My Father, Richard Steven Kopsick, Molested Me as Many as Twenty Times Between 1992 and 1996

Introduction, Written on May 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, 2020

      What follows is a document I composed between early October 2019 and New Year's Eve 2019. It was submitted to the Lake Bluff, Illinois Police Department, on the evening of December 31st, 2019. It details seventeen incidents of sexual molestation which occurred in my childhood, at the hands of my father, between 1992 and 1996 (when I was aged five through nine).

     In this document, I detailed all the incidents of abuse which I could remember at the time, and I explain why I came forward exactly when I did. I also explain how and when I recovered memories of my father molesting me, and that the reason why I had no memories of the abuse between 1997 or 2000 and 2014 and 2015, was that I had been partially choked and deprived of oxygen during the abuse (which made it difficult to form new memories of what was happening at the time), and also because I was psychologically abused by my father during the two decades years following the abuse.

     Nothing about the content of the original document - which I submitted to police - has been omitted, nor replaced. But the following 11 changes have been made:

     1) the font and font size; 2) the omission of page numbers; 3) the formatting of the Table of Contents; 4) the numbering which precedes the headings; 5) a note in the introduction, which pertains to an omission from the document; 6) the omission of my signature at the end of the document, which was found only on the paper print-out of the document which was made available to the police; and 7-11) five typographical errors in sections 10d, 10e, 14h, 14i, and 14j.

     Those typographical errors were corrected through the use of brackets, instead of through replacing any of the original text.

     I apologize for using names of my friends and family members in this statement, in such a public fashion, without their consent.

     I have done so in order to avoid unnecessarily redacting information from the statement below, and to avoid being accused of trying to hide anything or change anything about the statement.

     I will replace any name with “[REDACTED]” if anyone mentioned in this statement wishes me to do so, but I will not redact anything else. No part of this statement has been redacted thus far.

     I should note that I have confronted my father about the abuse which he inflicted upon me during my childhood, and - as I explain in the statement below - he apologized, in the spring or summer of 2017, for subjecting me to overwhelming tickling as a child. The fact that he apologized does not matter to me, and I do not forgive him; but I must note that the fact that he apologized, means that he must admit (at least to himself) that he subjected me to overwhelming tickling.

     I would like this case to go to court, because I believe that my father has no explanation as to what happened during the times I allege he molested me, and that he has no alibi.
     In order for my father to prove himself innocent, he would have to explain how he subjected me to overwhelming tickling all over my body (which he admitted to me privately, and attempted to apologize to me, for doing, in 2017), while also explaining to the jury that he did not grope my penis and scrotum over my clothes (as I claim) during that process.
     He absolutely did touch my penis; he forcibly restrained me by clamping down on my sides with his arms, and groped my genitals over my clothes. He did this while pretending that it was just part of ordinary tickling, and he made it into a perverse game, in which he would count down, and pretend that he would let me go if I got myself loose from his grip within ten seconds.
     He would never let me go; whether I escaped his grasp was always his choosing; he is 6'2" and about 200 pounds. He overpowered me as a five, eight, and nine year old, and the idea that I ever had a chance to escape was a joke on his part, from which he drew pleasure, through humiliating me. I made every attempt to escape which was possible, all of which failed. As much of this as I remembered as of December 31st, 2019, is detailed in the statement below.


     The specific details about the incidents of sexual molestation are explained in section 5 in the statement below, which is titled "What Happened: Details of the Seventeen Incidents".

     Please e-mail me at jwkopsick@gmail.com, or call me at 608-417-9395, if you have any questions about the below statement, or about anything mentioned above.

Sworn Statement Regarding Multiple Counts of

Criminal Sexual Abuse Committed Against Me by RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK
When I Was a Minor Aged Five, Eight, and Nine
(in 1992, 1995, and 1996)

written by JOSEPH WILLIAM KOPSICK

in October, November, and December 2019
___________________________________________

Table of Contents

i. Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Allegations and Charges

3. Laws, Crimes, and Punishments Relevant to the Allegations and Charges

     3a. Evidence Supporting “Sexual Conduct”

     3b. Evidence Supporting “Force or Threat of Force”

     3c. Evidence Supporting “Victim Unable to Understand Nature of Act or Give Knowing Consent”

     3d. Conclusion

4. Locations and Dates of the Incidents of Abuse

     4a. Locations Where the Incidents Took Place

     4b. Dates When the Incidents Took Place

5. What Happened: Details of the Seventeen Incidents

     5a. First Incident

     5b. Second Through Thirteenth Incidents

     5c. Fourteenth Through Sixteenth Incidents

     5d. Seventeenth Incident

6. Damages and Evidence Thereof

     6a. Introduction

     6b. Evidence of Childhood Trauma from Age Six to Twelve

     6c. Evidence of Childhood Trauma in My Behavior from Age Fourteen to Present

     6d. Abuse and Disciplinary Style Caused Emotional Trauma and Difficulties Socializing

     6e. Evidence That the Defendant's Sexual Abuse and Control Caused Sexual Dysfunction

     6f. Evidence That the Abuse Caused Thoughts of Self-Harm and Suicide

     6g. Physical Evidence of Sexual Abuse, and Evidence That the Abuse Caused Injuries

     6h. Evidence That the Abuse Caused Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.)

     6i. Conclusion

7. Corroborating Witnesses and Other Possible Victims

     7a. Regarding Incident #1

     7b. Regarding Incidents #2 through #13

     7c. Regarding Incidents #14 through #16

     7d. Regarding Incident #17

     7e. Witnesses to Circumstances Surrounding the Abuse

     7f. Accomplices and Co-Conspirators

8. How I Know That I Didn't Welcome the Abuse, and How I Know That the Abuse Was Forceful

9. When and How I Recovered Lost Memories of Abuse, Why I Didn't Come Forward About the Abuse Sooner, and Why I'm Coming Forward Now

     9a. Introduction

     9b. Instances When I Attempted to Disclose the Abuse
     9c. Why I Didn't Come Forward About the Abuse Sooner: Bullying and Memory Problems

     9d. When I Experienced “False Memories” of Abuse, and Why I Think I Experienced Them

     9e. When and How I Recovered the Lost True Memories of Abuse, and How I Distinguished False Thoughts from True Memories

     9f. How Concern Regarding Potential Legal Obstacles Has Delayed My Reporting of the Abuse

     9g. How Concern About My Father's Professional Ties Has Delayed My Reporting of the Abuse

     9h. How Concern About My Father's Potential Reaction Has Made it Difficult to Cease Contact with Him

     9i. Why I Am Coming Forward Now

10. Aggravating Factors Include Fraud, Intimidation, and Manipulation

     10a. Introduction

     10b. Fraud

     10c. Intimidation
     10d. Manipulation

     10e. Conclusion Regarding Aggravating Factors

11. Proof of the Defendant's Guilty Mind

     11a. Introduction

     11b. Mens Rea: Proof of Criminal Intent

     11c. Proof of the Defendant's Guilty Conscience

12. Proof That I Am a Reliable Witness, That I'm Telling the Truth, and That My Memory is Intact

13. Conclusion, and Signature of the Plaintiff

14. Appendix of Images and Documents

     14a. Image #1: Positions My Father and I Would Be in Before the Abuse Started (Drawing)

