in this video we show the interrogation of a man who is not only a predator but who also stunningly turned out to be an acquaintance of chris hanson from to catch a predator 59 year old charles lawrence had a good life not only did he have a job as a highly successful accountant but he also had the wealth and connections to allow him to run in influential circles but that wasn't enough for lawrence while chatting online lawrence became involved with a decoy posing as a 13 year old boy although age was brought up several times it didn't stop lawrence from trying to get the boy to allow lawrence to teach him about his sexuality when it was discovered that they only lived two thousand feet away from each other the prospect of meeting became irresistible to lawrence it took two days for our privacy all right i'm gonna investigate here my name is jason i'm detective tacticist you can call me jason um obviously know who you are um before we get too far ahead of ourselves i want to make sure did you get that last message uh yes yes yep um my phone is going to be vibrating every now and then um because things that are going on here are kind of constantly evolving so i'm a lot apologies in advance for any interruptions as a result of this um so i want to explain everything to you i want to go over your charges and make sure that you understand everything that's happening i'm gonna i want really you to ask me some questions before i kind of get into what i want to get into to make sure that you are comfortable um before i can do that um i have to reach your rights so that you're aware of what your rights are and what you what you can say what you want to say um we're going to go through it line by line and once we get done with that um i want you to i want to open the floor to you you can ask me anything that you want understand things better and then we'll go from that okay that's how it looks well honestly i want to grab a piece of paper that we will get into do you like to be called fellow yeah [Music] this is the form that we use now i know you're an intelligent guy um so please forgive and sign insult and ask you to do this just read the first line aloud so that you can read and all you're going to do is as you read these lines just put your initials there by putting your initials there all you're saying is that you understand what you've read right okay but just read the personality initially i had the right to sound very good all right and the rest you can do on your own uh if i talk to any police officer anything i say cannon will be used against me i have the right to so why before you answer any questions and i may have agreeable with me to a question and they're going to have a little point for me if i cannot afford one before i answer any questions i know if i am supposed to decide the right to stop answering every time i may stop answering questions anytime if i wish to talk with a lure and i may have friends with me during any further question i'm going to ask questions and make the statement knowing that i have these rights well that's what you decide i mean lately i know i understand what i'm doing i do this freely and voluntarily and i know one of the most surprising things about this interview is lawrence's decision not to call a lawyer he is well off and could easily afford a good one but instead he chooses to waive that right lawrence is counting on his own skills to get him out of trouble and that rarely works very well for a suspect [Music] because your initial because you signed does not mean that the floodgates open basically means that you're destroying i have to play by the rules there's certain things that i have to do and before i can even really open up a discussion with you to do that now first and foremost are you aware of what your charges are have they've been explained to you no you criminal attempt to commit sexual assault in the second degree entire single minor those are the three charges okay uh really the first the first one is a misdemeanor the last one is a misdemeanor uh the most important charge which is a felony in the state of connecticut the sexual assault second degree is it is a felony that's the super more serious side of the three okay and i am happy to explain to you how we arrived to these charges if you want me to do so um you obviously arrived at a house today yep to meet with somebody right um i have access and actually have on my phone when you said to me all the communication between you and that individual that you are believing to be based on your communications back and forth right um obviously you recall having communication with someone right and obviously you did arrive at this right predetermined destination right okay um but i think it was under oh based off of the communication between the two of you that's how we arrive at where we are with these charges because the nature of your conversation because the things that were said um is it your understanding you were going there to see and talk to a 13 year old no no okay well that's kind of why that's that's kind of my intention we're going to never do okay very good well that's kind of why i want you to sit down and i want to talk to you okay as of right now i this is what i have i have that communication right um which at any time if you want to see it i can show it to you i have that communication i have you arriving at this house i have the dancer that occurred um initially between the two of you right um and then obviously what happened immediately after sure i have all that we have your vehicle okay um the vehicle is here at the police department and we are going that's kind of the next step in the process we're going to decide how we're going to approach your vehicle and looking inside it and seeing what is in there okay that's the next