An MMA Fighter’s Decoy Sting Helped Police Arrest a Florida Student-Government Leader — and His Own Committee Voted Him Out.

A retired mixed-martial-arts fighter who runs a self-styled “predator-catcher” group in South Florida says his crew set up the encounter that led Delray Beach police to arrest a Florida Atlantic University student-government leader on May 26, 2026. According to the arrest paperwork and local reporting, Christian “CJ” Walden, 21, of Boynton Beach, traveled to a Home Depot expecting to meet a 13-year-old boy for sex — and walked into a filmed confrontation instead.

The man who staged it is Dustin “Scrappy” Lampros, founder of 561 Predator Catchers. His group works with online decoys who pose as children, then ambush the targets at public meeting spots, film the moment, call the police, and hand over the chat logs. Police say those logs — not the vigilante’s showmanship — are what built the case.

Walden has been charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent. What is not in dispute is the institutional fallout: within days of the arrest his peers in FAU’s Boca Raton House of Representatives introduced articles of impeachment, and by June he had been stripped of his committee chair and voted out of student government entirely. This is the consequence ledger the charges set in motion — arrest, removal, and a felony case that can carry up to 15 years.

• May 26, 2026 — the date Walden allegedly traveled to a Delray Beach Home Depot and was confronted, then taken into custody by Delray Beach police · Source: Fox News; CBS12
• Age 13 — the age the decoy said he was — messages reportedly told Walden the boy was '13, about to turn 14,' and that he kept messaging · Source: CBS12; WFLA
• Up to 15 years — the maximum on the lead charge — traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual activity, a second-degree felony · Source: Fox News; court records
• $25,000 bond — set at his first appearance in Palm Beach County · Source: CBS12
• Voted out — FAU's Boca Raton House passed both articles of impeachment; the removal vote concluded June 12, 2026 · Source: FAU University Press; Boca Raton Tribune

According to police and local reporting, the chat began on Grindr, the LGBTQ+ dating app. A decoy posing as a 13-year-old named “Justin” — an account investigators say was set up by Tim Johnson of the group People v. Predators, who then alerted 561 Predator Catchers — moved the conversation to text and arranged a meet-up at the Home Depot off Linton Boulevard. Police say the messages told Walden the boy was 13 and “about to turn 14,” and that he kept messaging and then showed up. When he arrived, Lampros and a camera crew were waiting.

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“How old did he really tell you? Because I have the messages.”

Dustin Lampros — 561 Predator Catchers, in a video posted to the group's YouTube channel

Walden is charged with traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual activity, a second-degree felony, and with using a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony, a third-degree felony. He has not been tried. Under the presumption of innocence, every allegation here is exactly that — an allegation, drawn from the arrest affidavit and the police account — until a court resolves it. CBS12 reported his bond was set at $25,000 at his first appearance. According to officers, Walden told them he had made “a mistake” in arranging to meet a minor; that statement, like the rest of the case, is for a jury, not a vigilante’s camera, to weigh.

Lampros, a trained MMA fighter who goes by “Scrappy,” founded 561 Predator Catchers and has built a following filming these ambushes. He told WPTV he leans on his fight training to keep his composure during confrontations — “I’m a trained professional MMA fighter… I know how to keep my composure and defend myself” — and said the work is personal, citing people in his own life he says were victimized as children. Nearly a dozen police reports in the Palm Beach County area have credited the group with leading to arrests, by WPTV’s count.

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Private predator-hunting is legally fraught, and law enforcement is openly ambivalent about it. The FBI has urged the public to report suspicions rather than stage their own stings, and defense attorneys warn that civilians who manufacture a confrontation can taint a case or even “create a crime where it may not exist.” The counter-argument is the record: the messages and the defendant’s own arrival at the meeting spot, which police say they verify before charging. The tension is real — a viral ambush video is not evidence, but the chat logs underneath it can be. That distinction is the whole legal ballgame.

The arrest detonated inside FAU’s student government. Walden had been chair of the Ways and Means Committee in the Boca Raton House of Representatives. Reporting from the FAU University Press and the Boca Raton Tribune describes two articles of impeachment — one to remove him as committee chair, one to remove him from student government entirely — both passing unanimously, with the final removal vote concluding June 12, 2026 after an earlier session was delayed over attendance. The university declined to comment on the specifics, citing federal student-privacy law: it “cannot confirm an individual’s student status or comment on matters that may be part of a student’s educational record without appropriate authorization.”

Strip away the viral packaging and this is a familiar South Florida pattern: a private MMA fighter and his decoy network flag a suspect, Delray Beach police make the arrest, and a felony case begins. Christian Walden is presumed innocent and entitled to his day in court; the charges are allegations until proven. What is already settled is the institutional cost — a student-government leader stripped of office by his own colleagues and facing a second-degree felony. The harder civic question the case leaves behind is the one the FBI keeps raising: whether outsourcing the catch to camera-ready vigilantes strengthens these prosecutions or jeopardizes them. We’ll track the case as it moves through Alexcia Cox’s office.

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Last updated June 21, 2026