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Is This Really Enough?

By Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy on June 6, 2009 at 8:45 AM in Abuse, Africa, Bamboozling, Crime, Current Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Larry Johnson, Messiah, President Barack Obama, South Carolina, SusanUnPC, Women, World News

I was reading my local paper and came across an article that disturbed me greatly, for a number of reasons, which will become clear beginning with the title of the article: “Ex-Teacher Gets 5 Years For Sex With Teen.” My first thought was, “5 years? FIVE? That’s it? For having sex with a teenager?” Then I thought, “Well, just how old WAS this teen with whom the teacher had sex?” The answer: 14. She was 14 years old, and yes, she was his student. The teacher was 38. And this happened in the county next to me.

Wow. I imagine teachers everywhere just cringe when they hear about stories like this. Parents, too, I expect. And especially the latter when the child who was sexually assaulted says things like this:

The victim asked the judge not to give him the maximum sentence because he was a nice man.

Holy smokes. “A nice man.” Hardly. Her father didn’t think so, either. This was his response:

Her father then told the judge that his daughter was emotionally and psychologically scarred and that Judy had a power over her, Strickland said. (Strickland is the spokeswoman for that court district.)

I think we can agree that it goes without saying that the child is “emotionally and psychologically scarred…”

At least Judy acknowledged what he had done:

Judy admitted during the hearing to having sex with the girl, who was 14 at the time, and said he knew what he did was wrong, Strickland said.

I suppose that’s something. Better than him insisting the girl was lying, I guess.

Here’s the thing – this man COULD have gotten up to 20 years in prison. He has affected this child’s life in ways the extent of which cannot possibly known for years to come. Here are the legal particulars:

Tracy Lee Judy, 38, pleaded guilty to criminal solicitation of a minor and two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor during an emotional hearing that included testimony from the 15-year-old victim and her father.

Circuit Judge Perry Buckner sentenced Judy to five years in prison and two years probation upon completion of the prison sentence. He also will be on the sex offender registry for life.

Five years in prison, two on probation. That just does not sound like enough to me. And yes, I know he will have a tough time in prison. No doubt, he will be in Protective Custody. That may, or may not, save him. Inmates have their own codes, after all (I worked with prisoners, both men and women, and had the Protective Custody Unit as part of my duties, so I do actually have some experience with that. I just didn’t want you to think I was writing, “words, just words.” Ahem.).

Oh, and there is one other little piece of this:

Judy tried to kill himself by overdosing on painkillers on May 10, the night before his trial was to begin. In a four-page suicide note, Judy described himself as a mentally ill Gulf War veteran struggling with “panic anxiety disorder, depression, agoraphobia and other undetermined social disorders.”

As part of his sentence, Judy must receive counseling through Veterans Affairs, Strickland said.

Let me say right off the bat that I have no doubt whatsoever Judy is experiencing those symptoms. No doubt. And it is terrible the long-lasting effects too many of our men and women in uniform carry with them after their service is done. Too many denied or ignored or minimized by the very entity that sent them in. That being said, it is NOT an excuse for this man to sexually assault this child. Good that he is going to get counseling – clearly he needs it, as the list above indicates, as does the “undetermined social disorders,” though I think we have a BIT of a clue as to what ONE of those is, and it is no longer “undetermined”: child sexual molestation.

That girl is going to need therapy, too. Probably her parents will also have to participate. Even still, that girl’s life will never, never be the same again. Never.

How does this happen? The paper the next day had an article announcing that “Violent Crime Is Down 12%,” but rape is up. I’m sorry, but when, exactly, did rape not qualify as a “violent crime”???

