Violation
This is an ugly story.
James owned a business that supplied a product to consultants like me. Our companies are across the nation from each other so we have never met face-to-face. But we’ve talked/emailed every week for three years.
He was good at his job, and I like him. He’s funny in an off-beat sort of way. For instance, one morning I called to be sure he was prepared for the hurricane bearing down on his state. He assured me he had gotten fresh bagels and cream cheese that very morning. I knew James had a family and kidney stones; he knew my husband was ill. But this was basically a business relationship and we mostly just worked.
In December of 2006, James disappeared. He stopped returning calls or emails. Eventually, I received a call from Bill, a man in the same business who had once worked with James. He told me James was sick and that his wife was closing the company; Bill was settling outstanding business for her.
I asked Bill about him every so often over the next four months, but heard little more. Until this week when I asked, “Do you hear anything about James?” After a pause, Bill said, “He’s incarcerated.” And then the story tumbled out like nickels from a slot machine.
In December, James was caught in a federal sting operation aimed at online pornographers doing business across state lines, particularly those involving children. James had posted pictures of himself violating one of his daughters; the girls are age 6 and 8.
He is being held without bail, arranging for a plea bargain. There is apparently no chance that he didn’t do the crime. His wife, seemingly an innocent, goes on, trying to keep her own executive job, managing the closing of his company, and protecting her babies now that the horse is out of the barn. She has chosen to stand by her man; the prison has chosen to put James on a suicide watch.
Everyone has been violated in this story. The children, certainly. A mother and wife whose life is destroyed. Bill, helping the family of a co-worker he once trusted and now holds in contempt.
As for me, I am struggling with condemning this man whom I liked. It’s the most awful of deeds. But is he the most awful of men? Is there no forgiveness? I don’t want to deal with these questions.
The worst part is that this is going on in hometowns all across America. What on earth has happened to us? Where have the good guys in the white hats gone?