UPDATE, February 24, 2010: Stancl gets 15 years in prison in Facebook coercion case
_________________
UPDATE, December 22, 2009: Anthony Stancl - GUILTY, 2 counts sexual assault
_________________
Anthony Stancl's buddy icon, "usmc42011," Flickr
Profile photo from Anthony Stancl's blog on Barack Obama's website
Anthony Stancl, Election Night 2008
Anthony Stancl, Spock
These are photos of Tony Stancl that I found on the Internet. They're harmless, not the stuff of blackmail, but they're out there. Put it on the Internet and there's a trail.
In connection to the case of Anthony R. Stancl, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on a Twitter account belonging to "anthonystancl."
Investigators have described illicit material that they say Anthony Stancl kept privately on his computer as potential blackmail against boys at New Berlin Eisenhower Middle/High School.
But Stancl, or someone using his alias, also left public trails on blogs and social networking sites to document a bomb threat at his school in mid-November, as well as events on the day police arrested Stancl for sexual assault.
Here's "Google's cache of https://explore.twitter.com/anthonystancl. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Nov 27, 2008 13:45:45 GMT."
It details the bomb threat at New Berlin Eisenhower.
The Journal Sentinel has an image of "anthonystancl's" Twitter page, November 17, 2008, detailing "anthonystancl's" online goodbye.
It appears that these postings do belong to Anthony Stancl. Of greater significance is the e-trail and the clear computer evidence of Stancl's activities.
Busted.
What he did is so heinous it's hard to comprehend.
From the Journal Sentinel:
Anthony R. Stancl, 18, posing as a female on Facebook, persuaded at least 31 boys to send him naked pictures of themselves and then blackmailed some of the boys into performing sex acts under the threat that the pictures would be released to the rest of the high school, according a criminal complaint.
All 31 boys attend New Berlin Eisenhower Middle/High School, said Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel.
The sexual assaults occurred in a bathroom at the high school, the school parking lot, a New Berlin Public Library restroom, Valley View Park, Malone Park, Minooka Park and at some of the victims' homes.
At least seven boys, 15 to 17, were forced into performing sex acts, Schimel said. The incidents occurred from spring 2008 until the time of Stancl's arrest in November. Stancl had 300 photos and movie clips on his computer of boys from the school, ages 13 to 19, Schimel said.
...Schimel said that while the closing of school because of the bomb scare was costly and inconvenient, the charge "pales in comparison" to what investigators learned later. As police were investigating the bomb threat, one victim came forward, he said.
The boy, who was 15 at the time of the assaults, said he was repeatedly forced into sexual acts with Stancl, according to the complaint. Stancl took pictures of every encounter and was able to coerce the boy into repeated sexual acts by telling him the girl he met on Facebook would release the pictures to the rest of the school if they didn't continue to meet, the complaint says.
The boy went to his parents and then the police after Stancl asked the boy to get nude pictures of his brother, the complaint says. The boy refused to get his brother involved.
Stancl, who has been expelled from school, is accused of following a similar pattern with at least six other boys.
I don't know how Stancl could have thought he could ever pull something like this off without eventually being discovered.
Maybe he didn't care.
...Authorities believe there are more victims and are urging them to come forward, New Berlin Police Lt. Mike Glider said.
The resulting investigation also turned up computer evidence that Stancl pulled images of females from their Facebook pages and used them to persuade male students to e-mail nude photographs to Stancl, according to the criminal complaint.
A criminal complaint charges Stancl with the bomb threat plus repeated sexual assault of same child (at least three violations of first- or second-degree sexual assault), possession of child pornography, second- and third-degree sexual assaults, and five counts of child enticement.
The maximum penalty if convicted on all charges is nearly 300 years in prison.
Stancl made his initial appearance Wednesday in Waukesha County Circuit Court in Waukesha and was ordered held on $250,000 bail.
Stancl has thrown his life away. THREE HUNDRED YEARS!
He had a lot going for him, and he threw it away.
What he allegedly did is positively evil.
There are so many victims here.