step um in addition to that we have your phone right and another step will be looking into the contents of your phone apps any communication between you and other people this particular person that we're talking about now um and doing any photos things that make sure we're going to be going through the phone and i'll explain to how we'll arrive at that as well so these are really the steps that you're going to be taking moving forward all right um you just said that you would never do you would never go to meet someone that age yeah i want to kind of leave it to you if that's the case to just kind of walk me through how you arrived there and and what your intentions were and i thought you know every time i was 18 okay so you thought you wanted me an 18 year old yeah because i was i was downstairs on my couch i was at my eye doctor yes i wear contacts so uh i apparently my eye got scratched so i can't get my contacts on what i'm wearing these glasses and i was downstairs having a cup of coffee and my glasses are upstairs you know i'm looking i thought he said 18. i swear to god i would never ever in my entire life lawrence tries to make excuses by blaming his scratched eye but it doesn't add up he was able to read everything else on his phone as well as drive to the correct address the odds of only mistaking that one particular number for another are almost non-existent i could say also itself is disgusting that's not you know consenting about a different story absolutely really about and and uh at 18 years old obviously that's a consenting adult something that you wouldn't feel comfortable with is that fair to say what that is a scenario like that you would have no concern about law enforcement or anything like that being involved in such a scenario right well they're great people making their own decisions right so yes there's no right i've been having a situation there's no law enforcement i would never commit i would never do anything okay um what how did you get in touch with this particular person today what did you think you got to talk to me okay well how how did you guys connect writer okay okay is that something that you've used before yeah it is okay and i mean when did you start using it have you had has it been something that's worked here in the center six months you know how do you meet people that you want to meet is it is that yeah yeah okay i'm single okay so have you met other people utilizing this app that you've ultimately met with and and uh had conversations with organizations okay okay um socially and okay um the one the one issue that we're kind of running into right now again i told you that i have access to the communication right and you made it very clear about your your feeling as far as being with someone who's i guess underage or a minor what would you consider to be underage or minor as far as you know having something anybody under 18. the issue that i'm having with that and look one of the things i really don't want to do um i don't want to get into this situation where we're doing like a ticker chat where i'm going we're going like a line by line through this whole thing i really just want to talk to you my goal is not to embarrass you or belittle you or or do typical companies see on tv whether it's right here i'm not i don't want to get involved the situation is what it is we have arrived here and we need to deal with it now okay okay but to maybe get past this first hurdle to maybe allow that to happen more i want to read something to you then maybe you can explain it to me that so how do you like grinder you asked in the first answers uh they mentioned that they've been kicked off a few times and you ask why right why did we keep going they responded simply age then you're right back how old are you they respond back i swear you won't report me you respond of course not i mean people are going to report other people on the right right no i don't like what you're saying right so he says you swing it won't report me and you say of course not yeah i'm just talking i wouldn't do that i don't need to do that all right right i'm gonna put words in your mouth but that's of course not that's kind of a dialogue he writes back thirteen making sure that i go i can show you it's just thirteen i can't read that okay but i i thought it's been 18. it says 13. okay and that's fine that's fine um you're almost a neighbor laugh out loud um so what are you looking for here and then you go into some other things which uh you know again we can we kind of go back to that the one that you're having with your answer regarding you know the 18 right because we just went over it um if you thought they were 18 you would have no concerns because i wouldn't some people to say they're 18 and they're not right so if you thought they were 18 and that's obviously a situation that you feel comfortable with if you thought that red 18 i thought as far as to get something to cover this way there would be no reason for you to ask this member are you a cop or involved in law enforcement they respond back laugh out loud really and you look back got to be careful right they write back yeah man i get it so the problem you're going to have with your explanation is if you thought legitimately that the person was 18 and you thought that you read the number 18 at that point from what you just said in your mind you're really alleviated of any concerns about dealing with a minor or anything like that that's true because again people could say they're 18 and then but you didn't you didn't say that you just asked after finding out after the age was written which was 13 you're claiming 18. right that number was written yeah you move forward with some other back and forth but you can breathe out look at look and get away from that the agent raises another key