Posted on 05/10/2005 10:46:17 PM PDT by velyrorenry
What led him to Fort Pierce, Fla. to meet someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy? Was he going to have sex with a child? Has he done something like this before?
Miami station WPLG spent nearly two hours with Kamal in a Massachusetts prison. Sunday night he talked about his life behind bars.
Now the questions turn to: What was he doing? What was he thinking?
Kamal: "Who the hell would have thought that being alone in my house in the confines of my secure home I was a committing a felony -- that this could happen to me."
Kamal: "It was not boysformen. It was dadsandsons, or sonsanddads, and I said, 'Well, this is an odd chatroom. I don't remember seeing this chatroom.' I was sick that day. I had some kind of poisoning -- food or bacterial -- was in a bad frame of mind. Bored, alone at home and was just playing on the computer, and I went into this chatroom, and I wondered if it's like somebody you can be a big brother to. That's what first got me into the chatroom. And I'm thinking, 'If AOL allows this chatroom and they have parental control then everybody in here should be an adult, 18 years or older.' And so, I'm playing around and I see this e-mail -- this screen name that I e-mail. I know that I instigated the e-mail -- that's in the record -- and the guy says that he's 14, I'm thinking, 'Yeah, right.' I'm 48 and I lie about my age too on the computer. Millions of people do that, so I started playing around. Bored and nosey and just playing on the computer and I'm so damn naïve that I don't even think that this could be a possible felony because I'm talking to somebody who could be under 18."
Kamal admits the conversation on that first day was at times inappropriate. Transcripts released after his arrest shows some of those conversations, according to the arrest affidavit, Kamal, who said his name was "Billy," wrote: "Have you been with a guy before? … "I love to kiss." … "I could kiss you and you kiss me." "I'm really looking for a real son, not just to trade pics and never speak again."… "I'm not just looking again for quick sex."
The conversation got even more graphic with language unfit for television
But Kamal says that's all misleading. He said those sexually explicit conversations only happened on that first day when he says he was playing games and didn't really believe he was talking to a 14 year old.
Kamal: "I thought I was talking to somebody in their 30s or 40s or 50s. I was fooling around on the computer."
But then that game playing became more serious. Kamal still didn't know whether he was talking to a teenager, but one exchange made him wonder.
Kamal: "Here's how it happened in my mind. First, I'm thinking this guy could be an old person or it could be an old lady. Who knows -- you can be anything you want to be on the Internet."
"Then I'm thinking because he starts to tell me about his dad dying in a car accident, and my dad's 10th anniversary of his death was coming up. I was already on that emotional rollercoaster. My mom had died the previous Christmas -- just died Christmas 2003. Their 58th anniversary was a week later, so I was on high emotions. So, he says his dad died and the mom's new boyfriend was just using his mother for sex and doesn't care about him and abandons him and verbally abuses him, and I'm thinking, 'Well, wait a minute…'"
Kamal gave the person on the other end of the chatroom his cell phone number and from then on claims he received relentless phone calls from the detective disguising his voice as a child.
"I mean all these things to entrap me and entice me into staying on a chat with him either through the Internet or through the phone. And I have never had anything like this happen to me, so I'm thinking because my nature is compassionate to begin with; my nature is to help people. I wouldn't be in the business that I'm in if I didn't want to save peoples lives and property or help people and I'm thinking, 'Is this a jerk? Is this a pervert? Or is this some kid who really needs help, is being abandoned and maybe abused, and maybe physically abused where if I can go up there…' -- And this is as the week went on into the weekend -- 'That I can go up there and spend a couple hours with him and just talk.' And I specifically said on the computer -- after day one there was no talk of sex -- either on the computer or on the phone and I specifically typed in, 'I am not coming up here for sex.'"
"I was a really fat kid. Ridiculed, beat up in school and verbally and physically abused. In fact, I fell on somebody and broke his leg in eighth grade. I was over 300 pounds. I came from adversity and that's another reason I wanted to go up to help this alleged young man who I thought maybe was not a pervert. Maybe it's somebody who really needs help 'cause I knew what I went through as a kid and how lonely it felt to be abandoned.
"When you were fat and ugly and they don't pick you for a sports team. They beat you up. That's another reason for going up to help him. If anything, I would come up there and just give him a big hug -- if he really was who he said he was and in need -- and I even told him I only had a few hours to spend. I asked him what he liked to eat. He said, 'Steak or pizza.' I brought steak and pizza coupons with me. Do you think the federal government used that in their press conference? -- which was legitimate -- that I brought up to this young man, hoping to take him out to a public place just to talk. Not to take him to some seedy motel or dive or anything like that. I never wanted to do anything but above board. Just to help somebody in need and what a fool I was for doing it."
