda, like what is your
your thought process of what are you trying to get out?
What I try to do is immerse myself in the video.
(39:57):
In the chat logs, we try to find his uch
out about that person. We try to get them to
sit down and talk to us, which we've not been
able to do yet, but a number of cases are close.
And we tell that story. I tell it in my
own voice. I don't write a script. It's a total
immersion experience. And then I just tell this story, you know,
with antidotes that I've not shared before, and then we
(40:20):
get into where the guy is, what he's done. I've
been able to get a couple snippets of audio recorded
with them, and those are interesting to people who followed this.
And there's a whole community called the TCAP community, which
is the acronym for to Catch a Predator, and they
follow this stuff very closely, and they report occasionally to
(40:44):
me about one they or another. There are subreddits about
this um. You know, people watch you know, these characters
very closely, and there's one in particular. His name is
Lauren Armstrong, surfaced in an investigation we had in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
And this guy has become iconic and they call it
because he said, oh God, oh God when he was
(41:04):
getting arrested. When I confronted c A. W D. There's
a Church of cod they call it. He lives up
in Maine. He's out and we've been back and forth
trying to negotiate a way to do an interview, and
he's got some cocka maybe you know, conditions he wants
met and hopefully he'll drop those and we'll be able
to do the interview, but it will be in a
(41:24):
major event for these people who all this. Do you
watch these other documentaries? Another fantastic Iron Wrappers stereo podcast episode,
We did our twenty sikest fucking documentaries of all time
and that was just the first twenty. But like don't
funk with cats? Are you able to watch some or
(41:46):
is that sort of like you do enough of this
in your own I watch him and because I'd like
to see what, you know, what other content creators are
doing and how they put it together. You know, some
of them like making a murder, you know, serious questions
raised about that. In fact, sean rec Transition Studio, my
partner in Trew Blue, has the flip side of that
(42:08):
in a major documentary that's going to be coming out
very soon. It shows what really went on in that
first documentary. And how skewed it was, and how what
the point of view was, and how they messed with
the facts. And they go back, those producers who go
back and with it together, and it's really eye opening.
What about the Staircase? Did you watch that? I did?
(42:28):
Who do you think killed? What do you think it was?
The Eagle? Do you think the guy did it? I
can't remember his name. I know who you're talking about.
It's been a while since I've seen you don't need
his name. But then there was like crazy theories. I
have a lot of questions about that case and I
need to take a closer look at it before I,
you know, I make any pronouncements on it. But I
it was fascinating material, crazy, you know, but it um
(42:53):
and it said that template in a lot of ways
for a lot of other documentaries because of you know,
when they did and how they did it. It was
twelve hours or ten hours. At first it was eight
hours and then they did ten Where I was, I mean,
this was like talk about Godfather Apocalypse night. But it
was all it was all everybody was talking about in
my business for a long time. I mean, it set
set the standard in many ways for some of these documentaries. Yeah,
(43:14):
I agree. Now you're also doing a one man show,
which I'm what the hell is this? Excited? So I
was approached the same fellows who produced my podcast had
a relationship with the South Point Casino in Las Vegas,
which is off the strip, but they do a lot
of amazing shows. They have all the rodeos, they're the
major equestrian facility. It's a very nice, clean casino. They've
(43:38):
got great restaurants, they do the Pro Bowling Tour, they
have NASCAR our team. And I was approached to do
a multimedia one man show called Have a Seat with
Chris Hansen. And so we're gonna be out there February third, fourth,
and fifth, and we're putting the finishing details on the
show and it will take people inside these predator cases
(43:59):
and is big video screens, and we've got material that's
never been shown before, and and it's gonna be highly polished,
highly produced, and I think the goal would be too
you know, we'll see how it goes in Vegas. I'm
excited about it. It's something totally out of my comfort zone.
But it's interesting. If you had asked me twenty years
ago what I ever do a show in Vegas. I said, well, no,
(44:21):
I'll talk to the homicide convention in Vegas. I've done
stories that we did a series for Dateline called Vegas Undercover.
I've done that, but I never in a million years
imagined that I would do a one man show. Having
said that, I'm very excited about it. I think it
you know, you know, in your business and your side
of the business that you know, you get a role
and it pushes you to think and be creative and
(44:42):
to maybe work without a net once a while, and
it makes you better in every other aspect of what
we do. And it's become a multimedia world. It's not
just you know, at least I think it my phase
of the game, having been in it forty years, It's
not just one job anymore. It's the podcast, it's the network,
(45:02):
it's the show within the network. It's being on the phone.
It's you know, putting these projects together, you know, and
and it's their long days, but they're very rewarding days,
and you know, and that's where I'm at in the career.
