Posting #195 –Gordon’s Story

By:  Gordon
Date:  02/16/2010

Dear RSOL of Virginia,

My name is Gordon and I just found this site.

I am truly grateful for a site like this one as nobody else seems the least bit concerned with the plight of sex offenders. Indeed, it seems that we - registered sex offenders - are nothing more than punching bags for lawmakers, police and media.

I grew up in another state, where I lived until I was 39. I moved to Virginia in 2006 hoping to find a better life. Let me back up for a moment and tell you why I left __________.

At the age of 35 I was still single and dating. I met a young woman at my work, a place I had been employed at for 9 years. This woman was only 22 years old, much younger than I would normally consider dating, but she was persistent and eventually we started dating. She had been in some kind of trouble in her home state of Ohio (Grand Larceny and Burglary) and had been put on probation and sent to __________ to stay with her grandparents. A year later her mother and her two sisters also moved to _________.

After dating for about 8 months she became pregnant. I was pretty excited because this was to be my first child and I wanted to be a father and have a family. She and I moved into an apartment together, at which time she brought her son from Ohio to live with us. I know this is confusing so let me clarify; she had her first child when she was 17 and still living in Ohio, but had to leave him with her father when she moved to __________. Now she was pregnant again and expecting her second child.

Things were great at first. She and I seemed to be in love and her son was a true joy. Within 3 months he was calling me 'daddy' and I responded by calling him 'son'. That was fine with me, as I felt like I was capable of being a father to two children. When the baby was born he turned out to be a boy, so now we had two boys. Life was good.

But things changed after the baby was born. The delivery was C-section and I knew it would take some time for her to recuperate and heal. I saw what they did to her, as I was in the delivery room when they operated. The doctors said it could be 3 to 4 months before she felt normal again, and I had no trouble believing that.

I realize my story is very long so I will abbreviate it as much as possible. After six months she was well enough to go out all night with her "friends' that I never saw, but not well enough for intimacy with me. A year after our son was born we still had not had any intimacy, and I began to question if she truly loved me. After two years it was still the same, and I was very frustrated, to put it mildly. After 2 1/2 years I finally said I could take it no longer and wanted to split up. I figured she wanted the same thing as I had found some love notes from her new boyfriend.

But she did not want to split up. Instead, she wanted to continue living with me and have me continue paying all of her bills - while she continued to go out with her new boyfriend almost every night! I said 'no way' and told her at the end of the month one of us would be leaving the apartment. I also told her that I would be seeing her in court for custody of our son. That turned out to be a huge mistake. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "We'll see about that M_____r  F____r."

Three days later I came home with dinner for everyone and the house was empty. I called her cell and asked where she and the kids were at. She replied it was none of my business and, oh - by the way, she had given the police her computer. She said the police were very interested in some pictures of naked girls that I had put on her computer. Of course I lost my mind because she knew as well as I that I had not put any such pictures on her computer. She had put them there, and then called the police to say I had done it!

I thought the police would be smart enough to see through her scheme. I did not have the money to hire an attorney so when I got arrested I ended up in jail for 9 1/2 months. My court appointed lawyer kept advising me to take a plea bargain as it was the only way to get out of jail and get on with my life. This was in 2004. I finally gave in and took the plea (the biggest mistake of my life). The court did not care that I had never had so much as a traffic ticket, they made me a sex offender on the spot.

I got out of jail just as _________ decided to pass a law saying that sex offenders could not live within 1000 feet of any place where children might congregate. I requested to transfer my probation to Virginia since I have some family here. I lived at the only place in _________ that met the 1000 foot requirement while awaiting the Interstate Compact - a rundown halfway-house for heroin addicts.

Like I said, I came here in 2006. I found work within 2 weeks and completed a second sex offender treatment program (I had done one in _______, too). I paid off all my costs and fines and was about 8 months from finishing my probation when someone at my work accused me of the exact same crime! The guy who accused me was an Irish exchange student who had made it very clear to me that he knew I was a sex offender and that he did not like sex offenders.

Again I was arrested and charged with Possession of Child Pornography. Again I was completely innocent and there was not one piece of evidence to suggest I had broken any laws, just an accusation and some pictures on someone else's computer. Again I did not have the means to hire an attorney. The whole situation was so unbelievably similar to what happened in _________ that I was literally shocked into a catatonic state. All I could think, over and over and over again, was 'how can this be happening a second time?'

I was able to make bail after 2 weeks but then got arrested for VOP for getting arrested in the first place! The VOP charge was out of_________, where my probation originated from. There is no bail for VOP. I sat in jail for 13 months until the Commonwealth finally gave me a trial in Hanover Circuit Court. I won my trial (the judge actually threw the case out for lack of any evidence) and then ________ extradited me for the VOP charge. I won that case, too, and my probation was terminated.

I came back to Virginia and I have been trying to lead a normal life, but that is not possible for a sex offender. I am like anyone else, a job, a car, a wonderful girlfriend (do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a woman who does not immediately think the worst when you tell them you are a registered sex offender?), a few hobbies and a passion for football and writing. Yet, I am unlike most people because of this cursed label that __________ stuck me with. When I took my plea I was told I would have to register for ten years; that has now been changed to thirty years, and I guess they will change it to life someday.

Unless we do something about it!

Gordon