There’s no messing with this mom!
Connecticut resident Roo Powell, 38, is snaring sex offenders in the new Discovery+ docuseries “Undercover Underage” by posing as different 15-year-old schoolgirls.
The six-part series — set to premiere Nov. 2 — shows how the mom-of-three transforms into the teens in a bid to bust cyber creeps who are looking to lure in minors over the internet.
In one episode, Powell poses as “Flori” — “an emotionally fragile high school student from Stamford” — according to the Daily Beast, which previewed the dramatic new series.
At first, “Flori” enters online chatrooms for teenagers, where she is quickly contacted by several sleazeballs lurking on the forums.
The messages “Flori” receives from the men “range from the disgusting to the disgraceful to the outright abominable,” according to the Daily Beast, and Powell is hell-bent on catching the creeps who composed them.
In order to do so, she must keep the charade going and convince the men that “Flori” is a real teen.
The mom dons different wigs and uses “a variety of lighting and touch-up tricks” in order to look more than two decades younger. She sends snaps to the men and even communicates with them over FaceTime if they so request.
Powell is so dedicated to catching the crooks that she even has a “staged bedroom” in her suburban home, which is decorated to look like it belongs to a teenage girl.
But she doesn’t work alone. Powell has an entire crew of assistants aiding her mission, including Norwalk Police Department Detective Mark Suda.
The cop consults with the mom about her elaborate endeavors and pretends to be her Uber driver when she meets the men face-to-face.
Powell is a “child advocate” and the head of the non-profit organization Safe from Online Sex Abuse (SOSA). Once SOSA has enough evidence about the identities of the men, they hand it over to official authorities.
Alarmingly, two of the men busted in the new series are public school employees.
Speaking with Deadline earlier this month, Powell stated: “Online sexual abuse and exploitation can happen quickly and quietly. A minor can be alone in their room and someone can be abusing them via their phone 2,000 miles away.
“My hope is through broadening awareness with this show, we can prevent sex abuse and exploitation of children online, as well as empower parents and caregivers to be a compassionate support system for kids in their communities,” she said.
The show is created in the mold of the popular NBC series “To Catch a Predator,” which ran from 2004 to 2007.