     14b. Image #2: Positions My Father and I Would Be in Before the Abuse Started (Drawing)

     14c. Image #3: Positions My Father and I Would Be in During the Abuse (Drawing)

     14d. Image #4: Me as a Child, With My Father (Two Photographs)

     14e. Image #5: Me Happy as a Child (Two Photographs)

     14f. Image #6: Me Unhappy as a Child, With Cousins (Two Photographs)

     14g. Image #7: Me Unhappy at the Ages of Five or Six, and Seven (Two Photographs)

     14h. Image #8: Me Unhappy at My Seventh Birthday Party (Two Paragraphs) [i.e., Photographs]

     14i. Image #9: Me Unhappy at My Seventh Birthday Party (Two Paragraphs) [i.e., Photographs]

     14j. Image #10: Me Unhappy at My Seventh Birthday Party (Two Paragraphs) [i.e., Photographs]

     14k. Image #11: Me with a Blank Expression at Around Ten (Photograph)

     14l. Image #12: Me with a Blank Expression at Around Eighteen (Photograph)

     14m. Image #13: My Brother's Baby Picture on My Father's Living Room Table (Photograph)

     14n. Image #14: Two Texts From My Mother Stating That She Believes My Claims (Computer Image)

     14o. Image #15: Components of Sex Crimes in the Illinois Criminal Code (Document)

     14p. Image #16: Statutes of Limitations on Reporting Sex Crimes in Illinois (Document)

     14q. Image #17: Rules of Physical Evidence Concerning Sex Crimes in Illinois (Document)

1. Introduction

     I, JOSEPH WILLIAM KOPSICK (born February 24^th, 1987 at 11:57 P.M., at Lake Forest Hospital, the son of RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK and Linda Anne Cervetti, formerly Kopsick) do solemnly swear and affirm that this document is a self-authored, self-composed, and self-written statement, which I wish to submit so that it may be used as an affidavit, and used as evidence in my upcoming criminal lawsuit against my father, RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK (of 132 Welwyn Street, Lake Bluff, Illinois), for the crime of multiple counts of (probably aggravated) Type A Criminal Sexual Abuse of a minor in the State of Illinois, which he committed against me in 1995 and 1996 (and also, possibly, 1992).

     At the time of writing this statement (October 20^th, and November 19^th through December 8^th, and December 12^th and 13^th, and December 16^th through 22^nd, and December 29^th through 31st, 2019), I duly declare, swear, and affirm that I am in full possession of my mental and emotional faculties and capacities, and that my memory is sufficiently intact for me to be able to make accurate verbal and written statements regarding what I can and can't remember about the incidents of abuse which I describe in this written statement. I additionally swear that no other person was consulted about what the contents of this statement ought to be. I also affirm that I have never told any mental health professional about these abuses during any psychiatric sessions.

     I wish to fill out a police report, and (if possible) a Verified Criminal Complaint (V.C.C.) against the defendant. I wish to speak to a police officer who will conduct a verbal interview with me, so that he may fill out a police report about the details of these abuses. I wish to submit this affidavit, after the verbal interview, so that the police may use the contents of this affidavit to corroborate my verbal statements, and also get details and answers to any questions they may have.

     I also wish to speak to the appropriate police officers and/or attorneys at law about factors which I believe should be construed to aggravate the defendant's crimes in the eyes of the State of Illinois, as well as additional crimes the defendant may have committed during the course of the sexual abuse. These include the acts of forcefully and painfully restraining me, compressing my rib cage and semi-suffocating me, and jabbing his fingers and thumbs into my underarms and between my ribs. My father deliberately inflicted pain upon me in numerous ways, to hold me down in order to molest me, and those deliberate acts of harm should be construed to amount to either assault, reckless child endangerment, or something similar to one or both of those crimes.

     I want to make it 100% clear that I am aware that it is illegal, and punishable, to submit a false police report, or to falsify a police report. I have not done so. I would not waste the valuable time of the police department, and there are plenty of things I'd rather be doing than spending two months compiling this report. But I have done so because it was necessary to explain clearly, the manner in which my father not only molested me, but raised me from the very start to be completely powerless without his guidance and orders. I have not looked up the punishments for falsifying a police report, because I am not worried about being punished for that, because I have not done so.

     I hope that this statement will suffice not only as a detailed police report of the as many as seventeen incidents of Criminal Sexual Abuse which my father committed against me as a child, but also as the definitive story of what happened to me as a child, how my father raised me, and my relationship with my father in general (however, since I have only included most of these stories in order to back up my assertion that my father committed fraud, intimidation, and manipulation to get away with molesting me, most of these stories will be more negative than positive).

     I have also included in this report, my thoughts about which mental illnesses or psychological or personality disorders may be afflicting my father. It is for that reason that I hope this statement will suffice as a (possible) psychological profile of my father, or at least as a set of suggestions about for which disorder it may be appropriate for a psychotherapist to test him. [Note: I neglected to include this information in this report.]

     I would be willing to testify in open court that the contents of this statement are, to the best of my knowledge and recollection, true. If there are any errors herein, then these are not intentional; they have only resulted from difficulties which I have had in trying to remember dates precisely enough to consider including, and from difficulties recovering details of incidents of abuse which are vivid enough for me to be able to verbalize.

     I am prepared to answer all the questions, which police and attorneys deem necessary, to back up my claims with additional written statements of my own. I also know of several people who witnessed circumstances surrounding the abuse (although not the abuse itself), and thus can corroborate and possibly testify to the fact that my father had ample opportunity to commit the acts of Criminal Sexual Abuse of which I am accusing him.

2. Allegations and Charges

     I hereby accuse my father, RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK, of at least four (4) and as many as seventeen (17) counts of non-penetrative child molestation, of a variety which is consistent with the description of the crime of Type A Criminal Sexual Abuse of a minor. That crime is described in Sections 12 through 15 of the Illinois Criminal Code, 720 ILCS 5/12-12.

     My father, RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK, molested me no fewer than four (4) times, but no more than seventeen (17) times.

The defendant was born on March 10^th, 1957 in New York City, New York; now resides at 132 Welwyn St., Lake Bluff, Illinois; and formerly resided at 524 East Washington Avenue, Lake Bluff, Illinois, where most of the incidents of sexual abuse I describe herein occurred.

     I have had difficulty remembering exactly when the abuses took place, and exactly how many times, because:

     1) the abuses occurred a long time ago; between 23 and 27 years ago;

     2) I believe that I likely suffered memory loss due to oxygen deprivation, due to the manner in which the defendant restrained me and compressed my rib cage and lungs during the abuses;

     3) I may have suffered memory loss, repressed memories, and/or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as results of the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse which I suffered;

     4) the abuses certainly took place repeatedly, enough to have happened as many as seventeen (17) times. The manner in which Incidents #2 through #13 were committed, were so similar, that it is extremely difficult for me to distinguish the memory of one incident, from another, or to say for sure how many times these incidents happened.