Thankfully, one kid was finally brave enough to come forward, go to his parents and then to the police.
If this isn't a teaching moment for parents and their children, not only for the New Berlin Eisenhower community but for families everywhere, I don't know what would be.
The Internet is crawling with creeps and perverts and liars. Facebook and MySpace and other social networking sites are their playgrounds.
Don't assume someone on the Internet is the person he or she claims to be.
And never send nude photos of yourself to someone online.
_____________
Video from FOX 6.
_____________
Related Posts:
Anthony R. Stancl
Anthony Stancl's Obama Blog
Paul Kreutzer: "Everybody's from Eisenhower"
______________
February 11, 2009, New York Times: Sex Predator Accusations Shake a Wisconsin Town
14 comments:
Posted by Anonymous to FREEDOM EDEN at 5:33 PM, February 05, 2009
the piece of ---- deserves more than 300 years in prison.I'll be glad to hear his inprisonment for life.
I know this kid personally and we used to be really good friends last year until he started being all weird with me. I knew he was a little messed up after I broke it off with him, but I never expected anything like this. He had so much potential; he was incredibly smart. And now look what he's done with himself.
If Tony could see this I have a lot of stuff I would like to say to him. But I'll just keep this comment PG.
Let this be a lesson to all.
I attended grade school and high school with Tony. He was a nice kid, always one to acknowledge your presence. He had things going for him and he was very smart.
Obviously he has done some horrible horrible things and he will be in prison for the rest of his life. He will get what he deserves for the crimes he has committed. But to go as far as to call him a piece of ---? and wish that kind of fate upon an individual? That's a little ridiculous.
He has a family; one that is probably much like your own. Why don't you try to put yourself in their position. It is a hard time for the family, the city, and the Eisenhower community.
Anonymous: Why don't YOU try putting yourself in the position of his victims and the little kids he was masturbating to? This guy is garbage and he's a sociopath.
He had child pornography on his computer, not just classmates. I was molested several times when I was a kid and it's horrible to hear about this stuff, but to actually experience it is the nightmare. I have a personal vendetta against garbage like this.
These boys have to live a lifetime dealing with this ordeal having happened to them, so why should HE get any less than life in prison?
He is a piece of trash, I do feel sorry for his family, they will pay for his disgusting way. How could this trash do what he did to these innocent young men. They have had to pay the price and will in the future for his selfesh disgusting ways. I saw him smile on the tv and wanted to vomit. HOw could he smile knowing how he ruined SO many lives. 300 years could NEVER be enough for what he has done. I hope and pray that all the young men who were trapped by this pig know that they are NOT to blame and they are wonderful young men who were violated by a disgusting pig who will rot in ----!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
His parents aren't bad people... I don't understand how all of this could have happened. He's clearly a sociopath but why? I kinda know him. He seemed like a perfectly normal kid. But i guess in this day and age people are always going to disappoint you.
I pray for his family and all the people he has hurt.
I hate pedophiles, I hate them more than I hate anything in this world. When I was 3 yeaers old, my mother got tired of being a single mom, and married a guy from our Church who she thought could be a male role model for me, and had a baby with this man 9 months later. As soon as they got back from their honeymoon, he started hitting me and beating me, and she stood there and said nothing, and in no time she became involved in domestic violence herself. He beat her too, and she accepted this as something she deserved, I feel she is as culpable as he is. This man molested me on and off from the time I was 3 years old, until I was 17, even though he plead guilty and was convicted of sexual assault of a child and several counts of other sex offender nature when I was 14, yet he never served more time in jail than just his initial booking, less than 48 hours. I am a 40 year old man now, and his abuse has hurt my little brother who is 5 years younger than me, he's my half brother, but this abuser I'll call him JP, when he married my mother he adopted me and gave me his last name as soon as he got their marriage license in 1972, so he is the only father I have ever known. Like almost all sex offenders I have studied, they marry, don't identify as "homosexual", identify as "straight" men, are active in their community Churches, and are generally regarded as good fathers and role models in the community. I have almost never heard of an "out and proud" gay man who molested kids, especially young boys, they are almost always with few exceptions good financial providers, and regarded as spiritual leaders in more Protestant type Christian Churches, where you don't have to go to seminary to be a church elder or a minister or something.
