Original post date: 15.04.2008
Try to imagine, you’re 17, a junior in high school on summer vacation. You’re unusually tall and still a bit awkward with girls. At a local resort you meet a girl vacationing with her parents, she is beautiful and she actually likes you. After a few days she invites you to her cabin while her parents are away. With heart pounding nervousness, you’re both kissing and touching each other. A phone rings, you’re interrupted and this ends the encounter.
Seems so innocent, maybe a preview to an after school special.
Now imagine, two days later you are arrested for a violent rape. You tell the police everything you know about the beautiful girl you’d met, you tell them about the kissing, the touching and you swear to God that you never had intercourse. You’re given a Public Defender who tells you the rape tests support the girls claim and that he has worked his magic and convinced the DA to entertain a plea of “lewd and lascivious acts” , it’s “less than rape” and he also worked a miracle to keep it in Juvenile Court. Yes, this Public Defender saved your life and you should be forever in his debt, right?
The plea is accepted and he is formally charged with PC 280 (a), Lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14″. Yes, in court we all learned this beautiful girl, fully developed and far more mature he, is only 13. The touching and kissing is a felony, child molestation, a registerable offence, a life long sentence.
Mandatory minimums sends this young boy to the California Youth Authority for a three year term. He is to attend a sex offender treatment program and he is to be housed with all the other sex offenders. During his first two weeks he is beaten severely, given the nick name “Chester” by the cruel and extremely corrupt guards. He is bunked next to a 19 year old who has been in the system for most of his life. His latest crime was the rape and vicious beating of a three year old.
This boy entered the CYA a normal red blooded teenager, a varsity basketball and football player, some minor scrapes with local police, but nothing serious. He is now an angry 25 year old man, full of hate and resentment. He is a registered child molester and is required to report in every time he moves and 10 days before his birthday each year. His birthday is early January, which makes the holidays particularly bad. If pulled over by any law enforcement he is required to show his RSO card, this leads to ridicule by the officer and the complete devastation of any friend he may have with him.
This is a true story and if you don’t think it could happen to you or your son, you need to open your eyes and look at the thousands of young boys in California who are living the same nightmare. I am of the belief that nothing will be done to change the over zealous sex offender laws in California until this happens to a Senators son, maybe Arnolds son. There is not one politician who will to step up and point out that the current SO Laws are destroying the lives of thousands of young boys. Behind closed doors they all sympathies with my son’s story and wish me luck in my endeavor to change the law, but not one of them will help write a bill to just tweak the current legislation, to add in some common sense. It’s political suicide to show compassion for a RSO, or to be seen as soft on crime.
Postscript:
I thought you’d be interested in the circumstances that lead to the accusation of rape.
The girl was terrified of the punishment in store for her so she said “I didn’t invite him, he just came over and started kissing me”. That snowballed into a violent rape story. She was rushed to the hospital, given a rape exam and released.
We had asked to look at the results of the rape test, but the miraculas Public Defender told us that because it was a Juvenile case we were not “privy” to those records.
After nearly a year in CYA he was examined by a Dr. Data to determine what type of SO treatment program was needed to meet the court requirement. Dr. Data believed our son and he requested the entire court folder, including rape test results. As it turned out, the girl was a virgin, she had not been raped and in fact while being interviewed by a nurse she admitted the contact had been consensual. Dr. Data wrote a letter to the Youthful Defender Parole Board and requested that our son be released based on the lies the DA and the Public Defender had been guilty of. This was denied because it was a plea and because he had admitted to kissing and touching her…..A FELONY.
Dr. Data did succeed in removing him from any sex offender treatment program and allowing him to be moved to a non sex offender unit. This did not stop the abuse and the nick name “Chester”. The registration requirement would stay as well.
During our son’s three years in CYA the girl gave birth to a child (maybe two) fathered by a boy the same age as our son. He was never charged.