PETALUMA POLICE DEFEND ONLINE SEX STING: DOCTOR'S HEARING CONTINUES IN 'DATELINE' EXPOSE CASE

A Petaluma police supervisor testifying in court Tuesday defended the use

of a private organization to help nab suspected sex predators in an Internet

sting operation.

Lt. Matt Stapleton took the witness stand on day two of a preliminary

hearing for Dr. Maurice Wolin, a Piedmont oncologist charged with attempted

lewd conduct with a child.

Wolin, 49, was arrested in August along with 28 other men in a sting

operation run by Petaluma police in conjunction with the online advocacy group

Perverted Justice and NBC TV, which based two programs on the investigation.

Wolin has pleaded not guilty.

After his attorney, Blair Berk of Los Angeles, spent much of Monday

grilling a police sergeant about the role Perverted Justice and its workers

played in the sting, prosecutor Brian Staebell called Stapleton to explain his

choice of the group.

Stapleton, who heads major crimes investigations for the Petaluma Police

Department, said he researched and approved of Perverted Justice, the way its

workers interact with suspected predators and how the incriminating online

conversations are recorded.

Their ''rules of engagement'' mirrored the department's requirements, he

said. This was the department's first sting targeting suspected online sex

predators.

Wolin was arrested after police said he arranged to meet a person he

thought was a 13-year-old girl at an east Petaluma house for sex. The girl was

really an adult decoy with Perverted Justice who chatted with Wolin online.

If convicted at trial, Wolin could face a maximum of four years in prison

on the felony charge and he would be required to register as a sex offender

for the rest of his life. His medical license was suspended last year and

could be restricted further pending results of the criminal case.

At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, which continues next month,

Judge Raima Ballinger will decide if there is enough evidence to hold Wolin

over for trial.

Perverted Justice, which according to its Web site is seeking nonprofit

status, uses paid staff and volunteers who pose as minors in online chat rooms

to help catch suspected predators. It works in partnership with local law

enforcement agencies to set up stings, some of which are later aired as part

of the ''To Catch a Predator'' series on ''Dateline NBC.''

Stapleton testified Tuesday that he approached Perverted Justice officials

in spring 2006 and worked with them to plan the three-day operation in

Petaluma. Only two of the men arrested were from Sonoma County; the rest came

from as far away as Visalia, Stockton and San Diego.

He said he was assured and believed the organization could record and

produce on demand accurate chat logs that later could be used as evidence in

court. He said he authorized the recording of the conversations.

For a second day, Wolin's attorney raised questions about the reliability

of various logs police say incriminate Wolin and the symbiotic partnership

between police and the private advocacy organization.

She has argued that Wolin was entrapped by paid police informants, that the

communications were illegally recorded and that the chat log evidence cannot

be authenticated.

Ballinger hasn't yet admitted the chat logs into evidence.

The two main logs show several days of instant-message conversations

between a decoy by the name of ''willowfilipino'' and ''talldreamy_doc'' --

allegedly Wolin. The decoy says she is 13 years old.

On the second day, the conversation turns sexual and ''talldreamy_doc''

says that he'd like to come over, ''But you're under 18 and I'm over. We would

have to be sooo careful.''

TV footage shows Wolin arriving in Petaluma and going into the back yard of

a house NBC rented on Castle Drive, and fleeing quickly when he apparently saw

TV monitors behind a lattice screen.

Staebell characterized the chat logs as having ''extensive sex chat'' that

is ''extremely incriminating'' to Wolin.

The preliminary hearing will continue in the first week of September.

A key witness is expected to be Xavier Von Erck, the founder of Perverted

Justice and a self-proclaimed ''evil vigilante'' targeting suspected sex

predators. He posed as the decoy in the alleged conversations with Wolin.

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 568-5312 or

lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.