Officials: Craigslist doesn't protect kids

An undercover investigation shows Craigslist is not protecting children from predators, Attorney General Mike Cox said Thursday in a letter to the Web site's CEO.

Cox said when investigators posing as children, parents and teachers wrote Craigslist complaining about suspected child predators encountered on the Web site, their e-mails were either ignored or received only an automated response.

"This is unacceptable," Cox wrote Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, requesting that Craigslist forward all such complaints to law enforcement.

Buckmaster or another Craigslist spokesperson could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

Cox said Craigslist, which features online classified and personal ads, also has ignored repeated requests to provide a link to his office on the Web site's law enforcement contacts page.

"During the past two years, my office has arrested seven predators who used Craigslist to meet or solicit a child for sex," Cox wrote Buckmaster. "All of these cases, which in Michigan are 20-year felonies, arise from our agents posing as minor boys in your 'men-seeking-men' personals section."

Cox is today announcing the latest such charge, which arose from the undercover investigation launched in December.

Steven Gerard LaJoie, 49, of Oxford, a former teacher and school administrator who worked at Eaton Academy of Eastpointe and Notre Dame Preparatory School of Pontiac, is charged with child sexually abusive activity involving the Internet. LaJoie was arrested after he asked for sex from an undercover agent posing as a 14-year-old boy, Cox said.

LaJoie could not be reached at his home telephone number late Thursday.

The Detroit News reported in November that Cox was one of only 10 state attorneys general who did not sign an agreement with Craigslist in which the Web site promised to crack down on explicit and criminally suggestive content in its "erotic services" ads.

Though mostly used for legitimate purposes, Craigslist has fast become the marketing tool of choice for pimps and child predators in Metro Detroit and elsewhere, The News reported.

At the time, Cox spokesman Matt Frendewey said the agreement between most of the country's attorneys general and Craigslist did not go far enough and "we're looking at other alternatives."

Buckmaster said in November that "misuse of Craigslist for illegitimate purposes is absolutely unacceptable, and eliminating such misuse is our top priority."

But Cox said in his letter Thursday that the first law enforcement link on Craigslist -- one to Atlanta police -- does not even work.

When undercover complaints about child predators were made to Craigslist, "the vast majority of our complaints were not responded to, while only a few received automated replies providing no direction or assistance to the complainant," Cox wrote.

"Indeed, even in the case of your automated replies, you failed to respond to additional pleas for help made to the automated response sent by Craigslist."

The letter does not threaten criminal or civil prosecution. A Cox spokesman said the Web site may not be legally liable but has a moral obligation to do better.

You can reach Paul Egan at (313) 222-2069 or pegan@detnews.com">pegan@detnews.com.