This can happen because this kind of mindset is cumulative. You rank rape below, say, bank robbery; have a president make a huge speech abroad in which he minimizes women’s rights and human rights (“Yo, Bitches, Wear That Hijab,” and “Cairo: The Emptiness Of Obama’s Rhetoric” address that issue nicely); and a teacher who gets all of 5 years for repeated sexual molestation of a 14 year old girl. That is some message here in the Good Ol’U.S. of A. to women, isn’t it? (I have also written about the use of rape as war tactic, and the treatment of women in other countries numerous times before, but this time, my focus is closer to home.)

Judy gets 5 years in prison, probation, and on the Sex Offender Registry for sexually assaulting this child. And the girl gets life without parole.

  • Arabella Trefoil

    I made the mistake of reading the comments attached to the article. There are some people who think that the 14 year old girl is just as responsible. She asked for it.

    What kind of world am I living in lately?

    • mary

      Those who think that a child of 14 is responsible are just as guilty as Mr. Judy the perpetrator/perv in this case. Their attitude is that there can be “consent” between a child and a treacherous adult who betrays trust. No way, ignoramuses!

      Five years is a joke for a 38-year-old guy who breached this child’s trust. Obviously, the girl suffers from “Stockholm Syndrome” where she’s identified with her victimizer and “loves” him. No doubt he’s coached her. These perverts are great psychological manipulators and having sex with young teens is like taking candy from a baby.

      Why is rape not considered a violent crime? Until recently, I read in PROTECT site, Andrew Vaschss’ blog, “incest” perpetrators were not even given a sentence, but told to “go home and take Family therapy”! Imagine the father and his sexually abused 8-year old daughter (remember l984′s sanitized TV movie “Something About Amelia?”) together on the couch at a therapists’ office! No more. Mr. Vachss (N.Y. crown prosecutor) worked very hard to make sure that incest creeps are given the same treatment ast those who are accused of “rape” with under 11 year olds. thank God for men like Andrew Vaschss! They work with these child victims and they know that often the child molesters are known to the victim, in positions of trust, often fathers, uncles, brothers, and are not the trench-coat neighborhood pervs…

      I agree this perverts should have received at least 15+ for abusing this girl. I am a progressive, liberal person but when it comes to children (and Hillary was the ONLY candidate who gave a damn about children’s rights!) I am to the right of Genghis Khan. I often wonder how far down the rate of child sexual abuse (incest forms 60%) would sink to if we had appropriate sentences for these bastards. For example, in my utopia, you would not have jails for the pervs. No, you would have HOSPITALS. Then, their organs would be carefully donated to children and women in desperate need for transplants. We could also use these moral outcasts (only 1% are women) for experimental medical research on cancer, stroke and other diseases, as guinea pigs.

      I bet sexual abuse of children would almost disappear as soon as legislation would be enacted and made known. Although this may strike many as ‘barbaric’ I disagree. Is it less barbaric to have our children grow with damaged souls that may never be repaired? Or for society to dish out billions of dollars in terms of therapeutic interventions?

      Why, during these unpredictable times when the Savior Obama has clearly shown he approves of practices like Sharia Law (cousin Odinga in Kenya whom he campaigned for!) why not approve this “barbaric” way of eliminating one of the most hideous and socially unacceptable crimes? But I’m afraid he may say he’d do this and do a flip-flop and give the abused girls a hijab and lecture them on morality! Zeus save us!

      Thanbks Rabble Rouser Rev. Amy for an insightful post once again on subject of urgency…

  • Fran

    If he had all these psychological issues, why was he licensed to teach in the first place?

    • Arabella Trefoil

      Excellent question.

  • http://noquarterusa No-nonsense-Nancy

    A son of someone very close to me is serving a 66 year sentence because he molested his small daughter, her friend and his niece. I think he comes up for parole in 30 years or so but his sisters say they will go to court and argue agaist it. He’ll be in his 60s by then. When it all came out his sister started haveing flashbacks to when they were early teens and remembered that he was doing it to her. After her revelation she started having suicidal ideations and through counseling is much better but her marriage just broke up because she can’t stand any one to touch her now. She may never be able to have a meaningful relationship again.
    This is the kind of sentence every child molester should get. I don’t think they ever get reabilitated
    Thank you for telling us about this very tragic incident, Amy. Very good post.