     However, according to my best recollection (which I only gained over the last five years, after beginning to recover memories which had previously been lost and repressed), there is no way that I could have been molested any fewer than four (4) times, nor any more than seventeen (17) times.

     Between four (4) and twelve (12) of these incidents of abuse occurred between April 1995 and December 1996, on Saturdays (and sometimes Sundays) in the summers, in the furnished basement of 524 East Washington Avenue, Lake Bluff, Illinois. The home was a ranch-style house with a furnished basement and a large backyard, and was built in the 1940s or 1950s. My father, and his brothers and parents, resided in the same home beginning in 1966, and my father acquired it from my father again in approximately June 1992. The house has since been demolished and replaced with a two-story home.

     All seventeen (17) incidents of abuse which I describe below, occurred between my fifth birthday (February 24^th, 1992) and my tenth birthday (February 24^th, 1997). One incident (#1) occurred when I was about five and a half years old, one incident (#17) occurred just before Christmas 1996 when I was nine, three incidents (#14 through #16) occurred several months prior to that, and the others (#2 through #13) usually occurred on Saturdays, in the late mornings and early afternoons during the springs and summers of 1995 and 1996 (when I was eight and nine years old).

      More than half of the incidents which took place – namely, Incidents #2 through #13 (and possibly also Incident #1) – followed a consistent pattern: My father, the defendant, was able to get away with molesting me by disguising his overwhelming tickling of me (including my genitals) as harmless play.

     My father would begin by tickling me, and then overwhelm me with tickling, past the point where I could manage to get enough breath into my lungs to manage to, clearly and articulately, ask him to stop. When I did finally manage to get enough breath to say “ow” or “no” or “stop” or “you're hurting me”, he would disregard those objections, and continue tickling me in a way which – now, in hindsight – shows that he clearly intended to overwhelm me and make me unable to object.

      Not only did he make me unable to clearly object verbally; he made me unable to physically resist his advances. After tickling me for a prolonged, uncomfortable period of time, he would, finally, restrain my arms and legs, to prevent me from keeping his hands away from my groin, while he “tickled”, fondled, roughly groped, and stroked my penis and scrotum.

      I cannot clearly remember whether my father “tickled” my penis and scrotum over my clothing or under my clothing. I believe that he touched my genitals over my clothes, but not under them. But again, I cannot say for sure.

3. Laws, Crimes, and Punishments Relevant to the Allegations and Charges

      Since my father, the defendant, RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK, molested me no less than five (5) times, but perhaps as many as seventeen (17) times, I contend that the law prescribes that he should be found guilty of between five (5) and seventeen (17) counts of Criminal Sexual Abuse of a minor, Type A (covered under Sections 12-15 of the Illinois Criminal Code, 720 ILCS 5/12-12).

      I say this because the abuses which I suffered at the hands of the defendant, fulfill all the elements of Criminal Sexual Abuse. “Sexual conduct” must have taken place, and there must also have been:

      1) “force or threat of force”; and

      2) “victim unable to understand nature of act or give knowing consent”.

3a. Evidence Supporting “Sexual Conduct”

      What happened to me was certainly sexual conduct, because whether the defendant sought sexual gratification out of his actions or not, the sites of the unwanted touching were my penis and scrotum. The defendant committed unwanted sexual touching against me, and that is sexual conduct. I do believe that the defendant intended to achieve sexual gratification out of the act, though; I say this because of the way he was shaking, and moving me around, and up and down, during this harsh restraint and violent tickling.

3b. Evidence Supporting “Force or Threat of Force” (and Manipulation Through Gifts and Guilt)

      Force:

      What the defendant did to me, fulfills “force” because the defendant used his arms and legs to overpower me, hold me down, and tightly restrain me, which compressed my rib cage and lungs and caused me physical pain, which I remember, and from which I still have mental anguish.

      Threat of Force:

      What the defendant did to me, fulfills “threat of force” because he engaged in several forms of threatening and coercive behavior; including fraud, intimidation, and manipulation. This manipulation included gaslighting; the act of implanting “false memories” in people's minds, in order to cause them to doubt the accuracy of their own memories until they are confused and cannot make sense of reality. This is often done to gain power over a person, and to make them look insane.

      I will explain, in detail and individually, how the defendant committed fraud, intimidation, and manipulation against me, in order to keep me quiet about the abuse (and in order to avoid causing the repressed memories of that abuse to surface).

      The defendant also made numerous attempts over the years to shame, isolate, censor, demean, and humiliate me, as well as engaging in smear campaigns against me.

     Manipulation Through Gifts and Guilt:

      My father has additionally attempted to bribe me into silence, and kept me terrified and submissive as a child, forcing me to depend on him to make my decisions and determine with whom it was acceptable for me to speak.

     This behavior has followed a consistent pattern. I believe that my father isolated me, and censored my communications, in order to decrease the chance that I would say something critical of him, or perhaps remember and divulge the abuse. I believe that my father avoided discussing the sexual abuse out loud, because he didn't know whether I remembered it, and wanted to avoid causing those memories to resurface. I believe that all of these behaviors were done with the intent to intimidate me, and soft-threaten me, into silence.

     Bribes have accompanied those threats as well. I have always felt guilty and apprehensive at the thought of accepting gifts from my father. That's because I always feel like I owe him something afterwards; no gift from him is just a gift. I have had to use many of his gifts the way he wanted me to. My father has given me gifts and vacations in childhood and adulthood, and has offered to pay for college and to lease a car during my adulthood, but these gifts have strings attached.

      For example, my father leases a car for me, and says I can use it to travel to work, but also that I cannot use the car as part of my job. I am thirty-two years old, he is still treating me like a child, and I cannot get out from under his control. Every gift he gives, is a threat that he will hug me again, and I do not want to feel pressured to touch my father, because of the sexual abuse he inflicted upon me as a child.

      My father has continued to exert control over me, and keep me quiet, my pressuring me into continuing to accept his gifts, by brow-beat me into silence by guilt-tripping me for not accepting or not being excessively grateful for those gifts. I have always been grateful for my father's help when he has provided it, but I was extremely hesitant about going to college (and frankly, my father didn't need to waste his money at such a prestigious college when I would have been satisfied with something else), and a lot of the help which my father offered, came when I needed it least, didn't ask for it, and didn't want it.

      When I did need help, and needed it most, it was often difficult to speak with him frankly enough to fix the problem quickly and easily. My father made every request for help into an issue of how he could control me while providing the solution, while he also made each individual conversation terrifying (because I never know what comment he will take the wrong way, and get angry about).

     Silencing:

     Additionally, the defendant has routinely engaged in censorship of my speech while we have been in the presence of mutual acquaintances; even people we know well, even family members. One time, when I was about 30 years old, I was working as a temporary secretary in my father's law office, and a few of us went out to lunch. We were discussing the Millennial generation, and I said that I wanted to explain some things about it. My father bombarded me with several questions at once, which I could not possibly answer at once, and then pretended like what he was saying had the intent of inviting me to speak. As soon as I began to answer, my father opened his mouth again and started asking more questions. His former law partner, sitting to his right, said something like “Counselor, you are out of order, please let the witness respond.” My father stopped talking, and let me finish.

