Stolen innocence

He drives up in a red Lexus coupe, just like he said he would.

It is Dec. 6, a little after 5 p.m., and the sky above Lehi is growing dark.

Christmas shoppers are in the parking lot, scurrying from their cars to the warmth of the grocery store.

On any other night, this man, an executive at an Orem construction company, would be heading home. At his arrival, he'd walk through the doors, kiss his kids and hug his wife.

Not tonight. Tonight he has a date with a teenager he met online.

And they've planned to have sex.

They will have to hurry because his wife is waiting, all dressed up for a Christmas party.

He looks into the darkness. The girl should be here, just like they planned.

Fast forward to later that night.

The man is sitting in the back of a police car.

Hiding in the shadows were agents from the Utah County Sex Crimes Task Force.

They set him up.

And now he is calling home, explaining to his wife why he won't make the party.

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Every year, some 75 men are arrested in Utah for enticing minors over the Internet.

They are fire captains, schoolteachers, soccer coaches. Some are young and single, others are middle-aged and married.

They seduce children using computers at home, work and, in some cases, public libraries.

And they are becoming more difficult to catch.

"They're getting real smart," says a member of the sex-crimes task force in Utah County, which has arrested 38 people in the past year. "It used to be that we'd chat with them for 20 minutes — and boom. We'd get a couple a night. But now they're being more cautious."

That's because online predators know they are being watched. In Utah County, 12 officers belong to the sex crimes unit. Among other duties, these officers pose as underage girls and boys in Internet chat rooms.

They log in, wait to be contacted and then engage in conversations that often turn explicit.

"The screen names we choose are like bait," one investigator says. "Some are better than others. Some are like Power Bait."