Chris Hansen

> "Why don't you have a seat?"
>
> - Hansen's most well-known catchphrase

> "I'm Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC and we're doing a story about men meeting teens online for sex. If there's anything else that you want to tell us, we'd love to hear it, otherwise you've obviously free to go.
>
> - Hansen's closing line at the end of his Dateline interviews

### Aliases

* Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC
* Charlie Hansen

### Relatives

* Mary Joan Hansen (ex-wife)
* Chase (elder son)
* Connor (younger son)
* Gabrielle Hansen (wife)

### Affiliation

* NBC (formerly)
* Crime Watch Daily (formerly)
* TruBlu

### Occupation

* Journalist
* YouTuber

## Physical description

### Eye color

* Blue

**Christopher Edward "Chris" Hansen** is a journalist, TV News Anchor and the host of *To Catch A Predator*, *Hansen vs. Predator* and *Takedown with Chris Hansen*. He has worked on television since 1981.

## Early Life

Hansen was born on September 13, 1959 in Chicago, Illinois. Hansen grew up in the northern Detroit suburbs of West Bloomfield and Birmingham. He attended Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In an interview with the *Lansing City Pulse*, Hansen said that, when he was fourteen, watching the FBI and police investigate the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa inspired him to want to become a journalist. He graduated from Michigan State University College of Communication Arts and Sciences in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in telecommunications and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

## Early Career

Hansen's career began shortly after his graduation when Channel 10 news anchor and director Howard Lancour hired and took the twenty-one-year-old Hansen under his wing at the television station Channel 10 broadcast from. Hansen would refer to Lancour forty years later as a "great mentor" who helped to launch his career as a journalist. Not even a year into his career, Hansen received his big break when he was tasked with reporting on a huge riot at a southern Michigan prison in Jackson. The next day, Hansen received a call from the prison who saw his report, with them offering a once in a lifetime opportunity to interview some of the inmates, something that the prison had never previously allowed before.

Hansen later moved on to working for Channel 7 Action News, working with the legendary anchor William "Bill" Bonds, some Hansen grew up watching and admired. Hansen captivated the entire city of Detroit in July of 1987 with his five-part investigation focusing on the 1980s Crack Cocaine Epidemic. He broke the story of the Chambers Brothers, who had built a criminal empire in the last five years, supplying more than half of the city's crack cocaine. In collaboration with the DEA and the Detroit Police Department (the "No Crack Crew"), the year-long investigation resulted in the Chambers Brothers being arrested and their business being stopped. The powerful tecnique Hansen used by intergrating the public in with the process of busting the criminal suspects would become integral to his career. He was named "Best TV Reporter" by *Detroit Monthly*.

Although the investigation was met with critical acclaim and was a ratings success, it also marked the first significant mistake of his career, a mistake that went under the radar for thirty years. Richard "White Boy Rick" Wershe Jr. was made out to be a criminal drug lord mastermind. In reality, Wershe was an FBI informant who was hired at the age of fourteen. Despite being responsible for twenty convictions, the FBI released Wershe as an informant at the age of sixteen, and he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for possession of cocaine. He was released twenty-seven years later on July 20, 2020, with credit for good behaviour while incarcerated. When the truth about Wershe was revealed, Hansen became a public supporter and praised Wershe for his involvement in busting several men at such a young age, even lending his voice to a documentary exposing the lies told about Wershe, and defending him during his stint on *Crime Watch Daily*.

In 1993, NBC hired Hansen, with the journalisting moving himself and his family to Stanford, Connecticut, becoming involved in as a correspondent for the channel's new *Now*. These invesitgations were mainly into criminal activity, with the most well-known one being about a group of bounty hunters who were being hunted down themselves by the police for hunting down a man who was not wanted out on bond for shoplifting after he was a day late for his court date by mistake. When the bounty hunters showed up, however, the man wasn't wanted anymore, but the obscenely aggressive bounty hunters showed up and brutally assaulted the man. Hansen interviewed one of the bounty hunters, who was clealry unhinged, justifying his actions and saying he was positive he would become a bount hunter again, which he did not even a few weeks later, handcuffing and beating up another innocent man, robbing him at gunpoint despite knowing he was innocent. The bounty hunter, Kieth Rodas, was then hunted down by police in a high speed chase and shot himself after driving into a dead end.

