Law&Crime Sidebar - BONUS EPISODE: YouTuber Known for Exposing Child Predators Just Caught Another, Cops Say

Episode Date: July 3, 2022

LC Predator Catcher, A Youtuber who claims he’s confronted over 300 alleged child predators, joins Law&Crime’s Sam Goldberg to discuss how he provided information that helped lead to the arrest of 56-year old Joseph Manzoni. Manzoni was arrested a month after the confrontation with LC Predator catcher, and was charged with luring and enticing a child by various means.GUESTS:LC Predator Catcher, YouTuberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Have a conversation? Yeah, I have a conversation. Are we going to have a conversation? Yeah, about you shouldn't be doing this. That I shouldn't be doing this? Yeah. How old did this kid tell you they were? Bro, let me tell you something what I was going to do, no lie. No, what was you going to do?

I was going to scare the shit out of that kid because first of all, they shouldn't let him on here if he says he's 18 and he's 15, okay? So that's why I played along with this whole thing because I'm like, what if it was my kid? So you're telling you, you'll want somebody to tell your kid to come all the way over to you? Just scared the shit out of him.

That's absolutely, bro. Absolutely, bro. You think I'm stupid? Do you hear what I said to him? I'm not trying to get arrested or none of that. I said you're not trying to get sued. You said you're not trying to get sued or nothing. I played along with the whole thing

that scared the shit out of that kid, bro. And that's a God's honest truth. Is that right? Honest to God, bro. How old are you? I'm 56. You're 56 years old. Bro, did you not hear what I just said?

It's your word against mine and that's my guy's honest truth. I have no reason to lie to you, bro. So what? Did you talk explicit to this kid? Huh? Did you talk explicit? Bro, let me explain something to you for the last time. Uh-huh.

I told you my truth, what I was going to do when he came over here, I was going to scare the shit out. of him okay so you just like I tell people I come over here that are of age don't ever drink a drink from somebody unless you see them pour it okay see okay because I'm not bro I'm not stupid bro I know the games bro what's the games the game him trying to get me caught up or whatever you do or anything like that could you stop filming me in my house bro and get out right now right now bro I just call a police stand for you go ahead do that bro because I was trying to get saved the kids

Call a police on you. If you've gone back. I call the police on you. I'll call my family and have you white the fucking out. All right. I mean, call your family then. Call your family. Because you're about to go to motherfuckin' jail.

That was 56-year-old veteran man Joseph Manzoni, who, according to authorities, allegedly solicited a teen for sex and was instead met by YouTuber LC Predator Catcher. So what's it like being inside the home of a man who allegedly thought a 15-year-old was going to show up? Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Sam Goldberg. LC Predator Catcher, a YouTuber with 31,000 subscribers who claims he's confronted over 300 alleged child predators,

provided information that helped lead to the arrest of 56-year-old Joseph Manzoni. Manzoni was arrested a month after his confrontation with L.C. Predator Catcher and was charged with enticing a child by various means. Joining us now on Sidebar podcast to talk about what happened inside Manzoni's home is LC Predator Catcher. Mr. L.C., how you doing? Thanks so much for coming on Sidebar. I'm good. I'm good. So how did you get into this?

Watching YouTube. You saw other YouTubers do it and you're like, hey, I would be good at that. I used to watch a lot of First Amendment audit videos. I used to watch a lot of those with People that go up there messing with the police and stuff like that and go and record the cops. And one of them, it came up like, you know, it was a collab with it. It was like First Amendment audit with a predator catcher.

So I'm looking at it, though. That one video came up, like the guy he caught a chief police or something like that. Oh, wow. I'm like, yo, that's a regular guy that's doing this. I'm like, yo, these regular people that's doing this. Like, I'm like, oh, you can't get locked up for that or nothing? Oh, I'm about to do that. I'm about to do it.

So about like, after about like a month of watching it, I just went out in the first day. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I'm by that I'm downloading this app. I say within like a half hour, I was going out, catching somebody. Wow. So when did you start? March 2020. Oh, recently, so the beginning of COVID.

