A 58-year-old Macomb County man was taken into custody in a restaurant parking lot in Cameron, Texas, after allegedly traveling across state lines believing he was about to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex. Authorities identified him as Geevar Varghese, a former physical therapist who investigators say spent more than a year exchanging messages with someone he thought was a teenager but who was actually an adult decoy working with a civilian watchdog group.
According to CBS News Detroit, the undercover operation was run by a nonprofit called The Decoy Project. The organization's president, Robert Havens, said he posed as the 14-year-old girl himself, using voice changers and fake photos to keep up the ruse online for over a year before coordinating with Cameron police to arrange an in-person meeting and make the arrest. Havens recorded video of the arrest on scene, the station reports.
During the online exchanges, Varghese reportedly shared his LinkedIn profile to verify his identity, and that profile listed him as a physical therapist at Henry Ford Health in Macomb County. Henry Ford Health confirmed in September that Varghese is no longer employed by the health system and emphasized that the alleged conduct had nothing to do with his work there, per the same CBS Detroit report.
A Growing Pattern of Civilian-Led Stings
The Cameron operation was the fourth joint sting The Decoy Project has run with Texas law enforcement agencies, and it pushed the group's reported first-year arrest total to 18 suspects, according to coverage circulated by the Global Indian Casebook. The case fits a broader trend of local police departments leaning on private decoy groups to identify and apprehend suspected online predators across state lines, though that reliance also raises questions about evidentiary standards, chain-of-custody protocols, and entrapment defenses once cases reach a courtroom.
Varghese faces potential charges under Texas Penal Code Section 33.021, which the Collin County Law Group describes as generally a third-degree felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison for online solicitation of a minor. That charge escalates to a second-degree felony carrying 2 to 20 years if the solicitation involves meeting for sexual conduct or targeting a child under 14 — and Texas law allows prosecution even when the intended target turns out to be an adult decoy rather than an actual minor.
What Michigan Law Would Add if He's Charged at Home
Because Varghese is a Michigan resident, he could also face exposure under Michigan Penal Code Sections 750.145a and 750.145d, which the Michigan Legislature notes cover accosting or soliciting a minor under 16, or using a computer to communicate for immoral sexual purposes. Those statutes carry felony penalties of up to 20 years in prison along with mandatory registration on the state sex offender registry. It remains an open question whether Texas state or federal prosecutors will lead the formal indictment, and what specific digital evidence was formally handed off to Cameron police ahead of the sting.
Varghese is presumed innocent unless and until proven otherwise in court. Similar cross-border cases have surfaced in Michigan in recent weeks: in August, Michigan State Police arrested a 24-year-old Texas resident working on Mackinac Island following a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to the State of Michigan, which led to felony charges for aggravated possession of child sexual abuse material and computer crimes. That same month, Battle Creek police arrested a 23-year-old Michigan man after an independent civilian group monitoring online chats flagged sexually explicit messages sent to a decoy posing as a 14-year-old girl, per WZZM 13.
Federal Agencies Also Watching the Space
The Decoy Project has partnered with law enforcement before. Hoodline previously covered an FBI sting in January that led to the arrest of a 53-year-old Long Island community college professor accused of attempted enticement of a minor after he tried to meet an undercover decoy at a public park. At the federal level, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to run multi-jurisdictional task force operations through its Operation Predator initiative, working with state agencies to combat cross-border online child solicitation and the distribution of child sexual abuse material, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
For now, Varghese remains in custody in Texas as investigators and prosecutors sort out how the case will proceed. The involvement of a private decoy organization in building the case adds another layer of scrutiny that defense attorneys are likely to probe closely in the months ahead.
