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In 2000, i was given the opportunity to take a plea deal rather than take my case to trial. Where i live, when you are charged with a sex crime, you are seen as guilty regardless. Small towns talk, and they talk fast. I took my deal with the advise of my lawyer (later found out he was friends with the DA who hated my guts). Before long, i was required to register and do 3 years in a treatment program full of disgustingly sick people. I was given probation, and that was it.
Fast forward to Aug 2012. I had just finished 5 years of not probation, but parole, after doing 2 and 1/2 years in San Quentin State Prison, then Avenal State Prison. The problem was my sentence was 3 years parole, but i got 5. How? Simple. They illegally added two years without taking me back to court. I should see $250,000, the legal maximum for false imprisonment awarded to those who can get a lawyer to actually look at it. (So far, no luck. Few want to touch on the civil rights of a sex offender).
When i was probation, i was required to attend high school when i was 24 and 25 to complete my diploma. I was engaged to a woman who worked as a preschool teacher, had a son of her own who i helped raise during our time together. Life as a one time offender wasn’t bad at all, just had to attend a treatment program per my plea deal and all was good. Probation really thought highly of me. HOWEVER… when a former sheriff deputy didn’t like me… he went out of his way to arrest me on bogus wreckless driving charges, bogus claims that i was alone with female minors, etc… long story short, i couldn’t shake the harassment until one day, probation couldn’t give me any more technical violations… and a suspended sentence of prison was invoked.
The “victim” in my case was NEVER interviewed be detectives. The cop who harassed me is now on formal probation for several felonies himself, having done time in a county jail to spare him from prison.
CDCR Parole has had to respond to the effects of increased in the number of people being released due to overcrowding, financial cutbacks… then there was the GPS manufacturers… lobbying to “protect society” by using GPS ankle monitoring bracelets. Well, 7 bracelets later while i was on parole… and the hell i went through over that… including it saving my arse a few times to people accusing me of doing things i didn’t do (Parole verified i was NOT where they said i was, etc.)… well, life sucked bad for the last 4 years of parole. I found myself homeless a couple of times during parole because while i had PLENTY of friends who were more than willing for me to stay with them, i was not allowed, thanks to Jessica’s law. There is virtually nowhere where i was allowed to live. My only place at that point was far away with no access to electricity, running water, etc. The local sheriff decided to harrass me also by placing me on his facebook page accusing me of taking pictures of kids… even though parole KNEW i was NOT where the Sheriff said i was on that day.
I have a trick up my sleeve and i’m not afraid to admit it publicly, that i am highly skilled at hunting people down in a digital world… and so far, anyone who harrasses me i have complete dossiers on them ready to dump publicly in a moments’ notice. This harassment must stop.
I had two parole agents quit their jobs because they were being forced to place GPS bracelets on people that they felt were not a threat to society… meanwhile gangbangers and arsonists, drug dealers and thieves can run around without curfews, without limitations on residency, virtually no restrictions… and no GPS monitoring bracelets. Those groups have among the highest recidivism rates of all criminals… NOT sex offenders. Sex offender is such an ugly word, doesn’t reflect the person’s character with the label at all.
I am one person who’s gone 12 FULL years of hell over a “deal” on a case that was merit-less.
There are about 100,000 stories similar to yours mine being one of them. The fact of the matter is I honestly think that about half of the people convicted of sexual assault on a minor are bogus accusations. I believe that so many were railroaded by ignorant or incompetent D.A.’s and public defenders it is a real shame on the justice system. Even when some one is proven not guilty. The D.A.’s insist that they are guilty and refuse to acknowledge any mistake made on their part. Good Luck with your problems NJM. Hope you succeed with the trick up your sleeve. I guess I have just turned into an old dog that has been beaten so many times I am afraid to come out and just cower in my corner awaiting my next beating. It is a sad pathetic life I live for the most part. I’m pretty darn sure life was not meant to be spent this way.
@NJM – hone your skillz, dude and amass that data.
While I am disappointed when I see leaders get in trouble, I am also tickled when I see them crash and burn, like Peter Herzog or Mike “America’s Sheriff” Corona. I would love to see a Wikileaks-style site where people could post information exposing the malfeasance of those sanctimonious public officials who grandstand about creating a safer parks while taking bribes and endangering OUR children by driving on the road intoxicated.
Does anyone know when a decision in JOHN DOE v. HARRIS can be expected? It could bring great relief from the Megan’s Law site for many of us.
For background on this case click here.
My heart goes out to all of you.
