Florida, make better choices
By Sandy . . . A young man was sentenced to prison in Florida last week. The charge, following his arrest last year when he was 19, was 30 counts of possession of child pornography. The materials to which he entered an open plea are disturbing as the children involved were very young. Clearly intervention and appropriate punishment were called for.
However, a sentence that makes no allowance for his young age when the activity was occurring nor for the non-contact nature of the conviction seems inappropriate. Florida, since 1978, has had a youthful offender act. The young man who was sentenced, Anthony by name, seems to be a tailor-made candidate for this option. He appears to meet all the criteria. Whether or not it was considered for him is unknown to all but a very few, but if it was considered, he was denied that opportunity to be held accountable for his crimes; quite possibly serve some prison time; and, most importantly, be evaluated for underlying issues and receive treatment judged appropriate for them and for his offending behavior.
Young people, primarily males, seek out pornography for a variety of reasons. One of these reasons has been identified by the National Health Institute as underlying mental health issues. In a study involving college students, they found that depression as well as high levels of stress and anxiety were precursors to pornography use in these students.
In a study even more specific to Anthony’s case, the National Health Institute concluded that young males with a history of possessing child pornography would most benefit from specific treatment. They found, “. . . juvenile possessors of child pornography need a specific target intervention focusing on dysfunctional Internet use and sexually deviant arousal.” If Anthony had been managed in the youthful offender program, his screening and diagnostic implements may well have reached the same conclusion. It is unlikely he will receive this type of intervention sentenced and incarcerated in the adult system in Florida.
Another possible reason adolescents partake of child pornography is to help them understand sexual abuse of which they themselves were victims. Pornography addiction is one of the latter expressions of victimized children, according to the National Children’s Alliance. In agreement, another organization, in an unpublished study, identified coping with their own prior abuse as one of seven reasons why teens turn to pornography. As far as the public record goes, there is no indication of whether or not any of these issues apply to Anthony. Again, this type of diagnosis and subsequent related treatment would only have been available to him as part of the youthful offender program.
How long was Anthony sentenced for? The answer is shocking. His sentence is for 68 years in state prison, followed by lifetime sex offender probation. And of course, if he survives his prison time, of which 85% must be served, and gets out, he will have sex offender registration as well as sex offender probation.
To put that sentence a bit more in perspective, the U.S. Sentencing Commission shows that for Anthony’s conviction, the average sentence given is 95 months, which is a month shy of eight years.
Another perspective can be had with this. In hunting for the longest sentence given for a non-contact pornography conviction, the case of Stephen Chase, 58, also of Florida, stands out. Stephen, in 2014, created an illegal child pornography website on the dark web. Stephen himself is identified as “. . . creator and lead administrator of what was believed to be the world’s largest child pornography website—with more than 150,000 users around the world.” His conviction, in 2017, was for “. . . engaging in a child exploitation enterprise and multiple child pornography charges.” He was sentenced to 30 years.
Why was Anthony’s sentence so extreme? Any answer will be speculative. However, it is interesting that several of the media articles about his arrest and his conviction say that law enforcement “suspect” him of hands-on molestation of children and put a call out for anyone who had contact with him during the past five years—that would be when he was 14 to 19—to get in touch with law enforcement. The absence of any media or of any new charges indicate there was no one.
We all make choices. We do not know what demons drove Anthony, but he still chose to engage in illegal behavior. The county of Volusia and the state of Florida chose to prosecute Anthony in the adult legal system. As a youthful offender, there is a good chance his problems would have been identified and treated; he would still have served a sentence, but he would have been released with most of his life left. He would have been able to take advantage of rehabilitation and enter his society as a productive, tax-paying citizen.
Now, if he manages to stay alive through the six decades (85%) he will be in a Florida penitentiary, he will emerge, having cost the state at the current rate of $24, 265 per year close to a million and a half of its tax dollars, either a broken and ruined man, dependent on welfare and costing the state even more, or a hardened criminal.
Choices are important.
THank you so much for taking an interest in Florida. May I also respectfully request any support in getting Florida to pass tier one measures that would allow many tier one offenders to be removed from the registry. we are fighting this in our family > Just the issue alone, is damaging many families as we all know the damage done by the label. THank you for all you do!
Florida, from what Ive seen is the worst place on earth for these cases. What drives legislators to allow these completely unfounded and barbaric punishments for non contact offenses? I cannot find, not one shread, of sense in the penalties that have grown for Child Porn cases that do not involve touching. I pray that someday (hopefully soon) the people who set the penalties of these cases will stop and listen to hardcore proven data and statistics and start taking steps to make non contact offenses more sensible. I was convicted in 2004 and got 57 months and I thought I was punished too the extreme…look at how far out of control it has gotten. I will Pray for this young man…its just NOT Justice!
Just sick and disgusting on behalf of the state. Thank you for bringing light to this. We can only hope he could mount successful appeal.
It is virtually impossible, I have been told, to appeal a judgement that you agree to by taking the plea.
No way this case didn’t demand a trial! Period, end of story.
