Pedophile hunter arrested on drug charges

POST FALLS — A man who operates a nationally broadcast enterprise that targets pedophiles was arrrested Thursday in Post Falls on drug charges.

Jesse Weeks, 28, whose “Hunted and Confronted” Facebook group has gained national prominence on nightly news channels, is being held in the Kootenai County Jail on $30,000 bond.

Weeks was arrested at his Post Falls home at 11:30 p.m. Thursday after a family member found him unconscious with a syringe lying next to him, police said.

Prosecutors said Weeks has an extensive criminal history that includes pro-bation viola-tions, theft and drug charges. They asked for a $40,000 bond in the case. Weeks said he needed a lower bond so he could get out of jail and operate his business.

Weeks started Hunted and Confronted last year in an effort to track down adults who engage teenagers on dating apps and groom them for sex. He and a team of a dozen members, including “decoys” who pretend to be teenagers, confront would-be sex offenders and turn them over to police along with the evidence they have compiled against them. Weeks, who also works as an interstate truck driver, last year said his group had turned more than 18 cases over to police departments from Washington to Colorado and the East Coast.

He launched Hunted and Confronted to support communities and help children.

“We’re just tax-paying Americans doing something good for the community,” Weeks said at the time.

Deputies who responded to Weeks’s residence on South Greensferry Road said family members had locked Weeks out of his house after they discovered he had used heroin.

Weeks told deputies the black tar heroin and paraphernalia they found belonged to him, according to police reports. He told deputies he was an addict who had relapsed.

A preliminary hearing will be set within 14 days if Weeks fails to post bail, and within 21 days if he posts bond.