My son was also living in a small Northern California town, in a house I had purchased because, at the time, he was recently divorced from his high school sweetheart, raising their son on his own, and devestated that she walked out to be with another.
At the time of his arrest, he had just come home from court in which he was awarded full custody of his son after a one year court custody battle. I was teaching at a Elementary School in his home town 10 hours away. I flew up to a remote place where I knew no one, only to find the home had been broken into and vandelized. I called the sheriff, but instead of someone coming to take a report, the arresting officer just sat in front of the home. Stupidly thinking he was there to make a report, I hurried outside to talk to him and fell and broke my ankle. He drove away leaving me lying in the street.
I hired an attorney and like someone stated in an earlier post, paid him all his fees up front. Two years later he was removed from the case by the judge, and I had to hire yet another attorney. We were forced to trial a few months later. (The young women who had posed as an adult, was only 16, and now she was turning 18, so they did not what her to be able to be charged for lying.)
My son refused to take a plea, even though he was offered just 6 months in jail. The DA then stacked the charges. (I did take the first attorney to the State Bar, and won!) However, it required two years of work, and two years of trying to get some of the funds back.
Flying back and forth for two years was no picnic. Of course my son was convicted on all counts. He went to prison, and then GPS for three years. His life was destoyed, and so was mine. We lost the house, I retired after 30 years from a job I loved because of the stigma. My family has been ripped to shreads. And even though I was not imprisoned, I have been a prisoner in my own home. Chelsea King’s (Chelsea’s Law)family lived in our neighborhood. We were vandelized and attacked.
Will we ever be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again? I don’t know.
Of course our story and I’m sure most stories would require a book to be written. This is only a tiny glimse of what we endure.
It’s now been 9 years, and I have been focusing my time and efforts on little else. Have been involved with RSOL and many organizations over the years. Until Janice took over, I felt like I was just beating my head against a wall.
I’ve grown old and tired, was in the hospital last week, but still traveled to the city council meeting last night. I just hope that others join this battle, so we older folks can retire some day.
With the websites popping up out there like rottenneighbor.com and the like, why not setup our own website, called secondchance.org or something of the like?
Registrants and their family members can put up a “Registration Page” similar to the Megan’s Law site, only we can add additional details – like the age of the registrant at the time of the offense (I was 13, for instance but was convicted when I was 20). Registrants and their family members and friends can submit comments (must be approved) about positive aspects of the ex-offender’s life. In fact, I think we should start referring to registrants as “ex offenders” rather than “sex offenders”, it throws it in a whole different light.
DUI”s hurt way way more people than almost anything I have seen or heard of.
Why aren’t these drunk drivers monitored for the rest of their lives and have to wear signs that say I endangered the public?
Huntington Beach
Since 2008, the city’s DUI arrest rate has been consistently declining, and Small believes that is due to the elimination of the police department’s DUI unit.
In 2008, 175 people were killed and injured in alcohol-related collisions, with 1,729 DUI arrests in the city. In 2009, alcohol-related collisions killed or injured 195 people, and DUI arrests dropped to 1,558.
For 2010, the number of people killed or injured dropped to 136, and police arrested 1,274 DUI drivers. Last year, in 2011, DUI arrests dropped to 1,267 and to 909 this year, through Nov. 28.
“Our budget’s been cut and we had a DUI enforcement detail that’s been eliminated,” Small said. “We’ve lost our DUI unit, so we don’t have people out there specifically enforcing DUI laws like they were before.”
Small said the Huntington Beach Police Department applied for the grant to gain necessary funding for DUI checkpoints. Police officers work overtime to hold checkpoints and the grant will entirely fund all 11 DUI checkpoints. The grant also allocates $3,000 to purchase checkpoint equipment, such as Breathalyzers, Small said.
If an RSO who was convicted 25 years ago moves out of California to a State that doesn’t have the Lifetime registration law does but only a 20 year or 10 year registration. Does he still have to register there or not?
Does any one know where there is a lists of state registration laws?
What would Happen if anyone & everyone that could raise the campaign funds that were qualified? due to exp+ time out of the system 5-20 years Ran for public office say 15 – 20 People Per City/ County & they were all SO’S want to watch their heads explode with constipation! ROTFLMAO
I just caught this older, but funny article about Prop 35. It’s also laden with sarcasm which is right up my alley.
A fave quote,
“Chris Kelly, one of the initiative’s original supporters and a man whose previous title was chief privacy officer at Facebook (which is a little like being the chief ethics officer at Enron)…”
Click here and enjoy a good read…while you still can.
