Disabled Man on Sex Offender Registry for Prank Gone Wrong Will Get a New Hearing

An intellectually disabled young man placed on the sex offender registry for doing his friend’s bidding has been granted a new hearing. The Illinois Prison Review Board will review his case, most likely sometime this summer. His mother is asking, on his behalf, for executive clemency.

He deserves it.

Adam is 34 years old and still must be reminded to brush his teeth and shave. He was 16 before he stopped wetting the bed. Before he landed on the registry, his greatest pleasures in life were the Special Olympics, scuba diving (a sport he learned from an organization serving people with disabilities), and his part-time job wiping tables and cleaning the bathroom at a local restaurant.

When he was 26, the young man next door invited him over. Carol Nesteikis, Adam’s mom, wrote about that young man—whom she gives the pseudonym “Reuben”—in Persuasion:

We embraced Reuben, a child dealing with many psychological and behavioral problems, like one of our own. We had him to our house often and took him on camping trips. By the time Adam and Reuben entered their twenties, the neighbors had adopted Reuben and were also caring for his young niece.

But unbeknownst to us, Reuben—now a young adult—was re-enacting the sexual abuse he had been subjected to as a boy, and was molesting both my son and his niece. My heart breaks for this little girl, who has endured so much trauma. One day, Reuben told my son that it would fun if Adam unzipped his pants and exposed himself to the 5-year-old girl. Adam did. He had no understanding of what he had done, nor did he touch her.

When the girl told her parents what had transpired, they called the police. Reuben and Adam were both charged with 19 felonies. Adam’s parents fought for a year to have the charges dropped, but finally agreed to a deal: Adam would plead guilty to one misdemeanor, wear an ankle monitor for two years of probation, and be on the Sex Offender Registry for 10 years.

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