By Dan Trudeau
A Long Island man was arrested at a McDonald’s Restaurant in Forest Hills last week for allegedly seeking sex from an undercover officer whom he had contacted through the Internet and believed was a 13-year-old girl, Queens County District Attorney Richard Brown said.
The DA said Alfred Ganser, 59, of Great River, L.I. attempted to arrange a meeting with the detective, whom he had contacted more than a dozen times through instant messages on the Internet between June 10 and July 22.
Brown said Ganser was arrested July 22 at the McDonald’s restaurant on 71 Avenue, where he thought he was going to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex.
He was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court July 23 and has been charged with attempted rape, dissemination of indecent materials and endangering the welfare of a child. Judge Michael D. Aloise set his bail at $50,000 and scheduled a return date for August 6, Brown said.
Ganser, the owner of Ganser Machine Works, a commercial airplane parts manufacture company, could be sentenced to as much as four years in jail if found guilty, the DA said.
“It is the latest case in an ongoing enforcement initiative by the New York Police Department to crack down on adults who go into cyberspace to prey upon children for sex,” Brown said in a statement. “The case shows yet again why parents must closely monitor the use of the Internet by their children.”
The arrest comes several months after three Queens men were arrested in a similar “sting” operation after alleged meetings with young girls ended up being run-ins with undercover officers, Brown said. John Woods of Kew Gardens was arrested in April and William Burgess of Forest Hills and Luis Alonzo of Bayside were arrested in March.
Police found three condoms in a sealed packet inside Ganser’s Chevy Blazer, which they searched at the time of his arrest, the criminal complaint said.
It alleged that Ganser admitted to using the Internet to talk with the detective using the screen name that supposedly belong to a teenager. The complaint also said that he said he brought the condoms “in case something stupid happened with the girl.”
In his conversations with the fabricated 13-year-old, Ganser said he liked younger girls because “they are fun to make it with,” according to the complaint.
Brown said that on the day he was arrested, police obtained a warrant to search Ganser’s office in Freeport and discovered the computer he had allegedly used to correspond with the undercover office.
Reach Reporter Dan Trudeau by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 173.
