Unknown to many people who've never served time behind bars is the harsh reality that sex offenders - and particularly child molesters - are the most hated guys in prison. You'd think that murderers or muggers would head the list. But consider who's doing the judging and it begins to make sense.
MCC had its share of sex offenders. Lots of them in fact. I even had one for a celly (though he lied about his charge to protect himself). Many were pimps or escort service owners who were unaware that one of their girls was 17 years of age when their operations got busted. Without the underage girl, the charge wouldn't have been federal. And the time served minimal. With the underage girl? At least 10 years - even if the girl was a veteran of many more men than your average housewife. But I digress.
Our poster boy pariah at MCC was a guy named Jeffrey (not Epstein). If you lined up every inmate at the facility and asked somebody to guess which was our most infamous chomo, that somebody would pick this guy nine times out of ten. He just looked the part. Jeffrey was that guy who played tuba in the elementary school band. Big, fat, sloppy and most of all doofy. I can almost hear his theme music now.
Jeffrey was an educated man from Long Island (he had a masters in special education) who tutored his students individually. How's that for an eye roller? Right away, you figure he found a defenseless little kid and did a "I'll show you mine if you show me yours number" a la a priest. After all, Jeffrey had been all over the news - which is part of what made him so infamous at MCC.
The pariah was not in my unit and normally, I wouldn't have had contact with him. But he was an inmate companion (a guy who signed on to watch suicidal inmates), and I spent many hours with Jeffrey down at suicide watch and got to know and even like him.
While he was annoying as hell, Jeffrey had an education, intellect and a good sense of humor. The conversation didn't center around drug and gun-slinging like it did with so many other inmates. Yes, his charge was a little creepy. But I got on with Jeffrey well. Plus, there was something sad about him that told me he simply wasn't the horrible person everybody agreed he was.
Jeffrey was a pretrial inmate when I met him. That means he hadn't been sentenced yet and didn't know for how long he'd be a guest of the federal government. But in May of 2019, the suspense ended when with the help of the psychs at MCC (who gave him a glowing recommendation for his service in the department), Jeffrey was given a 10 year sentence. Believe it or not, this was cause for celebration. When I heard the news, I was sure to bring some horse radish down to suicide watch (available to kitchen workers only). Jeffrey loved horse radish.
Just yesterday (over 8 months since my release) I decided to Google some inmates with the term "name inserted criminal history" for what reason I can't tell you. I inserted maybe 6 different names (including my own) and found significant information on at least half. Jeffrey's was a name I input - and an inmate whose indictment I found online. Everything I thought about him turned out to be true. And by the time I was done, I wanted to indict the cop and system which entrapped him.
As I suspected (and hoped), Jeffrey did not prey upon one of his students or go into a teen chatroom to find his underage girl. He logged onto Craigslist - to the women for men section - as millions of others have to find love or sex. On the list was an ad which advertised a younger woman looking for an older man. Ok! Fair enough. Could be a twenty something looking for a forty something. I've met many girls who confessed that older men held more appeal owing to their experience and wisdom.
But this younger girl wasn't a girl at all. It was a detective fishing for chomos! After the initial correspondence, the cop revealed that "she" was a 13 year old girl. Schmucko, hot off a divorce and lonely, took the bait. And the cop was off and running.
Jeffrey's emails were very explicit. No question about that. But they were erotic - not pornographic. Nothing about "I'm gonna tear that pussy up and fuck the shit out of you." It was all about how gentle he was going to be because she was so young. If he'd said the same thing to a 20 year old virgin, the world would have applauded his sensitivity.
After a couple of weeks, the two set up a meeting place whereupon Jeffrey got bagged and sent off to MCC where I met him. And I have to wonder is this justice? The guy was not looking for a child (or teen). He was looking for companionship where so many others had. But he ran up on a cop whose job it was (or is) to sucker guys into an illegal tryst.
Look! I'm four square for imprisoning child molesters who live to prey upon children. But that wasn't Jeffrey. I am literally angry and repulsed by what I read yesterday. And ya know...Jeffrey never once complained about the manner in which he was set up by the system. He owned his crime citing that he'd done something foolish and had to pay the price. I'm not surprised. Jeffrey wasn't a child molester. He was simply a lonely man. And now he's doing 10 years for the crime thanks to a cop whose job it was to sucker him into an illegal situation which Jeffrey never sought in the first place. Call me crazy but I think the feds created a pedophile. They didn't catch one.
But didn't he have a history with Ghislaine Maxwell of running a pedo ring for wealthy/influential people (which is probably why his death spawned the "he was killed to be silenced" conspiracy theory)?
ReplyDeleteI still don't buy into the whole it means less if an underaged girl was the town bicycle. You could argue the girl was "into it" or "wanted to enter that profession" or what have you but we know biologically and psychologically, teenagers aren't of the most rational mind and if you throw that in with a fucked up life and then try to use that as a determinant as whether or not they can be victims of sexual abuse is a little sideways.
If one of the gangbangers came and raped you but you ejaculated due to basic human physiology I doubt you'd go for the argument that you liked it as justification.
This is a different Jeffrey as noted in paragraph 3.
ReplyDeleteShit I conflated the two probably because my brain saw Epstein but didn't register the not. Still stands though with disagreeing with the whole treadless tire thing as justification.
ReplyDeleteWith things the way they are now having it revealed that Kushner intentionally railroaded a national COVID response plan for political gain, I wish we could go back to a time when philosophical moral arguments was the biggest worry.