Charles Lawrence III
Prior to being caught in the sting, Charles E. Lawrence III worked in New York as an accountant and commercial real estate broker. In September 2015, Lawrence, who was 59 years of age at the time, started talking to someone he thought was a 13-year-old boy on a social media app called Grindr. He told the boy he could teach him about sex and asked about his sexual thoughts. On October 3, 2015, Lawrence went to meet the boy, but instead of meeting a real child, he was met by former Dateline NBC reporter Chris Hansen and was arrested by the police. When police searched Lawrence, they found a container of lubricant and a bottle of nail polish remover. Lawrence was charged with three felonies: second-degree attempted sexual assault, attempted risk of injury to a minor and enticing a minor to have an obscene performance.