point if everything was legal or lawrence was making a legitimate mistake due to his eye injury he would never have asked the question about the police it is a stupid question to begin with since it would never be answered honestly but it does show that he knew he was doing something wrong i don't understand why you would write that or be concerned about that if if in fact you thought you read the number 18 it would be really that that for what you were just talking about it should be still you know that should be no it's not you clearly said that it was not that 18 and above consenting a dull and there's no issues there you clearly you you just said as long as we said we're not misresenting those less misrepresented right but you didn't that's not what you wrote that's not what you said that was part of any of your back and forth yeah your next step after a few back and forth is are you loyal when i walked i immediately was going to say we're going to have 18. you know and he asked me for to bring some what what is in the car what did you bring it was a c a dvd and what's on dvd what what's that okay just regular viewpoint regular gateway yeah this is under range gateway or is it adult it's adult gameplay the problem that you're gonna have charles i'm not afraid to tell you okay you know one one man to another one person to another and one adult to another is when you read these messages and you go through them line by line you're very careful and you read them your explanation does not match because if you truly believe that you are going to meet with an 18 year old person like you just said right there would be no second thoughts concerns about whether or not the first thing you're dealing with is law enforcement or involved law enforcement but you clearly you clearly not only write you not only ask the question but then you kind of double tap it because you say you got to be careful yeah because you have to be careful i don't want to do anything wrong well that's kind of that's kind of why we that's kind of why we're here charles you you don't want to do anymore it will what you wanted to what people want to do sometimes maybe what they intend i don't want to get crazy with that but at the end of the day you did do something wrong today and we and we have to deal with that we have to deal with that somehow some way we have to deal with that you're going to have to explain it better and or you're going to have to come to grips with the fact that you're here and this is why you're here and we got to deal with it now you got to deal with that because if you choose not to if you choose not to you're not really you know a writer likes the story an artist paints the picture uh in this scenario i want you to tell the story i want you to write it but if you don't and you stick with what you're telling me you're kind of forcing us as law enforcement as the investigators to dive into this now to dive into your phone to dive into your car to dissect these messages and then once you do that now now you're kind of forcing us to do our jobs and force forcing us to you know present these facts okay that may be don't put the proper spin in the story that it needs to have okay because the way we look at a lot of these cases people will get involved in circumstances like you're in now a lot of these people they just need help they have a problem it's almost like an addiction in many ways they're attracted to something they know is not right they know it's not healthy they know it's not legal but they can't i'm telling you right now gentlemen next week you've been gentlemen to me i've been telling you i have never been with anyone that's underage under the age of 18. well this has been the first this has been the first time no because he said it was 18. that's what i read okay well it says it says i know it says it says like but i've never glasses all right 13 i'm going to shut right down but blocked him right down there okay but then why ask if he's involved in law enforcement i do that all the time because they've got a friend with 18 year old kids that that represent themselves in 18 it's happened before and then they're not 18. yeah but you don't write that you don't write hey look are you sure that's your age you don't even you don't even question it the age is written it's not even like are you sure or i i've been down this road before or no i've never been known no no no whatever whatever you want to write i've had people i've had people lie to me before are you sure how do i know it there's nothing like that the age is thrown out there and then look and i'll read it lawrence makes a mistake when he says that it is a question he always asks this can be disproven quite easily when they check his social media and chat logs but lawrence is so desperate to normalize his behavior that he can't think logically this is this is what's going to happen at the end of the day anyway i mean this is this is how it's going to be perceived here i mean chris hanson is actually i know him as a friend of mine i've been doing on the train for years and that's more than embarrassing but um so how do you like grind it's cool but i've been kicked off a few times why they write back age you respond back with how old are you i swear you won't report me of course now you're right they write just 13. you write back you're almost a neighbor laugh out loud so what are you looking for here you ask really just chatting or whatever i like whatever laugh out loud with one of those they respond back with yeah and you respond back with yeah what have you done so far i had sex with my ex-girlfriend nothing with a guy be right back gotcha but you like guys better now never try it but being with my girlfriend was really awkward be right back i get it you went back maybe you need a good