On Sunday, October 24 Kamal headed to Fort Pierce. Six days after the initial encounter on the Internet.
Kamal: "It was a weekend. Saturday was rainy. Sunday was beautiful. I thought maybe I should go up. Well, one of the reasons was to see the hurricane damage. I thought maybe I'd kill two birds with one stone. Beautiful day -- hardly ever drove my car -- reason to go. I wanted to see the damage that I forecast. I wanted to see. It was only a week to two weeks old, so that was one of the reasons. And to meet someone who I thought was in need."
And even during the drive, Kamal questioned whether he was being set up.
Kamal: "When I drove up there, I was going to call a friend of mine on the cell phone and say, 'Do you think I should do this?' And oddly enough he wasn't home. I mean it's a tragic, horrific time in my life waiting to happen. I thought about that as I was driving up there. I thought, 'Could this be a trap? Could this be that?' And I thought I knew why I was going up there and I didn't think that even though I talked about what I talked about on October 18, all the conversations that followed -- Internet and phone - "I can really help this person," and if this person was a fat, old pervert, you know I would have seen that too. But, you know, the young man on the Internet and phone kept telling me how lonely and how abandoned he was, and I said to him, 'You know I'm a real person -- if you're a real person,' and that's what I was going up to show him, that I was a real person."
There was a real person waiting for him in Fort Pierce, but not a 14-year-old boy. Instead it was Detective Neil Spector -- the detective who for a week posed as a teenage boy on the Internet.
Kamal: "I'm so naïve. When I was arrested and actually tackled, I actually thought it was a Halloween prank. That's how naïve I was. I thought it was people saying 'Happy Halloween,' 'cause it was coming up that weekend…"
Kamal was taken into custody… police found toy guns and condoms in his car…
Kamal: "The toys in the trunk of my car -- the alleged toys I was bringing to this young man -- were in my trunk for almost a year and a half. We get stuff mailed to us all the time in work - hats, sunscreen, UV indicators. The big guns are all the rage now in the pool -- so you have the guns, still in the case they came in. They were in my trunk because I didn't put them in my house."
Kamal's former boss indicated that because of the amount of mail coming into the station there's no way to know if Kamal received them at work.
Kamal: "They used those falsely. They prejudiced the public. The media picks up on that. They don't bother to investigate that those toys were not meant for that young man. Those toys have been in my car. I was framed by those toys I kept in my car.
"As far as the condom, all they had to do was check the expiration date. I didn't even know they were in the damn glove compartment. Look at the expiration date on the condoms. When you go to a club, they hand out condoms. I throw them in my glove compartment and I only had two. That shows you the type of person I am. I wouldn't have like 20. I had two. If they checked the expiration date they would see they are two years old, which is how old my car is."
Detectives also said Kamal admitted having a laptop computer in his Fort Lauderdale apartment containing pictures of children engaged in sex acts.
Kamal: "Oh, and this whole thing with the child pornography -- well, that's wrong on all accounts. What I told them -- I have a laptop computer in Fort Lauderdale and I was getting an e-mail from somebody. An attachment came and I had no clue what was on it until I opened it and I saw what looked like people under age 18 and I said, 'Don't ever send me something like that. I don't want things like that on my computer.' They weren't having sex -- just pictures. Don't you think if those people were really under 18 the Federal Government would have said that? No, they came up with one picture and it was a female, and how that got on my computer I have no idea. That they thought was underage -- the other pictures they came up with -- the disclaimer on the bottom of the picture, 'All models used are over the age of 18.' I have never spent money on an adult Web site or a children's Web site -- ever. Every picture I have gotten was an attachment."
Kamal says he's innocent and has never had sex with a child and isn't attracted to children.
Kamal: "Never, ever, ever. Do you think that if I did they would have found out? Of course they would have found out. Don't you think that they would have come up with people? Even if they didn't come out of the woodwork, don't you think they would have found them?
I wouldn't hurt a damn fly. It pains me to kill a bug. Harm a kid? I mean if I were a child molester, if I were a sexual predator, how do you become one at 48 years old? And why didn't anybody pick up on the fact that nobody came out from the left or right field and say, 'Hey, this happened to me." That, you know, well, nobody has come out. How do you become somebody that they tell you you are after a whole life of serving the community and helping people and after 48 years be what they say you are because of one nosy, bored day on the computer?"
