Phillip John Eide
Phillip John Eide ("Xavier von Erck") is the self-styled leader of Portland based cyber-vigilante organisation Perverted Justice.
Motivations
Goal
During an IM conversation, Eide admitted that he does not have as its primary concern, the protection of children:
- "My goal is not to protect minors. It’s to go after pedophiles ... [what do you mean? Don’t you go after pedophiles specifically to protect kids? otherwise there’s no point] ... No, it’s because pedophiles are disgusting people. Like you. That’s why we go after them. Protecting kids is just a side benefit."[1]
Blog
Eide made an almost identical statement on his blog at http://www.evilvigilante.com/?archive=148:
- "Back when I started PeeJ, those idiots at DanPedo made the mistake of taunting me. They thought my resolve to push forward with the re-launching of PeeJ simply wasn't there. And it wasn't. But they taunted me. The last thing anyone should do is try to mock, attack, or engage me aggressively. All I do, mentally, is go "Oh yeah? Well fuck you." That's why PeeJ is here. It wouldn't be here if it weren't for disgusting pedophiles thinking that they could mouth off to me in mid-2003. It just wouldn't be around.
- My motivation in running PeeJ is very simple. It's not your typical motivation of someone who fights against internet predators and the pedophilia community that supports them. Most anti-predators are stay-at-home mothers who worry about their kids. No offense to those people, I like them plenty, they're just not bulldogs. They're not used to initiating aggressive confrontation and controversial action. They're the type that will focus on educating kids, talking amongst themselves, y'know, all fine things.
- People like me, whose primary motivation is that pedophiles and what they wish to do are absolutely appalling and disgusting are the types that are going to go out there and aggressively confront those seeking to do evil. I'm not in this to protect children, it's a nice side benefit sure, but my motivation is to make life a living hell for predators and pedophiles online. Anyone who has observed their organizations, their posts and their attempts to promote their child-raping agenda is sickened by it. All you have to do is pay attention. It is the most disgusting shit online. I want to see them arrested, I want to see them kicked off internet services for promoting illicit acts, I want to see them stamping their feet and whining and crying that oh, those meanies at PeeJ are after us!"
Reporter confrontation
Eide's relationship with the media is rather simple; he seems able to cope when his "expertise" is held in high regard by the staff involved. For a contrary example, see this video.
Lawsuits
Despite his claim to being a publicly-accountable "director of operations", Eide has been incredibly hard to trace down. In 2007, a combination of this and his general evasiveness led to a default judgement being passed against Eide after a lawsuit involving one of his organisation's harassment victims.[2]
Other lawsuits involving Eide's organisation can be found at our Perverted Justice, To Catch a Predator and Wikisposure articles.
Suspicious behaviour
Eide aroused suspicion in 2008, when he refused to allow investigators to copy the hard drive of a computer he used to entrap a victim:
- "According to court documents, the decoy, Perverted Justice founder Xavier Von Erck, recently told prosecutors the hard drive from the computer he used to chat with Wolin "experienced a complete failure" in February 2007 and cannot be copied."[3]
In 2009, Eide was ordered to bring the hard drive to court, after failing to adequately justify its failure.[4]
Wikipedia
Eide has taken part in and been banned from Wikipedia. On August 14, 2007, after months of harassing other editors and biasing the Perverted Justice article, his XavierVE account was banned. This followed an incident in which he described User:Tyciol as a pedophile.