      My father, very often, invites me to speak, and then starts to talk over me as soon as I begin to speak. There were several months when I lived with the defendant, when I was scarcely able to speak three words to him, without him beginning to shout at me as loudly as he could. He has not done this as much in the last two-and-a-half years (i.e., since mid-2017), but I think that is because “he has gotten caught”; by which I mean I told him around that time that I recovered memories of the abuse, and my mother told him that he needed to stop verbally abusing her at his office.

      I believe that the defendant has attempted to keep me in silence, out of fear that I might say something critical of him, or divulge the abuse, to people we know.

      If what I have described above, is not sufficient cause to conclude that “force or threat of force” was present, then the fact that my father used physical force to restrain my torso, arms, and legs, during the sexual abuse, ought to be considered sufficient cause to conclude that the sexual abuse was committed with the assistance of physical force.

      The fact that such physical force occurred, in order to perpetrate these acts of sexual molestation, should be construed to demonstrate that additional crimes, which are not sexual in nature, may have occurred (such as physical assault and physical abuse) while I was being molested. This is to say that these assaults were perpetrated in order to hold me down during the molestation.

3c. Evidence Supporting “Victim Unable to Understand Nature of Act or Give Knowing Consent”

      What the defendant did to me, cannot be excused by my supposed ability to understand the nature of the act, nor by my supposed ability to give knowing consent to it. That's because what he did to me shows repeated patterns of tricking me into getting near him, in order to catch me, restrain me, and betray his promise to me that he was not going to do again, what I had clearly and repeatedly communicated to him that I did not enjoy, was not OK with, and caused me physical pain.

      On at least one occasion between Incident #2 and Incident #13, my father verbally acknowledged to me that he wouldn't repeat his previous actions. In my opinion, that fact should be construed to constitute an admission of guilt on his part (even if it was only to me, as a minor child at the time, in private).

      The fact that my father had to actively plead with me, and promise not to repeat his previous behavior, in order to trick me into getting molested again, proves to me that my father knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew that I didn't like it, and also knew that it was wrong. The fact that he did it anyway, makes him a serial child molester who committed multiple counts of Criminal Sexual Abuse against a minor child; against his own son, no less.

     Tickling me was one thing, but I certainly did not understand the seriousness, nor the sexual nature and intent, of my father's unwanted touching of my genital area. I am absolutely sure that I, at the age of eight and nine, was not yet able to give fully informed consent to what was happening to me; I was neither old enough, nor mature enough – nor able to understand all of the potential negative consequences – to be said to have been truly able to consent to the sexual touching which my father inflicted on my private parts.

      Even if I had been old and mature and wise enough to be able to consent, the person who touched me sexually was still my own father, whom was then aged 38 and then 39, (just under 30 years older than I am). I would never, under any circumstances, willingly nor intentionally engage in any form of sexual touching with my father, nor any form of behavior or speech carrying the intent of inspiring sexual arousal in either him or myself.

      I offer details and supporting facts in the remainder of my statement, which will help clarify the allegations and assertions contained herein.

3d. Conclusion

      It is my opinion that these factors, as well as other factors which I explain in greater detail below, should be considered and construed as aggravating factors, meriting at least the full punishment prescribed by the law, if not additional punishment as well.

      Although the defendant's abuses did not involve penetration (Criminal Sexual Assault), what the defendant did to me still qualifies as Criminal Sexual Abuse. That crime carries with it a Class 4 Felony conviction, of between 1 to 3 years for the first conviction, and for additional convictions, a Class 2 Felony conviction, of 3 to 7 years incarceration (which is probationable).

      More details about the components of, and punishments for, criminal sexual assault and abuse, are available at the following link: http://www.icasa.org/docs/legal%20forms/sex%20crimes%20chart.pdf). (See also Image #15 in Section 14 of this report)

     Thus, since the defendant molested me no fewer than four (4) times, but perhaps as many as seventeen (17), the first incident should merit a Class 4 Felony conviction, and at least one (1) year in jail or prison but as many as three (3) years in prison. This may apply only to repeat offenders who have been incarcerated between offenses, but the two to sixteen (2-16) additional counts could merit Class 2 felony convictions and additional time in jail or prison.

      Combining all counts, the law prescribes that if the defendant is convicted of all seventeen (17) incidents, then he should receive one Class 4 Felony conviction, sixteen Class 2 Felony convictions, and between 113 and 115 years in prison (pending potential appeals, reductions of sentences due to good behavior, or probation, or mental evaluations, or commitment in a mental institution, etc.), unless conviction for a Class 2 Felony is only reserved for repeat offenders who have already been incarcerated and are showing signs of recidivism.

      I will accept whatever punishment the state doles out, in terms of incarceration, but I stress that I will not feel safe unless my father both goes to jail and receives the psychiatric care he needs. I also wish to state that, under no circumstances, will I request nor accept material nor monetary damages nor rewards, nor will I settle. I am not after my father's money, I want justice I want my father to get help, and I believe that my father will not voluntarily go to therapy without the state requiring him to do so.

4. Locations and Dates of the Incidents of Abuse

     4a. Locations Where the Incidents Took Place

      The first to thirteenth incidents – about which I have the clearest memories – which occurred, took place at 524 East Washington Avenue, Lake Bluff, Illinois (the home which I shared with my parents and brother from mid-1992 until I left for college in late August 2005).

     Three of the incidents occurred at the home of my now deceased grandfather, Joseph John Kopsick (1923-2003), at 108 Welwyn Street, in the Knollwood neighborhood of Lake Bluff near the border with North Chicago. The set of dates listed below, between May and August 1996, correspond to the set of dates on which I may have been (and have incomplete memories of being) abused at my grandfather's house.

      The final incident occurred in my family's hotel room at the Union League Club of Chicago, 65 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago.

     4b. Dates When the Incidents Took Place

     The second to thirteenth incidents typically occurred on Saturdays, when my mother would go out grocery shopping and doing other errands, but some incidents likely also happened on several Sundays.

     This means that the possible dates of abuse, in Incidents #2 through #13, are as follows:

      1. The Saturdays in April, May, June, July, and August 1995 (i.e., April 8^th, 15^th, 22^nd, and/or 29^th; May 6^th, 13^th, 20^th, and/or 27^th; June 3^rd, 10^th, 17^th, and/or 24^th; July 1^st, 8^th, 15^th, 22^nd, and/or 29^th; an/or August 5^th, 12^th, 19^th, and/or 26^th, 1995);

      2. The Sundays in April, May, June, July, and August 1995 (i.e., April 9^th, 16^th, 23^rd, and/or 30^th; May 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, and/or 28^th; June 4^th, 11^th, 18^th, and/or 25^th; July 2^nd, 9^th, 16^th, 23^rd, and/or 29^th; and/or August 6^th, 13^th, 20^th, and/or 27^th, 1995);

      3. The Saturdays in April, May, June, July, and August 1996 (i.e., April 6^th, 13^th, 20^th, and/or 27^th; May 4^th, 11^th, 18^th, and/or 25^th; June 1^st, 8^th, 15^th, 22^nd, and/or 29^th; July 6^th, 13^th, 20^th, and/or 27^th; and/or August 3^rd, 10^th, 17^th, 24^th, and/or 31^st, 1996); and/or

      4. The Sundays in April, May, June, July, and August 1996 (i.e., April 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, and/or 28^th; May 5^th, 12^th, 19^th, and/or 26^th; June 2^nd, 9^th, 16^th, 23^rd, and/or 30^th; July 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, and/or 28^th; and/or August 4^th, 11^th, 18^th, and/or 25^th, 1996).