So when you started, you weren't worried about the legality of doing it in terms of, like, potentially entrapping some of these people? No, because I'm not a cop. It's not only entrapping or anything. I feel like this. Once a kid tell you that they're underage, it's no entrapping or anything. The moral thing that a grown-up should do is like, no, you're too young for me. blog I'm out of here. You're too young for me. So once you started, you started at the beginning

at 2020, you have 31K YouTube subscribers now. How'd you build it up so fast? Actually, this is my second YouTube channel. Like the first one, like every platform I've been on it got shut down. Like my TikTok, I have 121,000 followers on there. My last TikTok I had 121,000 followers. They shut my own thing down for community guideline violations. My last Facebook down for community guidelines violations. YouTube. shut it down for community guidelines violations. They all get shut down for community guidelines. They look at us like it depends on how to interaction going. If it's a little heated going, like you talk with the talk of back, they might hit you bullying harassing. Then you

get strikes for like people who put in privacy strikes. So you're like, y'all, I'm recording in public. Like, you know, how am I getting a privacy strike on me? So many strikes, and so many strikes, they just shut it down. So you were saying some of them get shut down because the interactions get heated. And the interaction that we just played that you had with Joseph Manzoni. I mean, that was as heated as it gets. You're inside his apartment. He's screaming at you.

Turn off the camera. Look like he was about to get physical with you. At any point, going inside this man's apartment, were you scared? No. He has candles on. It's just you two in his bedroom and you're not scared that he was going to get physical. The mood is already set for like when I come there. What led you to him?

Like I just post a ad. I post like what I do is as I go on these social media dating. apps, anything like that, that you can correspond back and forth. I put a profile up there that says that for the minimum age, most of these dating apps or social media, you have to be 18. So I'm going to put that minimum age up there. Then once somebody jump in my inbox, oh, hey, how are you doing? You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, by the way, I'm not 18 and I'm underage, under the age of consent. Like, I pick an age that's under consent age of legal consent age. I have about like 90%, 95% of the people that churns me down. Like, out of all the people I talk to on there, that turn me down, turn me down, turn me down. And you get that, like, that five percent that actually, like, all right, but it just seems like I find them five percent easily. And then Joseph Manzoni's defense when you got there was, oh, I was going to correct this kid and tell them that the kid shouldn't have been doing this. Yeah. Like, he thought he was slick.

Like, the way that he was messaging me, he was messaging me voice messages, all voice messages. Like, we were talking back, corresponding back with it. Like, he would respond to me in a voice, on a voice chat. And I recorded them all. That every response, I recorded them all. Boom, boom, record, record, record, record. Then I had his phone number. So we was texting back and forth.

So when I came in the house, like, at first he was like, no, man, you're too young, man. I'm not trying to get locked up and not like this. I'm like, I just coached him like, yeah, listen, I'm not no, I'm not, I'm a spirit's kid that I'm not going to tell him. I'm not trying to tell or nothing like this. Otherwise, he's like, all right, you come over. He gave me the address, penned his location, had the door open and everything. When the cops was there, he was still texting me. What do you mean when the cops were...

Like, when I left out of it, like, yo, I think he's seen the police outside out of his window or something because he texts me right after that. He's like, oh, man, just remember you was trespassing and you just walked into my house and this and now. You know, you let me in and everything was, it was live and you can see on the camera that if you come in, like, to the door, like, cracking the door open, like, and just leave the door open for me. So you contacted him one day, that same day, he tells you to come over, you go over. and again, that same day he gets arrested? I don't think he got arrested that day. When did he get arrested? I don't know.

I just recently found out that he got arrested. Wow. So of the people you've gone over and contacted the police about, how many of them have gotten arrested? I don't know, because a lot of times I don't even hear about like, like, AC, you don't really hear about it, like, afterwards. Oh, this person got locked up. That person got locked up, but what the charge, the actual charges were and everything like that. Most of them get charged with lowering of a child and stuff like that until they do their full investigation. So if you're putting in all this effort to try to catch these guys, you're not following up to see if they're getting arrested afterwards?

