Donnie Vaughn

> "Daddy's girl, huh?"
>
> - Donnie making his interests known to the decoy

Donnie's Montgomery mugshot

**Donnie Coy Vaughn** is a predator that was caught in the **Montgomery, Ohio** sting on *Takedown with Chris Hansen*. He is notable for his casual interest in daddy/daughter fetishism, his disturbing admission of having had previous sexual liaisons with minors, and for being the oldest man ever caught in a Chris Hansen sting at the age of 70.

## Chat and arrest

Donnie was a seventy-year-old retired engineer at the time of the sting. Through the use of an unidentified app, Donnie made contact with a police decoy posing as a father prostituting his daughter for sex. The lengthy chat consisted of Donnie telling the man he would be willing to have sex with the decoy, watch the father has sex with the girl, and then possibly have sex with the father. The police decoy also said that his 'daughter' enjoyed milkshakes, with Donnie promising to bring one with him. Once a meeting was organised, Donnie drove ninety minutes all the way from New Palestine, Indiana to Montgomery, Ohio.

After politely introducing himself to the father, he revealed he brought a milkshake for the female decoy. After complaining about the drive due to construction on the freeway, Donnie complimented the decoy's looks and asked if she was nervous. Disturbingly, Donnie would make an effort to make the 'father' and 'daughter' more comfortable with his revolting comments, admitting he'd done things like this before with another thirteen-year-old, thought it was great for a parent to be involved in their young child's sexual ventures, and promised to make sure the decoy was safe and wouldn't get pregnant by engaging in sex with him and her 'father', promising to go "slow" and "easy." Chris Hansen, listening in from the other room, cringed at Donnie's remarks, especially when he admitted how much he loved younger women. When the officer playing the father finally had enough, he and the decoy left the room, allowing the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office to move in and arrest Donnie, who claimed he thought this was a set-up.

## Interview with Chris Hansen

Chris Hansen took a seat on the couch next to Donnie to interview him, starting off calmly as he questioned the elderly man. Donnie revealed that his latest wife had divorced after twenty years, blaming his predatory desires on the sexless nature of their marriage. According to him, his ex-wife was absorbed into her job because their daughter was born with disabilities, and she couldn't handle it. Hansen refuted Donnie's excuses, inquiring as to how a sexless marriage can lead to a man wanting to have sex with a minor. Donnie initially couldn't give Chris an explanation for his behavior, hilariously denying wanting to have sex with the father (claiming he didn't remember saying that) but not denying wanting to have sex with the child herself. As he drank from a bottle of water, he admitted he wanted to have sex with the girl, but tried to shift some blame onto the father, claiming they both wanted it. He admitted to bringing the milkshake because the father said she liked milkshakes, hoping to score more points with the girl. When Chris snapped at Donnie for trying to dismiss his questions as "very dirty", Chris snapped at Donnie, causing the latter to say he was done talking.

Chris calmed down and asked Donnie about his work and retirement, with Donnie admitting he made a good living before retiring, but he still couldn't give Chris a good reason for why he would risk losing all of it to have sex with a minor. He went on to say that one of his prior lovers and a therapist of his said they believed he had a "love disorder", denying it was a sex addiction, instead claiming it resulted in him having a constant need to be loved and be given attention by other people, but Chris disputed this as an excuse to have sex with a minor. When asked why he thought it was "good" for a father to essentially pimp his daughter to a 70-year-old man, Donnie claimed he didn't know, as well as denying his previous claims of having sex with minors was a lie, and the only other young woman he'd had sex with was of legal age.

Donnie further admitted that what he did was wrong and he personally wouldn't pimp his own daughters out as a father, which led to further grilling from Chris. Donnie again tried shifting blame towards the decoy and her father, claiming that they were "excited" to do it. Donnie once again denied having a sex addiction, with one of his psychologists claiming he had "something like deviancy", also hilariously admitting he didn't think he could even get a hard on. Donnie then tried to use his love of "exploring" as an excuse, claiming that it was more so the journey than the end result he enjoyed about having sexual conversations, with Chris suggesting he climb a mountain instead of trying to rape a child, which he further tried to refute by claiming he liked to meet new people. Chris reminded Donnie he could always meet people his own age, which Donnie admitted was true.

After being exposed by Chris, Donnie apologized for his behavior (at Hansen's suggestion) and said that other men shouldn't do what he did because it's not worth it. After leaving, Chris decides to ask Donnie a few more questions after going over the transcript a little more, revealing that Donnie is involved in a recovery programme for various types of addictions, such as alcohol, drugs and sex. Donnie claimed that the treatment he received was for anger management and his sexual deviancy, claiming he was primarily in the programme because he was addicted to sexually talking to women online, which he again attributed to his want of being needed. He also revealed most of the women he spoke to were fake, some of them being prostitutes and scammers. He described his visit to the sting house as a "relapse", and Chris ended the interview.

## Aftermath

Donnie was charged with two felonies; Importuning (or Solicitation) of a Minor to Engage in Sexual Activity and Possession of Criminal Tools. He ended up pleading guilty to the former charge and was sentenced to five years probation.

## Trivia

* Chris Hansen believed Donnie to be one of the more disturbing cases in the almost twenty year history of his predator investigations, being particularly disturbed by Donnie's remark about how teenage boys can't satisfy teenage girls as well as an older man can.
* Donnie was not always the oldest man caught in a Chris Hansen sting; previously, sixty-eight-year-old Robert Lyons, a registered sex offender who had previously been convicted for having sex with a fourteen-year-old prostitute, was caught trying to solicit and meet with a thirteen-year-old boy in the **Riverside, California** edition of *To Catch a Predator*. In the same sting, 65-year-old Charles "Chuck" Harding, someone who Hansen called one of the most despicable men due to his thirty-five year involvement in a child pornography exchange ring, was caught, later dying in jail two weeks after his sixty-sixth birthday after refusing to take medication vital to the functioning of his heart.