      I regret that I am not able to provide a more precise set of dates; I did so only to increase accuracy. I have included the above dates, because they reflect as much as I know about the dates on which the acts of sexual abuse might have occurred, and must have occurred.

     There are five additional incidents which took place as well.

      Two or three incidents of the abuses (likely the fourteenth through sixteenth chronologically), occurred at the home of my now deceased grandfather, Joseph John Kopsick (1923-2003), at 108 Welwyn Street, in the Knollwood neighborhood of Lake Bluff near the border with North Chicago.

      The last and most recent incident occurred several days before Christmas 1996 (perhaps Monday, December 23^rd, 1996).

5. What Happened: Details of the Seventeen Incidents

     5a. First Incident:

      The first traumatic incident which I remember, took place when I was about five-and-a-half years old. My family had moved into our house at 524 East Washington Avenue, Lake Bluff, around June 1992; we moved in as my grandfather (Joseph John Kopsick) moved out. He had owned that house for the previous twenty years or more.

     Between one and four months after we moved in (which would make it between July and October 1992), I remember making a drawing in order to cope with some traumatic event which I experience. I suspect that that trauma might have been at the hands of my father.

      If there is any chance I am remembering the events which I describe below incorrectly, then the only thing I might have gotten wrong is the date. If the event which I describe below did not happen in late 1992, then it happened some time during the following year (1993).

      I remember making several drawings; on white paper with pen, with tape holding it together. I drew two characters; cartoon mammals, perhaps gophers or hamsters or guinea pigs of some sort. Whatever creature it was, I drew a “mother gopher” and “son gopher”, and the house they lived in. I intended to use the spring from the doorstop (or some other small spring I had) to make the “mother gopher” pop out of the house when the “son gopher” came home. My idea was to put the “mother gopher” paper drawing on top of the spring. I remember drawing the “son gopher” with holes or injury marks all over his body. The purpose of the “mother gopher” popping out when her son came home, was to comfort him after being injured. I affixed some of these drawings onto the wall several inches off of the floor, near my bedroom door.

      I have difficulty remembering exactly what traumatic event inspired this piece of art which I made as a child. I remember hiding it because I was too afraid to try to talk about it, which leads me to conclude that something had happened which was too horrible for a five year old to be able to talk about. This makes me suspect that this was the first time my father physically (and/or sexually) abused me.

      The fact that the “son gopher” had holes drawn all over it, leads me to suspect that I was abused, during Incident #1, in the same manner in which I was abused during Incidents #2 through #13 (namely, with jabbing and poking all over my body, in order to hold me down and tickle me invasively).

      That is all I can manage to remember about that incident; I cannot say that I have clear, vivid memories of a touching of a specifically sexual nature. But I cannot say, either, that I would have even been capable, at that young age of five, to even understand that his actions were sexual (or that they had a sexual intent) in nature, especially considering that if I was molested on that day, that would have been the first time something sexual had ever happened to me.

5b. Second through Thirteenth Incidents:

      The next traumatic incidents which I remember, took place when I was aged 8 and 9. These incidents – numbering no less than four (4) and no more than twelve (12) – took place at 524 East Washington Avenue, Lake Bluff, Illinois, a ranch-style home with a furnished basement (which has since been demolished and replaced with a two-story home). Instances of abuse typically happened on Saturdays, when my mother would go out grocery shopping and doing other errands, but may have additionally happened on some Sundays.

      On nearly every Saturday and some Sundays, in the springs and summers of 1995 and 1996, the defendant would lie down on the couch in our furnished basement, on his right side, watching sports on television. The sport which he would watch, was usually golf, but he would also watch baseball later in the summer, and eventually basketball in the autumn. The defendant was watching golf most of the days on which the incidents of abuse occurred.

      When my father, the defendant, would lay down on the couch in the basement, on his right side, watching television, his legs and the back of the couch made a “triangle” shape (such that his upper legs made up one side of the triangle, while his lower legs made up another side, and the other side of the triangle was the back of the couch between his feet and the base of his back). My brother Michael and I would sit in that “triangle”, watching TV with our father, with the back of the couch behind us, and our father's legs in front of us.

     Little did I know that this “triangle”, formed by my father's legs, would become a physical trap which my father would use to lure me into-under his control, so he could inflict sexual abuse upon me.

      My father would either wait for an unsuspecting moment at which I was vulnerable or distracted, and looking away, or else he would create some sort of distraction or diversion, like to get me to look out of the basement window, or somewhere else in the room.

     Then, my father would seize control of my body, by using his strong, powerful legs, to clamp down onto my legs and the lower half of my body. He would clamp his legs together over the bottom half of my body, while surrounding the top half of me with his arms. He would gain complete control over where my arms and legs could go, and he would immobilize me by holding my legs down in place.

      After my father successfully restrained my legs and stopped them from moving, he would surround the middle of my torso with his arms. He would give me a sort of “bear hug”, except it was extremely uncomfortable, because he seemed to have been embracing me with all of the strength he could muster. I would struggle to use my thumbs like a crow-bar to free myself, inserting my thumbs between my father's forearms and the sides of my stomach. I would try to free myself from my father's grasp, while pushing down on his forearms with my hands. All the while, he would be groping my penis and scrotum invasively and roughly from underneath. [Note: I recovered that specific memory while speaking in person to my mother on December 30^th, 2019]

      At some point between clamping his legs down upon me, and surrounding me with his arms, my father would tickle me until I was so overwhelmed that I was unable to stop laughing hysterically and involuntarily, and unable to object. And I did verbally object, numerous times; it's just that these objections – pleas and cries to stop – were ignored by the defendant. Moreover, I was scarcely able to enunciate my objections clearly, because I could barely manage to get enough air into my lungs to speak any words clearly whatsoever (at least for more than a second or two at a time).

      The reason my father restrained my arms and legs, was evidently to stop me from swatting his hands away from my genitals, which he would roughly grope and fondle. Once he had my arms restrained, he was free to touch my penis and scrotum as much as he wanted, without me being able to put up any resistance.

      The defendant would subject me to not only overwhelming constant tickling, but also painful and invasive forms of abuse. For example, he would use his fingers to sharply and suddenly jab at, and dig into, my neck and collarbone, armpits, and rib cage near my floating ribs and kidneys. This would cause me pain and pressure and discomfort, which the defendant either intended to do, or else disregarded because causing this pain was necessary to keep me in place and stop me from squirming or getting away.