I've got you know, my kids are grown, you know,
so I have this time and this energy and why
not spend it you know, why not have some fun
(45:24):
with it. I try to joe people in the world
they wouldn't normally see because you started off as a newsperson.
What is your take on the news on local news,
on cable news, on Fox News, CNN, fake news, real news.
There's so many resources. There's podcast, there's YouTube, there's sub stack,
(45:47):
there's you know, all sorts of stuff, like what is
your sort of point of view on the news? Do
you believe these guys? I do? Where do you get
your news? I get my news from everything from the
New York Times and the New York Post to the
Washington Post. They have the top seven that comes out
every day that I find is a good read. You know.
(46:08):
I have a few, you know, alternative sources. You know,
I gather the news myself. But I still believe in
local news. I think local news is important, both newspapers
and television. My second son, my second oldest, is a
reporter for the Fox station in Orlando. He's out there
gutting out every night, and he cares. He cares whether
it's a Florida man story or somebody wrestling a bear
(46:30):
out of their kitchen, or whether it's a major story
about the former president of Brazil hiding out in Orlando.
It's he cares, and the other young people working at
that station care very deeply about it. I mean, there's
a television aspect to it. Yes, everybody's trying to get
to the next highest market and maybe to the network.
But he cares, and I think most people in local
(46:51):
news truly, truly care. They're out there in the streets
trying to tell you what the hell is going on
in your community. And I think in the newspapers now
you take it to the next level, and cable news
that a whole different shooting match. I mean, you you
have people exploiting the divisions in society to get ratings.
Now everybody is allowed point of view, right, the editorial
(47:12):
page and the Detroit News growing up was different than
the Free Press. One was lefty, one was writing. You know,
we knew that, but you read both and you came
up with your own opinion. You know. I pride myself
and the fact that my conservative friends think I'm a
wildlife liberal and my liberal friends think I'm too far.
You know, nobody really know, and I keep it that way, right,
and my kids were raised that way. But we're not
(47:34):
going to go buy into flying some flag, you know,
in front of the house, because that's the flavor of
the day. If you think it through before you buy
in any bullshit. You know, I got you and before
I let you go, I've heard that you have fitness goals.
You're about getting in shape. Walk me through the routine,
you know, let me through where Chris Hansen goes to
get those fucking games. I about a year and a
(47:57):
half ago, started going to a trainer just blocks from
this studio named Robert Brace, who's got a whole felosh.
He's great, he's great. He's guy. Was a ballet dancer,
British guy. Then he was a pastor in Harlem, and
then he got into this in a big way. And
he teaches and embraces a very specifically tailored physical fitness
(48:21):
program for individuals and a lot of guys you know,
in the media and entertainment and women to go there.
And he's just got me on a very centered program.
I've been you know, I've always been athletic, but it
was more of a you know, get on the peloton bike,
make sure I get my steps in. But I wasn't
doing weights, and I wasn't boxing, and do it through
the routine. Don't be humble. Walk me through what's going
on in the gym there? What goes on the gym?
(48:42):
I get there, I hit the treadmill. Depending on when
they're like on eight seven, like we could speak running,
I do six miles an hour for you know, six
minutes or five for five if it depends on how
rough they want to treat me that day, and then
get off. I'll do some boxing, you know, and they've
got me south, are you convince your writing? And you
(49:04):
know I grew up in in the Detroit area, so
we all know how to fight. But shout out the
time crump Jim, Yeah, okay, go ahead, exactly, walk me
through it and then um, they'll go some more cardio
than to waits ship, you know, so do that. It's
an hour, it's a full hour. And then um stretching
And at my age, yes, stretching has become so important.
(49:25):
My stepdaughter got a new puppy. In the puppy of
course within two weeks fractured. It's right with your leg
and has a cast on. He's great, he's getting around,
but he's a great dog. But you know, you bend
over to grab the dog because I was taking him
for a walk. And you feel your back because you
hadn't stretched that day. Well, today we worked on a
lot of stretching. The back feels great. You gotta keep
those hips looped. You gotta keep you got, you gotta
(49:47):
keep the you gotta keep them all moving. You know.
It's uh. And then the other thing that I do
if I'm in the city, especially is I'll get steps
in a day, and to keep moving, and to watch
the diet. You know, I was a pig over Christmas
and eating desserts and you dog, I mean just you know,
we get disgusting. One night I had Christmas just you
(50:09):
don't even want to know, but you do. Well we
have besides that, the oysters are not a problem. That's
just pure protein. But we we had the crab legs.
And then I go on to this bakery and gotten
all the different desserts and key line. What do we
talking about? Everything? So you get the little and get
every kind imaginable. So it's cheesecake, and it's key Line
pie and chocolate flowerless cakes and all the little ones.