I do this for exposure. If you know the threat, you know how to protect yourself from a threat. Like, say like when these people get locked up, when they come home, they're on Megan Law. So if they're on Megan Law, they're not in jail or nothing like this. So you've got to take it upon yourself to find out exactly who they are and stuff like that. If your next door neighbor is a predator, you're going to know from Megan Law. I don't feel like jail rehabilitates them. If they get locked up with me, it's extra credit. Me, I'm here to expose, expose, expose, because when I catch you, you're losing your job.

You still got to pay your bills and everything, your monthly dues, and you're scared to go outside because everybody doesn't see the video. The talk is going around. They don't stop anything like that. The talks about, yo, you was on that, what's on that show. I've seen all the messages back and forth because a lot of times the police don't lock these people up because we're civilians that are doing this. It's a lot of steps that goes into you catching someone versus a police officer.

are arresting them and then they're actually going to jail has anyone you've ever caught been convicted um convicted yeah i i have one conviction so far that i know for a fact he copped out but you was like a lot of them they you won't even hear like you won't get like see if they get locked up later like i'm not trying the messages and everything and all um evidence sometimes like the only time they will need me to the go to the go to court or something like that is if they go to trial and most of them i say about like 98% i'm not going to trial the only people that go to trial that with these type of charges are people that have money. So with Joseph Manzoni, why did this one take off so much?

Why did this one make headlines because he got arrested? I don't know. I have no clue. Like, it was one, like, I think it was breaking news that broke it. Breaking AC, they broke. And like, like, I hit them up every time when I'm down there and tell about who I caught down there. Sure. They do follow up stories about it. So are you going to follow Manzoni to see if it goes from arrest to conviction? If it go to conviction, like, I'll follow it if it comes to like, if they need me to trial or something like that it's just too much time like we're traveling like then special like with me trying to catch i i want to i want to put as many faith i want to show the people as many faces that i can

go in like going to like going to court dates and stuff like that going to try to keep up with that stuff it takes time from from me exposing more more faces sure to follow up the time you're doing that the next person who's allegedly doing this could be getting away with it because you're following up on the that's what like a lot of times like when i'm at atlantic city is like when you call a police out there is a long process. It's a long process, like after calling a police when the police come near. So that's about like a two hour, two hour, two and a half hour, like range that, that you, that you had the police station, giving you an interview, everything like that. And within this time, when, especially when I'm in Atlanta City,

like my phone be ringing, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling. So all those blings, those potential predators that I could have been catching within that time frame, that once I lead a police station and everything like that, then I look at my phone. I can't get nobody down. They all are left. Like, oh, man, I'm supposed to got that one. I'm supposed to got them. Yeah, you got to stay on top of it. Would you consider yourself sort of a new age, Chris Hansen? Yeah, like, more modern. But like me, like I don't see, like me, like, in real, really, I don't see Chris Hansen as like a predator catcher. I see him more as a host of a show than actually like the person that's going out putting in the work to go actually catch these

predators. Well, you're doing the work to catch the predator, filming yourself catching the predator and then calling the police too so you're really a one-man band doing it yeah like i feel that i am a official predator catcher like that doing doing it all like they i feel like that he he was like more of like the host like that and all the catchers are set up for them to come near and everything he just did just the interview on you did the producers work the host work the researchers work everything all right lc predator catcher thanks so much for joining us on law and crime sidebar podcast you can check out the full joseph manzoni video and others on his youtube page L.C. Predator Catcher. Thanks again for coming on.

At the time of this recording, Manzoni's been charged with a second-degree crime on a summons and has a pending court appearance. Thanks for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Sidebar is produced by YouTube manager Bobby Zoki, video editor Michael Dininger, and Booker Alyssa Fisher. I'm Sam Goldberg. We'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.