To Catch A Predator Michael Manzi Police Interrogation

At the time of the sting, 32 year old Mike Manzi was a self employed tutor and had a love of pizza and smoking pot. Manzi contacted the decoy, asking such questions like "did you blaze?" and proclaiming to who he thought was a thirteen year old girl, "You're my soulmate". This quote was taken out of context by the show, however, as it was not meant as a romantic overture, rather as a response to the decoy eating the same thing as him during the time of the chat. He got suspicious though and asked the decoy to send a custom pic. Eventually his fears were quashed and he arrived at the sting house on a Sunday afternoon.

He went into the sting house and greeted the decoy, immediately after, he asked if he could "look around" and went straight to the curtain where Chris Hansen was waiting. Hansen dramatically came out of the curtain and started grilling Manzi. Hansen asked what Manzi was doing at the house, trying to meet a teenager. Manzi explained away his actions by saying he was (ironically) concerned that she was talking to people that were a lot older than her and that he was just going to "search the house". Chris shot down Manzi's excuses with messages from his inappropriate chatlog, revealing that Manzi wanted to "blaze" with her and possibly have sex. Manzi repeatedly denied this and claimed he was a good Samaritan, trying to help the girl. Eventually, Manzi "apologized" for his actions and Hansen revealed the sting operation.

Manzi was very stubborn and distressed during his arrest, trying to avoid the police in the house and saying "I really can't afford to be arrested". He kept pleading with the officers even when he was being handcuffed. At his interrogation, he was visibly distressed, and tried to deny his intent with the thirteen year old girl. The questioning detective, due to a lack of overtly sexual material in the chat, tried to get Manzi to hang himself by trying to get him to admit his query about her ability to do a yoga move called “Downward Dog” was actually a coded inference to something sexual. Mike vehemently denied this.

After the sting
Manzi was charged with criminal attempt to commit risk of injury to a minor due to the intent to smoke marijuana with the child. He pleaded guilty and had a suspended sentence of 3 years and was placed on probation.