Legendary New York City rock deejay Dave Herman has been charged with trying to arrange a sexual encounter with a 6-year-old girl in the Virgin Islands.
Herman, the host of the long-running radio show "The Dave Herman Rock and Roll Morning Show" on the now defunct WNEW-FM network in New York, was arrested in an airport in St. Croix after he allegedly made a deal to have sex with a fictitious young girl in a sting operation, according to The New York Daily News.
Herman, 77, tried to broker a deal with a 36-year-old woman who was willing to let him have sex with her child daughter, "Lexi," at his vacation home in St. Croix. Unbeknownst to Herman, the woman was actually a Homeland Security agent. The Homeland Security agent had been chatting online with Herman since November, according to a criminal complaint.
"I find girls that age incredibly sexy, soft, and their innocence is also a huge turn-on for me," Herman unknowingly told investigators who set up the sting. "Age 6 is the perfect time to start her being loved that way."
Herman, who is a resident of Airmont, Rockland County, said he planned to get the little girl drunk so she wouldn't be nervous, prosecutors said. He promised not to hurt her, but he said that he might have to be "forceful," investigators said.
The host, who once had on-air visits from rock greats like John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and The Who, bought a pair of plane tickets for the mother and daughter to fly from LaGuardia Airport to meet him in St. Croix.
Instead of meeting his victim at the airport on Thursday, investigators were waiting to take Herman into custody. He is charged with transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
From 1972 to 1998, the now suspected criminal was one of the most popular New York radio deejays. On his show, Herman played eclectic rock music and spoke about his political opinions, such as his opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s.
He got his start in radio in Asbury Park, then in 1968 he won a contest to become the first rock deejay on WMMR in Philadelphia. In 1970, ABC recruited him to go to New York to join WABC-FM, which became WPLJ. He left in 1972, and a month later he was hired as a part-time deejay at WNEW-FM, and was upgraded to full-time morning host in May of that year.
In 1975, he launched a series of syndicated shows called "Dave Herman's Conversations," in which he talked with rock stars like Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen for two hours.
In the 1990s, the station's Opie and Anthony show began to joke about the old disc jockeys as being past their prime. Herman filed a $10 million lawsuit against WNEW-FM's parent CBS Corp., claiming it did not deliver his severance pay and that the morning segment included "false and defamatory" statements about him.
He created a website a couple years ago called "The Dave Herman Music Project," which is devoted to rock music.
Herman is due in court Friday in St. Croix. If he is convicted, he will face up to 10 years to life in prison, along with a $250,000 fine.