Cyber Survivor
 Pursued
and molested by an online acquaintance at 14, plucky Katie Tarbox
tells all in a cautionary memoir
At first the chat rooms seemed like the perfect meeting place.
"People didn't judge you by your looks, they judged you by
your thoughts," says Katie Tarbox. A 13-year-old honor student
in New Canaan, Conn., when she first logged on to her sister's laptop
in 1995, Katie began trading messages with "Mark," a college
student (or so he told her) from Southern California, and soon began
building her evenings around their conversations. "It wasn't
romantic or sexual," she says. "It was just a friendship."
Actually, it wasn't even that. As Tarbox recounts in Katie.com,
a chilling memoir of how her online friendship led to sexual molestation,
the experience left her shattered. "I truly felt I was guilty
for what happened," she says. But as she wrote about the deceptively
intimate realm of online relationships, Katie, now 18, emerged with
not only a clearer sense of self but also a warning for every teenager
blind to the predators lurking in the cyberjungle. "The Internet
allows people to be whomever they want to be," says Ernie Allen,
president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
"Kids don't always understand the dangers."
When Katie first clicked into AOL's teen chat rooms in the summer
of '95, she was just looking to share interests with kids like herself.
Raised by mother Andrea Tarbox, 50, treasurer of a high-tech firm
in Stamford, Conn., and stepfather David Gransee, 48, a pharmaceutical
company executive (her biological father left the family before
she was born), Katie scored high grades in school, spent hours practicing
the piano and competed on a national swim team. "She was always
more worried about pleasing teachers than her friends," says
sister Abby, 21 (a younger half sister, Carrie, is 13).
On a September Sunday morning, Katie met "Vallleyguy,"
a 23-year-old who impressed her with his well-phrased messages and
the sensitive way he listened as she voiced her hopes, dreams and
frustrations. By January, she and "Mark" - who urged her
not to question their age difference or tell her parents about their
relationship - were speaking on the phone almost every night. And
when Katie mentioned she would be going to Dallas for a swim meet,
he announced he would rendezvous with her there. "Quite frankly,"
she says, "I was excited to meet him."
Tarbox was shocked when she went to his room at the Harvey Hotel
and discovered that "Mark" was actually Frank Kufrovich,
a 41-year-old businessman from Calabasas, Calif. He soothed her
with conversation, but then began kissing and fondling her. "I
sat there, completely numb," Katie says. "I didn't know
what to do." Fortunately, Andrea, who was staying in a different
room from Katie and her teammates, soon figured out her daughter
had vanished and got a teammate to divulge her whereabouts. Within
30 minutes, Andrea was at Kufrovich's door with police and hotel
security at her side.
Because Kufrovich and Tarbox insisted nothing had happened, local
authorities merely sent him back to California. Within a week, however,
the confused teenager filed a complaint with Dallas police that
led to an FBI investigation of Kufrovich. "Boy, did that bring
up a few things," says Katie. "He's had several sexual
relationships with younger girls and boys."
 Kufrovich,
who eventually pleaded guilty to two federal crimes related to his
pursuit of Tarbox, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in June
1998. (Released last October, Kufrovich declined an interview.)
Still, the episode took a toll on the family. "I didn't feel
I could trust Kate," says Andrea. Ostracized at school, Tarbox
began suffering anxiety attacks. Therapy helped, as did going back
to her computer. But this time she kept to herself, pouring her
memories of her online nightmare into a journal. When it stretched
to 300 pages, Tarbox's parents helped her find a literary agent;
by the end of the next school year, Katie signed a deal with the
Dutton publishing house to write about her misadventure.
Now finishing her senior year at St. Paul's boarding school in Concord,
N.H., Tarbox plans to attend the University of Pennsylvania this
fall. "I'm overwhelmed by how positive my life is now,"
she says. Perhaps because she's traded the virtual world for the
real thing.
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