I’m named after one. Catholic priest, great friend of my parents, who after his retirement was accused of and admitted to molesting several girls while he was a parish priest.
As a SVU detective and Megan’s Law coordinator I know quite a few. Also an estranged family member but I don’t really know the circumstances.
In my experience those that don’t care about the gender of the victim are rare. Most that I have dealt with go after one gender.
How hard is it typically to be compliant with treatment? I’ve heard anecdotes about people being flunked out of treatment for disagreeing about underlying facts (e.g. person claims that they only abused 5 kids, therapist says no, at least six, person says no, therapist says patient is in denial and should go back to prison). Is it that bad, or does “non-compliant” really mean that the patient never shows up for treatment sessions and spends all day jacking off in front of the local elementary school or otherwise engaged in completely inappropriate behavior?
I was an altar boy in grade school. When I was in college I heard that the priest in charge of altar boys when I was there had been accused of molesting several altar boys and altar girls. He was supposed to have some kind of hearing on a Wednesday, Monday morning they found him dead from suicide.
After that a huge argument took place in the parish. Some people thought he should be buried in the church plot with all the other priests, and some thought that because he was a suicide he shouldn’t be buried in holy ground. Nothing about the kids, just where they were going to bury him.
There was a guy from my church who had a son about my age who I would hang out with occasionally. Personality-wise he and his family are most closely described as Ned, Todd and Maud Flanders. Religious, and totally white bread to the point of being annoying. They had been taking care of a series of foster children, with rumor having it that he was more enthusiastic about this than his wife. While I was away at college it was found out he had been molesting a nine year-old girl in his care.
My mom and I visited him once in jail, and I was put in the awkward position of being glad for him and his family that he got a relatively light prison sentence (he was out in 5 years). In retrospect, though he really should have been in for longer.
Yes, someone who worked in my building. He’s incarcerated now. It was pretty shocking.
I can’t give a good cite, either, but I can say I’ve heard Miller’s assertion expressed by people who were knowledgable on the subject. The general view being that for “true” pedophilias (who are attracted to prepubescent children), their orientation is generally towards children first and towards gender second. I’m sure there’s a lot of variation, but the general view is that opportunistic predators will choose children they have access to regardless of gender.
If you google “pedophilia as orientation,” I know there’s a lot of relevant discussion happening around that topic, but I’m a teensy bit hesitant to do that research at work.
I’ve known 3.
The first was an evangelical preacher in our town. The family also owned a music store and I took guitar lessons from him. He and his wife had several children and foster children. Very much a pillar of the community. I was friends with one of the daughters and as teens, huge groups of us kids would hang out at their house all the time. About a year after we graduated high school, the mom died of a grave illness, and then the foster kids began to come forward, alleging abuse. Apparently he had been telling them that he’d kill the mother if they ever told. My friend said she was not abused by him. He’s still in prison, as far as I know.
Then, I was working for a small company and we all spent time together socially. One guy got a girlfriend who lived in a town about 1 hour away, and he was very excited one Friday to leave work early for a date with her. We never saw him at work again. Turned out, the girlfriend had at least one child, and a niece or nephew also, and she would drug the children and have men come over and assault them while they were passed out. The “date” was him going to do that, and he got arrested enroute. Apparently, it was not the first attempt, but the child had not been asleep enough the first time. They found tons of porn on his home computer, and for a while we were afraid they were going to come seize his work computer, which was actually property of a very high profile and security-centric client. Most of us were completely shocked and would never have thought him capable. He wrote letters to several coworkers apologizing and reassuring them that their children were not victims. The whole thing was very unsettling. It was hard to even type that, actually. He was in prison for a year and a half I guess, don’t know what happened to him after that.
The 3rd was my best friend’s brother. He was on the outs with his wife and gave a ride home to a 16 year old waitress from the restaurant he managed, and fooled around with her. Somehow her parents found out, and they pressed charges. He was about 29 or 30 at the time. He spent a year in jail and is now a registered sex offender for life. I have a hard time with this one because I genuinely like(d) the guy, but he did abuse a teen over whom he had a position of authority. It makes him a complete asshole, but he’s also a wonderful father who lost almost 2 years with his wonderful kids.
At least three teachers at the school I went to.