  • Diana L. C.

    RRRA,

    I agree with you, of course, every word.

    I want to point out the opposite reaction, so to speak, of our minimizing the molestation of young people in our schools. As a retired teacher, I do cringe every time I read about one of these cases. I do not remember reading about so many until I was far into my career. Did they just cover them up, or is this a fairly new phenomenon is our culture?

    In any case, the opposite reaction–

    As an ex-teacher who worked in a very large public school district, for every story of one our “ours” molesting a young student (usually a girl), I could also tell you stories about unreported (by the news media) cases of young people (mostly girls) who falsely claimed having inappropriate sexual relations with young teachers (mostly young males). It’s a situation, I think, caused by what you have pointed out: our minimizing rape as not classified with violent crime.

    A case from the school in which I last taught was this:

    A young 15-year-old girl who was serving an hour a day as a teacher’s assistant for a young male teacher, started telling her friends that she and he were having an affair. When they didn’t believe it, she created a hotmail account using his name and sent herself love letters as “proof.” She also took fake cell phone calls, supposedly from him.

    Her friends finally became convinced and reported the situation to the principal, who immediately put the teacher on suspension. Luckily, he had done everything right. He had never allowed himself to be in a room with her alone, so no witnesses could attest to that. He openly asked them to investigate him. The police were at his house to take his computer (they had already checked the school computer) when the young girl’s father finally stepped in. He told his daughter that he did not believe her and would be ashamed of her if he ruined this young man’s life by causing so much anxiety and suspicion. (He was a father who actually knew his own daughter’s wherabouts every day.)

    She finally broke down and told the truth and showed how she had set up the hotmail account. She was taken out of school and sent to a facility for counseling.

    The young teacher had endured two long weeks of being forced out of his classroom and knowing that the rumor mill that is a large public high school had painted him as a pervert.

    When it becomes a badge of honor for a 15-year-old girl to claim a sexual relation with a teacher, you know something is really messed up in regard to our cultural values.

  • http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com Uppity Woman

    They should throw away the key on this pig. People should get life without parole for killing someone’s life.

    I despise pedophiles and to me, they are in the same filthy category as serial killers.

    • jbjd

      If the penalties citizens legislated for pedophilia equaled the penalties they formulated for serial murder, no one would even be prosecuted for the crime, let alone convicted. Or maybe, people who molest children will figure, if I risk death on conviction, I might as well kill my victim, too.

  • Tricia Spiegel

    Such crimes are extra deplorable because of the fiduciary duty the rapist has to the victim. This goes for professions other than just teachers; priests and other religious leaders, psychotherapists, family members, and anyone else who violates the trust that children have put in them.

    • http://rabblerouserruminations.blogspot.com Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy

      Absolutely. And it IS an excellent question how this man even was credentialed to teach!!

      But yes, to cross those kinds of boundaries is deplorable.

      There was another situation that came out yesterday, too, but I was traveling (I’m in my hometown now, to see my mom and to work on her house), and couldn’t add it. It is the case of David Watson, a man who admitted to killing his wife for a charge of manslaughter. Wanna guess how much time HE is serving in prison? One year. ONE YEAR. For murdering his wife on their HONEYMOON. Here’s the link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525170,00.html

  • Patience

    The last straw for me regarding Bill Maher’s show (which I used to watch fairly regularly) was when he saw nothing wrong with the teacher Mary Letourneau having sex with her 12 yr. old student! That anyone thinks an adult having sex with a minor is okay AND/OR that it’s okay for someone to abuse their position of authority or trust with a minor to engage in a sexual relationship with them is beyond offensive — it’s sick and perverted.

  • JustMe~~

    Mind blowing case RRRA just mind blowing….

    and also this breaking.