In 1994, *Now* was merged with Dateline, where Hansen flourished, covering countless criminal cases and becoming a well-known figure on television, being the go-to guy for NBC to use on the programme. He was an on-scene correspondent for th Oklahoma city bombing, where he broke several stories related to the case. When the September 11 attacks happened, Hansen's investigation led to several stories being broke about the terrorist attack, such as the discovery of Arabic flight manuals in a vehicle apparently belonging to the brothers responsible for one of the highjackings. Hansen had previously predicted such a thing as 9/11 in 1996 when he did a report on the lack of proper security at airports, with many of the staff breaking federal guidelines. The hidden camera footage obtained by an NBC reporter was later shown to the Vice President's commission on aviation safety. Hansen would run various other reports, such as medicare fraud, the safety of lifted trucks, and the dangers of escelators.

In January of 2004, Hansen was an on-scene correspondent for an hour-long special for Dateline called *Children for Sale*, which took viewers undercover alongside law enforcement, NBC and an activist group as they infiltrated an underage child prostitute ring in Cambodia, with the investigation resulting in several young girls being rescued from a dozen men trafficking them. The investigation also focused on sex tourism, a loophole involving affluent predatory men who would come to Cambodia on holiday looking for sex with minors, with the most disturbing being American doctor Jerry Albom, who was recorded giving one of the undercover men a step-by-step guide on how to commit the sex crime and get away with it legally, with the doctor himself admitting that he was fuelling the ring. Hansen managed to track down and ambush interview Albom at the hospital he was working at, with it being very similar to some of Hansen's future interviews he would become more famous for. Hansen even showed Albom the hidden camera footage of Albom basically admitting to soliciting child prostitutes, with Albom denying his participation and support of child prostitution.

## To Catch a Predator (TCaP)

In 2004, originally named *Dangerous Web*, Hansen began what would become his most well-known and infamous television series of investigations; *To Catch a Predator*. In collaboration with the controversial vigilante group Perverted Justice, NBC conducted sting operations where Hansen would introduces himself right after the decoy leaves the room, or when he feels it is ready to reason with the suspect, usually saying "Just take a seat right there" or some variation of that sentence. He then proceeded to ask the suspected predator why he was at the sting house, usually with the suspect giving him an excuse (sometimes leaving immediately after seeing him or very rarely flat out admitting that they planned to have sex with a minor). These excuses were usually that they were just stopping by, trying to be a mentor, looking for a job, that was their first time doing it, etc. Then, Chris would usually read the chat log that the suspect had with the decoy, which almost always included graphical sexual conversations. He then usually asksedthe suspect if they brought condoms, to which they will often say yes, and will usually give the exuse that they always carry them on them.

Throughout the show's tenure, it would become very popular online and frequently rebroadcast on radio shows, mainly for the borderline comical personalities of the suspects who came to the house. Amongst the most popular and memed predators featured on the show included Jeffrey Stacy, who had a weird and high pitched voice and ridiculous excuses for being at the sting house, David Schumacher, a thug and compulsive liar who became infamous for his role-playing chatroom excuse, Anthony Palumbo, a loud-mouthed Italian-American who pronounced certain words weirdly and claimed he wasn't going to commit a sex crime against a minor because he denied being gay, and Lorne Armstrong, who became infamous for his "Oh, CAWD!" quote, and would be trolled and catfished by fans of the show years later.