teacher yeah you know one they respond you're talking to a math out value right laugh out loud really you write back simply yes so you just buy it or get it school is in session you're right more gay but also somewhat lie do you watch porn you ask yeah you ask what do you like to watch what do you like they ask you respond mostly gay porn and some bipolar what do you want you ask again sweet i like gay porn dp and atm you ask what's atm you went back dp is so hot ask them out they're explaining what atm means right you went back you're getting me hard left out loud again you ask what is atm yes tp is hot there right now then you respond so do you think you're more of a on top i don't know i'm willing to learn it can you get away so you think you're more on top of the law enforcement are you a cop or involvement law force if you think you're talking to an eighteen-year-old person why are you asking that why are you out but why why would you ask me watch tv yeah but what's what's to be concerned about what what is the issue if it's an 18 year old person like you said it's a consent would you why would you even be concerned about that because i'm super careful and i would never i'll never be able to touch you i i you know i have i can show you that i was at my uh ophthalmologist yesterday and i don't know that i you scratch your mind as to why one of these verses and why i didn't see that correctly but you can maybe you would never find anything like that in a conversation with a dirty old enough ever you understand that by reading this that's not how this reads it's clearly in there as soon as it's written 13 you just continue on with with warrants and me and talk about what you want to do and what he likes and what you like you just lawrence is fully committed to a story and he is going to stick with it even when the agent walks him through all of the implausibilities he is the type to think that he will be able to bluff his way out of the situation and then as you get close to the part where we're going to start meeting and it's starting to get maybe a little bit more real we get to argue law enforcement are you a cop and my sneakers shut before somebody i understand you've seen christmas show before unfortunately this is this is the way this is played out and you're here and you're being charged with these things and you arrive at this person's house and you never any point in time questioned that age or the number after what you need to understand is i i maybe maybe don't realize it but i know more than you think i know i was at the house i was there i got in the car with you right i watched everything that's unfolded i watched you pull up to the house okay i watched you get out of the car i watched you walk into the house i watched you make conversation with this boy who clearly does not look like he's 18 years old as you just said that he does not look like he's international and i watched you in conversation with him and i watched you talk to him and what you're not i don't want to get into that but anything sexual and like that i don't want i don't want to get into like this thing where you're up but you didn't about face upon seeing chris hansen not before you as soon as he asked me about the the porn i said i was gonna i was gonna go get it that's when chris walked into the room and i was gonna turn myself around and get walked right up you saw chris swimming around and you walked down he got rid of the water but i was gonna he gave me the water he asked me about the porn and i said okay i'm gonna go i'm gonna go out to the left that the congress will get and that's when chris as i was turning critics when chris walked into the room but this is all just a a big mistake against misunderstanding why why go out the door why not you know chris why not want to address it why i say hey wait a minute whoa what time now i thought it was it was no no no no there's no way there's no way in this i have a reputation to oh you know i'm a good guy i you know support the police union i know a lot of cops i love fire guys and this is not you this is i'm not going to think you're looking at that here's the thing i don't want to be any misconceptions okay people make state make mistakes every day yeah that was a mistake i think that's what you made today but here's the problem moving forward okay moving forward from today okay you need to deal with this and the way that you're choosing to deal with it is not it's not meeting your head up it's not taking care of the problem it's not addressing the problem if he says throwing a blanket over the problem if i need to do something right i won't and that's not helping you but then i will if you i will i will get therapy if you need to do something right you know you don't think it's i don't know like that evaluated you don't think it's fair to say that maybe you do have a problem that should be addressed just for your own well-being and obviously that won't be for others i'll get evaluated i'll win a professional perception i mean because at the end of the day i'm a good guy no one's saying that you guys came in here with the house off because you're good again i haven't done anything wrong i'm not part of the law at any time in my life especially with regard to this it wouldn't it's against my beliefs it's against a whole lot of reasons okay i swear that's that's when you were slid over into the seat by the officers that took you into custody yeah and then i sat down next to you right before i could introduce myself before i could say a word do you know what you said to me this is going to be like me on tv something like that that wasn't the first thing once you think about in the car sliding over what's the first thing you need another segment officer you looked right at me and you said it's always been accepted