    Mom dated sex offender
    The mother of missing Nevaeh Buchanan, 5, dated a sex offender and failed a polygraph test, claiming she was tired.

    Sex offender ‘like a father’
    Nancy Grace speaks with Shane Hinojosa, the father of missing 5-year-old Nevaeh Buchanan, in a primetime exclusive interview.
    http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2009/06/03/ng.sex.offender.cnn

    Sadly Nevaeh’s body was recently found by the side of a lake whoever had put her there had tried to cover little Nevaeh with concrete…

  • lorac

    “This can happen because this kind of mindset is cumulative. You rank rape below, say, bank robbery; have a president make a huge speech abroad in which he minimizes women’s rights and human rights…..”

    I was just thinking last week that the primary itself contributed to more violence against women. All the misogyny, and then the lack of acknowledgment of it, reignited an atmosphere in which a lot of misoygnistic people feel it’s safe to be bolder. So I agree with the statement above, but I think the primaries were a big contributor.

    • Diana L. C.

      Our whole culture has been minimizing the effects of sexual relations too early for some time now. And it has been minimizing the effects of having sex just for the sake of having sex, making it something like eating an ice cream cone when you want it because you want it.

      For instance, take Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” I know the lyrics aren’t really “I popped the teacher,” but it never mattered that that is the way kids took it, and the innuendo of songs like that was clear.

      The young teachers now dress very much like the students in high schools. They allow students to call them by their given names–there is no distancing.

      Read up on how darned early girls are coaxed into having sex in order to be cool nowadays. It’s really more a product of the sexual revolution that happened along with the feminist movement.

      Sex is not necessarily sinful, but we need to rethink how we talk about it and depict it in our entertainment.

      • NomNomNom

        true, but there was no “sexual revolution” there was a mass propaganda effort to tell women and girls that they are empowered by being used: “newspeak”.

        “Sex is not necessarily sinful, but we need to rethink how we talk about it and depict it in our entertainment.”
        agree sex is not sinful, but using others for one’s own convenience certainly is. the difficulty is in persuading young women and girls, even in many cases older women, that status derived from male approval is not status at all.
        as for entertainment, when bestiality, sadism, and depictions of the murder of women and children is protected “speech” under the 1st amendment, all I can say is good f#cking luck.

  • http://www.madinthemiddle.blogspot.com churl

    Of course, no one has ever been wrongfully accused by minors of sexual misconduct. Talk to a local NEA rep about how many times that happens per school year before you form a lynch mob.

    • Diana L. C.

      Yes, read my first comment above.

      Teachers now have to attend seminars on how not to be accused of inappropriate relations with students. Basically, you can not ever allow yourself to be in a room alone with a student ever. You are to shun any type of physical contact, even a pat on the back. And email between your self and a student should always be copied to another adult or to the parent. The poor male teachers always have to avoid looking at girls, who fight the dress codes all the time.

      I once caught a sophomore girl working at her desk with her boob hanging out of her “top”. Luckily I am female and took her out into the hall to tell her and send her to the office for a t-shirt to wear over that thing she called a top. She had been in two male teachers’ classes before mine, but they were afraid to say anything for fear of being accused of making sexual comments.

      Our girls’ basketball coach had brought photos of his wife and children with him to practice to display them in conspicuous spots in order to discourage the girls on the team from coming on to him.

      You don’t hear it in the news because when the fact that the charges are false comes to light, the teachers just want nothing more to do with the legal system that always means they have to suffer weeks of suspicion and time away from their jobs.

      The NEA’s lawyer in my area explained that, though, they are willing to help teachers file counter defamation suits against the girls (usually), most teachers just want their lives back and don’t want to be in the judicial system any more–and, besides, as a teacher you don’t WANT to send a student through that system either.

      All this doesn’t counter the idea that there has been a great erosion in our culture’s sense of morality that has resulted in so many people, adults and underage kids, crossing the line. We do need to make a stronger statement about how this behavior IS a violent crime.