Along with every ” plea bargain ” comes the highest price. The liberty cost is in the form of a defendant’s signed standard waiver of civil rights. The signature is equivalent to a complete and unconditional surrender to the will of the people. 5,000 + are signed every working court day in America a n every plea bargain. Right now it’s this man’s biggest hurdle, legally speaking. IMO another casualty of our database driven infrastructure.
Given the penalties involved now, I would tell anyone arrested for a sex crime in general, child porn in particular, to NOT take a plea under any circumstances and demand not only full trial, but a speedy one. And add not to be swayed by the defense counsel’s (likely the public defender in most cases) attempts to waive the speedy part.
I wonder how zealously LE would pursue CP and those stupid bait and switch stings if everyone arrested on those charges simply refused to waive those rights.
The sentence in this case is absurd and reflects a disturbing lack of common sense from both the judge and the prosecution, who seem intent on securing a conviction at any cost.
Law enforcement does not have the right to selectively apply age considerations to their own criminal activities. While I do not condone his actions, it is important to recognize that issues such as access or usage of pornography and mental health struggles like depression can contribute to this behavior and need to be considered seriously during the case as well as sentencing. Additionally, the sentencing appears to violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, especially when considering past convictions and logical reasoning.
This case needs a more competent defense lawyer to challenge the actions of law enforcement effectively.
RL: i fully agree with your statement 100%. I wish also for all to note that this is election year. Sex offense’s give them politicians a chance to shine for votes.
Unfortunately, those that have the most manpower and largest arsenal get to make all the decisions. The ridiculously long sentence pretty much guarantees that his family/friends have to spend a lot of time fretting over his welfare and planning/paying for appeals. Hopefully, he didn’t take a plea or an appeal will be much harder.
Read my piece again more carefully. He not only took a plea, but he took an open plea.
Do you really think it’s about “sexually deviant arousal”? The only way to end their big-brother game is to refuse to play it.
68 years for pictures. non contact, non abtrusive pictures..talk about a thought crime if ever there was one…. Murder, arson, non sexual assault, drunk driving with fatalities,kidnapping with out sexual overtones, embezzlement of billions, and so many crimes that actually have a real and multiple real physical victims have absolutely no registry and start at sometimes as low as probation or a couple years jail time.. There is no sanity or justice in the American justice system.. not even a pretense of justice.. it’s just mob tyranny and overlord rule with glitter.. nothing to do with Americas war on sex laws makes any logical sense . the crazys are the ones making and enforcing the laws.. it’s forced law in some states that parents MUST allow the states and its indoctrination schools to force gender mutilation of minir children for the states trans programs but life in prison if a child has a picture of a child? doesn’t anyone question the insanity even a little??
Thank you for saying “non-contact,” as I did in the piece. I have seen comments on other forums where these are called “victimless crimes,” and they are not victimless. Real children were molested and abused, and they were real victims. “Non-contact” is the correct nomenclature.
We cannot know how intrusive the photos were or were not as we have not seen them. I do not believe we should play down the photos or what was done to the child victims. We can only protest the non-contact nature of the offense; the youth of Anthony, especially as it appears he started this activity at the age of 14 or even younger; and the failure of our system to recognize and manage these sorts of offenses as addiction and mental health issues.
I’m 59 years old with an offence that happened 32 years ago. The Narsol rep here in colorado told me that sadly in our lifetime we will probably never live to see the end of this cruel and unusual punishment called the registry. She is an older lady near my age. Realizing this, the one hope I do have now is to live long enough to see I the Total collapse and destruction of The United States of America. At that time the citizens here will truly have something to worry about.
When I saw the sentence length I said something I can’t repeat here. It takes a lot to shock me, but that did. The fact that he has to wait until 85% is served to be considered for parole means he has a little bit over 10 years. I also worry about his safety. Prison inmates are notorious for going after those convicted of sex offenses. I was extremely lucky I got a black eye in country, but that was it. I hope he stays safe.
This piece was very well written. Thank you as always for bringing this injustice to the forefront. I am always deeply disappointed in our lack of justice in this country. They would rather destroy lives then lift people up. Shame on the United States.
Interesting that most if not all CP cases evolve from Pornography addiction, yet there is never a peep from any politician in controlling pornography. It is the root cause and it is controllable. If NARSOL was to attack the pornography industry, I think they would get better results on repealing some of these absurd laws for SOs.
The only thing that this can be is for labor, slave labor as defined under the 14th amendment of the US Constitution. There is no justice here, just indentured servitude for 40 plus years making parts for the military or other corporation. Sad reality to our times.
Might as well have given him the death sentence and used Bundy’s old chair in Stark. Another life deemed unworthy to participate in society by the Florida legislature. Yeah, there never were any guard rails in Florida. Run off the road in Florida and you’re going to be engulfed in a fireball once you hit the bottom of the cliff.
You wanna talk about choices?
Yet the 14-year-old kid, that shot that school up in Georgia the other day, will not even get nowhere near 68 years.
Too bad this country doesn’t deem gun ownership as a threat and a sickness the way it does images.