I am about to speak about something that I originally was going to maintain my silence about ....until it just became too much. There is a hashtag going around Twitter and Facebook that is as follows: #FightforGK. For those of you who do not know what this is about, let me explain in a nutshell (based off of news articles, tv interviews and the rational and irrational posts on social media) what this is about. Greg Kelley, 19 year old male from Leander, TX was found guilty of super aggravated sexual assault of a child (child victim is 4 years old). For the sake of this post, I will not go into detail about the offense, other than it was of an oral nature. He was found guilty by a jury and then, prior to sentencing, Greg Kelley requested to plea bargain for 25 years and no appeals. The prosecution accepted this plea (this is the main point of my speaking out on this case, which I will address in further detail in a little while). Apparently many people in Williamson county are not happy with their local judicial system and have found an opportunity to go after them, and in this process, have created a very large social media following.
I am going to address my frustration and disbelief in this entire event and I am not doing this to get into a confrontation with those supporting Greg Kelley. I am stating my opinion based off of my history with sexual offenders and my knowledge of this case, up to this point.
I understand that the supporters have obtained a hearing to try to obtain a new trial for Greg Kelley regarding this case. I hope Greg Kelley truly understands the massiveness of this, and the consequences of this, should it not go his way. I seriously doubt the prosecution would accept another plea bargain of this sort should he be found guilty again. I hope that someone is advising him well on this issue.
So, before I begin with my opinions, and that is what they are, MY opinions........ I know every teenager and adult on #FightforGK will refute, argue, and call me a pawn of Satan when I am done, and believe me, that is ok. The attacks I have seen on Twitter and Facebook from the church that is supporting Greg Kelley makes me very sad. What did Jesus say? They will know ME by your love? Anyway, I digress.
To begin with, I am not a random blogger, facebooker, Twitterer who is just trying to get in on the attacks against Greg Kelley. I do not know him and frankly, I don't think any of the basis and root of this has anything to do with him. My background is this, I worked in a legal capacity with sexual offenders for 10 years, then I began to work specifically with churches, day cares, schools, etc regarding sexual offenders. I have worked with thousands of offenders. I have trained under Dallas police department Sex Offender Apprehension Program, Dallas Probation Department, Behavioral Science Unit with the FBI, Robert Ressler, Roy Hazelwood, Anna Salter, Gene Abel and numerous other highly trained professionals in the area of sexual offenders. I am only stating this so that all of the people who are going to refute what I am going to say, understand that I DO have history and knowledge of working with sexual offenders.
My goal on this blog is to educate. If anyone takes the time to read it, then I hope they will at least become educated in the arena of sexual offenders. I spoke with a person associated with the #FightforGK arena privately for a while and I chose to remain silent for a long time until I discovered that some of the information that I was given from this person, specifically about how the plea bargain took place, was not the truth. At this point, I have decided that it is possible that a lot of what I was told may not be the truth, so I will now give my thoughts.
My first statement to the #FightforGK arena is this. If he did not do this, then have him take a polygraph and plethysmograph. NO, they are not admissable in court, but would go a long way in showing his innocence. I am not talking about a pre employment type of polygraph, I am talking about a polygraph with a professional polygrapher who handles sexual offenders. I can give you the name of a great one. A plethysmograph would show that Greg does not have any arousal to small children. Those are two great avenues to show that he would never have done this. Chances of this happening are most likely zero. Why? My guess is that he would not pass them. Moving on.......
My second statement to the #FightforGK supporters would be this......there have been many claims on facebook and twitter that there is " new evidence" of a person who committed this crime against this victim, but it was not Greg. IN THE STATE OF TEXAS, IF YOU HAVE EVIDENCE OR AN OUTCRY OF A MOLESTATION AGAINST A CHILD, YOU MUST REPORT IT TO THE AUTHORITIES (NOT A JUDGE, BUT THE POLICE). I am seeing a lot of teenagers on these sites, and a few adults, spouting out the "evidence" and blaming the day care owner's son. YOU NEED TO BE VERY CAREFUL! why? If you are in possession of this evidence and have privy to any of it first hand, (and you are NOT his actual attorney), then you are legally required to report it to the police, and if you do not report it, you can be charged and go to jail yourself. Do you really understand this? Spouting off things on social media can cause you to end up in jail. Be very careful! And if you are not in possession of this Evidence, and you are just spouting off something you heard...be very careful.....you can be charged with slander and libel by the person you are accusing. It is not your job to with hold evidence from the police, and it is actually against the laws of Texas. I would hope that the parents of these children and the church that is rallying this support is telling the social media world this. They are playing a very dangerous game!!
Lastly, I was told that the DA presented Greg Kelley with a plea bargain for his sentencing, and gave him 5 minutes to make a decision, and that is the only reason thatGreg went with a plea bargain with no appeal. Now...I understand that this is not true. Greg Kelley and his attorney went to the DA with the plea bargain. Greg knew exactly what he was doing when he agreed to take this to the DA. He did not have to make that decision. He could have been handed down a decision and then appealed it. He chose not to do this. Why? No one can seem to tell me the truth of this. I think this speaks very loudly in Greg Kelley's knowledge of what happened that day. So now the fight must be for a new trial? I bet everyone handed down a guilty sentence would like this too. It seems very desperate at this time. He should be very careful.....a new trial is a new verdict, and if it is guilty, the plea bargain probably won't be on the table anymore.
