originally posted 6/22/2009
My son was convicted and is serving 15 years in federal confinement because he was a lonely young man on a computer. He NEVER touched a child. He never took the pictures on his computer nor was he accused of doing so. But because of “federal guidelines,” X number of photographs (each FRAME of a video counting as a photograph) equated to 15 years in prison. Many of these pictures he’d never seen, some were in the deleted part of the computer…didn’t matter that he’d never been in any trouble, worked hard, and was a good citizen.
The other young man arrested in the same “sting” had posted sexual pictures of himself to a 13 year old girl across state lines with the intent of luring her to Texas…he only got 5 years. And my son will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.
originally posted 2009
I’m also a mom of a son who is now serving a 10 year federal sentence for the same thing (child pornography)and he too was basically a very lonely person. He moved from our home in Illinois out to Denver Colorado where he didn’t know anyone other then his live in girlfriend and her mom who lived with them. As a teenager he really didn’t have any friends that you could truly call a friend and this was true all through college.
I really didn’t want him to move to Denver but he was determined to do so – my heart just broke but what could I do. That’s where he got heavily into the child pornography so bad that he landed having to sign his parental rights away which meant we lost our only grandchild. You sound so much like me when you made the statement “he never touched a child,” for I have said the same thing many times over. What my son and I both agree on is that the law needs to change whereas not all sex offences land in the same category and the penalty is the same for all along with the registry. Granted there is a so called “level” but that level is not the same as category. Your son and mine did not touch a child nor did they tell a child to pose for these photos; the photos were downloaded to view and nothing more than that so the sentence should reflect that and instead of a huge amount of time on the registry, it should be cut down to maybe two or three to make sure that they don’t go down that road again which will also allow them to refocus back on their life. I very much would like to make contact with you if at all possible.
Stay strong.
originally posted 2009
I was reading some of the comments on the Tales From the Registry blog and I came across comment 0096 where a mother wrote of her son serving 15 years for being caught with child pornography, and she sounds so much like myself and my son. What caught my attention was the statement she made about her son being lonely young man on a computer – she could have been describing MY son. Is there anyway I can get in contact with her? I would really like to correspond with someone who knows exactly what I am going through and what my thoughts are.