The damage they do to a child's mind cannot be measured, described, or helped that I know of, I told psychiatrists for years and years that I was ok, there was nothing wrong with me, and went about my life. I thrived in my 20s, had lots of long term relationships with young ladies who each one I hoped I would marry someday. The problem is, one cannot have a 'healthy' adult relationship when you look to your life partner for the love and fulfillment that one is supposed to receive as a child from their parents, and later on from one self, the love you have for yourself more popularly known as "the greatest love of all." Instead, the lady who has stood by you for 4, 5, 7 years feels incapable of living up to standards and expectations that will never measure up to the emotional damage and broken person who is incapable of loving others properly if they can't even love their own self. Something a predator learns to be effective at what they do, is to remove a child's boundaries and make them question every ounce of self preservation they have as abnormal or somehow unhealthy, selfish, or harmful to the predator. This can follow you through the rest of your life, as you don't stand up for yourself in situations which require that you do so, or know how to trust other people when you constantly go from zero boundaries to complete mistrust, never being able to balance between one extreme or the other. The problems are endless, and sadly in a society which has finally learned to take women seriously who experience domestic violence and rape, there are almost no resources for recovery or treatment for male survivors of this sort of sex abuse.
Now that I will turn 40 in a few months, my abuse causes me more harm and distress than it has in almost 20 years. Between the ages of 15-22 I tried to commit suicide dozens of times, I cut myself, then later took overdoses which resulted in being in numerous comas, I was dead for all intents and purposes at least 3 times for sure where I had no heart or lung activity and couldn't be revived for a very long time, and 5 times was in a coma for several days after receiving CPR, chest tube, assisted breathing, shocked my heart with the defibrillator, stomach pumped and charcoal poured through my stomach and intestines, followed by psychiatric observation, and then very little psychiatric treatment or follow up. Often I believe that God intervened, because my plans were so fool proof there is no way anybody should have found me or noticed me missing for several days when I planned these suicides. I went to psychiatrists for years and took all kinds of medications and behavioral treatments, with little to moderate results. I got stronger and stronger in my 20s and early 30s, but then something happened, and it was like I came out of a deep fog. I didn't realize until I was almost 37 years old just how deeply I was damaged by the sex abuse. I started to have recurring memories, nightmares, sleepwalking, obsessing, relapses of agoraphobia, panic attacks, and depression even while on huge quantities of medications. I find it strange, but research I have done has opened my eyes to the fact that many people who have PTSD from sex abuse, sometimes don't react emotionally to the abuse until years or decades later in life, when they seem to have gotten all of their other psychiatric and emotional symptoms under control.
The police and Child Protective Services were no help at all when I went to them and told them what was happening in my home. They told me I was lying even though my back was covered with so many bruises, my parents gave me a letter so I wouldn't have to undress and shower, and participate in P.E. at Middle School and Junior High. Many of my doctors and teachers confronted my parents for abusing me physically and emotionally, and my folks always behaved so over the top, that the docs and teachers backed down, or were afraid to bring it up again. They followed clues like I would flinch when they touched me on the shoulder, or they extended their hand to shake my hand. I wet my pants at school until I was 10 or 11 years old, and had to go home and change my pants, I was terrified of restrooms and private places. I was always embarrassed when people looked at me, and I thought I was ugly as a child, teen, and young adult. I always hid my face and covered myself up, even though I worked out and had a decent body. Now looking back at photographs, I was a really good looking kid and young man, people used to tell me so, and I just thought they were being nice and lying to make me feel good, but a predator can make you believe everything but reality, if that gets them what they want. When I was only 14 years old, it took a mutilation from my Dad and suicide attempt before the head of surgery at my local County Hospital finally separated me from my abusers. My Dad plead guilty to various sex offender infractions, even though he never felt that he did anything wrong. He took sex offender classes for less than a year, and was through with probation in a very short amount of time, I forget how short, but no justice was done in my case. JP would brag that he got out of S.O. classes early because the