Justice System Marks Young Man for Life! Help Needed!

Shortly after turning 19 years old my son had intercourse with a girl who was not of legal age.

I'd tell you how old the girl was but even the court documents I read didn't agree on that. I asked his state appointed lawyer for confirmation of her age and she replied that she didn't know. The fact she was not of an age to consent was the basis of the charge yet they convicted my son anyhow.

The girl did consent. In fact, she consented to having sexual relations with more than a few individuals around the same time as she had relations with my son. One of those was also convicted of CSC. Her own brother in law as a matter of fact. Though she lied to my son about her age, her brother in law certainly knew. He was also old enough to have a few children of his own. He got the same exact sentence as my son, who was her steady boyfriend.

According to my son, this girl told him she would break up with him if he didn't have intercourse with her. He felt he was in love with her and didn't want to lose her. He consented. That was the day he lost his virginity. David never even had his first kiss until he was 18 years old. He was not aware of her relations with the other individuals.

When he became aware, they broke up. Shortly after, she discovered she was pregnant.

The girl's parents did not file a complaint, her school did.

One day the girl entered the school counselor's office to complain that her mother had punched her in the stomach and forced her to take unidentified pills in an effort to cause her to abort her baby. The school asked who the father was and she named my son, though, timing wise the baby could have been fathered by someone other than my son.

The fact that it was a consensual act means my son does NOT qualify as a tier III sex offender according to this article authored by Michigan CSC defense attorney, Aaron J. Boria, PLLC.: Michigan criminal sexual conduct SORA Tier 3 changes

The police department asked the school to drop the charges. They refused. Legally it then had to be pursued and given my son's honesty when asked, they convicted him. He served a year in jail, was sentenced to 5 years probation and life on the national sex offender's list.

He did ask his lawyer to have a DNA test done to see if the baby was his. She agreed to do that for him and DNA samples were taken from him. The test was never done. As terms of his probation order, he is not allowed any contact with the 'victim' so he remains distressed that this may be his child.

The girl's mother was never charged with child endangerment that I am aware of.

After doing a year in jail, my son moved on and found a new girlfriend who was the same age as himself. The relationship became a serious one with discussions of marriage. My son's probation officer approved of the relationship and even consented to allowing them to move in together to share a home.

To be honest, I had problems with this girl from day one. She is obsessively controlling and was even physically abusive to my son. We discussed our differences and I tried to do what I needed to do to be supportive of my son. This was not easy for me as a mother but, at 20 years old, you don't get to 'lay down the law' with your children anymore. I tried to counsel where I could. My son is so soft-hearted and, honestly, down right gullible and suffered a low self-esteem, that he did whatever she ordered him to do.

She became pregnant.

The day I gave her a baby shower her parents picked her up, from my home within a couple hours of her laughing and opening gifts and then surprised my son with 'we're done'. This was pre-meditated. Fine to break up with someone. It wasn't working out. But I thought it crude that she pretended all was beautiful so she could ensure she'd get all the gifts from the baby shower first. I can't express all my opinions on this relationship here. I'm attempting to keep it factual.

My grandson is now 7 months old and we haven't seen him since he was 4 days old.

*** Recent Happenings *** He has attempted to talk to her and be able to become a part of his son's life and send financial support. She promises and then backs out. She called recently and offered to bring his son up here to a motel room she'd rent. She told him that she would leave him at the motel to spend time with his son alone while she went in town shopping. He asked for a public place like McDonalds. She refused. My son refused the motel room. Nothing sounds right about that.

My son asked the court for mediation services as he does not want to see his son unless it is an officially supervised visit. The court refused him these services.

What about the probation violation mentioned in the introduction here you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Registered sex offenders are not allowed to be on social networking websites such as Facebook. My son got on a Facebook account that he had created prior to his original arrest.

Why? He sent a private message (not a wall post, nobody could see this message but the recipient) to a friend of his ex-fiance to ask her for a photo of his son. He was beside himself with grief over the fact he was not able to see him and the mother refused to share photos. He succumbed to this pain and begged for a photo of his son.

They came and arrested him for that. He did his discretionary time in jail.

Yes, he was wrong. It was a direct violation. But he wasn't doing something devious or harmful. He was simply a man in a weakened state who wanted to see his son's face.

