By DAVE GOLDINER
Daily News Staff Writer
Dear Molester in Milwaukee: You're busted.
A man who admitted to Dear Abby that he fantasized about having sex with his girlfriend's young daughters was nabbed after the world-famous columnist tipped off cops.
Milwaukee police found no evidence of sex abuse but charged Paul Weiser, 28, after they discovered 40 kiddie porn pictures on his computer.
"He feels there is a monster inside him, and he wants to get help," prosecutor Paul Tiffin said.
The advice columnist said she called police after an agonizing bout of soul-searching in which she balanced the anonymity of her writers against protecting the two girls.
"I lost sleep, didn't sleep for days, because I really believe this man wrote to me genuinely seeking help," said Jeanne Phillips, whose column runs in 1,200 papers worldwide. "My readers do turn to me for help, yet there was the priority of the safety of those young girls."
Eyes for 3-Year-Old
Weiser, who has no criminal record, wrote to Phillips and confessed that he was having sick fantasies about the girls, ages 10 and 3.
Phillips, who uses the pen name Abigail Van Buren, gets thousands of letters and e-mails a week, but this one stuck in her head.
"It wasn't something Jeanne took lightly," said Dick Guttman, her spokesman.
The letter posed a big ethical problem for Phillips because the column's credibility is based on anonymity for advice seekers and getting them help, not trouble.
In the end, she just couldn't stay silent.
"I felt it was in the best interest of these children to alert authorities to the danger they might be in," Phillips said. "Even so, this was an extremely difficult thing to do."
After she called police, detectives were sent to Weiser's home. He acknowledged writing the letter, police said.
Weiser, who is unemployed, deleted the porno photos from computer disks he gave investigators, but they were able to recover them, Tiffin said. He remained in custody yesterday pending a court appearance.
Milwaukee Police Chief Arthur Jones praised Phillips for coming forward to police, even in the face of a painful dilemma.
"She gave us some good advice," Jones said.
Phillips' mother, Pauline Phillips, created the Dear Abby column 46 years ago, but Jeanne Phillips has dished out most of the what-to-do's since the late '80s.
The Pauline Phillips' twin sister, Eppie Lederer, writes the Ann Landers advice column, which appears every day in the Daily News.
So this "worldly" lady has more of a concsience than the WT and their men......sick.