CINCINNATI — ‘Solomon’ was sexually assaulted for the first time during an overnight trip in Kentucky.
He was 8 years old.
“I don’t have a legacy that doesn’t involve being raped as a child,” Solomon told the WCPO I-Team.
Solomon said his abuser also took photos and videos of him posing naked, then sold them online.
Those images can still be found online, according to documents that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Ohio filed in child pornography cases.
“It’s worse than the actual abuse I went through,” Solomon said.
Solomon, now in his 30s, said he is sharing his story publicly for the first time to shine a light on child pornography and the terrifying effect it has had on his life.
Solomon’s code name is a pseudonym, just like other pseudonym’s federal court documents use to identify ‘Lily,’ ‘Andy,’ ‘’Pia,’ ‘Maya,’ ‘Chelsea,’ ‘Violet’ and so many other victims. We will refer to Solomon by this pseudonym in order to protect his identity.
“I can’t get away from it. Ever,” he said. “I don’t expect you can heal from something like this. It’s just too deep.”
WCPO has spent several months investigating the distribution of child pornography, the challenges facing law enforcement, the relentless impact it has on victims and what is being done to address it.
This is also true of victims that are receiving treatment for abuse. Most therapist keeps putting the child through the victimization to prepare them for court and they keep re-victimizing them to keep them coming for treatment, which, is more money in the therapist pocket.
The whole restitution issue has always confounded me in terms of the possesser (not the original abuser) paying for the victim’s mental anguish.
At the time of the offender possessing the victim’s images, the victim was not aware therefore how could the offender be causing the mental anguish that he has to make reparations for?
Perhaps restitution would make more sense that the original abuser would pay for every image that shows up in another offender’s case. It would be more meaningful for the victim to get it from the abuser than some faceless guy that he never met nor was aware he had them in the first place.
Wonder how many times the feds, ICACs, et al used his images for their stupid entrapment stings.
It is a horrific tragedy and I hope there is a way for victims to heal. I want to get past the guilt and shame that I deal with form file sharing it but 10 years of forced probation “treatment” is not working.
Please. I was abused as a child and I’m certain there are photos and video of it floating around. I can’t let that bother me today. And why would it? Today, I’m old enough that I couldn’t care less if anyone sees me naked TODAY, doing whatever. All people look just about alike. Get over it. If someone is looking at my pictures, BFD, it sure as hell isn’t hurting me. I’d be about 1,000,000 times more pissed is our criminal governments were using my pictures to entrap people. THAT would really piss me off.
I realize that people are affected by trauma is hugely varying and different ways. The things that might not bother me any longer might really bother other people. But …. BECAUSE the Registries exist …. I have been converted more and more and more into the monster that they say I am and I just can’t give a flip about victimhood status. Especially lifelong victimhood. #fmetoo
We’ve ALL had things done to us. We’ve ALL had problems. Have problems. Too bad. That is life. Be thankful that TODAY you are not being held in a Nazi concentration camp. Live the best life you can. Forget about pictures and video from past. Worried about those? Feeling victimized? Fucking please.
Further, if this person supports the Registries then I’m glad that he feels victimized. I am glad that he was the victim and a person who does not support Registries was not. I hope ALL future victims are people who think Registries are okay. That’s called paying it forward.
I’ve done some things to people in the past that were wrong. I should not have done it. I paid an extremely steep price for it. The things I did were not heinous or exceptionally damaging. I’d be very surprised if those people thought about it ever today. What I did to those people is nothing compared to what was done to me. I’m not a victim today. They aren’t a victim today. It is not acceptable today for random strangers to be able to harass me for something that I did to people decades ago, people whose names they don’t even know. I paid dearly for everything I did. It is not acceptable to be signed up for random harassment. So too bad for everyone.
“It’s worse than the actual abuse I went through,” Solomon said.”
Perhaps in your mind, but don’t oversell your personal experience as the de facto rule in which all other abuse victims are measured. There are numerous coping skills available for the mental anguish aspect of recovery.
