Connecticut mom who poses as a teen girl to catch sexual predators speaks out in doc: ‘I have no choice’
Roo Powell, the founder of SOSA, helps law enforcement identify child predators online in the docuseries ‘Undercover Underage’
Flori is a 15-year-old who enjoys taking selfies on Instagram and posting videos on TikTok, but she’s not real.
The teen is actually a 38-year-old mom of three determined to catch online sex offenders.
The child advocate, whose real name is Roo Powell, is chronicling how she stops predators who are looking to lure minors in a discovery+ docuseries, “Undercover Underage.” The show follows Powell’s team as it works in collaboration with law enforcement to detect predators before they realize Powell isn’t who she claims to be.
“For us, raising awareness is so important,” Powell told on her decision to launch the six-part series. “I’ve been working in the tech space, and we have seen a lot of predators online. And when the pandemic started, more kids were online and, as a result, more perpetrators. It felt like there wasn’t enough being done, and it also seemed like uncharted territory.
Roo Powell and her non-profit SOSA are the subject of a new docuseries available for streaming.
Powell is the founder of SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse), a nonprofit that supports abuse survivors, spearheads child abuse prevention initiatives and advocates for a safer internet.
“It sounds alarming, but I do think people are just unaware of how bad the issue is,” she said.
“Undercover Underage” has already been compared to Chris Hansen’s “To Catch a Predator,” in which the host famously says, “Why don’t you have a seat?’ to men arriving at a sting house looking to meet minors they’ve contacted online. That Dateline series aired from 2004 until 2007. But Powell stressed that her team’s approach is different.
Roo Powell takes on several identities online in an attempt to catch child predators
Every adult who makes contact is explicitly told they are speaking to an underage girl, allowing them to cease communication at any point. However, many still choose to proceed with explicit exchanges. The suspected predators, ranging from school employees to high-profile community figures, have their own fake identities online to avoid getting caught. But once SOSA discovers enough information and makes an identification, it turns over its findings to local law enforcement. Norwalk Police Department Detective Mark Suda, who poses as Powell’s Uber driver in the series, is also on site to discuss the legal ramifications of Powell’s work.
Since these cases are ongoing investigations, the faces of the alleged predators are blurred in the series. Their voices and names are also changed.
“We’re not law enforcement,” she continued. “We take all the information we’ve gathered and hand over our evidence to law enforcement for them to do their work. The last thing we want to do is get in their way. They might conduct their own investigations. Sometimes we give them our log-ins so they can communicate themselves as our teenage decoys, or they’ll continue to work with us. We’ll both be logged into the account and see the messages as they come. And whenever we place a decoy in town, we make sure we have law enforcement involved.”
Roo Powell said she receives horrific messages and photos from predators eager to lure a child online. (discovery+)
When it comes to cyber creeps, Powell noted that “women are the unicorn.”
“I have not come across a perpetrator that is a woman,” she said. “I have come across men pretending to be women. And a lot of law enforcement that I’ve spoken to will probably tell you the same thing. It’s very rare to see a woman predator online.”
She described how the perpetrators look like “the men we come across in our everyday lives.”
A detective poses as Roo Powell’s Uber driver in the series
And as for the decoys themselves, Powell said teenage boys are targeted, too.
“I’m Asian-American and we do sometimes, unfortunately, see the fetishization of Asian girls when we’re communicating with perpetrators,” she said. “We often see the men ask where the dad is. They want to know how much parental oversight is happening. Are they foster kids? Do they have a lot of alone time? Do they have older siblings? A lot of times, they’re going to focus on someone who they believe can be isolated in some way.”
Powell admitted that witnessing adults using the internet to groom, sexually exploit and abuse children online takes its toll. The documentary shows how these predators eagerly share sexually explicit photos and videos. Some have no qualms initiating video calls where the abuse worsens.
Roo Powell hopes the docuseries will empower viewers to take part in their communities to combat child abuse online. (discovery+)
And keeping the charade going before the perpetrator suspects anything is always a nerve-wracking experience.
“My mind is going a million miles a minute,” said Powell. “I have to be a believable teenager. I have to sell it, but I’m also gathering as much information as possible. I’m looking for any clues as I take a look at the background. I can’t get angry during those calls when the abuse is happening. I can’t break character. Those are probably the most stressful times for me. I still get nervous before every call. And once the call starts, I have to get through it. There’s no room for error.”
Once the SOSA team makes a positive identification, it turns over its evidence to local law enforcement.
Powell hopes the docuseries will empower viewers to take part in their communities to combat sex abuse and exploitation. In her eyes, it does take a village to raise a child.
