The Inflation of the Sex Offender Laws
So you think sex offenders are violent rapists who are a threat to you, your loved ones and especially children. In truth the definition of sex offender is now so broad as to be meaningless. I also guess you have no idea as to why these “sex offender registries” are such bad ideas and how they actually prevent the protection of children from actual offenders.
Bernie Baran was a teen who worked at a childcare center. A child who said his stepfather molested him also accused Baran of attacking him. On the day in question, the child hadn’t even attended the school. But, Baran was assumed guilty. After all he was gay! That was all the prosecutor needed and all the jury needed. The mother who started the accusations said, “I had a feeling that if they’re gay, they shouldn’t be with kids. They shouldn’t get married. They shouldn’t have kids. They shouldn’t be allowed out in public.”
Other kids lined up to make accusations after hysterical parents questioned them over and over. One later bragged how easy it was to get money by making accusations. He got up in class one day and told the whole room all you had to do was say a gay person molested you. Bernie was convicted and sent to jail for 21 years where he was gang raped and beaten. There was official misconduct throughout the trial and years later Bernie was given a new trial. Prosecutors had nothing so they dropped the charges. Bernie died a couple of years later at age 41. The medical care he needed wasn’t provided in prison and it killed him.
Two 11-year-old boys at school in Utah managed to find porn on the Internet. What a surprise! They showed it to other boys. According to KSL television:
“Police say the kids will more than likely face the felony charge. ‘“’It’s serious for the kids, but you also have to look at the other side of this. Some of the kids who were brought over there, at least one of them, I believe, is having some trouble shaking that image from his mind,‘”’ said American Fork police Lt. Darren Falslev.”
No rape. No violence. They looked at porn the way millions of boys do all the time.
A teacher is asked to investigate two teens the school suspected were sexting. One kid confesses he has porn. It turns out to be a photo of a woman in underpants with her breasts covered by her arms. When the boy got in trouble over something else his mother was furious. She told police the teacher was guilty of abuse for not reporting this image to her. A Republican prosecutor claimed this amounted to “child pornography” because a child owned the photo, not because a child was depicted, while ignoring there was no nudity visible. They also described the photo as a “potentially nude photo.” He was charged with sex crimes, lost his job and was paraded before the media.
A zealous Republican prosecutor—who was later disbarred—charged 15-year-old Matt with child porn charges. Matt, a kid from Tempe, AZ was charged with all sorts of sex offenses related to porn. None of it could be proved. He was offered a plea bargain of admitting he showed a Playboy magazine to two friends — a sex offense. His family had spent hundreds of thousands to defend their son. The prosecutor wanted Matt on the sex offender registry for life — for showing a Playboy to two friends!
Hundreds of teens have been charged as sex offenders for sending erotic photos of themselves to boyfriends or girlfriends. Actual sex is legal for them, but the photo makes them a child pornographer even when the victim is them self.
In one case two young teens had consenting sex with each other. Each was accused of molesting the other one. They were both deemed too young to consent, but then tried as adults for molesting the other one.
Greg Soucia stole a credit card and hired a stripper. He was charged with a sex offense for the theft because he hired the stripper — which itself was legal. He was sentenced and has to register as a sex offender when he gets out of jail. His name and address and status as a “sex offender” will be public knowledge. The details of his case won’t be. Prosecutor Jame Conboy said any crime committed with a “sexual motivation” was now to be interpreted as a “sexually motivated felony.” So, if someone stole some cash and later bought a porn magazine with some of it, they are now considered a sex offender by Conboy. A teen who shoplifts a girly magazine would be a “sex offender.”
Wendy Whitaker was in high school and gave a male classmate a blowjob in violation of “sodomy laws.” Decades later she was still listed as a sex offender because she had just turned 17 at the time of her “offense.” A few days earlier she wouldn’t have been prosecuted. The “victim” was a few days short of 16. Twelve years later she was arrested again for failure to register as a sex offender at her new address after she was forced by sex offender harassment laws to move from her previous address because a day-care center had opened less than 1,000 feet from her.
“Ms. Whitaker is now 31. She was forced from her home in Harlem, GA in 2006 because its proximity to a child care center violated the law. She subsequently moved from residence to residence, paying mortgage on her Harlem home and rent for other residences. In early 2008, Ms. Whitaker returned to her home in Harlem, believing that since she owned her home she had a right to reside there pursuant to the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision in Mann v. Ga. Dep’t of Corr. In July 2008, however, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office again ordered Ms. Whitaker to vacate her residence within 72 hours because it is within 1,000 feet of a church. SCHR [Southern Center for Human Rights] intervened and secured an injunction halting the eviction.”
