Athens-based group exposes child predators

By Joe Johnson

A worker with a carnival that comes to town every year was recently exposed as an apparent child predator by an Athens area vigilante group.

The 40-year-old suspect was working for the Spring Fling Fair carnival at Georgia Square Mall earlier this month when he engaged in sexually explicit online activity with someone who he thought was a 14-year-old boy.

The boy was actually a member of the Street Sweeperz Unit who confronted the suspect and videoed him as he admitted to illegal activities.

Athens police were notified of the encounter and

when they responded to the mall the suspect made admissions to them about his behavior.

Identified by police as Jonathan Wine of Chicopee, MA, he “admitted that he met someone who he believed to be a 14-year-old male on an app, and he began to try to solicit him for sex,” the police report states. “Wine explained that he knew that he shouldn’t have done it and that his actions were disgusting.”

After questioning the man police let him go.

“Because we do not encourage or act upon information from vigilantes, I released Wine after gathering his information and statement,” an officer said in the police report.

The Street Sweeperz Unit offered to police evidence of the suspect’s activities that included chat logs and a photo of his penis that he thought he had sent to the boy.

“They directed us to hold on to the evidence just incase they could use it at a later date,”Streetsweeperz Unit founder Angelus Pereira said.

Law enforcement generally does not accept evidence from vigilante groups because it does not conform with legally established rules of evidence for criminal prosecutions.

However, when videos of Streetsweeperz Unit confrontations with predators have gone viral on social media it has brought pressure on law enforcement to take action, like when the Banks County Sheriff’s Office arrested a youth baseball coach in Commerce.

Similarly, video of the vigilante group confronting a University of Georgia professor in February resulted in him leaving the country and subsequently being fired by UGA.

The University of Georgia Police Department continues to investigate and detectives executed a search warrant of the professor’s home where additional evidence was obtained.

Pereira said he is continuing to hunt down pedophiles even though the efforts are not always welcomed by law enforcement.

“We may not be able to get judicial system convictions, but we can still protect the community by raising awareness,” Pereira said..