lose my cameras and tell this boy almost inevitably lawrence brings up his influential connections to try to sway the agent the attempt falls flat which is a reaction that lawrence may be unaccustomed to the agent then brings up the part of their conversation which occurred directly after the arrest lawrence told him he was there to tell the child that he shouldn't be doing things like this his statement raises two points the first is that it blows his previous story about thinking the boy was 18 out of the water the second is that there is no good reason to make the trip to just say that lawrence could have just as easily said that in the chat before blocking and reporting the miner i can't yeah you said i came here to tell this quote that he shouldn't be thomas yeah so if you thought you were eating 18 year old boy you're gonna maintain for a consensual encounter which you feel is totally okay which in the grand scheme of things based on legality it is but that's the case you shouldn't be doing this that's your goal it doesn't make any sense if you thought you were if you thought you were meeting 18 year old boy for a consensual encounter because you misread the number right having people over do you see do you see how this is right now do you see how this is the direction that this is going did you see it and you've been charged you're here the things that you've said and you know some of the senses that it's making and not making i mean can you see that through the blur of all this can you see it i could see you know the circumstance that terms of execution no as i explained to you some of the next steps involved are going through your car and going through your top your car is here there's a couple different ways that we can do that okay we put all this together and we apply for a search and seizure award which is a piece of paper that gets signed by a judge that allows us to go to the car when searching and sees anything that may pertain to the charges that you would be getting you're doing for them the other way to go about it is to ask you man to man give indicator there's nothing in the card that you have to worry about hiding is to have a creative form it's called a consent the search form you sign and consent the search form we go through the car we finally find it there's nothing in there like you say nothing gets eased isn't is still connected or quote unquote evidence of these crimes then we would see them okay if you're interested in signing that form you're going about that that way because you obviously indicate that you feel like you've done nothing wrong and there's nothing in the car that you want to be concerned with that's the case that's the way you could go or you could choose and we can get a circle but if you wanted if you wanted to consent to search i mean you've been a gentleman i figured i'd offer you that opportunity yeah okay so i get that yeah the phone because it's a little more involved it involves uh what they call it the technology to get into it and do things to it we have to hold on to it for a period of time that we have to do a search warrant for because that's not a quick process it has to go to someone who knows how to you know quote a quote do that's nothing in business um i'm sorry i wish i had a better answer for you related to that but the phone is going to stay less until that that process takes place we can do it as fast as we can um but again that's not stuff that's done you know very quickly just you know phones can take a little bit to go through there's a lot of apps to go through there's communications to go through you know there's stuff on the phone that gets deleted that people think is deleted but you know in many cases it's still there in some capacity and we'll be able to extract it so because of the nature that a search warrant has to be applied for that but the cars are relatively easy and you open up the doors is there any questions about any of this before it will retrieve that form that you want to iron out with me something maybe you want to try to explain differently or something that i said that maybe you want to respond to or you know i know might be some things is there something in there that maybe you want me to refer back to to to read to you or whatever is there anything at all that you want to talk about like that because i'm happy to do it but i don't want look this is an adversarial i'm not i'm not looking down at you i don't think that you're a bad person i i really don't and the other day i'm doing a job my job is to investigate this apply the applicable charges that are that work based on what's happened and write a report on it and it gets submitted to a judge and what's the process narratives after this um you've been charged uh while you're here um the bond has to be determined and the bond gets determined by uh the ship commander downstairs based on all that we have there's a lot of factors now are you are you a resident you're someone that's from out of town records there's a lot that comes into the nature of the effects the nature of the investigation all that plays a role when that number gets determined we tell you what that number the agent explains in detail what is about to happen to him but lawrence almost doesn't seem to believe that things are really that serious to the point he has to ask if he is going to be arrested we allow you to make a call in an effort to get out of here which is whatever ultimately has to do right so you'll be afforded a phone call to address whatever the bond situation is if you want to call someone to help you with that if you want to call a bonus person however you choose to go about that so you can start thinking about that now that would be the next step if you're unable to make bond okay um what we have today is presented