Two were members of the religious order that ran the place: details on that pair here and here.
The other was a regular teacher, I had him for several classes and he was also my ‘homeroom’ teacher - he killed himself before trial and there is some speculation that one of the Brothers and this guy were sharing info about who were viable targets.
A friend of mine that had been abused by one of the brothers killed himself a few years back, most likely as a result of ongoing issues from the abuse - though we can’t really prove anything.
A guy I used to work with back in the early 90s went to jail for molesting his own 14 year old daughter. After it happened my coworkers and I were all talking about it and I remembered he showed me a picture of her and said something about how pretty she was, which I jokingly responded with, “She’s a little young for me - ha ha.” Turns out he’d done that with all of us.
I knew one as a child, and no he did not molest me, though sometimes I wonder if I have blocked it out.
It was a childhood friend of mine that I assume was molested. One day, and having no idea of this stuff my friend suggest us going to a friend of his, and maybe see some, well I forget the words, but basically naked women. We go to this adult’s basement apartment where he shows us a video of a chick enjoying anal stimulation. I believe the term used was anal orgasm which may be the title that vid. I did sense that he was getting excited although I also felt like nothing happened and that I attribute to angelic protection that I enjoy.
A couple of years after graduating High School, I heard one of the football coaches got fired for screwing an high school junior. It was rumored that this was habit for him.
Yep.
Family friend had a 17 year old son. Son baby sat for a 8 year old girl once a week for a neighbor. Prosecution showed he would assault her every time he sat with her.
His defense was he smoked a lot of pot and didn’t really know what he was doing.
:rolleyes:
We knew that kid his entire life and he was always odd.
This did affect our relationship with his parents. It was very uncomfortable to listen to them whine about how harsh the system was treating their son. How, even after being released from prison he had to register wherever he lived, take drug tests all the time, blah, blah, blah. Couldn’t spend 3 seconds with them before the banter started. Their entire lives were obsessing about poor Phil. Eventually we just broke contact with them.
Hey, that reminds me of a vaguely related story. My best friend’s older brother “Mortimer” used to babysit for me sometimes. When he did, he would terrorize one of our dogs by chasing it around the house with a cane (which my mother used to discipline me, so the dog was scared of the cane, although no one ever hit the dog with the cane). I told my mother about this, and of course he never babysat for me again.
A year or two later, my mother started getting dirty phone calls. A male voice would say, “How’s your pussy?” This was the 1960s and my mother was too naive to get it at first; we had a pet cat and my mother would respond, “Our cat is fine, why?”
Eventually she figured out (1) what kind of pussy he was referring to; and (2) it was Mortimer calling.
So the next time he called she said, “Hi Mortimer!” He hung up and never called again.
Sorry, that wasn’t quite a story about knowing a child molester. However, I think it is safe to assume that Mortimer has not been a model citizen in all the years that have passed since then.
Not that I’m aware. I had a teacher who was very touchy-feely, and I heard a lot of third-hand fragmented stories about him, but that’s not enough to convince me of his guilt.
There was another female teacher I had who my brother would weave these fantastic tales about her exploits with teenage students, but I am reasonably convinced he made those up.
Aside from that, I am mostly unaware of the sexual proclivities of all my acquaintances.
Actually no one was really sure because he drugged the boys on school trips. I’d like to the boys would have known on some level that they had been abused and since none seemed to know, we’re hoping he only took pictures and got off on that.
The priest at the church we went to when I was a kid was later found to be molesting boys. Luckily I wasn’t an altar boy and was never alone with him.
I have a relative who sexually abused his step daughter from the ages of about 9-12. She waited until his other children (her step-siblings) were all grown and not needing his child support and then right before the statute of limitations ran out, she filed charges, informed his employer and did her best to ruin his life. He turned himself in and pleaded guilty, so she wasn’t making anything up. She must have really hated him.
I know someone who was convicted as such, but the “child” was a willing 18-year-old participant–but also a student while the convict was school faculty.
I am friends with a woman who dated a child molester who said he was reformed. I met the guy, but I didn’t really know him. She didn’t have children at home, BTW. They’ve since broken up, and I’ve not really pried into why.
My high school vice-principal and my mother’s cousin’s husband. They both did get caught and imprisoned.