Brian Knepp doesn’t want other families to be fooled by child predators hiding in their midst, as he was by a reportedly close friend who went on to rape a child.

Knepp started 814PredHunters, a nonprofit organization that exposes child predators by posing as minors online and then confront them when they propose to meet the child.

On Saturday, he confronted a 28-year-old Lansford man who had been communicating with one of 814PredHunters’ decoys, who was posing as a 15-year-old girl.

The man thought he was meeting the girl for sex when he showed up at the Friendly Mart on East Patterson Street, and instead he met Knepp and his crew who video-recorded the confrontation.

The 28-minute video, which was posted on social media, ends when Lansford police show up, take the borough man’s phone and ask him to come to the station for an interview.

Police are now investigating the case, saying that appropriate charges will be filed after they process all the information.

Knepp also put a zip drive with all of the online conversations and communications between the man and the decoy into the mail to the authorities, he said.

The Clearfield County-based organization boosts 70 successful convictions in Pennsylvania, he said.

“We’ve had two successful jury trials, one in which he was sentenced to 16½ years to 64 years,” Knepp said. “We got a second jury trial we just were successful with in Clearfield County. Sentencing is pending on that one.”

Most of successful cases end with plea deals, in which the defendant ends up serving two to seven years, and some serving one to five years in state prison, he said.

“99% of them have been plea deals,” Knepp said. “Because that’s what DAs like to do, take plea deals.”

The organization has caught more than 300 child predators, he said. Some of their cases take over a year before a meeting is arranged, and others have happened as quickly as four hours, Knepp said.

“It just all dependent on the individual,” he said.

The group live streams the confrontations, or “catches” as Knepp calls them, for accountability, he said.

“I feel they should be held accountable for what they’re doing, both legally and publicly,” Knepp said. “I do everything in my power to get the legal system to hold them accountable, but when they don’t, the public will still hold them accountable.

“They can’t be around kids, regardless of what happens legally,” he said. “They definitely can’t be around kids.”

Knepp also believes the public needs to be aware, because for far too long child predators have remained hidden.

“The public doesn’t really understand. I call it an epidemic,” he said. “Because it is. They don’t understand how bad it is.”

814PredHunters has decoys communicating with upward of 30 different guys online at the same time, and within five minutes of “a catch” can have someone else to replace that one taken offline, Knepp said.

“They probably have over 1,000 guys waiting for them to message them back,” he said.

The men don’t know they’re communicating with a decoy, but it’s clear that the online photograph is a child — not a real child, but an aged-down photograph create by Artificial Intelligence, he said.

“It’s still obviously a picture of what appears to be a child,” Knepp said.

Plus, the decoys state their age within the first five to 10 exchanges and continue to repeat that age as the exchanges go on, as well as referencing school and homework, he said.

“There’s no mistaking that these are children and they’re in school,” Knepp said.

He denies that the organization’s work is entrapment.

“The general public cannot entrap somebody,” Knepp said. “The only way that entrapment clause works is for law enforcement. That’s a big misconception. The general public can’t trap somebody.”

The Carbon County District Attorney Michael Greek said that his office will make a determination on what charges, if any, are appropriate once Lansford police completes its investigation.

He did not know how long that could take, as it’s currently in the hands of Lansford police.