HOME IMPROVEMENT CONTRACTOR PLEADS GUILTY IN INTERNET SEX "STING"; ADMITS HE TRIED TO SEND INDECENT MATERIAL TO NYPD UNDERCOVER DETECTIVE POSING AS TEENAGER

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that an Astoria home improvement contractor has pled guilty to attempting to send indecent material to an individual whom he met on-line and who he believed to be a 13-year-old girl but who was actually a New York Police Department detective engaged in an undercover sting operation.

District Attorney Brown said, "The defendant used the internet in an attempt to prey sexually upon an individual whom he believed to be a child. This case proves yet again that parents must be vigilant in safeguarding their children and their children’s access to and use of the Internet."

District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Greg Carlson, 34, of 28-15 47th Street in Astoria, a home improvement contractor who installs windows and doors. He pled guilty on August 12, 2002 to attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor before Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert C. McGann. He is expected to be sentenced on September 23, 2002 to six months in jail and five years probation and to be ordered to enter a sex offenders’ treatment program.

According to the criminal complaint, the defendant communicated over the Internet with a detective posing as a 13-year-old girl and thereafter transmitted to the detective nude photographs of himself engaged in masturbation. The defendant is alleged to have arranged to meet to have sex and take "naughty pictures" of his intended victim. When the defendant arrived at the meeting place in a park in Woodside, Queens, he was arrested when he walked with the undercover detective to a nearby building, which he believed was the residence of the purported victim’s aunt where they were going to engage in sex. A court authorized search of the defendant’s apartment resulted in the recovery of a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

Assistant District Attorneys Kenneth M. Appelbaum, Deputy Bureau Chief, and Eric C. Rosenbaum, Senior Trial Attorney, of the District Attorney's Special Victims Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Marjory D. Fisher, Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Gregory L. Lasak, are in charge of the prosecution.