VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — An alleged child predator is behind bars in Virginia Beach after a group of concerned online citizens reported him to police.
According to court documents, in the early hours of Sept. 19, 2024, the head of the group Predator Poachers, Alex Rosen, called police to report that 64-year-old Rickey Horton had been communicating online with an 11-year-old girl named Emily.
In reality, Rosen said a member of the Predator Poachers posed as the 11-year-old girl online. He captured the whole operation where he confronted Horton on video.
“Rickey, like a lot of sex offenders, messaged our decoy on Facebook [and] reached out to us. Upon reaching out, we told him we were 11 years old. He had no reservations about it at all,” Rosen said to 13News Now.
According to court documents, Horton engaged in sexually explicit conversations and exchanged explicit photos with a “young girl.”
On video, Rosen confronted Horton about his intentions, to which Horton confessed, saying that he knew the girl was underage.
Rosen also said Horton also admitted to communicating with other minors online.
“I started asking about other things like child pornography, and he ended up admitting that he had child pornography on his laptop, and this was right in front of the cops, too,” said Rosen.
According to documents, Virginia Beach Police arrested Horton on Sept. 19, the night Rosen confronted him.
Rosen said his group has helped land online predators behind bars for the past five years, including at least 13 alleged predators in Virginia.
However, do these videos hold up in the courtroom? According to legal expert Edwin Booth, the answer is yes.
“Let’s go with a common kind of scenario," Booth said. "People have these dashcams in their cars now, so if they get into a car accident, there’s really no dispute about what happened. As long as you can authenticate the evidence, any kind of photographs or video taken by a non-law enforcement source or witness is generally admissible."
Horton faces several child pornography charges, including a Class 5 Felony for possession of child pornography and indecent liberties: exposing genitals to a child and a Class 6 Felony for computer use to commit certain sexual offenses with a minor.
He is scheduled to appear in a Virginia Beach courtroom on January 1, 2025, at 8:30 a.m.