Ok. Not to sound mean, I just wanted to interject a little bit of rationality here. He says he is ridden with anxiety because he’s worried people will be able to recognize a 30 year old man from a picture they viewed of him, taken when he was 8 years old. I gotta tell you, such a thing is incredibly difficult, and therefore highly unlikely.
I can not imagine what this like for him and way to many others out there. Many victim impact statement’s read the same …”every time a notice shows up I get sick”. And yet these “crusaders” for victims see nothing wrong with this and fight for every notification to happen.
Many, many years ago I struck up a conversation at the gas pump with a guy who was filling up his boat. He said he takes vets out who suffer from PTSD and lingering mental issues from war. He said this is far more therapeutic than the counselor constantly having them relive what they went thru. I literally said to the man…”I will never forget this conversation, that makes so much sense.”
I didn’t forget and now I understand it first hand.
This man and many like him are in a lot of pain with what was done to them. But it seems like much of the pain he’s experiencing now is directly related to the government sending him those letters over and over. How can he move on if he’s constantly reminded of what happened to him? I remember reading pretty much this exact same story with a woman. She literally had to sue to stop those notification being sent to her. Yeah, he’s getting some money out of most of these, but it seems like the money isn’t of any great sum and just gets folded into his therapy which constantly gets aggravated explicitly due to these constant reminders. It’s like, hey, we’re going to show up to your house every day and punch you in the stomach a few times, but we’ll be sure to leave some cash on the table for your medical bills to help fix the trauma.
While I get the pain and suffering this, and every, abused person endures, I have to question how anyone is ever harmed by something of which they’re unaware. If the argument is that just knowing the files are out there is what causes the harm, then how is the harm increased by proving it in this or that particular case? How does knowing that John Doe himself looked at the images, versus their being generally available, change that harm?
The “background pain” of knowing the images are out there is omnipresent and probably eternal. It’s the (government’s) notification to the victim of a specific event that causes the scab to get ripped off again and again. Perhaps if the government didn’t shout it at the victim via notifications and to the world via court cases naming which victim, it would be a little easier on the victim. I guess it’s just one more example of an unintended consequence of a law–which the government seems to think a few thousand dollars of wealth transfer will fix. Sure. Right.
P.S. I also believe that by making these victims “famous” (‘Amy’, ‘Vicky’, ‘Solomon’) the government inadvertently makes them more appealing. In other words, it furthers even more notifications and hurt.
Well take them down instead of using them as bait.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been the black sheep of my family. I have been bullied countless of my times by my own father and my elder sister; his favorite daughter (of whom he obviously wouldn’t admit directly is his ‘favorite’.).
(One of their typical senseless bullying schemes goes loosely like this:
when I’m wrong, I’m really wrong. When I’m right, I’m still wrong. When I walk left, the they make the correct direction to be right. When I walk right, left is correct. When I can’t be proven wrong, there’s still something I ‘could have done to prevent’ whatever I was a suspect of. When all that fails and there’s nothing they could chastise me for… my face is simply ugly and I’m annoying; and people treat me the way they do because of the way I am.)
My dignity, self-worth and self-esteem had been destroyed early in my childhood. I can’t always fully and confidently function on a daily basis, even as an adult today. Throughout the years, my father and his ‘favorite’ daughter occasionally speak lightheartedly about it like it was a family comedy hour. And, apparently, I’m the one who needs to “stop being a crybaby” and “get over it”; since I’m an adult now and “it’s not healthy” to “carry lingering childhood grudges”….
Why did my father and elder sister do this? For the thrill of power; because they can.
And, what’s worst to me: they were never held accountable and punished for the psychological trauma they have caused me.
—————-—————-
I have these emotional scars to this day, as many in my same shoes may have suffered; and may be suffering right now. And, yet, you don’t see these emotionally abusive family members go to jail. Police aren’t warning the community about what they have done.
All the same, looking at images is, heh, somehow worse than the heinous abusers who were actually there to put their children victims on the line… as if looking automatically equates to it….
Meanwhile, there are victims who do suffer abuse in the hands of “evil” family members who wouldn’t be legally punished for their psychological crimes. I’m a living testimony of this.