It’s a sunny January afternoon on the streets of Harrisburg and Musa Harris confronts a man he says was looking for sex with a minor.

While recording the encounter with his phone to share with his 50,000 Facebook followers, Harris, who styles himself “The Luzerne County Predator Catcher,” calls 911.

“I have an individual over here who tried to hook up with what he believes is a 15-year-old child,” Harris tells the dispatcher.

When a Harrisburg police officer arrives, he tells Harris the district attorney isn’t going to press charges.

“We’ve had this talk with you before,” the officer says in the video. “We understand what you are doing, but the way you are going about it is not helping the situation if you want to go and have these (people) charged.”

Harris, 43, of Kingston, claims to have “caught” more than 500 men in several counties over the past three years while posing as a minor seeking sex online. But prosecutors and police in most jurisdictions say they can’t pursue such cases under state law.

The exception is Luzerne County, where 20 people have been charged using evidence provided by Harris.

But, on this day, the alleged predator is told he’s free to go.

DA: We won’t prosecute
Dauphin County District Attorney Francis T. Chardo said he doesn’t know

Harris, but he’s familiar with predator catchers setting up stings. He encourages people like Harris to report their tips to law enforcement instead. Otherwise, their efforts will be in vain.

“We won’t prosecute on the basis of their stings,” he said. “They are not viable prosecutions.”

Chardo said there is “entrapment as a defense and entrapment as a matter of law.”

“The bottom line is these guys don’t know where the line is,” Chardo said.

Harrisburg Bureau of Police Deputy Chief Dennis Sorensen said he understands what Harris is doing.

“He’s trying to make the world a better place from his perspective,” said Sorensen, who wouldn’t provide the name of the officer who interacted with Harris in January.

Investigations, however, should be left to law enforcement, he said.

“We cannot condone vigilante justice.”
Difficult cases
Police in Kingston and prosecutors in Luzerne County take a somewhat different view, having pursued charges against 20 of Harris’ “catches.”

Under state law, someone can be charged with unlawful contact with a minor only if they approach an actual minor or a law enforcement officer posing as one for sexual purposes.

To circumvent that, prosecutors in Luzerne County have charged Harris’ suspects with attempted unlawful contact with a minor and offenses such as solicitation to commit a sex crime.

“Our research led us to different charges that make certain cases possible,” District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce said. “But we still run into the problem that he doesn’t know exactly what evidence we need, so it’s more of a crap shoot based on the evidence he turns over whether or not we can bring charges.”

Authorities decided to pick up some of Harris’ cases because they can’t ignore crimes taking place in the community, he said.

“On the one hand, these are dangerous people, so we can’t just ignore it and let them run around on the street,” Sanguedolce said. “On the other hand, the cases are extremely difficult to put together, especially when the evidence is brought by Mr. Harris.”

Kingston Police Chief Richard Kotchik said one of his detectives reviews Harris’ cases and consults with prosecutors to determine whether a given case is viable. Many times, they are not.

“There’s a reason why there haven’t been 300-400 arrests. It has to be done to the letter of the law,” Kotchik said. “He does good with what he does, when he does it the right way, yes. But we don’t encourage it.”

Kingston Detective Stephen Gibson, who has been reviewing Harris’ cases and filing charges on some of them, also cautioned that vigilante work can interfere with operations police are already conducting.

“We don’t want vigilantes running around doing this kind of stuff. That’s the reason we have police,” Gibson said. “They could be compromising an investigation that’s already ongoing, because obviously law enforcement already does these things… He isn’t trained to do it and doesn’t know the law.”

It remains to be seen whether Harris’ cases would hold up on appeal because to date none has reached the state’s appellate courts. However, there has been a Luzerne County Court ruling in a case involving Harris that appears to uphold such prosecutions.

In that case, a defense attorney sought dismissal of charges against his client before trial, arguing the law prohibits prosecutions based on a private citizen posing as a minor.

County President Judge Michael T. Vough denied the petition, ruling prosecutors had established a seemingly valid case.

“Whether or not the commonwealth will ultimately be successful in proving defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial remains to be seen,” Vough wrote.