I know this is a short article so time seems to happen fast. Please bare in mind that this has been happening over a period of years.

My son is now engaged to a WONDERFUL young lady (23 years old). Our entire family loves her and excited by the relationship. They are both glowing with happiness and treat each other with mutual respect and kindnesses. When you see them together, the love is obvious. God bless her, she is committed to him even given his charge and a baby with the ex-fiance. She supports his desire to be a father to his son.

They want to get married and move in together. They asked permission as that is required with my son's charge. They refused to grant permission on the basis that they didn't want to be the one's responsible for giving approval. Why? Because this woman has three young children. They went through the probation officer, the probation officer's supervisor, another supervisor, his lawyer and his lawyer even asked the original prosecuting attorney. They were told they will have to go to court in order to obtain permission to get married.

Knowing this was likely due to the fact nobody wants to take legal responsibility in granting permission, his fiance wrote a letter officially declaring that she will not hold the state legally responsible. They also each wrote a letter of why they want to get married and file those, along with an appeal to be married at the courthouse.

NOTE: It needs to be noted that my son's probation officer DID approve my son moving in with his brother at one point though his brother (my youngest son) has a child of his own also living in the home. It was okay for my son to live with my granddaughter so this was not a matter of him not being allowed to be with any children in general.

I have hired a lawyer and the details I formerly had in this section have temporarily been removed so as to not harm his case.

I will have to summarize for now: My son was again arrested for violation of probation for being around his fiance's children. There is much more to it than this but I can't share more info at the present time. I wish I could! He is currently lodged in jail awaiting sentencing and facing a possible prison sentence. We are actively fighting as hard as we can on his behalf.

I am going on prayer to pay his lawyer. He is a former FBI Special Agent who acts confident in his ability to help my son. I don't want current details published publicly to get in the way of his case. As it is brought up in court and already made a matter of public record, I will publish this information.

We have paid his retainer but it will be a struggle to pay the other fees we will be incurring. If your heart would lead you to donate to my son's legal fund, I hope to have something set up to do that very soon. Please contact me privately or watch this page for updates. We are in immediate need of $1500 for the next phase of his case. We have faith that God will provide.

A loving person who has never harmed another human being in his life should not be allowed to go to prison for being in the same room as his fiance's children,

The Romeo and Juliet ammendment to the Sex Offenders Registration Act (SORA) went into effect in 2011.

This Romeo and Juliet law serves to remove certain offenders from the sex offenders list and from probation in the cases of those already convicted, such as my son.

You must meet all three of these conditions to qualify:

1. The 'victim' consented
2. The 'victim' was over 13 but younger than 16
3. There is not more than a 4 year age difference between the offender and the victim

My son should qualify for this but was told by authorities that he did not. We are working on getting him awarded with this ruling. However, if he had already been allowed, he would not be in trouble now and he would not have been in trouble with the first probation violation as they would not have been offenses nor would he have been on probation. He also would not have needed permission that he was not granted to marry his fiance.

This law was passed to help keep young people exactly like my son from falling into the system unfairly. Sadly, we are proof that they are still trying to keep some of them from being approved and protected by this law.

You can check it out for yourself on this government website:
Select Portions of the Sex Offenders Registration Act (SORA),
as amended by 2011 PAs 17 and 1 See page 19 for the Romeo and Juliet exceptions.

In light of some of the comments and just for clarity as to my son's character, I wanted to share some tidbits of information so you get an idea of what kind of person my son is.

My son was born in February of 1989. He is the middle child of three sons.

I had to watch him every moment for fear someone would steal him when he began walking. He would happily talk and go with anyone who had a smile for him. I explained to him that talking to strangers was not to be done. "You can only talk to you and Mommy's friends, not people you don't know." So, he began tugging on the sleeves of friendly looking people to ask if they would be his friend so he could talk to them. Suffice to say, I was one of those moms who had a Sesame Street toddler wrist leash!

He was born with an eye condition that caused him to be cross-eyed. This coupled with the fact that he was also quite quiet and awkwardly clumsy, he was often bullied at school. He was the stereotypical little boy who would sneak his brand new toys after Christmas to school with him and offer them up to other kids if they would agree to be his friend.

All his life, he's been willing to do anything for any amount of affection and acceptance.

