In 1983 when I was fourteen, I attended Crossroads School, a private school in St. Louis. Adam Strauss was a former student in his early 20s, who visited the school regularly. He was the son of a wealthy man, Leon Strauss, who renovated large portions of the city, including the Fox Theater (a posthumous statue is erected in a park named after him).

Adam was well-known, educated, cultured, charming - and a sociopathic predator with a penchant for psychosexual sadism. He drove around St. Louis in a hearse, hanging out with young kids – but nobody had a cause for alarm.

He befriended my family, cultivating a "big brother" relationship - grooming me. He eventually secured permission to take me on a road trip to Branson, Missouri, and on the way home he offered me alcohol, which I accepted, thinking I was safe. Once we got to his apartment, he gave me pills, telling me they were Chloral Hydrate, Phenobarbitol, and Valium, telling me they would get me "high", when in fact they could have killed me.

When I regained consciousness, still drugged, he was in the process of assaulting me. He had erected a television at the foot of the bed which played gang rape porn (a family being raped at gunpoint, daughters forced to perform fellatio underwater and with guns pointed at their heads) and footage Adam had made of himself masturbating. He took pictures of me (being careful not to show my face), and showed me pictures of scared, naked kids.

The experience was so brutal, I completely dissociated. As I struggled to retain my memory, I began to fear for my life and the lives of my family members, if I came forward. I obsessed about killing Adam, and was plagued by nightmares. My grades plummeted, and I was subsequently expelled from Crossroads by administrators who had no idea of what was happening to me.

Adam continued to come around my family, acting like nothing had happened, terrifying me (always with a smile). He assaulted me a few more times, and then targeted my nine year-old brother. He came into my brother's room, inebriated, got into bed with him, and began kissing his neck and stroking his hair. My mother walked in as this was happening, and quickly ejected him from the apartment, telling him never to return. Though I never saw Adam again, I was left with the guilt of knowing I had failed to protect the little brother I loved so much.

When I moved from St. Louis months later, I hoped to put the episode behind me forever. I wasn't counting on growing a conscience that extended beyond myself. By the time I reached my early 20s, I could not live with knowing and not telling, therefore allowing other children to risk abuse or death.

Several years later in the early 90s, I told my brother and mother what Adam had done. We decided to tape record a phone conversation with Adam, so we called him up and left a message (speaking as if we were still totally dissociated) stating that we were coming into town and would like to see him, catch up on old times. Adam didn't return our call. It appeared he was as cowardly as he was predatorial.

So my brother and I traveled from Texas to Missouri to turn Adam in to the police. We submitted a written statement to an officer who said, "But this is Adam Strauss. He's only ever had traffic tickets. There's no way I can get a search warrant on this." The investigator said he follow up, but I suspected otherwise. So my brother and I went to Adam's apartment with a baseball bat, and spent several minutes deciding whether to kill him. We noted his doormat which read, appropriately enough for a sociopath, GO AWAY. We ultimately chose not to go to jail or risk being killed by Adam, and we returned home to Texas.

Weeks after my failed attempt to bring Adam to justice, I became suicidal. I could not accept that my fear and silence had allowed a sadistic predator to continue to rape children. I was hospitalized for two months with major depression, and I shared my story of survival with many counselors and therapists. I healed to the best of my ability, strengthening myself spiritually and emotionally.

In 2006, after becoming an author, I founded an organization called Building-BLOCK (Better Laws for Our Communities and Kids). The organization was covered in a Washington Post syndicated column, and I would later network with Mark Lunsford (father of brutally murdered Jessica Lunsford and national proponent of Jessica's Law) to shed light on official injustices against children.

In conjunction with Building-BLOCK, I decided to run a web search on Adam Strauss, and I found a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about him from 1993 ("He Protects What Dad Helped Rebuild"), which painted him to be a local hero. To my horror I learned that Adam is not only a post-certified cop who has received awards for his service, but is the head of Hi Tech Security, a private police contracting agency providing services to the very Central West End streets he used to stalk for children.

My formal study of (and personal experience with) sexual predators indicates a great liklihood that Adam has not stopped raping. He was not a situational offender, but a fixated predator who was very skilled at maintaining a façade and terrifying into silence those who knew the real Adam. He never made any effort to apologize or be accountable in any other way. According to the Post-Dispatch, he has become an extremely private person, yet embedded in the public arena. I am scared that other children are being assaulted.

Some may think it strange that a cop might rape kids. But across the United States, police officers are being charged with raping children. And while it should go without saying that most cops aren't predators, it should also be painfully evident that many predators gravitate to positions of power, allowing them to act under the cloak of authority.

After learning of Adam's law enforcement status, I was a bit suspicious this might have had something to do with the deplorable lack of investigation into my case, and I contacted the police again, along with the FBI, for good measure. I also contacted an attorney, and learned that not only is Adam Strauss not criminally liable for what he did to me 25 years ago (as the statute of limitations expired – and ironically we were well within the statute when my brother and I first notified police). He is also likely not civilly liable (again, statute of limitations). I had given the system 14 years to work, and it had failed.

So what is a filmmaker and author to do? How do I seek some form of justice? More importantly, how do I help protect other children from this predator behind a badge? TURN THE VIDEO CAMERA ON THE CHILD PORNOGRAPHER.

So I've generated production funds and I'm assembling a film crew to travel to St. Louis with me, documenting the journey, to confront Adam and the agencies that failed to bring him to justice. When I approach him I will be surrounded by supporters. Among other things, I'm going to tell Adam that I want my pictures back. I'm sure Adam's performance will be memorable.

Fortunately, a lead editor at St. Louis Post-Dispatch has pledged to cover the story when I arrive with my film crew to shoot "PREDATOR NATION". Mark Lunsford and award-winning actor David Keith have offered interview footage for the film, which could inspire recent survivors of Adam's assaults (within the damnable statute of limitations) to come forward, so this predator is removed from the streets. I also hope it might inspire survivors in general to work for positive legal and sociopolitical change, especially those survivors who have been disbelieved, ignored, or shut out by the system of injustice.

It will not be an easy journey. Several people have warned that my life is in danger. I do receive death threats from time to time, due to the political nature of my writing, and lack of civility on the part of others - and I specifically received a recent death threat through MySpace. The essence of the note was: Shut up or I'll kill you with my bare hands. I do not personally know the profile, and I have 60,000 friends between my three profiles. It's not out of the realm of possibilities for Adam to have done a Google search on my name, then befriended me through MySpace. And if he's currently offending, then he's left a trail of survivors who are a much greater threat to his liberty than I am. In other words, there may be people in grave danger in St. Louis.

No matter how much I am threatened, regardless of how many or few people believe me, for the first time in my life, my conscience will be clean on this matter. I can't silently acquiesce or passively consent. My silence almost destroyed me, and I won't let it destroy others if I can help it.

Regarding Adam himself... This is not about revenge against Adam. It's not about smearing his name, and it's not about taking his money, hurting his family, or any other motive, besides two: staying true to the truth I lived through, and trying to protect other children.

Anyone who can help me, please contact me at classiciconoclast@yahoo.com

Your Classic Iconoclast,

Christopher Largen