Amongst the more dangerous men caught on the show included DarkHero73 (Matthew Dooley), a schizophrenic man who wanted to enter a master/slave relationship with a thirteen-year-old girl, Charles "Chuck" Harding, a sixty-five-year-old man who had been part of a child pornography exchange ring for over thirty years, Thomas Bodnar, a convicted child sex predator who had previously molested four underage children, later being permanently institutionalised in 2020 for possessing child pornography, Jean-Pierre Whery, who had previously been convicted of Assault with a Deadly Weapon (a gun), Rape, and Failure to Register as a Sex Offender, and Michael Seibert, who was not only caught twice over the span of eight months, but was also convicted for Assault with a Deadly Weapon (a bat).

*To Catch a Predator* was cancelled in 2008 due to the fallout of a lawsuit filed by Patricia Conradt, the sister of predator Louis William "Bill" Conradt Jr., a fifty-six-year-old assistant district attorney who committed suicide upon being confronted at his home. Because Conradt never showed up to the sting house but had already committed the crime of solicitation, the chief of police Billy Myrick made the decision to travel to Terrell and arrest Conradt at his house. Conradt did not answer the door, however, and a SWAT team was called in. Upon being confronted, Conradt (his lost words being "I'm not going to hurt anybody!") put a gun to his head an shot himself, being declared dead as soon as he arrived at the hospital. The police later discovered ten images of child pornography on his laptop. On the side was also a workbook titled *Investigation and Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse* (from a recent district attorneys' conference), suggesting Conradt had read it thoroughly, and, understanding that he had already committed the crimes of online solicitation and possession of child pornography, suspected he would be arrested and chose to take his own life.

Dateline, Myrick, Hansen and Perverted Justice all came under fire for their mishandling of the situation, including the media fiasco taking place outside of Conradt's home and the arrest warrent with the wrong dates and county on it, which likely would've resulted in Conradt being acquitted or having the case thrown out. Conradt’s sister would also sue NBC for $109 million, but was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. The Collin County DA’s Office would also decline to pursue charges against the other men caught in the sting. This would force the end of the segment on Dateline NBC and would lead to the firing of Myrick in 2008. Hansen's contract with NBC would ultimately not be renewed in 2011.

## Hansen vs. Predator (HvP)

In 2015, Hansen started a Kickstarter to gather funds for a new child predator investigation titled *Hansen vs. Predator*, conducting a sting in Fairfield, Connecticut in October of 2015. He had intended for the show to be a web series with crowd funders getting promotional merchandise such as coffee mugs and access to behind the scenes footage, as well as extra footage from the confrontations. Hansen was unable to reach his Kickstarter goal and sold the rights to *Crime Watch Daily* to show on their digest show.

Hansen‘s narration and approach was less snarky and much more hard edged than on Dateline NBC, labeling the men “slime” and “scumbags”. Ten men were confronted and subsequently apprehended during the Fairfield, Connecticut sting, but only nine were broadcast. The tenth man, Vincent Ambrosio, wasn’t shown out of fears for his mental health. A second sting was planned in a hotel in DeKalb County, Georgia. The sting appeared to have taken a shift from online predators to men soliciting child prostitutes. Two men, Jermaine Howard and Federeco Mendez, were confronted and arrested on sex trafficking charges. In Howard’s case, he stripped naked. As of 2023, this footage has not surfaced. Another sting that took place in Jasper County, Georgia was eventually broadcast on *Crime Watch Daily*, featuring the infamous "Paddle Predator" Derrick Brett Deason.

## 2019 Arrest

In January 2019, Hansen was arrested for larceny after bouncing checks to up to $13,000. This stemmed from Hansen trying make good on delivering merchandise for those that donated money via Kickstarter to fund his *Hansen vs. Predator* operation in 2015, having gone four years without delivering anything. Hansen passed these bad checks to the firm responsible for making the *Hansen vs. Predator* mugs. The charges were later dropped after a fan of his predator catching activities paid the bill. All charges against Hansen were later dropped.

