My Situation

September 24, 2012

I'm incarcerated for sexual exploitation of a minor, or in layman's terms, possession of child pornography.  Allow me to immediately say that I have never, nor would I ever, act in a sexually inappropriate way toward any living human of any age.  I need to put that out there right away.  It does not excuse what I did, but I sincerely believe there to be a significant difference between looking at pictures and acting improperly toward another human being.

I acknowledge my guilt and claim full responsibility for my misguided and reprehensible mistakes.  I will say that while I realize that I have contributed to an abusive and exploitive  industry, I did not contribute money nor did I ever distribute or share these images.  This does not excuse my actions, but I believe it needed to be said.  Not a day passes that I am not sorry for what I did.

Not only have I lost my freedom through this ordeal, but also my career, my home through foreclosure, and my fiancée who I loved more than any other person in my life.  I have significantly affected my relationship with my kids from my marriage and obviously caused turmoil for them and many others.  My former fiancée gave birth to our son shortly after I was incarcerated, and I have never laid eyes on him, nor do I know anything about him.

A big question…  do I deserve all of this?  I most certainly do not condone my actions, but the short answer is NO, I do not think I do.  There is a tendency in our current society to label a variety of actions, neuroses, and activities within a single label of "sex offenses" and that label is commonly, in turn, perceived as "child molester" by media and society, regardless of the actual offense.

As stated, I never touched another person inappropriately and I find that repulsive, disgusting, and horrific in spite of my own crimes.  Yet my sentence is considerably longer than that of many others who did touch and/or had relations with minors.  One reason for this is that in Arizona, a single image carries a mandatory sentence of 5 to 15 years.  A person rarely has a single image, so the sentence can be astronomical.  But a perpetrator engaged in inappropriate relations might  sleeps with "only" one victim, which results in one count of the offense that falls under the same sentencing parameters.

Furthermore, upon my release I will be on lifetime probation and be registered as a sex offender, both of which carry an incredible range of restrictions on what I can and can't do.  No other class of felonies, including murder, drug dealing, armed robbery, assault or even multiple violent offenses carries such far reaching restrictions.  Don't get me wrong, I certainly acknowledge the importance of protecting society and especially children.  There are people who really should be kept away from society, both sex offenders and other offenders, but here in this prison, which houses most of Arizona's  sex offenders,  those extreme cases  are truly the minority