Michael Gentile

Gentile had told his wife that he would be going out to help a friend with something and drove more than thirty-five miles from his home to the sting house in Fairfield, Connecticut. Upon arriving at the agreed upon location, instead of encountering an actual child, he was met by a nineteen-year-old decoy known as Nervous Nellie/Nelly . After entering the sting house through a side door, the decoy asked him to close a window, and he complied. While the decoy headed towards the kitchen, Gentile began walking back to the side door, mentioning he would be outside and asking her to "hurry up." This prompted Chris Hansen to reveal himself, asking Gentile to come over. Upon hearing Hansen's voice, Gentile hastily exited the house, closing the door behind him. Hansen quickly pointed out to the waiting law enforcement officers that Gentile had tried to escape. The cops ran out of the house and placed Gentile in custody.

After his arrest, Gentile was charged with one felony count of criminal attempted second-degree sexual assault, one felony count of attempted risk of injury to a minor, and one felony count of enticing a minor in an obscene performance. Gentile turned himself in and was charged with second-degree possession of child pornography. He was held on $50,000 bail. Gentile would end up be found guilty on all four felony charges he was facing, and on March 31, 2017, Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin sentenced Gentile to ten years in prison, suspended after serving four and a half years. He was also ordered to be put on probation and register as a sex offender, both for a period of ten years. Gentile was later released from prison on January 4, 2021, and will remain on probation and the sex offender registry until 2031.

Gentile also appears on the Florida Sex Offender Registry, his most recent mugshot stemming from 2023, meaning he likely spends enough time in Florida to be required to register there.