As for Kamal's claim that the sexual dialogue on the Internet only took place on day one, it is true the arrest affidavit shows the most graphic sexual conversations took place on that first day.
But the U.S. Attorney's Office says on the days that followed, Kamal may not have used the words, but the intent was there and those conversations were still explicit in nature.
They also point out that Kamal himself knew what he was doing was wrong when he asked online if he could go to jail if he was caught. No one from the U.S. Attorney's Office would go on camera and they would not give us additional transcripts or recordings of the telephone calls. They also wouldn't address the expiration date on the condoms or let us check the evidence for ourselves.
So if what Kamal says is true -- if it was just a terrible misunderstanding -- if Kamal really wanted to be just a big brother to a troubled teen, why on earth did he plead guilty and go to prison?
Kamal: "They had my mind. I was in such shock. I didn't know how I was thinking. I was cringing. Now I see more clearly. And they think that is part of the strategy, they knock you down, they beat you down, they put you in isolation, force you to plea."
Kamal says he made the biggest mistake of his life and he wants to correct it. He says he's made mistakes in his life, such as drunk driving, but as far as this case is concerned, Kamal says the only thing he did wrong was fooling around on a computer. It may have been immoral, he says, but it wasn't a crime.
He's a *weatherman*. When was the last time you saw one telling the whole truth on TV? (Especially the part about why he wasn't completely wrong about yesterday's weather prediction.)
Me thinks this pervert doth protest too much
Whether you think any of the government's techniques are unfair is another matter. But come on, he was in a fathers/ sons chat room.
Note the article NEVER discusses whether he was gay. They could never equate homosexuality with attraction to underaged boys.
Same goes for this Neo-nazi guy convicted recently in Illinois. An operative for the state, coerced into this role by dire threats, pestered him endlessly to the effect of, "Want me to kill judge so-and-so ?" Finally, he says, "Ok, yeah, go ahead." and that's the end of it.
It may be legal, but it's not right. It's not justice.
My guess is that he is gay. He claims that he had been to a club that handed out condoms. I've never had condoms handed to me at a club -- but I hear that they do that @ gay clubs.
I've got this supposedly teenybopper from Tajikistan begging me for money.
DELETE
I interned at channel 7 years ago before Bill got there and when he had just arrived. He was the main man to take over Bob Soper at the time who is a legend in South Florida weather.
Kamal is 100% gay and makes no doubts about his sexuality at all. When he mentions those "clubs",they were all South Beach gay clubs he was at.
Neil Rogers has roasted Kamal for years about it because Rogers himself is Gay and doesn't hide it at all.
some of that stuff could be explained away, but not the trip to meet this "boy"
especially only after six days
Denial ain't just a river in egypt.
I was framed by those toys I kept in my car.
That one ranks #1.
They set him up like the Republicans did when they sent Monica into Bill's White House.
The man went out to meet a youth for a sexual encounter.
Then again, Scott Ritter got off from the same exact charge.
Any responsible up and up man wanting to be a pal/big brother would have made arrangements to have the kids mom at the meeting also.
Anyone I know who is new to the internet has always went to chat and then got a clue that they are cesspools and left.
hmmmm
He should have canned the crap and simply used the Florence King alibi, which is " Why would I want to have sex with a 14-year-old? In order to have sex with a 14-year-old, you have to be in the same room with the 14-year-old."
Kamal is 100% gay and makes no doubts about his sexuality at all......
That clears things up halfway. He has a good rap here about how he was framed. My opinion is such a perv should get a solid year in prison, but no more, because he has no past court history of molesting children (boys). And he never got to even touch this one because there was no child. It was all a ruse, entrapment. Entrapment cases should not give you 5 years. I don't like entrapment. I will admit that such high profile cases keep other would be pedophiles away from the internet.
"Kamal is 100% gay and makes no doubts about his sexuality at all."
You're kidding.
Then there is NO doubt in my mind that he got what he deserved.
I don't like it either, and it sounds as if this was pretty close (if you can believe Kamal, which is fairly hard to do, as he's quite the prevaricator).
The definition I've always gone by is that if the police solicit you to commit a crime that you wouldn't otherwise have committed, it's entrapment. That definition is vague enough to make someone like Kamal prefer a plea bargain to an uncertain defense where he might end up getting a prison sentence out of all proportion to the crime.
Speaking of entrapment, the one example that I find particularly noxious (and funny) is the sting where the cops place a large stuffed deer in a strategic position and then wait for opportunistic hunters to take a shot at it. Then they arrest the perps for hunting out of season.
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