When Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies arrested Adam Roberto Escarcega of Santa Barbara on Monday afternoon outside the Target Shopping Center in Goleta, it was far from a typical takedown.
The root of the allegations — that Escarcega sought to meet up with a minor for lewd acts — started on Feb. 1, when he reportedly first communicated with a 15-year-old boy on a meet-up app.
The boy was not real, but a man in his mid-20s who goes by the name “Ghost,” and is the founder of a group that seeks to catch men online looking for sex with minors.
Ghost, who did not share his real name, saying it was for safety reasons, said his group’s efforts led to Escarcega’s arrest on Monday after a confrontation that was livestreamed on YouTube.
The Sheriff’s Office, according to public information officer Raquel Zick, received a tip ahead of time, and then another call during the confrontation.
Zick said the deputies accepted chat transcripts and other information at the scene, conducted their own investigation, and arrested Escarcega, 34, a staff member at Adams Elementary School.
Santa Barbara County District Attorney John Savarnoch told Noozhawk that Escarcega was released on Wednesday after posting $75,000 bail, and that the case remained under investigation.
No criminal charges had been filed as of Wednesday afternoon.
The Santa Barbara Unified School District put Escarcega on administrative leave until the district and law enforcement complete their investigations, officials said in a statement.
The arrest has opened up Santa Barbara to the world of online predator catches and the CC Unit organization, which appears to be a leader in that internet space.
Ghost, who wears a mask during livestreamed confrontations to conceal his identity, said he has participated in hundreds of confrontations that have led to arrests.
Based out of San Diego, his CC Unit’s YouTube page has 32,000 followers, and his Instagram account has 113,000.
He spoke with Noozhawk and described how the confrontation and the arrest happened.
He provided Noozhawk with photos and chats of the interaction, which appear to show Escarcega expressing a desire to meet with a 15-year-old for sex acts.
They arranged to meet at Target in Goleta at 3 p.m. Monday after more than 100 back-and-forth messages.
When Ghost arrived at Target to confront Escarcega, he was in the bathroom. When he came out, Ghost confronted him, in a livestream on YouTube. They walked outside of the Target and talked for about an hour.
The chats allegedly show the two discussing various sexual positions and a discussion about whether Escarcega minded someone “younger.” According to one exchange provided to Noozhawk:
“Do you care if I am younger?”
“How old are you?”
“I am 15. I am mature tho hehe.”
“That’s kinda young do you care about older?”
“I don’t mind if you are older.”
“O”
“Do you care that I am younger?”
“No.”
Many of the other chat transcripts reveal graphic exchanges between the suspect and the person he believed to be a minor, but that was really Ghost behind the keyboard.
Ghost said he has made catches all across the country but that he mostly works in Southern California. He said he drove to Goleta, about a four-hour trek from San Diego, because his research showed that Escarcega worked at a school.
“I was dedicated to go get this guy,” Ghost said.
Ghost said he turned all of the evidence over to the Sheriff’s Office.
“I view myself as an activist,” he said. “We don’t beat these guys up. We don’t detain them. We don’t arrest them. We interview them. We get their side of the story, and then we turn it over to law enforcement.”
He called the Sheriff’s Office a day in advance of the meeting, he said.
“We told them we are an organization called CC Unit, and we catch online predators who are preying on minors,” Ghost said. “We are coming out to your city to do a sting operation.”
At the scene, Ghost said he asked Escarcega, “If you are truly remorseful for what you did, are you willing to write an apology letter to this kid? We just give him the chats and asked to write an apology letter about what he did.”
Ghost said he used to watch the NBC show “To Catch a Predator” when he was younger, and wondered, “Is this really happening? Is this actually real?”
“When I turned 19, I said I am an adult, and I am going to see if there are creeps out there,” Ghost said. “I have caught hundreds of creeps, hundreds of arrests, hundreds of convictions.”
He said CC Unit stands for “Creep Catching Unit” and that he sees the organization as an advocacy group.
“The problem with law enforcement is they are reactive,” Ghost said. “They are not actively looking for these guys. We are proactive. Instead of waiting for a kid to be traumatized, we go out there and pose as a kid and catch them.”
Ghost said most predators say it’s the first time they have ever done something like that.
“Every single creep we catch, every single one, says it is the first time, but it is hard for me to believe that,” Ghost said. “We put an end to it.”
Zick said that although the Sheriff’s Office takes any citizen’s information during an investigation, it made the decision on its own to make an arrest.
She said the Sheriff’s Office has heard of groups such as CC Unit, but that as far as she knows, it was the first time an arrest had been made locally based on its involvement.
“We are bound by different laws,” Zick said. “There are tactics that they employ that sometimes fall outside of the realm of the way law enforcement can conduct an investigation.”
Ghost said he has been in contact with the Sheriff’s Office since the Monday arrest. He said Escarcega did not put up a fight and wasn’t confrontational.
Ghost said he has had his share of scuffles with that kind of confrontation.
“That is the risk I take when I do this,” Ghost said. “I do it, but I am also a religious man. I believe if God is with me, I am protected.”