When in 6th grade, I pulled all our sons out to homeschool them but gave them the option of going back when in high school so they could experience proms, a formal high school graduation, etc. This somewhat helped with his self esteem building as the bullying was stopped.

The doctors had him wear glasses, eye patches, etc all in an effort to correct his lazy eye. It didn't work so while in high school, he had surgery. His confidence began to grow.

Our sons were members of three different youth groups. He had a real calling as a Christian. He would speak often to other teens about God and Christ and they were drawn to listening to him. His passion was real and they sensed that. He also helped nearly every week with our church's nursery. He always had a huge heart for children.

When he was 17 he attended an Aquire the Fire concert. Following the concert, he spoke with representatives from Global Expeditions, a group that arranges missions trips for teens. He approached me about going on a missions trip to Africa for a couple months. I consented and he got busy with fundraisers and speaking his heart to our church, who also financially supported him. He got the opportunity to personally hand out Samaritan's Purse boxes to children in Zimbabwe. He was excited to see how the children would toss aside the toys and trinkets but hold up toothbrushes and bars of soap like they were the greatest treasure on earth. He went on to spend time helping in Botswana and South Africa as well. He did manual labor in clearing areas for homes and ministered to various groups about Christ with the help of translators. He personally witnessed to several people who he helped lead to say the sinner's prayer and accept Christ as their savior which he holds as his greatest contributions in life.

He asked me what I wanted as a souvenir. I asked him to bring me back a nice rock. I just wanted to be able to say I touched Africa. The spending money we sent with him I wanted him to get souvenirs for himself to help him remember his time there and someday show his children/grandchildren, etc. He kept calling and asking for more money. We went for broke because it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Once he came home he only had a carved alligator for his dad and a couple tiny trinkets. "Where did all the money go I sent you?" I asked. Well, his answer was simple. While working there, they had a concession truck present. They got peanut butter sandwiches every day but beyond that, had to buy food. There were always several children who would help them work but they had neither food nor money. David was buying them food every day. He'd even traded off his personal belongings for African currency to buy them food so he came home basically empty handed but with a full heart. He bawled when he came home. This area of Africa has a huge percentage of AIDS victims and though he had high hopes of returning one day, he knew most of the children would have left this earth from AIDS as would some of the adults he met and formed relationships with. It broke his heart.

In high school he was a member of Straight Edge, a teen group that takes an oath not to do drugs, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or promiscuous sex. They also don't believe in taking prescription medication. This was about the same time he stopped taking his prescription medication he was on for depression.

He attended Huntington University, which is one of the top Christian colleges in the United States. He took music management classes but later realized that was not the path for him, career wise and it was quite expensive so priced him right out of school.

He hoped to become either a youth pastor or a counselor for bullied youth and hoped to return to Botswana. With these charges, he will never be allowed to leave the country again. He can't be around the youth let alone be a pastor or counselor to them.

His life has basically been stopped due to his mistake in having intimate relations with his girlfriend.

My son write's his fiance and I frequently from jail.
In one of his letters he wrote to his fiance, he discusses his faith. She read it to me and it made me cry. I know he isn't alone in there but it is comforting to know he knows he's not alone as well. God is with him.

With permission, I'd like to share that section of the letter with you so that you can hear from David himself. I may share bits and pieces of future letters as well.

"I'm trying to use this time to draw closer to God. I've had a verse stuck in my head since I've been here.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight."

This verse has given me a lot of faith. When things start looking bleak(bad) I think of it, because I have faith that this is in God's will, though sometimes it is hard to put it all in Gods hands. 'Lean not on your own understanding' is the strongest part for me. It reminds me that what I see is far smaller than what God sees. I feel God put it on my heart. I've never spent anytime memorizing it before. God just told me.

Well I got the Bible and found it just recently and it turns out it was word for word as I 'remembered' it. But then again I didn't remember it. God literally spoke those words on my heart. I even started writing what it meant to me and just different stuff I felt about it. I filled an entire page. I don't know why but God wanted me to write it all down. I know it sounds crazy but I know I could not remember that. I haven't spent any time in the Bible for a very long time. I was God's way of comforting me and speaking to me.

If you want to look it up its Proverbs 3:5-6 No matter how bad or good this case turns out it is in God's hands. He is watching over us and it will be his will. He does have a higher purpose. If I get sent to Prison there still is a higher purpose. He does have a plan whether we like or understand it. God somtimes puts us though bad times with good intentions. We are narrowminded where as he sees everything.

