Hey, everyone. I'm new here, and although I've made a few posts/replies, I haven't really introduced myself to the community, so here goes.

I'm a 30 year old RO, having been convicted of rape at the age of 18 for having consensual sex with a girl who was (unbeknownst to me) under the age of 14. Unfortunately, having been ignorant of how knee-jerk reaction sex crime laws are, I had admitted to everything early on, thinking that I would be ok, once the police found out what was really going on. Of course, that wasn't the case at all, and I had in effect given the prosecution a signed confession, making a conviction unavoidable.

My only saving grace was the fact that my attorney was able to get the girl in question to admit at my preliminary hearing that she had been dishonest, that she had been the one who initiated all sexual contact, and that she had only turned me in out of spite, after I broke things off. Due to these things and the fact that it was my first offense, I was classified by my judge as a low risk offender, and sentenced to 4 years of community corrections (probation) in addition to 10 years on the RO list. Next came the blow that I'm sure will sound familiar to many of you: when the AWA and SORNA passed, I was reclassified as a Tier III offender, due to my offense being listed as "Rape," (there's no such charge in my state as "Statutory Rape;" it's just called rape) which retroactively extended my registration period to life.

I have now been on the list for 13 years. I'm a proud single parent of a 12 year old daughter who I have raised on my own since her mother split when she was 10 months old. I worked as a welding and steel fab specialist for about 7 years, before taking a 4 year sabbatical to pursue a college degree. Unfortunately, after 4 years of school, I am still more than two years away from completing a degree, due to the fact that I've had to change my major so many times, after having doors to career paths slammed in my face, because of my RO status. This summer, I'll be going back to work full time, and from that point, I'm giving myself two years to save the money that I need to get the hell out of my home state and buy some semi off-grid land to set up on. I've always been the type of person who fights vehemently against injustice, whether it is perpetrated against myself or another, but to be honest, I'm just too tired to fight that hard, anymore. I just want to find someplace where I can have measure of peace, and hopefully be of some use to people who deserve it.

JC