      My father would use the palm of his hand to stroke my penis and scrotum – first gently, then roughly - over my clothes. He would put his right hand over and around my penis and scrotum, he would cup my genitals in his hand and squeeze them, and he would first slowly and gently stroke my penis, and then stroke it gradually more and more frantically, quickly, and roughly. He also roughly groped my penis and scrotum.

      I am confident that my father touched me over my clothing, but I am not positive as to whether he ever touched me under my underwear with direct skin-to-skin contact. If he did, then I can't remember it. But I do remember him roughly groping me over my clothing; but I'm not sure as to whether it was over one or two layers of clothing. I was probably wearing pajama pants at the time, but I might have been wearing shorts. Whatever I was wearing, my father roughly groped my penis and scrotum through my clothes, while holding me down so I couldn't escape, and while invasively jabbing and poking at various parts of my body.

     Until very recently, I was still trying to figure out exactly how my father pinned my arms down, in a way that stopped me from swatting his hands away from my groin.

      I know that he would tickle me in the underarms when I tried to resist, to discourage me from continuing to try to resist. This relentless tickling would cause me to experience difficulty breathing, which would cause me to shake violently, to try to wiggle my hips free from his arms, which were encircling my center.

      Once he had me restrained and unable to get out of the grip of his arms, he pinned me close to him, with me sitting in his lap, and he would hold my arms back with his hands somehow. I think he did it by either holding onto both of my wrists with one of his hands, or else using one of his arms to keep both of my arms pinned back. He probably did one, the other, or both.

      I cannot remember how he pinned my arms down, but I do remember trying to use my hands to push down on his wrists, in order to free myself from his grip. My father would surround the middle of my torso with his arms, and hold me down close to him, while fondling my genitals from underneath with his hand. I remember using my thumbs as a sort of crow-bar, to try to pry the sides of my ribs and my stomach free from his roughly enclosing “embrace”. To be perfectly clear and to reiterate, he roughly groped me from underneath, while he held me down close to him, by bear-hugging the center of my body, while I tried to pry myself free of his grasp with my thumbs. He refused to let me go, and kept touching me against my will. I recovered this specific memory on December 30^th, 2019, while speaking to my mother about the abuse.

      Once my father had my arms and legs reliably restrained with his own hands and legs, I could do nothing other than to lay there on top of him while he tickled, fondled, and stroked my penis and scrotum. I would whimper and cry, and struggle to breathe steadily while he did it. I could scarcely get enough breath in me at that point to object or cry or scream. All I could do was try to think of ways to escape, and that always proved impossible.

     Whenever I did manage to get enough breath into my lungs – between either screaming or crying, and being forced to involuntarily laugh from overwhelming tickling – I would try to shout “no” or “stop” or “stop it” or “please stop” or “what are you doing” or “you're hurting me” or “I don't like this” or “I can't breathe”. But my father would disregard those objections, and continue molesting me by “tickling” my genitals and underarms in this overwhelming manner. He would not only tickle my armpits, but also grab at them and pinch them, and jab at and dig into them forcefully with his thumbs. It was especially difficult to get air into my lungs during all of this, because every time I would try to breathe in and gather my strength to attempt escape, my father (probably aware that this is what I was trying to do), my father would begin to touch me in an even more rough and intense manner.

      When I would verbally object, the intensity of the unwanted touching and poking would get even worse. That's probably because my father knew that groping me more intensely would shut me up and stop me from continuing to object. I tried to get enough breath in me to keep objecting, and tried to get away, but I had no realistic shot at mustering up enough strength to push his arms off of me. Besides, such an opportunity never came up, because my father's hands would move so fast (from my groin, to my underarms, to my hands and arms to hold them back) that I was neither fast enough, nor strong enough, to stop my father from grabbing at whatever part of my body he wanted to.

      The fondling and intense groping of my penis and scrotum would only cease when the defendant had had enough; my objections had nothing to do with whether and when he decided to stop. No amount of me trying to fight him off, or trying to scream objections and pleas to stop, were ever enough to get him to stop. It stopped whenever he wanted it to be over.

      I tried to physically thwart my father off, and I tried as many ways as possible to swat and slap his hands away from my groin, or use what little strength I had in my arms to push his hands away from my genitals. This was no help, though, because when I did this, he would respond by more strongly holding my arms back and restraining me, so that I would have nothing left to resort to, in order to try to keep warding him off.

      When I think about being groped like that, I remember getting a head rush while it was happening. My brain would flood with “fight or flight response” chemicals, while I would struggle to breathe. My father's semi-suffocation was depriving me of both oxygen and the rush of chemicals I needed to gather up the strength to pull away or resist him.

      As I explained, I still have difficulty remembering whether this groping of my genitals was over my clothes, or under my clothes, or both. I believe it was solely over the clothes.

      I can't be sure, though, because I suspect that if I had been groped under my clothes, my mind might have blotted-out that memory because it would be too traumatic for me to handle, and for my mind to allow me to remember.

      On the other hand, if memories of skin-to-skin contact during that groping simply are not present in my mind, maybe that is because they never happened. But still, even if that groping did not involve skin to skin contact, it at least involved deliberate groping and fondling of my penis and scrotum over my clothes, which is still an act of deliberate fondling of a child's genitals, and thus Criminal Sexual Abuse punishable by incarceration in Illinois. Moreover, my father had every opportunity to touch my genitals under my clothes if he wanted to, and if he did, then that could reasonably explain why I don't remember such a thing happening.

      I believe that the defendant had a deliberate intent to achieve sexual gratification through these actions, as well as an intent to overwhelm me by tickling me in such an invasive, unrelenting manner. I believe that this was deliberate, because me being immobilized and unable to object (either verbally or physically), was what allowed him to seize on this moment of my vulnerability in order to “tickle” my genitals. Tickling and holding me down were what allowed him to suppress all of my visible and audible objections.

      To be clear, what my father did to me – aside from touch my groin – was subject me to at least 3 to 5 solid minutes of non-stop tickling. He also jabbed and poked and pinched and groped at various places on my body at the same time, including my rib cage (especially around the lower ribs and the center of my torso) and my underarms as well as the joints of my arms and legs. He would also surround the center of my body with his arms tightly, so that I couldn't wiggle free.

      All of this forced me to laugh so much that I could scarcely breathe. He was also restraining me, so the combination of restraint, with breathless laughter from being forcibly tickled, resulted in what amounted to near suffocation. I couldn't breathe, and I was letting him know that. He didn't seem to care.

      I believe that my father deliberately overwhelmed me with tickling, in a manner which he knew would cause me to become unable to keep my wits long enough, and stop laughing long enough, to enunciate a clear objection to what was happening to me. I believe that he did this in order to convince himself – as well as me – that he was just playing with me, and in so doing, gain plausible deniability with which to dismiss the idea that he had any intent to hurt or molest me. I want to state unequivocally that my father did not just tickle me; he tickled and fondled and groped and stroked my penis and scrotum. “Tickling” a child's genitals is not an acceptable, nor appropriate, form of tickling.