instructor was a pedophile himself, and gave the men pointers on how to avoid prosecution and entice children. I feel so cheated and angry when I hear about a priest who jogged naked at night away from people, because he was fat and sweated heavily, and he was never even accused of harming another person. The judge sentenced him to 5 years probation and he must register as a Sex Offender, yet my abuser doesn't even have to register as a sex offender because his crime happened in the 1980s before sex offender registries even existed, and was sentenced to what amounts to a joke. That priest's sentence was too harsh, there was no victim in his case, only a cop saw him, there were no other witnesses, adult or child. I see now men who touch naked boys and don't even copulate or have penetration who get life sentences, but my Dad who sexually abused me from 1972 until 1987, convicted in 1983 and abused me again and again after his conviction because Child Protective Services was bullied by him into giving him overnight visitation weekends with me, and even tried to approach me when I was 22 years old for the last time. My abuser got a slap on the wrist, but predators who take pictures of little boys and don't even put their hands on them spend life behind bars, I feel like no justice was served in my case, and I am so angry that our Criminal Justice System is so skewed and so prone to corruption on the State and County level.
Every week my local news covers at least one or two stories of heinous male predators being discovered in the large metropolitan area made up of dozens of cities and towns where I live now, which stretch for miles, like one sprawling city. I used to not even be aware of local sex predators, like they were some kind of mosquito in the room I didn't notice, but now they annoy me and drive me mad every time I see one of these cases on television. I feel like the fact that almost all of these offenders are less violent and mild in comparison to what my abuser did to me, and predators now get long life sentences, but I never saw justice in any form, handed down to my abuser.
Since February 5, 2009, I see this case about Anthony Stancl, he lives in New Berlin Wisconsin. Tony is an 18 year old BOY, he is not even a man yet. Yes, what Tony did was manipulative and cruel, but I don't see him nearly the sort of threat of what most sex victims have to survive. First off, what kind of boy sends nude pictures to Kayla and Emily on Facebook, he is no innocent little pervert himself, so why paint the 31 young men as helpless victims. If they didn't want to have sex with Anthony, they could have just said, go ahead dude, put my picture online or tell Kayla to put it on the internet, I am not gay and I don't want you to suck me off. Those boys liked getting BJs from Tony, I think the reason one came forward was because he was jealous that Tony was sucking other dudes and not him exclusively. So I wasn't there, I know there are at least 32 sides to this story, none of which I have exclusive or partial knowledge of, but still neither do any of you. All these people are speaking out like Anthony is some crazed perverted man who threatens the safety of New Berlin Wisconsin. All I see is an ugly young gay child who is extremely incapable of being openly gay, so lives in the closet, and tries to meet dudes on the down low. He is ugly, so he pretends to be a girl cuz no gay guys are very kind or friendly to fat boys or boys who aren't handsome and athletic, or good looking and fashionable either. He is a confused, scared, lonely boy who used a really screwed up form of deception to meet his first sex dates, but they were teen sex dates with teen peers. THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING AS A 45 YEAR OLD PERVERT HAVING SEX WITH 11 YEAR OLD BOYS!! This is a case of shy ugly boy tricking better looking boys into having teen curiousity sex dates and giving BJs to consenting people in his PEER group. Of course the teen boys are going to lie and say they didn't consent, when they live in a small town like New Berlin, where if parents find out their son is a fag, they send their precious "fag son" to a straight "Jesus hates fags, gonna turn you hetero one way or another boot camp." Those camps cost lots of money, and what teenage boy confused about his sexual orientation is going to say, "yeah Mom, Dad, I like to get my weiner sucked by other dudes my age. Sometimes if he's cute I return the favor." I don't believe for a minute that all 31 of those boys just hated their blowjobs, and were so scared of Anthony that they just got a boner and shot their load and hated the whole experience. Every High School in America has 30 fags for every 1000 kids, so I am sure that Anthony found that 30 and they were old enough to consent, he was never more than 1-3 years difference in age to the peers he had sex with. If those boys were ashamed of how they look naked and didn't want their naked bodys to be shown off, they never would have sent little Kayla and little Emily their naked photos in the first damn place. They were cocky guys that were not ashamed of showing off, or they never would have sent "Emily" pictures of themselves.
