Man Went Gaga For "Teen"

JANUARY 27--When a registered sex offender recently arrived at an Ohio home for a planned tryst with a 15-year-old girl he met on the Internet, the man was carrying two items to be used during their illicit encounter. One was a 36-pack of Trojan condoms. The other was a copy of "The Fame Monster," Lady Gaga's chart-topping second album.

John Szewczyk, 28, was named today in a U.S. District Court complaint charging him with enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity, a felony. The minor in question, named "Liz," was actually Steve Grubbs, an undercover cop who met Szewczyk in a Yahoo chat room.

According to the federal complaint, a copy of which you'll find here, Szewczyk told "Liz" that he wanted to "do the deed" with her as long as she consented. Szewczyk asked "Liz" if she was on birth control, and "when she said that she was," he noted that "they would be protected in two ways" since he would use a condom.

When Szewczyk was collared on January 11, investigators found a box of condoms and the Lady Gaga CD in his pockets (Szewczyk brought the album, which includes the hit "Bad Romance," with him at the request of "Liz"). Szewczyk, pictured in the mug shot at left, was convicted in 2007 of two felony counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. As a result, his name is included on Ohio's statewide list of convicted sex offenders. (3 pages)