John P. Donnelly

Upon meeting the decoy on the beach, John makes his nervousness clear from the beginning, telling Casey Mauro about The Daily Show and how they would hire cops to impersonate children online in order to arrest predators. Chris then enters and completely frazzles John, causing him to completely lose his shit and dig himself into an inescapable hole. John refers to Chris multiple times as "officer", believing him to be a member of law enforcement.

Fully lost to his mental breakdown, John cannot seem to stop talking, rambling on about how he wanted to enter college and become a sports broadcaster or journalist. Chris asks John if he's ever been on TV, to which John denies. It's at this point where Chris deals an absolute round-ending fatality of a zinger, "Well, this is one of those good news/bad news situations, John." Once the cameras come out, John is truly defeated. As he finally walks away, the police ran at John, who, accepting the inevitable, shakes his head and arms in defeat, turns around, drops to the ground, and holds his arms behind his back. One of the cops does a comically exaggerated slide move down on the ground next to John, while another more calmly kneels over John and cuffs him. He was taken into custody.

Second Degree Attempted Sexual Assault Attempting to Lure/Entice a Child Promoting Obscene Material to a Minor

Donnelly pled guilty to a downgraded charge of "Attempted Endangering the Welfare of a Child"; he received lifetime parole supervision and lifetime registration as a sex offender, and he never fulfilled his dream of working in sports broadcasting or becoming a journalist. Because John was classed as a Tier 1 (low-risk) sex offender, his registry information is not public. State law in New Jersey only allows for Tier 2 (medium-risk) or Tier 3 (high-risk) sex offenders to have their information made public.

Chris Hansen did an epiosde on John for his Predators I've Caught podcast, where he attempted to contact John for an interview. The number was disconnected, however, and Hansen theorised John may have moved out of New Jersey to another state where he is still privately registered as a low-risk sex offender.

In 2018, it was reported by Joey from a source referred to only as "Tom" that John worked as a listing managing for a real estate company in New Jersey. This was confirmed by a video of him introducing himself and talking about his role in the company.

Hansen's, "Well, this is one of those good news/bad news situations, John" is renowned as one of his greatest zingers in the entire series. John claims that when he was fourteen, he was never able to experience romance, unlike the rest of his peers. This could be a possible motive as to why John sought out such a young girl, wanting to experience what he lost the chance to experience as a teenager. John's first name is misspelled as "Jonathon" on his arrest report.