Americans are so gullible and stupid, I am ashamed to be one. Yes you say, if you don't like it here then leave. The problem is, people in advanced cultures like Canada, Switzerland, Amsterdam, Australia, New Zealand, and even the UK by comparison, don't want Americans coming to their Country, and lowering the average IQ and taking jobs or disability services from their people. Just like people here, they don't like outsiders either. So if I could get a travel passport, they wouldn't let me visit any longer than what they consider to be a reasonable vacation, and I wouldn't be able to work since I am 100% disabled by Multiple Sclerosis, Bipolar, and PTSD for going on 4 years now. I worked my ass off for 16 years as a taxpayer working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, so I am not ashamed to be collecting the SSDI insurance I paid into all my life, especially how my government and legislative and criminal justice systems have failed to serve me with justice during the best years of my life which are now over.
You petty Americans look at Anthony and see some kind of monster, I see some spoiled little kid who needs boundaries and above all else, LOVE and FORGIVENESS. He is a boy, a child, my question is, who abused and molested Anthony, in order to teach him these predatory practices? When a child behaves in this way, it is usually learned by a more experienced adult and culpable predator. Anthony may be the monster you people paint him out to be, but unless you see all the evidence and know Anthony yourself in person, you are not qualified to make that judgment about him. From the victim of the sickest sexual predator you will ever meet or hear about, myself, trust me, you aren't qualified to make that judgment. My adopted father was the type of pedophile that other pedophiles hate and would murder, because he gives even pedophiles a bad name. Don't you people realize that the typical profile of a NAMBLA member is a heterosexual identifying male, married with children, a gun owning member of the NRA or the GOA, votes Republican, hates gays, and is a fanatical member of their community's most prolific Christian church. They just think that if they keep their love for young boys, usually boys without puberty characteristics below the ages of 14 to 12, they aren't reaally gay but just a straight guy with the urge to torture children, they prefer boys rather than girls, force them to have sex, and then kill them. There is not love in their game, they are dangerous and strangely are able to conduct themselves as respected and successful members of the communities they live in. They harm their victims less for the sex, and more for the power and torture, the sex is just to degrade the victims, and the murder is the power to take the life out of something and watch it die for the entertainment they gain from the ritual. Anthony Stancl is not like any of the people I have described as bad sexual predators here. He's a screwed up, self absorbed child, very much like most children in America, who have been told they should have a great big self esteem and over inflated egos created by their wishy washy parents who don't have the courage to raise their children with supervision and discipline, not being accountable for them at all times. As much as my parents sucked, if I had a computer they would have known what every single file on there was, music, video, text, you name it, they would have searched it every day and limited me to using it for one hour in the family room with no privacy. Parents don't control their kids, but then they want to treat Anthony like a predatory 50 year old pervert who took advantage of helpless children he held some great influence over. A naked picture they took of themself? Those boys gave up their power rather easily, and I am unable to see them as helpless victims. If only that were the worst danger I ever encountered in my teenage years. I would have told Anthony if he threatened to put my naked picture on the internet, I would have busted his lip and kicked him in his nuts so he would have screamed like a girl, and said there will be much worse if he tried anything else. Claw hammers are excellent ways to deal with fat bullies. Anthony doesn't appear to be a physical threat to any fit teen, he looks like a spoiled fat boy who can be kicked and prodded if he gets out of line.
