How Police Caught Clean-Cut Dad Turned Child Predator Kelly Farley

Former federal prosecutor and current child protection advocate Francey Hakes discusses the case of child predator Kelly Farley - a father of five with a pregnant wife who ended up being caught in a sting operation while attempting to travel out of state to meet a child who was under 11 years old.

Hakes explains that Farley – an insurance executive from Texas - began communicating with a woman in a chat room in Atlanta, GA, who ended up offering her 10-year-old daughter as a sexual partner.

“So they met inside that chat room and began what was a relationship that lasted about a year-and-a-half,” Hakes said, adding that the man and mother communicated consistently through email, phone, text message and in the chat room. “They talked chiefly about engaging in joint sexual abuse of her 10-year-old daughter,” she said.

But what Farley did not know, Hakes said, was that the woman he was talking to for the entire time was actually an undercover FBI Task Force agent.

There was no actual child – although there were photographs provided to Farley – and there was an FBI employee who posed as the child on a phone call whom Farley presumed was a 10-year-old child on the call.

Over the course of about a year-and-a-half, Farley and the FBI agent exchanged correspondence – with the man sending graphic photos of his genital area. Investigators also determined that Farley encouraged the women to abuse the child to “get her ready” for the acts he planned to inflict on the girl when he arrived in Atlanta.

“And then finally, he arranged to fly from Texas to Atlanta – when he had some other business that could pay for his flight – so that he could then spend a weekend in Atlanta engaging in sexual abuse of the child.”

According to Hakes, when Farley arrived in Atlanta, FBI agents were waiting for him, he was taken off the plane in handcuffs and was prosecuted him. “He claimed that he never had any intention of engaging in sexual activity with the child and that it was all a fantasy,” Hakes said. Farley is not eligible for parole until 2033.

He doesn’t fit the profile that many normal people might think is the profile of a child molester. But in fact, child molesters really have no profile – it could be anyone, anywhere, anytime and any socioeconomic class.”

Watch the full interview to hear Hakes outline how predators use the so-called Darknet – a file sharing system essentially unsearchable through Internet search engines – to identify and exploit victims of child pornography.