(50:33):
But the cookies, cookies too. Oh yeah, we had cookies
you had all that. Yeah, but the killer is we
get these pizzas from Chicago, these lou male naughties, you know,
the deep dish, and they sent them to the house
on dry eyes. You put them in the freeze and
you put them in the other for four to five mists.
They come out just like you're at the restaurant. So
they and then you know, but they're the deep cheese
and a sausage and they have one that is the
(50:56):
Chicago Italian beef with palapenos in it. Yeah. So this
all happened over the brawl. Havn't not. I'm off it now,
but we we we all say we're off it now now.
I asked Chris Hanson the hard hitting questions. He asks
his people the hard hitting question, the hardest hitting question.
And I'm looking right into the camera. You box, you stretch,
(51:17):
you do the weights. You're on the treadmill, Chris Hansen,
do you plank? I can plank? What are we talking about?
Because I I'm just gonna I'm not bragging. I'm not bragging.
But you probably already heard about this already six minutes. Chris.
And if you asked me, do you think I could
(51:37):
do a six minute plank. Before I did a six
minute plank, I would say, you know, you could you
say I'm obviously fit because you could you see it, right,
you just see it. It's like I'm even even in
the stick Cashmicks, where do you see sort of like
everything it's a glow. It's an aura. Six minute plank.
That's impressive. I don't know that I've ever done a
six You can do it. I probably could get there.
(51:59):
I usually as a part of the training routine, I'll
do a one minute at the end. After of course, no,
we gotta do more. We gotta do more because you
know why. The thing about planking is that it's mental.
Oh it's mental. And if I could fucking do it, yeah,
you could fucking do it, and I wanted to because
you're a businessman. I'm thinking about doing my own fitness
and the fitness model is going to be if I
(52:21):
could fucking do it, Yeah you can do it. Well,
it's true. I mean, you know, if you had asked
me at the beginning of starting with Robert Braise, if
I could do all the stuff that I was doing again,
you know, I skier, you know, play tennis and ron
and get steps in and all that stuff. But you know,
the stuff that he's got me doing is way above
my normal what I thought my tolerances would. Yeah, and
(52:44):
I enjoy it. You know, everybody wakes up and you
know it's like I got a other stuff to do,
and then you get through that work on it's like, wow,
you know, I feel really good about myself. Now I
can go, you know, slay the rest of the day,
especially traveling. I mean you probably travel fair bit and
you gotta you gotta be fit to travel. You gotta
get your mind right and um, you know, just get
(53:06):
through it. Chris Hansen True Blue Streaming Network. Where do
we find the True Blue streaming and get all the
information you need? A watch True Blue dot Com. But
it's not there's an app. It's on Roku, it's on
all the platforms. But if you got to watch True
Blue dot Com t r U b L you it'll
lay it all out for you. The podcast True Crime Nation,
(53:27):
that's the news magazine on the network, and the podcast
is Predators I've Caught with Chris Hansen. And then the
one man Show in Vegas. We have a seat with
Chris Hansen Live. That's gonna be fun. I think so.
I'm excited. We're gonna go back out there in two
weeks to rehearse, but I think I think it'll be good.
I wish you all the best of all of Michael.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time
to come. This is fun. Uh and uh, you know,
(53:49):
like everybody's a fair last question, people see you on
the street. I mean, you haven't a usual fame because
you're not just a newsperson. You have this culture fame
when people see you on the street. People ask me
this all the time, but it's a little different with you.
What do people say? People scream with you those predators
(54:10):
or sometimes sometimes go get him. Sometimes you know, you
look just like Chris Hanson. I said, you know, I
get that all the time. Goes you sound like I'm
you know, like I said, that's just the way you talking.
Says well, I'm in that kind No, I'm really no
way anyway. I wish you luck with the network. That
ain't an easy task. No, but it's it's it's good,
it's all it's all clicking. It's prime. Um. I appreciate it.
(54:34):
Happy New Y're good luck with everything, and and thank
you so much. For the sick funk of the week man.
That was a big surprise. I had that in my back.
That was a big surprise. I'm Wrappport Stereo Pockets. I'm out,
Chris Hanson, thank you so much, my pleasure boom. I
want to thank Chris Hansen. Follow him. He's doing all
(54:54):
kinds of things. I appreciate you taking the time. I
appreciate you breaking down the sickest funck of the week
and so much more with me, Chris Hansen Special Guests
of the Iron. Rapp Reports Stereo Podcast. Tell a friend
to tell a friend, subscribe, rate, review, Puff Puff past
this podcast along Miles jourdan Ak, the Bleached Brothers. Take
(55:17):
us out with something real nice. Take us out of
here with something real loud, but most importantly and this
iconic museum quality. I am Rapp Reports stereo podcast with
something real funky. I am Wrapp Reports Stereo Podcast. I
am out
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