To see a humorist's point of view on Anthony Stancl, check out Encyclopedia Dramatica: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Anthony_Stancl
When people say Anthony is the worst piece of garbage and this is the worst thing that has happened in the history of New Berlin, I just think that's ridiculous to hate a child for being gay, fat and ugly, and using blackmail to get sex from his peers, kids in his peer group and age group, perfectly capable of fending for themselves. This was not the case when I was molested, again, I wish the worst I had ever encountered was that fat boy Anthony, my life would be a panacea in comparison. To say he should get life in prison, or do any time in prison? He needs boot camp and forced labor maybe, prison, prison never rehabilitated anybody, and it never improved the lives and suffering of any victims. If you people really cared so much about pedopohiles, you would change the laws so that there is no statute of limitations on pedophilia, and I could have my Dad charged with molesting me time and again AFTER he was finished serving his first laughable sentence for harming me, and he would go on a National Sex Offender registry now, no matter how many years it's been since he committed his crimes. There shouldn't be an arbitrary cutoff date for sex offenders not having to register, if they committed their sex offender crime before that cutoff date.
I don't see any gain in putting a little ugly fat gay boy in prison for not having proper boundaries in experimenting with teen sex, almost all but the most self-respecting teens have sex before they turn 18. I just don't see the monster in Anthony Stancl, and I hate pedophiles with my whole heart, not teen homosexual geeks. If he were a good looking straight boy, he would be praised for blackmailing teen girls to have sex with him, like Sebastian in "Cruel Intentions." Most people who watch the film cheer for Sebastian in that movie, even though he was a senior and blackmailed freshman, sophomore, and junior aged girls into having sex with him, with the help of his predator sister. And Gossip Girl? Nobody gets upset when the predators are "straight," only when they are "queer." Typical.
Why does the newspaper characterize Anthony Stancl as a man, and the other 18 and 19 year olds as boys? Anthony is a boy, not a man. Turning 18 makes you an 18 year old boy, not an 18 year old man. Getting a college education, working a job, taking responsibility for safe consenting sexual activity with the welfare of yourself and your partner in mind, and taking care of business makes you a man, not having a birthday 18 years after you are born. Making babies doesn't make you a man, paying child support and respecting their mother does make you a man. I can take pride in capably doing most of the above, except for the education part, there was no money for college, but I excelled at earning money and managing people when I needed to. Even if having MS, PTSD, and bipolar is difficult, I wish for peace of mind for myself, and justice for my abuser, more than anything else. My chances are better of winning the lottery, and I don't even play.
Right on Alan. Interesting post. I never understood how these supossid "victims" seemed to go along so willingly.
While I do agree that Anthony Stancl is a sicked and confused kid, let us not forget that his victims in this story are not entirely innocent either! They are the ones that voluntarily sent these pictures and videos of themselves to Stancl, all while believe that doing so would get them some action from a "girl". What they did was wrong too! We should condemn Stancl's behavior and action, AND the behavior of these young boys, which demonstrated a lack in understanding of how sex and relationship works. There's need to be a re-education for these young boys after the incident on sex and online behavior. Have they refused to sent naked pictures and videos of themselves, Stancl would have nothing to work with here.
Alan,
Sorry you were abused so much. Yes the boys sent nude photos to see what they could get in return, but the blackmail part to perform sex acts was way over the line. If they wanted to perform sex acts ..that is different.
Do you need someone to talk with? I have helped some boys who were abused and had not gone to the police. They have now arrested the perpetrators and the boys are on the road to recovery...which is all individual and may take years.
I was with you Alan until you started blaming these victims. As a victim of sexual abuse yourself, how could you? How could you speculate on them liking it and wanting it? Teen boys are very vulnerable/awkward. You have no idea how they felt! I know you're bitter because you saw no justice, but EVERY victim deserves justice. You can't take away from that because you feel your situation was worse. I am sickened that your pig of a stepfather did this to you and got away with it! It's absolutely horrible. He hasn't paid here on earth, but I hope he pays when his time is up!!! I am so disgusted with our justice system and society. A lot of these pedophiles get out of prison and go on to the same or worse victimizing children. Look at what happened to Dylan and Shasta Groene and their family. That man and any child predator should never go free!!!!