## GopyrightGate

In 2019, Hansen decided to reach into the world of YouTubing and create a revenue stream. He retained services of a producer named Vince Nicotra to make a channel called “Hansen vs Predators” in which he would make a gateway "pay to view" premium content site promising content and footage not yet seen by the public. In the midst of this, Chris and Vince would go to other channels showing TCaP content or any content related to the busts on TCaP such as police interrogations, "where are they now" videos, predator analyses, and other transformative fair use content to issue copyright strikes against them despite the actual TCaP content being the property of NBC and not Hansen (NBC/Comcast has removed TCaP content from YouTube in the past, including many now-lost uncut confrontations). Hansen and Vince would then take the footage they had gotten taken down and repost it onto their own channel. This also included the "extra content" that was promised to "Hansen vs. Predator" Kickstarter donators which was never delivered, meaning said donors would have to pay Hansen *twice* to get the content they were promised, and there was only one original piece of premium content (Ambrosio's uncut interview) released on the channel over the course of the channel’s existence. This caused a major backlash against the Hansen fan base and caused the second TCaP schism (the first one being with the infamous "Ramona Tapes" ), with one side continuing to defend Hansen and blaming Vince for the takedowns (despite Chris making a statement that anything with his name and/or face on it was his intellectual property), and those that put the blame squarely on Chris’ shoulders. Hansen and Nicotra would also leak the personal information of those who had paid if they complained about their chicanery (aka doxxing). The "Hansen vs Predators" channel would close down due to copyright strikes presumably from NBC (yet there are reports of people with a subscription still being charged months after the shutdown) and Nicotra was fired by Hansen, but irreparable damage had been done to Hansen’s fan base and reputation. Nicotra would also be charged by authorities for aggravated harassment.

## 2021 Arrest

In relation to a sting operation that occurred in October 2020, Hansen was supposed to appear and present evidence in a Shiawassee County Courtroom in Michigan in July 2021. Hansen did not show up for court. A warrant was issued for his arrest in July 2021. Hansen later turned himself in, stating that his failure to appear in court was because of a misunderstanding, and the matter was resolved.

## Have A Seat With Chris Hansen

Following the end of his “Hansen vs. Predators” channel, Hansen opened a new channel on YouTube called “Have A Seat With Chris Hansen”. It serves primarily as a livestream where he interviews various Internet personalities as well as victims and attempts to interview their perpetrators. His first target was James Jackson (birth name Gregory Daniel), better known as Onision, who has been embattled with accusations of child grooming and abuse. Hansen interviewed his alleged victims and, when going to interview Onision, had 911 called on him, with Jackson trying to have a protection order served against Hansen. However, Jackson had the order served against a different Chris Hansen than he intended, later revoking the order himself. Apparently running out of options on confronting Jackson, Hansen turned over his findings to a friend at the FBI for further investigation. Hansen also received a laptop from one of Jackson's alleged victims and was purported to be a "smoking gun." Rather than immediately turn it over to authorities, Hansen gave the laptop to Vince Nicotra for safekeeping. Whether it was known or unknown to Hansen is debatable, but that action had contaminated the evidence, making it unusable to bring charges and therefore allowing Jackson to walk away from the investigation with no charges filed. At the end of his investigation, he turned over all of the findings and sold the story of it to cable channel *Investigation Discovery.* The investigation ended up being aired online as part of the new online streaming service *Discovery+*. Hansen received criticism not only for his handling of the case, but much of the material he gathered for the story was gathered from others who were investigating Jackson, and none of them saw money from the sale.

Afterwards, Hansen turned his attention to music personality Dahvie Vanity (real name Jesus Torres) who was under investigation for sexual assault allegations from twenty-one women, sixteen of which are underage. A former band member, Fallon Vendetta, collaborated with Hansen on the investigation. Similar to the Onision investigation, no real headway was made and no charges came of the investigation.

Most recently, Hansen, in collaboration with other amateur predator hunters, did an investigation into former YouTuber Bryant Moreland aka EDP445 after he was caught by an amateur predator hunting group trying to meet an underage girl. Hansen continues to use the channel to promote his TruBlu subscription service.