it's called a probable cause hearing a judge reviews you know what we have and they decide do we have enough to hold you and if so if that is decided not to hold you then you would stay here for the remainder of the weekend and go to court first thing monday mornings that's the next day the court's in session around the weekend right now we don't have a night quarter we can't quote so we have to wait some money so if you're not released you remain here you go over to court first day monday morning you get arraigned um at that point the judge can decide to lower the bond raise the bond get rid of the bond completely typically a public defender is available at that time unless you have an attorney you can call right away and have handled that part of the treaty if you want that's a degree of public defenders handles that first portion of the arrangement and then from there it gets decided you know by you someone's going to bomb it i honestly don't know i don't want him to speak out i don't want to shoot higher shoot low and be wrong as soon as we know the exact number on that okay so why don't you sit here for a moment click your thoughts i'm going to grab that form explain to you we'll fill it out and then we'll go to the card and then we'll i'll get you downstairs and you can start the bottom part of it and get that figured out you have to be interviewed for that you know the commander sits down if you ask you some questions um if you're able to make bonds as soon as you're able to make that happen as soon as someone can come down here with the money required they sign off on it you're either okay moves forward uh when we get downstairs okay so so once he is alone the reality hits lawrence it is finally sinking in that he isn't going to be able to talk his way out of this and jail time is almost certainly inevitable officers who were trying to pin him and get him to drop his weapon jordan didn't give up without a struggle and ended up shooting both officer james rowe and james so foreign all right charles this is detective rosary she's just going to come in and witness the consent that's all two people for that so we're gonna search uh your your vehicle it's 2014 jeep wrangler red right here would you go your plate number can i get red 6a ftj5 yeah that's right okay and we're just gonna search the vehicle and that's it yeah um why don't you just do me a favor and read this down here first for me please and then if you decide to do so you sign that and you said thank you very much uh one thing i just want to confirm with you is um we have a couple addresses for you we have some uh call history at the banks north and then we also so that so what is your current address now same on eight plus complex principles z-k-o we're addressing abroad so tell us okay and what was the final year of uh school and you attended uh yeah okay so this is taken care of we're going to take care of this as soon as we can get this done and if the vehicle gets moved off-site and put somewhere for any reason we'll let you know um a lot of that's going to depend on whether or not you need bonding and what have you if you're going to be staying here not typical with what we've been doing is we have the crosstalk off sites they're somewhere safe and secure and you can get them later if it appears you're gonna be getting bummed up and the car will remain here depending on what we find and what happens um this is my cooperation cooperation plays a major role in the setting of the botanist the best because i do want people to go downstairs you're going to get some one of the first things that come with the sergeant downstairs um so with that um is there anything else that you want to address um now it's kind of a good time to do it uh kind of a good time to get it out if you wanna you know just relating to hey the messages i read to you relating to the situation as a whole is there anything that you feel like that you haven't said or maybe a question i haven't asked that you want you know out there that you know i should know can you see um can you see how we arrived yeah let's see how i can to where we are yeah i can say you understand and you can see that i can see that yeah we believe it can be written or it can be taken yes all right and you promised that um and you promised that uh at some point you'll go speak with a professional who will evaluate yes and in the event that there's an issue that you need to address yes that you will do that yeah because um you know i'm not an expert but in law enforcement you're kind of trying to train in a lot of different areas as maybe you would know um and uh that would be my advice to anyone that should considered going down based on the way that this is kind of played out in the information that we have access to i think it's something you should strongly consider okay um all right so i'm going to walk you down and we're uh [Music] lawrence is being taken to jail and before he goes the agent urges him to seek help for his unhealthy attraction to minors lawrence agrees but unless it becomes a court-mandated order he is unlikely to follow through since he doesn't believe he has a problem charles lawrence was charged with second-degree attempted sexual assault of a minor risk or injury to a minor involving contact with the intimate parts of someone under age 16 and enticing someone under age 16 through interactive computer use lawrence pled guilty under what is called the offered doctrine meaning he pled guilty but did not admit to the acts for which he pled guilty lawrence was sentenced two years in jail and was placed on the state sex offender registry hopefully you enjoyed the video if you did there is a patreon link in the description where you can support the channel further thank you for watching i'll see you in the next one [Music]