Harris says he welcomes the grudging support he now receives from local law enforcement and he’s glad to see some of his targets held accountable.

“I love it,” Harris said. “I get the exposure video and I get to turn the evidence over to them and it’s something happening behind the evidence.”
’Dangerous’ behavior
Authorities say vigilante predator catchers pose a danger not only to themselves but to the people they’re catching.

Already, two men Harris has caught — a dentist in Berks County and a 911 call-taker in Schuylkill County — have killed themselves after being exposed on social media.

Harris said he doesn’t regret what he’s doing but he does sympathize with their families.

“They took the coward’s way out. I think they (were) hiding secrets that they didn’t want out,” Harris said. “I feel sorry for the families, for their loss. Not as far as them taking their life, but I feel sorry for the families.”

One of the suicides took place in Minersville, where Police Chief Michael Combs said authorities have taken a case-by-case approach to Harris’ work.

“That’s tragic, but in both of those cases they were more well-known individuals,” Combs said. “From their perspective, life as they knew it was over.”

The chief said catching criminals can be dangerous work, and questioned the safety of Harris’ approach.

“If someone’s a child predator, they deserve to be caught,” Combs said. “There’s no arguing that point. The concerns here are obviously, one for his safety. One of these days there’s a concern that someone is going to say, ‘My life is over. But so is yours.’”

So far, Harris’ catches have been relatively peaceful, although one man tried grabbing his phone and another pulled out but did not use a hatchet. Harris maintains he is not worried about his safety.

“That don’t have me nervous or nothing like that,” Harris said. “Most of them, when they be having weapons and stuff on them, they think it’s for protection, so nobody don’t rob them… I wouldn’t do the catch if I was worried.”

Harris said he has been threatened just once, by a target who told him he’d have his family killed. Calling it a “scare tactic,” Harris called the police anyway. They showed up but didn’t arrest the alleged predator. Harris claims the man was arrested months later because of information he provided.

Harris says he’s not afraid of what might happen to him, and that he puts “the fear in them that if they try anything, it’s going to end badly for them.”

Still, Adam Wandt, an attorney and assistant professor of public policy at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and co-chair of the New York City Bar Associations’ Committee on Technology, Cyber and Privacy Law, said people like Harris pose a host of problems.

“The vigilante takes a risk in contacting the child predator,” he said, including putting innocent people in danger. “I think that this behavior is extremely dangerous.”

When law enforcement officers conduct surveillance, they are able to monitor communications and take other actions the vigilante is not, he said.

Evidence collection could be compromised because of vigilantes, he said, and prosecutors need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

“The defense will attack the motives of the vigilante,” Wandt said. “They may have a very hard time being able to get a conviction in a court.”

He suggested if people like Harris really want to get child predators off the streets, they should become police officers or advocate for changes in the law.

“Law enforcement should be and must be doing this type of activity,” he said.
Money a motive?
No matter how noble their pursuit, predator catchers aren’t always all about advocacy, Wandt said.

“They are doing it for social media subscribers,” he said. “They are doing it for live clicks.”

Harris, who said he lost his job during the pandemic, admits he gets donations through social media, but he wouldn’t say how much.

“It’s not a tremendous amount or anything like that,” Harris said. “I love doing what I do. I don’t do it for the money.”

The Pennsylvania Department of State Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations sent Harris a letter in July ordering him to stop soliciting contributions because he is not registered with the bureau.

In January, the department said it had yet to receive any documentation from Harris and declined further comment. Harris acknowledged he received the “cease and desist” notice but ignored it because he doesn’t believe he should have to register.

“Why would you do that if you’re just putting videos up,” he asked.

Harris believes the letter is related to a sexual assault awareness event he organized last year at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre at which he sold T-shirts. He said his significant other donated half the proceeds to charity.

While Harris revels in bringing alleged predators to justice, he admits he has his own criminal past.

“I sold drugs before,” he said, and went to prison. Harris said it took him “years to straighten up.”

But he said he doesn’t hide from his past.

“People can change.”