      My father, the defendant, acted with such wanton disregard for my safety and health, during these acts of groping, that he disregarded my objections even when I alerted him to the fact that he had caused me significant pain and had possibly seriously injured me in the process.

      One of the last times this groping on the basement couch occurred – probably the last of those incidents – I remember screaming at my father, at the top of my lungs, as loud as I could: “You really hurt me!”.

      I said this because he had knocked the wind out of me, by jabbing his fingers into my sides (while also making it harder for me to breathe, by surrounding my torso with his arms and crushing my body, and also by tickling me until I was unable to object due to being forced to laugh). While recovering from that incident, I remember struggling to get enough air into my lungs in a way that would make me feel like there was enough air in them as there was supposed to be. I had to hold my breath in, to make my lungs feel full. I felt like he had poked holes, in the tissue between my ribs, with his fingers.

      I left that incident of groping, believing that my lungs and/or ribs had been severely damaged. I told my father how much he had hurt me, and still he ignored my concerns and refused to do anything about it. It may be a “positive” that he did not molest me many more times after this; however, it still means that my father would stop at nothing to keep molesting me, even if it meant breaking my ribs or puncturing my lungs. Still, I believe that my father understood from this injury that he could not continue molesting me without risking serious injury to my body, and serious harm and pain to me.

      The only source of “therapy” which I had, to help me recover from these events, was sitting curled up, in a fetal position, on a small gray love seat which sat next to the couch on which my father abused me. I would sit in that love seat, while my father sat silently watching television. I would cry, and try as hard as I could to stop crying.

      My father rationalized, defended, excused, and justified his behavior towards me after each incident happened. Often, while I was attempting to recover, my father would mock my crying, scoffing and laughing at me, and make fun of me for objecting to what he had done. He would say things like “That wasn't so bad”, and “I didn't hurt you”, and maybe also something like “Come on, it wasn't that bad.”

     [Note: I think that my father would also mock the tone of my voice when I would say “I don't like this.” I am not positive that my father did this either during or after the abuse, but I know that he has mocked me for saying that, at times when I wasn't being abused, and was instead in front of other people. One winter, when I was about three years old, my father put me on a sled, at the top of a small hill. Since I was young and small, I was afraid to sled down the hill, so I said “I don't like this”. It would be difficult to estimate how many times my father has told this story, and laughed after mocking the way my voice sounded. From my point of view, my father thought it was funny that I was afraid. The possibility that my point of view on this is correct, does not comfort me, nor did it when I was a child. When I would express disapproval, or more sadness, at the fact that my father was imitating me and laughing at me, my father would say that he was talking about it because “it was cute”. The fact that my father thinks that it is “cute” when I am afraid, disturbs me, but it would also help explain why he found me so attractive while I was struggling in fear to escape from his restraint when he molested me.]

      I expect that, if and when confronted about these abuses, he will describe these incidents of groping and fondling of my genitals, as nothing more than “tickling”, which was part of play between father and son. However, since he was aged 38 or 39 at the time, the defendant should have been able to recognize that I was giving multiple signs that I did not approve of what he was doing. I did not, in any way, enjoy this abuse; I was only laughing at the time because being tickled causes involuntary laughter, especially for prolonged periods of time. This is the same involuntary reaction which accompanies being forcibly tickled in the private parts.

     While sitting in the love seat after the abuse, I was dehydrated (from being suffocated, tossed around, and molested), so I remember asking (or, more accurately, “begging”) my father if I could walk over to the basement bathroom and get a drink of water from the faucet. He would oblige me. I think the reason why I didn't leave the love seat, is that I didn't think I was free to leave. I don't remember ever being allowed to stay away from my father immediately after the abuse would occur. I can't remember exactly why, but I remember having the distinct feeling that he did not want me to leave the room after the abuse would occur.

     Maybe I knew that if I had run to my room, or upstairs in general, my father might try to catch me. I was probably afraid to find out. What I can say for sure, is that I waited for my mother to come home, before I knew it was safe enough to walk around the house freely. After the abuse, I would usually go to my bedroom, or I would watch television in one of the other rooms.

      As I explained, the incidents during which I was subjected to unwanted genital touching on our basement couch, numbered no less than four (4) incidents, and no more than twelve (12) incidents.

      But however many times it happened, a distinct pattern emerged. The second time this happened and later, the defendant knew that he would need to try harder and harder each time to coax me into sitting on the couch behind his legs, so that I would trust him enough again to be near him. On at least one occasion, the defendant told me that he was not going to do again this time, what he did last time (i.e., molest me). He absolutely knew how much I hated the way he had touched me the previous time, and I, being a child at the time, foolishly fell for it, time and time again.

      Each one of these numerous instances of genital groping, and being tossed around and manhandled while being shaken, would leave me exhausted, sweating, and with a violently spinning headache. I would also be thirsting for water, and desperately dehydrated; this was due to the sweating, due to the defendant depriving me of air, and due to his depriving me of any break from his relentless tickling and invasive jabbing at various parts of my body. I remember trying to figure out why my father would be so sweaty at the end of these incidents.

      As an adult, I now understand that people sweat when they masturbate; that is why I strongly suspect that my father had the intent of sexual gratification when he pressed his thumbs into my underarms and groped my penis and scrotum.

      The only time I remember trying to explain to my mother what was going on, while the abuse was still happening, was after the abuse had occurred several times already.

      One Saturday morning, probably in the summer of 1995, my mother told me that she was going out to do errands (probably buying groceries, other shopping, or going out to have lunch with friends, etc.). I asked my mother to stay home that day, because I had begun to detect a pattern about my father's abuse. I thought that if my mother had stayed home, that Saturday, my father wouldn't have been able to get away with what he had been doing to me on other Saturdays. At least, not without my mother hearing what was happening, and going up to my father and asking questions.

     Since, in 1995, I was barely able to understand what my father had done to me (and thus, unable to understand that it was sexual in nature), I was not able to explain to my mother's satisfaction why I wanted her to stay home. She probably assumed that I, a young child of eight years old at the time, simply missed her when she was out of the house shopping on Saturday afternoons, and did not suspect anything unusual.

      If I had tried to explain that my father had “touched my private parts”, I suspect that my mother would have done something about it. I had no idea how serious it was, what had happened to me; and I had no idea how to express the events which took place.

     Unfortunately, my mother did not find out about any of the abuse while it was still happening; only years later, in 2015 (after I recovered repressed memories). I first spoke to my mother about the abuses in early 2015, within several months of beginning to recover the memories of those incidents. I know for sure that my mother believes what I have divulged to her about the abuse, because she texted me to say that she believes me, on December 16^th, 2019 (see Image #14 in Section 14 of this report). But I also suspect that she might be hesitant to admit what happened to anyone besides myself, because of the embarrassment and shame that might be involved.

     During the spring and summer of 1995 and 1996, my father – the defendant, RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK – engaged in periodic, repeated, consistent patterns of serial criminal sexual abuse of a minor (myself). The defendant's intention was clearly to make me unable to object, either verbally or physically. If caught, the defendant could have used my apparent lack of an objection, as plausible deniability of his crimes, because he could get away with claiming that I consented or understood what was happening to me. However, I did not consent, nor did I understand that what was happening to me provided sexual gratification for my abuser.

