All this sex sting lacked was Chris Hansen hiding in a closet—who apparently has quite a following among underage prostitution enthusiasts!

Several men asked the girl if she was working for police, according to the documents, and a few said that they did not want to end up on Dateline's "To Catch A Predator" television series.

They didn't end up on "To Catch a Predator." But the Gazette has stepped in to assume Hansen's role of disseminating all the johns' life-ruining details to the public. No cookies and lemonade, either:

* "Montgomery County firefighter Wayne A. Mothershead, 44, of Taneytown responded to the ad using his work e-mail and arranged to meet for sex in his truck outside the Bohrer Park Activity Center in Gaithersburg on July 20, according to the documents."

* Mothershead's attorney chimed in with the classic excuse: "attorney Rebecca Nitkin add[ed] that the girl in the photographs viewed by the men appeared older than 16."

* "A Wheaton man, who was instructed to meet the girl near Gaithersburg High School, admitted to having a semiautomatic handgun in his trunk and was also charged with carrying a deadly weapon on school property and transporting a handgun, according to the documents."

* "Benjamin R. Cary, a personal trainer at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington in Rockville for 10 years, was arrested March 25, according to the documents. He told police he was 'trying to stop a girl from doing something bad' but later said 'I will do whatever you want me to do, pay a fine go to class … just don't tell my wife,' according to the documents."

* "Barry M. Lebowitz, a married optometrist at Potomac Eye Care in Gaithersburg, was charged with soliciting a minor on April 9, according to the documents. When the girl said she was too young to rent a hotel room, Lebowitz, 46, wrote, 'this might get expensive … any discount if i get hotel?,' according to the documents."

UPDATE: Today, the Gazette issued an update and correction to its story on the prostitution sting. You can read it here.

Sure, it's not as glitzy as being cornered on the kitchen peninsula behind a big pitcher of lemonade by handsome moral authority and "To Catch a Predator" host Chris Hansen. In December, the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and some NoVa detectives tricked some local dudes into trying to have sex with kids with Craigslist posts titled "In Town for 2 Days-Mom W 2 Grls" and "2 nite only- fmly fun – u wn’t forget" The posts then described how interested parties could have sex with 8-to-14-year-old girls. Ha ha, too good to be true, child molesters.

Hey, let's see which of our neighbors were totally into this:

Within hours of making the posts, the investigators had hundreds of responses, court documents said. Over the next few days, they arranged meetings with at least five men, some of whom drove more than an hour and were willing to pay upward of $200 to have sex with children.

Among those caught in the sting was a West Virginia elementary school art teacher, Douglas E. Hunt, who pleaded guilty Friday to enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity. Hunt called a Leesburg detective from a phone at Shepherdstown Elementary School to arrange a meeting with 12- and 13-year-old girls advertised in the detective’s Dec. 3 Craigslist posting.

Busted.