What to Know
- Police said a Pennsylvania man posed as an underage girl and then exposed a registered sex offender who he met on an online dating app.
- The man drove more than two hours to the AC Boardwalk to meet the suspect who had sent him sexual messages, according to investigators.
- The suspect, Scott Hart, was arrested after police viewed a video of the encounter, police said.
A Pennsylvania man posed as an underage girl and drove more than two hours to the Atlantic City Boardwalk in order to expose a registered sex offender who had sent him sexual messages on a dating app, investigators said.
Justin Perry, of Lancaster, told NBC10 he began posing as a 15-year-old girl on the dating app “Skout” and came into contact with 53-year-old Scott Hart of Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Hart, a registered sex offender convicted in 1991 for sexually assaulting a young girl and boy, allegedly asked Perry if he could “get a free used panties of yours.”
“And I know it would be wrong to do it with a 15-year-old,” Hart allegedly wrote. “But if we are horny, would you?”
In July, Perry and Hart agreed to meet at the Atlantic City Boardwalk, police said. After making the two hour and 45-minute drive, Perry recorded as he met with Hart on a bench near the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
“What would happen if I was really 15 and I was a girl,” Perry asks Hart in the video, which was posted on Facebook on July 10. “What would you have done?”
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“I don’t even know,” Hart replies.
Three days after posting the video, Perry was contacted by police. Hart was then arrested and charged with luring and enticing a child by various means. He was remanded to the Atlantic County Justice Facility.
Perry told NBC10 he’s captured a total of 24 men on video who were looking to meet up with young girls.
“People say, ‘Oh well, what you’re doing doesn’t do any good.’ But if it wasn’t me, it would be a real 15-year-old girl,” Perry said.
If you have any additional information on Hart, please call the Atlantic City Police Department Criminal Investigations Section at 609-347-5766 or anonymously text to tip411. Begin the text with ACPD.