## Predators I've Caught, TruBlu, and Takedown with Chris Hansen

In 2021, Hansen launched a podcast called *Predators I've Caught*, where he examines past cases and attempts to figure out what men from his *TCaP* and *HvP* investigations are up to now. He occasionally has guests on, such as victims of the men caught on the show (most notably a woman who claimed to be a victim of Erik Pallesen, who was caught in the Riverside, California sting), or even Billy Myrick, who continued to defend the way the Louis Conradt situation was handled. At the end of every episode, Hansen answers a text or audio question emailed to him by a fan. He also reveals previously unknown behind the scenes aspects of the investigations and the predators' lives, and reads sections of their chatlogs fully uncensored. The podcast has been generally well-received by fans, with some criticism aimed at its reliance on already existing material and the over reliance on advertisements.

Usually, Hansen ends the predator discussion by tracking down the contact details for the predator in question and attempts to reach out to them. Only a select few of the hundreds of predators have actually responded to Hansen's proposals for an interview on the podcast, those being David Wagner, William Roach, Dr. Jeffrey Beck, Gregory Stewart, David Tiriolo, Lorne Armstrong, Joe Wunderler, Richer Breault (who's wife apparently answered the phone), Dustin McPhetridge, and Joshua Colon. Most men (or in Breault's case, his wife) angrily declined and made it clear they did not want to be contacted again, with Wagner politely declining over text, and Stewart, Armstrong and Tiriolo showing intrest in the idea, although the latter three still have yet to sit down for an interview with Hansen on the podcast. Stephen Buchanan's father answered the phone and declined the offer on his son's behalf. Wunderler's girlfriend apparently reached out to Hansen and attempted to mediate an interview, but when the time came, the couple went radio silent, and when Hansen and his crew flew out to potentially chase the couple up, they were nowhere to be found. Hansen's logical conclusion was that the couple are no longer interested in doing the interview, although he is still open to speaking to Wunderler in the future, as well as any other predator involved in the stings.

Hansen has successfully interviewed some people associated with the predator investigations on the show, such as Joey of Joey's TCaP Channel, famed decoy Casey Mauro, Riverside predator Dan Allen's daughter, one of the officers involved in the Murphy sting, and an anonymous woman who claimed to be a victim of Riverside predator Erik Pallesen when she was underage.

In 2022, Hansen launched a brand new streaming subscription service called TruBlu, with the primary attraction being the launch of the brand new predator investigations, *Takedown with Chris Hansen*.

## Personal Life

Chris is divorced with two children, Chase and Connor, who served as camera assistants on his *Hansen vs. Predator* investigation. He was divorced in 2019 before his check bouncing scandal, but his marriage had been on the rocks since 2011 due to his many infidelities, most notably with then thirty-year-old NBC affiliate station reporter Kristyn Caddell. Their affair was uncovered by co-workers who had stalked the pair in an ironic hidden camera operation, with the footage being leaked to the tabloid newspaper *The National Enquirer*. The consequences of the affair was Hansen and Caddell losing their jobs at NBC and Caddell being blackballed from the news industry. He was evicted from his New York apartment in January 2019 after not paying rent on it for five months. By this time, he was apparently living in an office his friend let him borrow. British newspaper, *The Daily Mail,* dove into Hansen’s financials and found out that he also owed $250,000 in taxes, had a $60,000 American Express bill, and owed over $1m on his mortgage as of 2018.

Hansen's mother, Patricia, died on March 1, 2020.

On November 13, 2021, having apparently sorted out his financial troubles, Chris got remarried in Detroit to a woman named Gabrielle.

## Trivia

* Hansen has made a cameo as himself in Season 2 Episode 1 of *The Boys*, as well as being parodied on *South Park* and *The Boondocks*.
* Hansen has an apparent disdain for southerners, making it a point to either mock their accent in person, or in post-production. This is most notable during his interview with Timothy Isaac, where he almost childishly taunts Isaac by reading sections of the chat log in an exaggerated southern accent.