Richard Culley, a former Army sergeant plans to fight to prevent his son, Ryan, from being labeled as a “sex offender” for having sex with a 15-year old girl who lied about her age.
He was convicted solely based on the age of the girl. In Court, it was stipulated that the sex between Ryan and the girl was consensual and there was no coercion, the girl claimed on Facebook that she was 18 years old, the girl was the one who initiated contact with Ryan.
Ryan received a two-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sexual assault, but the prison sentence is not what concerns Richard. It’s the horrible label of “sex offender” that his son will have to wear for the rest of his life! A label that Richard feels does not fit all and that he vows to fight.
We are hopeful that more parents, like Richard, are willing to speak out to the media to let them know that not everyone on this list is some predatory creep abducting and molesting children. Some, like his son, are victims of girls who lie about their age. We are also hopeful that Richard connects with an advocacy group in his area, such as Texas Voices for Reason and Justice (http://texasvoices.org/), where he will find a supportive community and resources to help him fight!
Yeah good luck with that. I’m in the same boat. Nobody on the state side gives a damn about anything but the age, and that somehow the male just “should have known”.
I had the same issue I was nineteen she was 14, She told me she was 18. I had a town drunk for a public defender. I was told I should have known she was lying to me what the hell. I take responsibility for my actions I did wrong. But the problem lies where were the girl’s parent to let her go to an adult party. I hope the guy can save his son the pain and heartache lucky he was not in Florida. It would not matter if he was innocent or not If he got arrested he guilty to the State of Florida before he even went to trial.
Had the S.O.R been around in the 1960’s way over half the men in America would be on it now, or put this way, %75 of the people who were at the Woodstock music festival would of been placed on the S,O.R
American ICONS such as Elvis Presley- Jim Morrison of the DOOR’s- Rock- ROLL legends Chuck Berry- Jerry Lee Lewis- countless other Americana icons of music- film-fame would of been on the S,O.R!
If was around at turn of century 90% would be on it.
Mark Lundsford managed to dodge it twice
Just goes to show how the justice system is rigged towards convictions rather than justice strict liability is not now never has been or ever will be fair or just. Go get em dad
Bravo for this father for taking up the utter absurdity of the label “sex offender”. This is a useless label which only stereotypes those labelled as such with this generic meaningless and as with the vast majority of cases such as this one – totally untrue.
There are some (vast minority) who should be monitored. There should also be a case by case evaluation and not simply a broad and useless label applied just to keep the states “sex offender” numbers high.
It is time to stop this illegal and un-American profiling and stereotyping with this bullshit label! Find out how this label benefits those in government and law enforcement and how they manipulate the public with fear – find out the truth at SexOffenderTruth.com
While I was in prison in Michigan, I met a man who was there for having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Age of consent in Michigan is 16. He met her at a club where you had to be at least 18 to get in, and which checked ID’s at the door to prove it. She also had a one-year-old child, so she had to have been having sex since she was at least 14. I guess the courts expect people to hire a PI to investigate a potential sex partner in order to determine their age. How else could these guys know for certain how old a girl is? It’s crazy!