Posted on Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:36AM EDT

MADISON, Wis. - Eric Szatkowski is a Wisconsin Justice Department special agent, but on that Sunday afternoon he entered an online chat room as a 14-year-old boy.

He claimed he was into weightlifting, AC/DC and muscle magazines. Then he waited.

Within hours, screen name Paul2u sent a message: "Hi. u realy 14?"

Over the past decade, agents and computer experts have gone after hundreds of people like Paul2u who solicit sex from kids or trade child pornography online. Police efforts around the country were all the rage with the media in the early 2000s, reaching a crescendo with Dateline NBC's "To Catch A Predator" series.

Despite the publicity then and now, the bad guys haven't gone away. They've quietly multiplied. Trading child porn online and grooming underage targets in chat rooms has exploded nationwide. With arrests more than quadrupling in 10 years, Wisconsin's agents and analysts feel overwhelmed.

"I don't think we've made significant progress at all," Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. "Our community leaders don't even know how bad the problem is. The general population has no idea."

In the past year, Van Hollen has raised the profile of Wisconsin's Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC, unit, recruited local police departments to help and asked for more state dollars to help agents like Szatkowski, who adopted the 14-year-old's persona.

"If I'm too young that's ok," the agent wrote back to Paul2u that Sunday back in 2002, adding: "Lots of dudes call me jail bait."

"Well, yeah, if you get caught," Paul2u replied, "but if you're willing its doable."

The hook was set.

Szatkowski and Paul2u exchanged messages for an hour.

Paul2u asked Szatkowski about his sexual experience with men and said he'd love to see him more than once. At one point Paul2u asked Szatkowski if he was a cop. They agreed to exchange photos.

Szatkowski sent a photo of Racine County Sheriff's Deputy Matt Prochaska when Prochaska was 13. Szatkowski typed that he could sneak out but didn't want to spend all night with him. He had school in the morning.

Fine, Paul2u replied. They could "do it" in his van.

Paul2u asked Szatkowski to call him. Prochaska made the call and agreed to meet Paul2u in half an hour.

Szatkowski glanced at Paul2u's photograph, hit print and rushed out of the office without taking a second look. Later, he wished he had.

Szatkowski, his partner, Mike Hoell, and Prochaska sat at a Country Kitchen in Racine, watching the clock as they waited for Paul2u. Prochaska, playing the role of the boy, wore a yellow jacket and backward baseball cap.

They talked about everything Paul2u had said to Szatkowski online and how they hoped he would park in front, where they'd see him. They kept looking around, making sure Paul2u hadn't come in through a back door.

Around 10:45 p.m., a brown Ford van pulled into the parking lot and flashed its lights at Prochaska.

The van sat in the Country Kitchen parking lot.

The agents' adrenaline surged. Paul2u's action in simply pulling into the parking lot was enough for them to make an arrest. The sheriff's deputies closed in and ordered the driver out.

Hoell and Szatkowski stepped into the wet, 35-degree night and started walking toward them.

Then Szatkowski stopped short.

He recognized Paul2u.

The cyber predator was 46-year-old Robert E. Thibault -- Szatkowski's children's religion teacher. Szatkowski had seen him in church that morning.

Hoell found a bag of sex toys in the van. Thibault told Hoell later that he would have had sex with the boy if they liked each other, adding he'd had about 20 conversations with minor males online over the last couple years.

Later that night Szatkowski looked at the photograph on his printer. He thought about how Thibault had been at his daughter's First Communion.

"It just reinforced ... you don't put faith in a person," he said. "In my heart, I can forgive anyone for anything, including him. Forgiveness is huge if you're going to be a good Catholic. (But) that feeling of betrayal will be there forever."

A judge sentenced Thibault to 10 years in prison on conspiracy to sexually assault a child, but stayed the time and ordered him to spend a year in jail with work release. That was modified to electronic monitoring. The jail was too crowded.

Since the arrest in the Country Kitchen parking lot, Szatkowski has lured priests, teachers, police officers -- even a mayor. In January, the agent posed online as a 14-year-old girl and allegedly engaged in a conversation with Racine Mayor Gary Becker. According to a criminal complaint, Becker showed up at a suburban Milwaukee mall hoping to meet the girl for sex. Becker, who has since resigned, faces eight felony counts. He pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.

"When you're a child, you shouldn't have to be exposed to this stuff," Szatkowski said.