I also found this article which, while not quite as entertaining, pretty much reinforces what we already know: sex offender laws are stoopid and do very little to protect anyone from anything.
Sorry – forgot to post second article and I can’t seem to go back and edit, so here you go…
http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsArticle.aspx?articleid=1391680
I am hoping to get a little feedback from fellow RSOs. I have been on the list for 13 years, one plea (not to lesser offence) conviction on PC314.1
First arrest/conviction, nothing before or since. I get the local Sheriff (Orange County) doing an address check every 6 months. They never did these checks before, but 6+ years back they started and never stopped. I have had 12-13 “visits” in this time. Are all of you getting this? I do not understand the need as my address/number/employer has never changed in this 13 years. Seems like a waste of effort.
OH – Web sites profiting from mug shots sued
I am glad to see someone go after these sort of sites! I really really wish
someone from California would do the same…
LINK TO ARTICLE
I do have a question for anyone who would like to respond. Off probation for 3+ years now and have a family member living with me. He is an avid duck hunter, skeet shooter. In his room, under lock and key are his shotguns and ammunition. Since this is in a house we share, does that mean I am in possession of these firearms even though they are lock away in a separate room?
Get the firearms and ammo out of the house. Offer to pay for offsite storage or keep them at a friend or family member’s home. If the person is staying with you, then this has to be a rule in your home. If you are staying with them, then that’s another story and hopefully he or she will accommodate you. In either case, I would not take a chance. Put distance between you an anything they could construe as a violation.
With all of the proposed “Child Safety Ordinances” by the various city councils, which are thankfully on their way to being repealed, one has to question the safety of children at the movies, at the mall, and at school. Hoping that the urgent need for gun control will put the witch hunt for RSO’s on the back burner.
Just over two years ago I met a wonderful man. I am the fiance of a 290 registrant who made a bad mistake back in ’87 when he was 19 and the other person was 20. Believe me I feel your pain. I’ve lived in the same home for almost 25 years and today we find ourselves with the possibility of having sell and move because the city decided to pass an ordinance last year in April. To where? Who knows?
There are many injustices in all of these laws that I have come to learn over the last 2.5 years. However, there is one argument that I believe will be lost at every corner. That is the argument that all 290 registrants are being treated like Jews, Blacks or what have you, etc. I’m a fighter, true & true … Have always been. But … The argument of being treated like Blacks or Jews (or any other discriminated race) only leads those with the opposite belief they have of the following: that the Blacks, the Jews and the discriminated against can never change, they were born that way, their race, their color. The VERY flip side of this argument is that … a 290 registrant made their choice … Black was born black, a Jew was born Jew … Can’t change that.
To EVERONE else a 290 registrant made their choice. For that, I am so very sorry for those that are in the same situation as we are. Every day we hope, we pray …I’ve only been doing it for 2.5 years … My fiancé has been doing it since ’87. I DO feel your pain. We are in this together. I have found comfort, I’d like to say strength, but … It’s hard … Yet, I do find comfort in all of the posts I read on a daily basis.
My fiancé, until he met me … I’ve learned was a recluse, only taking to share his isolation and pain on paper. A beautiful, eloquent writer. No friends, lost contact with family over 12+ years ago. Today that is different … With enlightening people who are finally willing to listen & learn. Yet, this doesn’t change the predicament we are in. A clock is ticking towards February and we are afraid.
Ok, I think I’m off my soap box for this evening. Take care to all … MM
I went on the Registry in 1980 when it was coupled with Parents United as part of a negotiated agreement with the Court. I endured the P.U vomit, did the probation, and just ignored it after that for about fifteen years and nothing happened. No cops came to the door or anything.
Then my wife of six years filed for a divorce and the Marin County Sheriff got all upset that I was RSO “out of compliance”. The Deputy assigned to monitor RSO in Marin was heavily pregnant at the time and quite over being a policeman(woman?). But strange things started happening around my life…very unexplainable things like chalk drawings in my driveway alluding to infantile sexuality and other subtle changes of things, graffiti to the effect that my neighborhood harbored child-molesters.. Later I learned from an attorney that the police departments maintain a harassment campaign against RSO in their area.
I would really like to hear from a law-enforcement professional or other rational commentator just what is it that they want. It can’t be incarceration, because the prosecutors instantly deal you out of prison and onto the Registry (unless you are completely beyond the pale). If the crime is so aweful, how come they don’t just lock you up and throw-away the key?
