Berkeley Police allowed a suspected pedophile to walk away from a sting conducted by predator hunters despite being shown evidence that he had been expressing interest in molesting multiple children, including an infant.
On August 20, anti-pedophile vigilante group Predator Poachers uploaded footage of a sting they conducted in Berkeley, California to YouTube involving a trans-identified male who had been purportedly seeking to meet a 9-year-old for the purposes of sexually abusing her.
The girl was in fact a decoy established by the group as part of a months-long investigation into the man, who went by the name Sophia Westfall.
Speaking to Reduxx, predator hunter Alex Rosen says Westfall first contacted the decoy’s Instagram account in April, and soon after began initiating sexual conversations with the child.
Rosen is a full-time anti-pedophile vigilante, and he and his small team have traveled across the United States conducting stings on predators since 2019. Ample evidence is gathered prior to a confrontation, and police are then called.
Rosen told Reduxx that the sting uploaded on the 20th had actually been conducted on June 7 when he and his team were in California.
“Sophia was one of the reasons we were in California but we actually had multiple suspects in the state,” he explained, noting that Sophia had been picked up by two different decoys on two different platforms — Instagram and Telegram. Rosen says both decoy accounts had been populated using altered and AI-generated photos.
Rosen provided Reduxx a number of screenshots belonging to conversations Westfall had with the decoy. Westfall tells the girl that he masturbates to thoughts about her, and suggests a number of ways he wants to molest her.
“I’m thinking of other things too, but maybe tickles too,” Westfell wrote in one message, “Kisses and touches all over. Kisses between your legs especially!”
Disturbingly, Westfall suggested that he wanted to sexually abuse the girl’s 6-year-old sister, saying “well, you know I love young girls. I’m just excited thinking how fun it could be to play in bed with both of you!”
The decoy then advised Westfall she also had a 1 year old sibling, stating “she’s probably too young” for sexual activity, to which Westfall replied: “That doesn’t bother me. Never too young to start learning!”
While Westfall would ultimately establish a meet up with the decoy purporting to be 9-years-old, he also communicated with a separate one of Rosen’s decoys on encrypted chat service Telegram. That decoy was also intended to be a 9-year-old girl.
“He sent some very illegal stuff to our decoy on Telegram,” Rosen says, noting that it included extreme child sexual abuse material appearing to show very young children being sexually assaulted. Westfall also gave suggestions to that 9-year-old decoy on how to pleasure male genitals.
“Some people like stroking a hand up and down over it… or you can wrap your mouth around the tip and lick or suck,” Westfall says, continuing: “It can absolutely be exciting.”
The filmed confrontation took place at Strawberry Creek Park in Berkeley, where Westfall thought he would be meeting with the 9-year-old he had been interacting with on Instagram. Instead, Rosen and his team showed up with a bundle of evidence they had printed off.
In the dramatic video Rosen uploaded to YouTube on the 20th, Westfall is seen wearing knee-high-boots, a skirt, a pink top and a hat littered with trans pride flag buttons. He immediately attempts to walk away from Rosen when he is confronted, and is even defended by unknowing locals in the park who believe he is in need of assistance.
Westfall continuously says “leave me alone,” and “I don’t want to talk to you,” while hiding his face behind a medical mask. He refuses to answer any of Rosen’s questions, and simply paces across the park repeatedly.
At one point, the police show up — apparently called by bystanders who believed Rosen was harassing an innocent individual.
Rosen is seen trying to show police his bundle of evidence, and explains to multiple officers what his investigation had uncovered. But, disturbingly, police do not detain Westfall, and allow him to leave the park — which is full of children — without resistance.
Rosen tells Reduxx he was shocked by that decision.
“Based on what we showed them … It should have been an instant arrest. Especially with the lewd [images] he had sent. I have never had a predator who was trying to molest a 1-year-old, and unfortunately there have been a few, that was not arrested on the spot.” Rosen says, “[Police] said they needed to gather more evidence and check with the District Attorney. But a place like Berkeley, like New York City, they are known for not locking up criminals.”
Predator Poachers, Rosen’s team of anti-pedophile vigilantes, says they had calculated for a poor police response due to the location of the sting, but they had still been confident an arrest was going to be made because the evidence was damning.
“I was well-aware that I was doing this catch in Berkeley, and I knew what that meant for cop response. But I thought even then… this is just too bad that cops are going to make an arrest. I was that confident. Especially with [the suspect] sending my decoy child sexual abuse material. But I was wrong, sadly.”
Rosen also notes that Police had expressed frustration with him when he “misgendered” the suspect.
Predator Poachers has successfully initiated arrests in multiple states, and that 80% of the other suspects he had confronted in California had been arrested the day of his stings or in the days after he spoke to police, but Westfall still has not been charged with any crime.
“This person said they wanted to molest a 1-year-old. They sent child sexual abuse material on Telegram. There was horrific, horrific sh*t. All I can say is, we’ve gotten people arrested for a lot less.”
Reduxx reached out to the Berkeley Police Department, which did confirm it had an open case number related to the incident, and suggested the matter was still under investigation.
While Westfall deleted the Instagram profile he used to contact the 9-year-old decoy, he has an additional account on the platform. While it is now defunct, the profile was primarily focused on taking photos of women in public without their consent.
Westfall often placed extremely sexual captions beside the stealth images, and even featured photos of what appeared to be young girls he had taken.
On Twitter, Westfall is still active and posting. Amongst retweets of pornography, Westfall engages with trans activists and sometimes speaks on trans-related issues. The day after the sting, Westfall retweeted a post arguing it was “puritan sex negativity” to try and argue “drag and queerness” wasn’t inherently sexual.
His profile features a link to a defunct WordPress blog he maintained titled SaphikoSophia.
In 2015, Westfall made a post to the blog in which he praised a book titled The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex.
