Internet Sex Predator Expert Urges for More Action From MySpace.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 23 /PRNewswire/ -- With more than 50 million members, MySpace.com is one of the fastest growing websites in the country whose popularity among young people has become a cause of concern for parents. Internet predators have found their way on to the social-networking site, and after demands from several states requesting information on sex offenders using the site last week, MySpace.com has finally agreed to release this data, which has expert and New York Times best-selling author R. Stephanie Good saying "this is just the beginning."
"Releasing the names of registered sex offenders is only a first step for MySpace in ensuring the safety of children on their site," says Good. "As someone who spends a lot of time communicating with sexual predators on the Internet for the FBI, I have to stress that so much more needs to be done to adequately protect children on sites such as these. Without more safeguards, children will remain extremely vulnerable, especially to those predators who have yet to be caught. As for those registered sex offenders who have been identified on Myspace, I encourage the attorney generals of their states to actively pursue criminal charges against them."
R. Stephanie Good's amazing story is told in the new book, EXPOSED: The Harrowing Story of a Mother's Undercover Work with the FBI to Save Children from Internet Sex Predators (Thomas Nelson/ISBN: 1595550623, $24.99). Inspired by her own child's near tragic encounter with a sexual predator, R. Stephanie Good, a highly trained lawyer, house-mom and accomplished author, was compelled to take action. In 2003 she began a harrowing collaboration with the FBI to track down sexual predators on the Internet -- a journey into a perverted underworld that has resulted in the arrest and federal conviction of dozens of sexual offenders. And, as Stephanie soon discovered through her undercover work, these predators are more often than not the last ones we would expect, coming from all walks of life and, frighteningly, having access into our own homes through the Internet.
Working closely with the FBI Special Agents of Squad C-20, which handles crimes against children, this frightening expose follows Stephanie as she logs onto chat rooms using the fictitious user-profile of a young teenaged girl. She is usually bombarded with instant messages in mere minutes. EXPOSED follows closely as Stephanie conducts Internet chats, disguises her voice to conduct wire-tapped telephone conversations, takes part in dangerous arrest situations where federal agents swoop in to nab a perpetrator who believes he's really meeting a minor girl for sex, and also as Stephanie comes face-to- face with some of the predators in federal court where she has been called to testify against them. EXPOSED describes every detail of the process, with excerpts from the actual transcripts of her online chats and telephone conversations with the predators, and the meticulous care that Stephanie employs in her investigations to ensure that everything is done by the book -- the results of which have earned Stephanie a 100 percent conviction record.
EXPOSED is a chilling story, revealing one mother's near-tragic personal story that compelled her to make a difference in the hunt for Internet sexual predators.
Published by Thomas Nelson Publishers, May 2007.
R. Stephanie Good, author of Law School 101: Survival Techniques from Pre-Law to Life as an Attorney, and co-author of the New York Times best seller Aruba: The Tragic Untold Story of Natalee Holloway and Corruption in Paradise, received her B.A. in Political Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She continued her education at Hofstra University School of Law in New York where she earned her juris doctor degree and an LL.M. in international law. Thomas Nelson Publishing