This is the true story of a student who found out that her father is a sex offender.
It was just a typical Saturday in her life with homework and Netflix. Then her mom told her the news that she, herself, just found out; her father pleaded guilty to a sex crime.
When asked what the crime was, “I’d really rather not share… It wasn’t rape or anything to do with kids though.”
She found out about her father the worst way of all.
“He didn’t even have the courage to tell me himself. He’s one of those, ‘if you don’t ask, I won’t tell’ kind of people… to find out through a newspaper clipping my grandmother [on my mom’s side of the family] sent to my mom, wasn’t good.”
It wasn’t until a month after he pleaded guilty that she found out about it. By that time she had already seen him a few times.
“If I had known, I wouldn’t have hung out with him. As soon as I found out, I completely stopped talking to him. He hasn’t seen or talked with me for about two months and I’m fine with it.”
She would only see her father every other weekend and most of that time she was working, so she doesn’t feel like it’s that big of a change for her.
When asked if she would ever see him again and would be able to forgive him she said, “I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive him. I might see him again one day, I’m just not sure.”
Her father doesn’t have to be on the Sex Offender Registry because it was only his first offence.
According to the student, “He’s claimed that my mom is brainwashing me that he is a sex offender and to not go see him. Just because he doesn’t have to be registered, he has the frame of mind that he isn’t a sex offender, even though he committed a sex crime.”
He lost his job because of this, almost a year ago.
“I knew he lost his job, he just never told me why… I never asked why he was fired because I was afraid to know the answer.” When asked if she has had contact with anyone in his family she said she went and saw her Grandmother the other day. “I still want to have a relationship with my grandparents even if I don’t have one with him.”
Once her mom found out, she did some research. Her mother was able to go to the courthouse and see the documents from the hearing. The student and her mother were upset that they weren’t told about the situation, not even by law enforcement or court officials.
Her mother called the state’s attorney’s office and according to her mother, “They didn’t even know we existed, they had no clue that he had an ex-wife or a child.” Apparently, there is no law stating that the child, nor the other parent, be notified if one parent is convicted of a sex crime.
That is the mind-boggling part: she doesn’t understand and thinks it is morally wrong.
The student says, “Who knows how many other kids don’t know that one of their parents have been convicted of a crime? I just think it’s wrong that I wasn’t told by any law officials that my father had pleaded guilty to a sex crime. I wouldn’t know of one teenage girl that would want to see and spend time with their father after that has happened.”
