A 21-year-old Scarborough man was among four men arrested last Friday by South Portland police in a sting to catch Internet predators. He

Matthew Gould, a 2003 graduate of Scarborough High School, was subsequently released on $10,000 cash bail. The other men, Wayne Havey, 59, of West Bath, Nicholas Webster, 27, of Lewiston, and Terry Lee, 50, of West Bath, were arrested throughout the month. They all face charges of attempted gross sexual assault.

For the second time in the past year, South Portland police collaborated with Perverted Justice, an organization dedicated to finding Internet predators by having volunteers pose as young teenage or pre-teen girls in Internet chat rooms.

The policy of Perverted Justice is to let the predators approach the “girl” and let them bring up conversations about sex. Perverted Justice simply makes the gender and age of the “girl” available on an Internet profile. When the “girl” and the predator decide to meet up, the police stake out the location and arrest the predator when he arrives. In these cases, the locations included a church and a school in the east end of South Portland. The predators thought they had been in communication with a 13-year old named Brooke since December.

When South Portland worked with Perverted Justice last summer, they were able to make two arrests, which are still in the court process.