I just pray that no matter what his will is that he sends an extra angel to watch over you, because your worth a million angels."

We had our day in court. Well, it was a pre-trial hearing with the prosecutor. In light of the fact additional information was included in my son's paperwork our lawyer was unaware of, our lawyer asked for some time to review the material as the other teenager said some things that made our son look bad but were never brought up before so he could defend himself. This appeared to be why the hostility towards him, though, if true or even believed, would have been something that should have been investigated. The judge refused to grant the extra time before sentencing that was requested by our lawyer and went straight to sentencing and used this nonfactual, unproven accusation that even the police thought to be untrue against his character. I can't go into detail on this as we are, again, hiring a lawyer to get these things removed from his documentation since there is no reason for it to be there. It's just slander by another teenager who didn't want to look bad themselves so tried to make our son look bad since he was already in trouble.

So, straight to sentencing we went. When trying to discuss the sentencing offer from the prosecutor, the prosecutor kept interrupting us with "fish or cut bait" over and over and over again.... Rude and totally unprofessional.

The lightest sentence they would give him is what he accepted. 18-60 months in prison. Yes, 18-60 months in PRISON for being around his finance's children, whom they had both asked numerous people in authority, including filing official court petitions to get married and allow him to be the step-father of these same children.

He will get 12 months served for the time already done for the original charge. We are told it is nearly impossible for sex offenders to get out of prison on their first attempt at parole so he may be looking at a year-and-a-half to 4 years for this mistake.

If he can get the Romeo and Juliet done and in his favor, he won't be on the sex offender list or on probation when his parole hearing comes around so that may give him a better chance at getting out at the 6 month parole hearing. Of course, due to the requirement to undergo a treatment program due to his charge, it will be longer than 6 months before that actually happens.

So, he may not even BE an official sex offender while he is still in PRISON on the tax payers bill. The whole thing is ludicrous. Our next step is to find a politician who can see how wrong this system is.

My son is now in a Max-5 prison for quarantine. He will then be classified and moved to whatever prison they feel appropriate for him. We are not allowed to visit him for this period (a month) and have no idea how far from us he will be when they make the final decision.

I won't share all the letter he wrote to me but for those who have shown how much they care, I really do want to keep sharing bits and pieces of his letters from prison so you can all keep up with him or for those who don't know him, you may get a glimpse of who he really is.

I've never been so depressed in my life. No I'm not going to do anything stupid. I cannot shake that numb/tingly feeling. A nurse told me it was anxiety (like what you said). It's weird though. It's hard for me to grab or move things because I can't feel textures wet/dry soft/hard because it always ends up like a strong almost hot tingly feeling.

I feel paranoid about everything. I'm terrified. I don't have a bible now and that was the only thing keeping me sane. You can buy books off Amazon or Barnes and Noble and have them sent to me. I want a Bible. Reading is going to be the only thing I can do in here.

I really NEED you to write me by mail and whoever else is willing to write me. I know it's just going to get even more depressing and lonely as the days progress.

Please don't stop fighting for me. Find out what me and *** (his fiance) have to do to get married.

I love you."

My son went through 30 days quarantine in a max-5 prison. During this time, he was classified as a level 1 prisoner (least dangerous) and sent to a level 1 prison. Now we will be able to visit him for an hour or more twice per week, when we are able to make the long trip to where they placed him. We will get to actually sit with him versus the darn glass windows of the county jail so that is a plus.

The staff he's spoken to at the max-5 were even upset that he was there. He doesn't deserve to be in jail for this let alone prison.

However, the judge in our county realized this charge was punishable by up to 10 yrs and not the 5 yrs he thought so he tried to change his sentence AFTER he was already sentenced and sitting in prison to give him up to 10 yrs. This shows how ignorant and vindictive this judge is. Even the prosecuting attorney felt it was bogus and put a stop to his efforts. Did I already mention that this is the same judge that put advances on me when I was young and he was in his 50's? He makes me sick!

Donations can be made through PayPal.com, a trusted company that has been around for many years. The email address to use is edb2006@netonecom.net . All funds will be given to our lawyer who has asked that we accept donations this way versus going to him directly as he has to account for services for each person he accepts money from and taking donations will mess up his reporting paperwork.