I am now a "Sex Offender"

This is my story. I don't want it to be a sob story.

My offense was downloading CP.

It was inadvertent, I was downloading adult porn and other movies as well. I do admit I had a porn addiction. I did download those 12 files (out of 2500 other normal porn videos and feature movies) from a peer to peer service.

in early 2014 I was sentenced to 5 years probation but I had a very good lawyer, a dumb prosecutor and a fair judge. The judge recognized and said that he didn't believe that what I did was on purpose but I was in possession of it nonetheless.

He did order that I could stay at home with my wife and child. He also ordered that I could use the computers at college to complete my degree (I had gone back to school and started that process already before this happened). He also said that there would be a review of my case after 3 years, and if I was doing well in treatment and probation that I could get my sentence reduced.

That day was horrifying, I took a plea deal from 12 counts of "Sexual exploitation of a minor" down to 1. That deal said I could only be sentenced to probation if during my psychosexual evaluation I came back as less than high risk.

That evaluation was the first hint of the complete incompetency I would encounter along the way. It came back as low risk, but at one point in the report it said this exactly.

"We find that Mr. xxxxx has a risk rating of low for sexually reoffending. Furthermore we find that he has a high risk of recidivism"

They completely contradicted themselves in that part of the report. I would find out later that this was pretty normal.

The day I went in to be sentenced was probably the most horrifying day of my life. I woke up that morning not knowing if that day was going to be the last day I would get to see my child for a long long time. I was a wreck.

As soon as the judge finished the sentence I allowed myself to breathe a sigh of relief. 5 Years of probation I could deal with, I was going to be able to stay at home with my amazing wife and child, nothing else mattered.

I was told to report to probation immediately and did just that.

I sat down in the office with what I know now was the Duty Officer (the person doing intake interviews) and my soon to be P.O.

Immediately the "interview" started, I would me more likely to call it an interrogation. They told me that no I wasn't going to go home that I was not allowed to be around my son, that it didn't matter what the judge ordered.

I immediately fought back, they didn't like that one bit, I got into arguments, at one point the duty officer asked me "who ill protect your child from you?" and I retorted with "Who protects your children from you?"

I told them that until they contacted the judge I would not sign any more papers and that the interview was over until I heard from my lawyer.

I was told to sit in the waiting area. I heard my soon to be P.O. on the phone, but couldn't hear what they were saying. They came out soon after and said that the D.A. just told them that it was up to us and we will not allow you to go home. I told them that I was pretty sure the D.A. didn't have the power to overrule a judges ruling.

I heard them on the phone again 5 minutes later, they forgot to close the door to their office this time, and the judge was on speaker with her and the duty officer. In short he told them I was right and they were wrong and that I was to remain home with my family.

They told me that I could go home, and that I was to come in next week with the papers and have them signed. I did just that. Needless to say I didn't have a great first impression with the probation department, but I was going to put in the effort to try and forget what had happened. They didn't.

I was immediately told I had to do a Child Contact Assessment, costing $1800. I was rushed through it as fast as possible (I didn't realize how fast I had gotten it done until I met other SO's in the system who had been in treatment for over 5 years and hadn't been allowed to do it). I did the interviews, I took the polygraph (and thank god I passed, I am very familiar with polygraphs and how they work) and they came to my home and interviewed my wife and child.

I got word that I passed my CCA and could have unsupervised contact with my child. I'm almost certain my P.O. didn't expect that outcome because they went from all smiles when I brought in the results to all serious and said they needed to wait for their copy to arrive before it was official.

I never heard a word about it again.

Then I started "treatment" (don't call it therapy, they don't like that word).

I knew going in that I had a porn addiction, and I had promised my wife that I would try my best to use the treatment program to help me with that. And that's the mindset I keep to this day.

One thing that bothers me horribly is that I was pretty much forced to admit that I had downloaded the CP on purpose before I could "progress" in treatment. As long as I kept to the story of it not being on purpose (even the reports said none of the files had been opened on my computer) they considered me "in denial" and "minimizing" my offense and threatened to kick me out of the treatment program unless I admitted to "what had actually happened".

After that I gave in and decided to give them what they want. I put on a sad face and said they were right, I did it on purpose and all of a sudden instead of in individual interrogation sessions I found myself in group counseling sessions and they were happy and my P.O. was even happy.

Since that day, I have made an effort to talk to others in the program who have been there a while, I have gotten to know what they want from us and how to act while around the "treatment team".

My polygraphs have been hit or miss, but I have never been in trouble for a failed polygraph. It just costs me monetarily.

Each poly is $250. Treatment costs are $55 a week for the group sessions and another $65 a month for an individual session - all mandatory. If I fail a polygraph I have to do a 6 week failed poly group at $20 a week. I'm not scared of the polygraph and that helps a lot, I know it can't tell if I'm lying or telling the truth. I just find it amusing that every time I have lied to the poly I have passed, and the only questions I ever got inconclusive or deceptive readings on I was actually telling the truth.

It has been almost a year and a half and I have gotten into a routine. I go to group once a week, I only have to see my P.O. once every two weeks now and I have gotten some useful bits of information on how to handle my porn addiction and have been doing extremely well with it. I haven't seen any since my sentencing day and I haven't had the urges to watch it in the last 8 or 9 months now. So at least one thing good has come out of all of this bad.

My wife and I have been lurking on this site for a few months and decided I would introduce myself and tell my story for you guys.

She is my rock, without her I'm not sure how I would get through all of this.

I'm hoping in another 2ish years I will be off of probation and 10 years after that no more registering.

It's nice to know there are others out there who actually care, and for that we thank you.