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“Lexi” was a cyber-creation whom the 78-year-old Herman is accused of arranging to meet when authorities they took him into custody last fall at the St. Croix Airport, where sources told CLIFFVIEW PILOT he was waiting with a stuffed animal.
Authorities said Herman, a Rockland County resident who has a home in the U.S. Virgin Islands, became the target of a sting after he contacted detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Computer Crimes Unit who were posing as a woman named “Kris” with a young daughter named “Lexi.”
As far as Herman knew, they said, the girl was 6 when the chats began.
A similar case against a 60-year-old upstate New York man also relied on a 6-year-old “Lexi,” according to an indictment returned by a Bergen County grand jury in Hackensack last week.
Herman has remained in federal custody since being arrested in October and then indicted last month. He had an arraignment scheduled in federal court in Newark this afternoon.
William J. Potoczny (inset), meanwhile, has remained free on $375,000 since Feb. 21, 2013.
Ten days earlier, prosecutor’s investigators arrested Potoczny — a married fence company owner from New Hartford, N.Y. — after they said he arranged to meet his “Lexi” at an IHOP in Ramsey.
Potoczny used the screen names “billscum” and “lisa_wells12” to communicate explicit instructions on what he wanted to do to the girl — including intercourse, fellatio and cunnilingus, the six-count indictment alleges.
“He further indicated he wanted to photograph/video the interaction,” Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said when Potoczny was arrested.
The indictment also accuses him of sending pornographic videos to them.
In Herman’s case, the former DJ had “multiple telephone and online communications with the officer during which he indicated his desire to engage in sexual activity with the officer’s fictitious daughter,” federal authorities allege.
Herman promised that he wouldn’t hurt the child but that he might have to be “forceful” after giving her some alcohol, according to a complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark.
Several times, it says, he “attempted to arrange illegal sexual encounters with the child in New York and Bergen County.” Having failed at each, Herman told “Kris” that he had a vacation home in St. Croix and offered to pay for her and the fictional girl to fly there for a few days “so that he could engage in sexual activity with the daughter,” the complaint says.
He bought the tickets on Sept 30 for the flight from LaGuardia Airport, it says.
Molinelli, who doesn’t have jurisdiction in the Virgin Islands, quickly alerted federal authorities.
“I am proud of our Computer Crime Unit,” the prosecutor told CLIFFVIEW PILOT at the time. “It’s these types of cases that send a clear message that this will not be tolerated and that we will always be diligent in protecting the public.”
MUGSHOT: Courtesy Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office
RELATED:
- YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Former WNEW-FM DJ Dave Herman was indicted by a federal grand jury in Newark today on charges of planning to bring a 7-year-old Bergen County girl who turned out to be a creation of cyber-crime detectives to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands to sexually abuse her. READ MORE ….
- YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Former WNEW-FM disc jockey Dave Herman was holding a stuffed animal when federal agents and investigators from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office took him into custody today as he waited at the St. Croix airport for a 7-year-old girl he intended to sexually abuse, authorities told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. READ MORE ….
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