Did Tony put a gun to anyone's head? I don't think so. Why did the boys send pictures of their penises to him? Oh that's right, he was a "girl". Yea, right. When you play in the gutter, you get dirty. This tells me that there must sure be a lot of bisexual males at that school. I can't think of one guy I knew when we were 15-17 that would have done this. Blackmail? I don't think so. Easy way to hush up a sex scandal and allow people to deny that they are gay or gay experimenting. This was no pedophile. This was a guy having sex with other boys of similar age. The boys should like in the mirror because they aren't much different than Tony. Me? I'll stick with girls, thank you.
Canada amended the age of consent laws to even them out between gay and heterosex.
It now is 16 for both, whereas before it was 14 for hetro and 18 for anal sex (presumably gay).
The new law went into effect in 2008.
On commenting on this matter, child sex offenders have become the latest Salem's witch hunt -- along with terrorist. They supplanted the drug offenders of the 1980s and 1990s and the red communists pre-1980.
Due to the plain fact that children are maturing faster and at earlier ages, likely due to growth hormones in our food, it is evident that 'sexting' and other uninhibited erotic behaviors displayed by the millenium generation are irrepressible.
Consequently, a distinction should be made between true pedophilia involving the sexual attraction towards pre-pubescent males and females versus sexual activity involving those that have hit puberty and beyond.
A 2009 Harvard study showed that most sexual activity involving 'underaged minors' and adults, involved teenage males with females in their 20s and 30s. The study addressed the hysteria surrounding 'internet predators' and concluded the risks are no greater then in real-life -- indeed, all the sex crime laws named -- Megan's, Poly Klass, Adam Walsh, etc. -- did not involve the internet at all.
Functionally, a teenage male or female having a consensual sexual encounter has not demonstrated in any long term studies to experience any ill psychological or mental illness or impaired functionality. Indeed, how would a 15 year old having consensual sex with an 18 or 19 year old experience any difference then with a 28 or 39 year old?
The unspoken truth is that America during its greatest period post-WW2 invented the concept of a "childhood" whereby inventions of the mind like cartoon characters and make believe took root (i.e. Disney and Marvel comics).
As globalization has now rendered America on a steady but sure decline from its prior glory, society has clung with desperation to the escape and wish for that magic kingdom and carefree period of the 1950s and 60s. And since those days are gone, American society, in the alternative, cherishes 'childhood.'
However, the children of this generation are ill-prepared to deal with adulthood as society has chosen to remove adult responsibilities but punish them with adult liabilities. A teenager is a 'child' only until they commit a crime, then they are an 'adult' as witnessed by the 10-year old AZ boy who shot his father, and was to be tried as an adult. Or the infamous FL brothers who shot their father at ages 12 and 13, and were to be tried as an adult -- until their neighbor a convicted sex offender was fingered as having possibly encouraged them to kill their father -- and ended up getting 25yrs as an accessory to murder when the brothers got 4 and 5yrs in juvenile.
There would be no consensual 'sex offenses' if we treated adolescents as adults, and gave them both the responsibilities of adults along with the liabilities.
This double standard has led adolescents to have a warped sense of reality, as witnessed by the shooting rampages where the shooters treat their acts as a video game as they are fully immersed in the 'childhood' fantasyland. The rest of the world allows children to drink with the family, and pursue rigorous academics in pursuit of a career and future, not keep children in a wunderland of 'innocence.'
In this particular case, no jail time should be administered as it is all too apparent that the real crime involved was the crime of stupidity. Both by the convicted and by his accusers. Had either or both exercised prudent thought, used the head on their shoulders versus the one between their legs, this matter would have never occurred.
But to crystallize this case on the narrow pivot point of age is to be naive if not blind to the realities of the millennium generation and how their norms and maturation level differs from those that preceded them.
These "victims" would have sent out their nude photos whether Stancl was around or not. And given the fact that all were about the same age when this occurred, using the term "pedophile" seems ridiculous.
Where are the parents of these "victims"? Where is the personal responsibility of these kids? They know what they're doing. It was only a crime because someone became embarrassed by what they did.
What Stancl did is by no means "right", but a prison sentence when most were willing participants seems insane.
Post a Comment