In 2010 a judge finally released her from these obligations saying she never posed a threat of committing a “dangerous sexual offense.”
Julie Amero was teaching class when a computer she was using started spewing porn pop-ups on the screen She was prosecuted as a sex offender because a couple students saw the images as she was trying to close the pop-ups.
Amero was a substitute teacher that day, four months pregnant. The class had computers but she wasn’t given a password. Another teacher logged it in for her and at one point someone opened a site where porn pop-ups started fillig the screen. The more she tried to shut them down the more that opened. She reported the problem to the school herself.
A 19-year-male groped a 20-year-old female. She told him off and complained to people about what he did. He then ran to campus police claiming she grabbed him, hoping to beat her to the punch. She was arrested and forced to register as a sex offender.
A teenage girl who looked very adult claimed to be a divorced mother to meet men. Every time she did her parents reported the men to the police. They become registered sex offenders but nothing was done to the young woman who kept up the charade, meeting men in the middle of the night. She sent three men to prison doing this.
William Young was a registered sex offender. His crime was his girlfriend was a few days shy of a birthday that would have made their sex legal. He was listed as a sex offender. His photo and address was publicized. He answered a knock on his door and was executed by a vigilante who said he was “protecting” children.
A photo of a woman breastfeeding her child, taken by her husband, was deemed child pornography and the couple arrested.
Kids in school were playing a “slapping game” where they ran around slapping each other’s butts. That was deemed sexual harassment and they were arrested.
Six teens in Pennsylvania who took nude photos of themselves are arrested as child pornographers. One teenage girl took a nude photo of herself and she sent it to her boyfriend. He is then arrested because she sent it to him and charged with possessing child porn. In Ohio a 15-year-old girl took a nude selfie. She is arrested for “illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material” which will put her on the sex registry. A teen in Utah streaks a school event as a prank. He is arrested as a sex offender.
In Arizona the civil code says anyone who is convicted of public urination two times, if there was someone under 15 in the area, is a sex offender. You get three public pees, provided no one under 15 is around, before you become a sex offender. The odd thing is that public bathrooms are just that — public. Some urinals, especially at state run rest stops are merely troughs against a wall where what you are doing is openly visible to individuals of all ages. Apparently a 14-year-old seeing someone pee at the trough is not “victimized” but if he sees the same thing on the side of the road he is a victim in need of counseling. If you empty a full bladder outside a smelly government toilet you become a sex offender. Similarly urination in public is a sex crime in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Vermont.
Over two decades ago Juan Matamoros got a ticket in Massachusetts for taking a pee. Twenty-one years later he was happily living in Florida with his wife and two kids. The state government forced him to pack up his family and move since that one full bladder, years earlier, meant he was considered a sex offender and he had to comply with the sex offender zoning laws. These laws are intended to make all sex offenders miserable for the rest of their lives — a sort of perpetual, never-ending punishment for all the serious sex offenses that the politicians have criminalized — such as peeing outside, streaking, consenting sex between teens, sexting, etc.
Cedrick Bradshaw was a teen dating a teen girl. They had sex. He had just turned 19 so now it was illegal. The day before he turned 19 it was legal. He was ordered to register as a sex offender. He did. He registered as living with his sister. The state said it was illegal as she lived too close to a recreation center. He moved to live with an aunt and registered again. Police ordered him to move again saying her home was within 1000 feet of a church, making it illegal for sex offender.
A friend found him a spare bedroom with someone named Edgar. Bradshaw registered again and put down the name and address of Edgar. But, he transposed two numbers in the address by mistake. He tried to call Edgar to arrange the moving date and wasn’t able to reach him. For that he was again arrested for “failure to register” and was sentenced to life in prison.
These are not people most sane individuals would not see as dangerous sex offenders. But the law and sanity are often not on speaking terms.
For more examples of this sort of insanity see Everything is Now a Sex Offense!
Please consider supporting these essays by making a one time donation or a monthly donation to help sustain them. If you get some value out of them, exchange some value for value.
Your support to fund these columns is important, visit our page at Patreon.
