http://tinyurl.com/25tt7eWednesday, August 15, 2007
By JASON TSAI
STAFF WRITER
JOSEPH MALONEY
Investigators credit a cyber-savvy Ramsey mom with helping nab a 42-year-old Pennsylvania man who they said had sex with her 15-year-old daughter after they met on a social networking site.
The resourceful mom said she went to authorities after software that she surreptitiously installed on her daughter's computer copied chats between the teen and a married real estate broker from Oreland, Pa.
"It's a complete shock," said the woman, whose name is being withheld by The Record. "She hasn't dated much. She doesn't wear makeup. She's not one of these 'hot' kids, strutting all over the place.
"It shows how scary the Internet can be."
The girl met Joseph Maloney on a social networking Web site in April, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said Tuesday. They chatted online for a few weeks before meeting at least twice for sex at a Route 17 motel, the prosecutor said.
Undercover detectives posing as a 14-year-old girl contacted Maloney through his online screen name -- "ibdaman4u_2Day" -- and arranged a meeting Friday for sex at a location in Ramsey.
When he showed up, detectives moved in and arrested him.
Inside his truck they found a laptop with broadband access and a global positioning device that Maloney used to guide him on the more than 100-mile trip from his Pennsylvania home, said Joseph Macellaro, acting chief of detectives for the Prosecutor's Office.
"This was a pretty determined individual," Macellaro said. "Obviously, this person is somebody who would be considered dangerous."
Maloney was being held on $150,000 bail Tuesday at the Bergen County Jail. He is charged with luring, sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child, as well as additional charges for attempting to meet the fictional 14-year-old.
His arrest Friday came one day after state Attorney General Anne Milgram sent letters to a dozen Internet social networking sites asking for the names of any convicted New Jersey sex offenders with user accounts.
Bergen County investigators said Maloney met the 15-year-old girl through Netlog.com – a Belgium-based site that claims to have 20 million members in Europe alone. Netlog was not among the sites targeted by Milgram.
The mother said she was tipped off by an adult neighbor in whom the girl confided. Immediately after learning of her daughter's actions, she said, she installed spying software on the computer used by her daughter.
"I was able to get all these pictures of their actual chats," the mother said.
Soon afterward, she contacted authorities.
"And, of course, I took my computer away from her," she said.
Sgt. Andrew Donofrio, who heads the prosecutor's Computer Crimes Unit, said credit is due to such mothers – however nosy – who relentlessly investigate potential indecencies on their children's computers.
"She took a proactive step," Donofrio said.
The mother said it simply seemed the right thing to do.
"I guess all the warnings that you read about as a parent are true -- that you do have to monitor them non-stop," she said.
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