    • http://rabblerouserruminations.blogspot.com Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy

      curl, apparently you missed the part where Judy said he was guilty, and tried to commit suicide. So, no lynch mob here – just the facts of the case.

      I have worked with prisoners who were falsely accused of child molestation (children were asked leading questions). I am well aware the impact such allegations cause. But this case was clearly different, as was the one with the teacher and 12 yr old boy – in both cases the adults admitted it.

      And the point remains abt the sentences handed down in this case and the David Watson one.

      For an updated version of this post, you can click on my name and go to my blog.

  • boonies

    FIVE years? 1…2…3…4…5?
    Hey she’ll be old enough to legally marry this nice man when he gets out…or would that violate his parole? UGH.
    I absolutely wrote the above in a facetious manner.
    A man I know here in NC had been sexually abusing a man’s two daughters for the last 3 years. They are now 17 and 14. Do the awful math.
    I am pleased to tell you he got a 45 year sentence….mandatory. Oh and another two girls came forth during the trial time with similar allegations against him.
    Remember during the Lewinsky goings-on how people said Bill Clinton had – supposedly- been initiated into sex by an older woman while still underage?
    And remember the leering jokes (“Boy some guys have ALL the luck!”) about that? No wonder the downward spiral continues…

  • http://noquarter foxyladi14

    i think these guys that abuse young girls should be castrated.

    • mary

      foxylady

      I agree with castrating all pedophiles. But I also think they can be of some relative use to the society whose young they have vilified and murdered by donating (involuntarily) their organs for transplant and being used for medical research. Surely, Mr. Hussein Obama (our Lord) is not much of a believer in human rights anyway. I am sure he may want to at least give a Speech about it, eh?
      Those subhuman monsters should be stoned….but not to death. Their medical research possibilities are huge….

  • James Guglielmino

    OK, I was with you until you wrote that the President made a speech that minimumizes women’s rights….blah, blah, blah. You know damn well what Obama’s point was and it had nothing to do with validating the subjugation of women. Your including what Obama said in your blog is realy, REALLY sleazy. Get a life.

    • Diana L. C.

      Well you seem to have 99 problems and a bitch ain’t one, right?

      Obama’s primary campaign was sexist in many ways, sweetie. And his recent speech was so blah on women’s rights as human rights as to be laughable. He minimized women’s rights by NOT ADDRESSING THE SEVERE SUBJUGATION OF WOMEN IN MANY MUSLIM COUNTRIES.

    • http://rabblerouserruminations.blogspot.com Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy

      I see – any criticism of Obama, no matter how well founded results in an automatic dismissal of a post with which you were agreeing, and you suggest I get a life? Wow. That’s some hubris, right there…

    • mary

      James Gulielmo

      If getting a life means licking the boots of your Messiah, sweetie, you should go to Kenya and talk to Odinga’s Minister of Sex Education. You must know Jimmy that Barry O. campaigned very actively in 2006 for couz Odinga and he knew damn well that Odinga had signed memo of understanding withy the muslim groups in Kenyan to usher in Sharia Law. It’s guys like you that Obama has in mind in being so ‘moderate’ in uttering his lukewarm feminist rhetoric in such countries that are the beacons of democracy and women’s rights.

      Jimmy – you should get your life in Kenya….your kind of town…Chicago is…Kenya is….

      Periodically, Jimmy will feel down and start launchhing attacks against women’s right to speak up about issues to boost his appeal with his Messiah….

  • RKStone

    Barry O. campaigned very actively in 2006 for couz Odinga

    Not even close to being to being true.

  • Oh Please

    Lol, tons of 13-16 year old girls are just looking for older guys to boink. You guys live in a cave or what? Teens have sex. A lot of them are looking for guys in their 20′s (usually ones with jobs) so they can HAVE A BABY so they can get out of the ghetto. Welcome to the real world.

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