Why are male police officers so tolerant and understanding over the RSO issue, whereas the female officers are so rabid? The San Rafael Police Department allowed a female “detective” to require RSO is San Rafael to report for “updates” both on their birthdays and in December of each year. It took a court order to get her to refrain.
This issue is almost totally out of control. The enforcement agencies have lost all perspective and daily the Registries are gaining more and more populace over issues that have nothing to do with sex, offense, child-endangerment or any form of abuse whatsoever.
What’s going-on?
Just an interesting bit of info ….
Today in the mail my fiancé received a letter from a law firm asking for his business. i believe lawyers are beginning to smell (for lack of a better phrase) “blood in the water” … The letter he received said, paraphrasing, that with all the new issues in the court system regarding registrants there may be a possibility that they could help us try and get off meghans law (we all know that is bull) or he may be eligible for a certificate of rehabilitation, or a governors pardon … Etc.
Like a bogus invoice at the office, just be aware that they, like attorneys who scan the papers for DUI arrests and send them letters they are trying to get business (nothing wrong with that) just do your research, stay on this website and know the facts and not some ‘pie in the sky’ promises they are leading you to believe are possible … They may be, but not yet today. That is my Public Service Announcement for today …. In hawaiian …. Mele Kalikimaka, or Merry Christmas!
Note to challenge portion prop 35 ..the taking of private communication information against your will is searc and seizure …tracking…discrimination …to be a witness against self…involuntary servitude…increased punishment as presented to voters on ballot…….thing is…its against the law of the land…the Constitution.
I was reading someone else’s comments here about people hijacking the ballot initiative process and passing absurd laws. That got me to thinking, maybe THAT is the answer to changing the registry? Carefully craft and word a ballot initiative that reads as though it is to protect the freedoms of voters from the increased government intrusion into their lives; use specific legal trigger words that would make “registries and rolls” of people off limits for the government to assemble and/or disseminate or to limit individual rights based on classifications under such rolls and registries, regardless of their justification.
Coming from http404(‘page not found’ error):
— Carefully craft and word a ballot initiative that reads as though it is to protect the freedoms of voters from the increased government intrusion into their lives; use specific legal trigger words that would make “registries and rolls” of people off limits for the government to assemble and/or disseminate or to limit individual rights based on classifications under such rolls and registries, regardless of their justification.—
This is a very good idea (IMHO).
Take a look at the New York newspaper that published an interactive map with the names and addresses of all the registered gun owners in their market.
The gun owners went ballistic (See what I did there?).
Now maybe you say, “What’s the connection?”
My point is that these folks are doing something legal (owning a REGISTERED gun) that everybody either is scared-of because of recent popular hysteria, or hates because of some traumatic personal experience.
So the newspaper “outs” the entire registry, and those who previously believed they were compliant and within the protection of the law now find themselves on somebody’s list of the wicked amongst us. On-line, no doubt.
Next, it’s going to be Registered Voters. You just watch….
This is awesome: first an a-hole journalist outs all gun owner’s names and addresses on a Megan’s Law-style web site, then, as an act of delicious revenge, an attorney publishes the names and addresse’s of the journalist’s paper’s staff!
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/26/journalists-addresses-posted-google-maps-gun/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D249935
Can we create our own Google Maps mashup featuriong home addresses of fear mongering polticians, shady law enforcement and extortionists like that douche at offendex.com? I suggest also including our neighbors who shun us but have drunk driving convictions. I certainly would not want them driving near my kid’s school (where I am not allowd to watch her Holiday show) while intoxicated, for Heaven’s sake. And let’s not leave off anyone caught shoplifting. How am I to ever trust such types not to burglarize my home when I am at work (worrying about getting fired for my past)?
Hmmm, who else belongs on such a web site so we can all be safe? My suggestions:
The mentally ill who might borrow mommy’s guns and go berzerk
Pilots with drinking history (I ain’t gettin’ on that plane)
Congress
Those who drive like idiots
Those who park like idiots
The idiot who lets his dog crap on my lawn
Dogs whp crap on people’s lawns
Anyone who pushes the shopping carts all the way home then leave them on the corner as an eye sore.
Cain (he killed Able)
And pretty much any one else I find annoying.
Any one else we should include?
It doesn’t take a Nostradamus prophecy to realize that soon everyone will likely have their census data published online if things keep going this way. Pretty soon we’ll be able to go to Google Maps/Earth and click on someones house and we’ll know how many residents live there, their names, ages, religion, income, criminal history, Facebook hyperlinks, and so on. Welcome to the information era.