Let me now talk to you about sexual offenders. They come in every shape and size, every color, every gender, every age and every socioeconomic background. They can claim to be athiest, muslim, buddhist, mormon and even yes, an evangelical Christian. I have watched churches support offenders all the way through trial, and even up until they hear the polygraph and plethysmograph results and then they stand in utter disbelief. How could they have believed such a good person? Well, it is easy. Sexual offenders are one of the best criminal personalities to lead double lives. They are VERY VERY good at it. They will create a "support group" around them who will go to their deaths defending the offenders (see John Langworthy, Morrison Heights Baptist Church, Prestonwood Baptist Church) and yet victim after victim emerge. It is all preplanned, and they are highly qualified and great manipulators. Now, in this instance, you have a four year old child, who makes an outcry to his mother and states that Greg offended him. The big controversy is that this four year old has lied before (as have most four year olds at some point) and so shouldn't be trusted. I have worked with victims. Four year olds have a very small capacity to make up something regarding sexual assault. Yes, he may have changed some of his testimony regarding times and places, but he NEVER changed the offender.. I know adult victims who have trouble with time and places, but you never forget the offender. So the argument against this four year old is crap!
NOW......a 19 year old, he has a longer time to learn to lie and manipulate, and if he is sociopathic at all, he is very very good at it. Most sexual offenders are prolific liars! They have it down to an art, some even justifying their behaviors. And it is interesting that a witness, with no agenda, spoke about Greg lying to him, a blatant lie, not an omission or forgetting a location....a blatant lie. This is not looking good.......... character means everything. And sexual offenders are great at showing one character trait to one group of people and another character trait to another. (their victims)
It all starts out exactly as Greg described it.....wrestling, horse play, etc. He even made it known in one interview that he made sure the kids knew him, so they wouldn't be scared of him. Then why is the defense now saying that the kids just used Greg's name. I have a four year old. They are very good at identifying people!!!!!!
From what I can tell, this fight is not for Greg Kelley...this fight is about a group of people trying to "take it" to the Police Dept, DAs office and Advocacy Center. It is very very apparent, from the Facebook page and Twitter posts, that 99% of the people posting, have no idea how any of these entities work. I have seen the reports, I have seen the arguments, and they are very very weak. If I was fighting this fight, I would be fighting and arguing against my defense attorney for not providing these "facts of innocence" at my actual trial, I would fight against the juror that they are claiming felt pressured to find GK guilty (which apparently every other juror had no problem finding him guilty) and why did this juror not stand for a kids life? Are these things being addressed? NOPE The only thing being addressed is the horrible justice system in this county. Because I am sure it was set up. They set up this four year old kid to go take out a 19 year old hero of this town. They had it out for him! They planned it all! oh wait, no, they didn't. An outcry was made and a job was done. Facts were presented in a court of law, and a 19 year old boy was found guilty by a jury of more than one person. I am quite confident only a handful, if that many, of all of these supporters were actually in the court room and actually heard the evidence for themselves. They are getting everything second hand and that is very dangerous. Should a new trial be allowed, I will be very interested in going. I would love to see this new evidence, which most likely should have been reported to law enforcement, and should have been presented at his original trial.
I am interested in why everyone thinks Greg Kelley is innocent. I do not know. I know that the teenagers want their friend back, an that it is not fair that he might lose a scholarship.......yet, I see nothing of the innocence of this four year old child, who will be scarred for life. I have not seen the actual evidence presented, other than what has been in the news. I am not hearing anything about facts to prove his innocence, which should have been presented at his first trial.. I am seeing a lot of "deflecting to another person, reasonable doubt" but I am hearing nothing about actual physical proof of his innocence. There are only two people who know the actual truth: Greg Kelley and the four year old victim. Everyone else can speculate. In this instance, I know which I am leaning towards.
I can say this, I am very very saddened at the response from this church and it supporters who are leading this #FightforGK. I have never seen more unChristian, unloving, accusatory, hateful, spiteful, evil words spoken from people who claim to represent Christ. Just because someone does not agree with your fight does not make them partnering with Satan. This has been the worst part of this entire debacle, the way that I am watching Christians attack. It is unbelievable. You are right, God knows the truth.....and everything hidden will eventually come to light. A day of reckoning will be coming to those who do not support Greg Kelley, or are not jumping on the bandwagon for his release? That sounds almost like a threat. Did Jesus, on the cross, say these things to his accusors (and I am quite sure He was innocent)? NO. He did not. You are not acting, in any way, like Christ and should be held to an even higher standard, of that you are failing.
There is a four year old victim, who did the right thing, and made an outcry to his mother. He was put through hell (during his victimization and after) and will continue to live that out for the rest of his life. The people who are so vocal in #FightforGK are absolutely accomplishing one thing...they are preventing any other victims in this area to feel comfortable to report an assault. People who are still living in their victimization will absolutely not feel comfortable to report a crime after watching this circus. #FightforGK has effectively enabled hundreds of offenders to continue on in their assaults due to the fear their victims have.. That is a great accomplishment. If you don't believe me, again, go read the history. This sort of circus always has reprecussions for future victims. Look at Prestonwood Baptist church, Morrison Heights Baptist Church, and I can go on and on. That is what makes this so sad. There were other ways to fight this battle that they are choosing to fight, and the followers that they have.....no nothing about this case. It is a social media frenzy that is going to leave a lot of pain and hurt in its wake.
This entire situation is very sad. In the end, no one will win.