      These episodes of groping a minor's private parts should be understood as the criminal behavior of a serial child molester and pedophile. There is no possible way that they could be construed as having been “an accident”. First, because “an accident” implies that it only happened once, and “accidents” implies that what he did was unintentional (or that he did not understand what he was doing). Only insanity, mental disability, or severe alcohol or drug dependency, could possibly suffice as an explanation (but not an excuse) as to why my father might not have understood what he was doing. But those are not acceptable defenses for the crime of Criminal Sexual Abuse.

      This leads me to conclude that my father knew that he was molesting me, when he was “tickling” my penis and scrotum. If he did not understand, then he should only be let off on reason of insanity. However, insanity is not one of the possible defenses for the crimes he committed; the only defense is if the accused believed the victim to be over 17, and the defendant knew that I was not yet that old at the time when the abuses occurred. He was present for my birth; he knows how old I am better than almost anyone.

     There is no shadow of a doubt in my mind as to whether my father knew what he was doing.

      He absolutely did know what he was doing, and his intention was to gain sexual gratification from groping, fondling, and – as he will probably say in his defense – “tickling” my penis and scrotum.

      To anyone who would ask me whether I was merely tickled in an appropriate manner, and am simply exaggerating it; I know the difference between tickling someone playfully, and forcibly holding them down – and holding their arms back – in order to overwhelm them with tickling, and jabbing sharply with fingers at sensitive and vulnerable spots on someone's body.

      My father did not just “over-tickle” me; he crushed me and suffocated me while forcibly restraining me, in order to prevent me from protecting my genitals from his groping, fondling, and “tickling”.

     I have included hand-drawn images, depicting the abuses inflicted upon me during Incidents #2 through #13; those images are Images #1 through #3 in Section 14 of this report.

5c. Fourteenth through Sixteenth Incidents:

      Two or three incidents of the abuses (likely the fourteenth through sixteenth chronologically), occurred at the home of my now deceased grandfather, Joseph John Kopsick (born 1923, died ca. 2003), at 108 Welwyn Street, in the Knollwood neighborhood of Lake Bluff near the border with North Chicago. These possible incidents of abuse occurred some time in the second half of 1996.

      On a few of the weekends, during the summer and fall of 1996, my father would take my brother and me to our paternal grandfather's house. My grandfather was 73 years old at the time, and my father would go to his house to get work done, smoke cigars and drink whiskey with his father, and sometimes watch television and help my grandfather get his possessions organized.

      My brother and I would usually be left in our grandfather's living room, watching television, while my father would be working, or while he would leave for a while to run errands. Usually my brother came with us, but a few times he did not, and my father took me to his father's house without my brother.

     Often, when my brother and I were at our grandfather's house, we would hide in our grandfather's large brown leather couch, covering ourselves with the huge cushions. We did this in order to hide from our father, but for my brother this was a playful event, rather than one based on fear of my father. I may not have hidden in the couch cushions out of fear exactly, but I much preferred being alone to interacting with my father, so fun was not my only motive in hiding. Covering ourselves with cushions was fun in and of itself, but there was another reason why we were doing it. Hiding from my father was fun at times, but the times it was scary, got too scary too quickly.

      I cannot say for sure whether my father molested me at my grandfather's house; that is the nature of repressed memories. What I do remember, however, is that around the time when my father would take me to my grandfather's house often, my father called my mother on the phone, at least once or twice to tell her that I was vomiting, and that she had to come pick me up (or that my father was about to bring me home).

      I remember getting sick, and throwing up, at least once or twice at my grandfather's house, and needing to go home shortly thereafter. This worries me because dehydration and throwing up are often side effects of rough manhandling and sexual abuse. It additionally worries me because I remember my father throwing me onto my grandfather's bed several times; again, I do not remember whether I viewed this solely as a playful event. I am also concerned because I was exposed to second-hand cigar smoke while at my grandfather's. The cigar smoke could have explained my dehydration and vomiting, but the fact of my lost memories is also disconcerting, because I know that alcohol can make a person forget due to nerve damage.

      I suspect that my father would take advantage of these opportunities to be alone with me at my grandfather's house, in order to molest me. If my father did molest me at my grandfather's house, then I suspect that he got away with it by drugging me (by getting me to imbibe alcohol), to make me forget about the molestation.

      I believe that he did this to the point where I was intoxicated, needed to throw up, and had been through some form of stomach trauma which could serve to distract from - and suffice as an explanation for - the molestation to which I may have fallen victim while at my grandfather's house. Of course, if he did make me drink liquor, then I would probably not have been able to explain that he had done that to me (considering that children don't understand what alcohol is or what it does to people, and also considering that alcohol depresses the speech centers of the brain).

      I regret that I cannot be any clearer, nor provide any more details, on these two or three incidents of genital groping which possibly occurred at my grandfather's house. Even if not a single incident of molestation occurred at my grandfather's house, there is no way that my recollection about the four or more incidents of groping on our couch in the basement, could have been made up, nor exaggerated nor distorted.

          The reason why I suspect that sexual abuse may have occurred during these three incidents, is that I cannot think of any other logical explanation as to why I became so sick that I vomited on two or more occasions while (usually alone with my father) at my grandfather's house.

5d. Seventeenth Incident:

      The seventeenth and final incident of abuse occurred at my family's hotel at the Union League Club of Chicago, 65 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, several days before Christmas 1996 (perhaps Monday, December 23^rd, 1996).

      This is another incident which I find very difficult to remember. My father, and his then business partner Scott Gibson, had booked our two families rooms at the Union League Club of Chicago, over the Christmas / holiday break at the end of 1996.

     Children attending the Union League Club's holiday events that year, were treated with Christmas-themed pancake breakfasts, and music by children's singer-songwriter Susan Salidor.

      One evening, probably two or three days before Christmas Day 1996, my father took me up to our hotel room, to help me get changed before dinner. I always remember being extremely distressed about having to “look nice” for other people; especially when I was wearing uncomfortable shoes and shirt collars as I was that evening.

     After finishing getting dressed, I remember my father telling me I looked “cute”. I remember him rubbing the top and back of my head with his fingers, slowly caressing the short hair on my head. I remember becoming afraid and nervous, and I remember beginning to cry. I can't recall what happened after that; I have no vivid memories of that night beyond that point.

      I believe that my mind is still blocking me from remembering what happened next, probably in order to protect me from memories that would be too upsetting to me. I suspect that my father groped my genitals again, after touching the back of my head, but I do not have a distinct enough memory to say that for sure. However, I do not have a clear memory of what happened next, so the fact that there is a gap in my memory, causes me to suspect that another incident of abuse likely took place.

      The memories of this incident at the Union League Club, are not as distinct as the incidents of groping which took place on our family's couch, but are more distinct than whatever happened to me (if anything) at my grandfather's house, and more distinct than what happened to me in Incident #1.

      The day I returned to school after Incident #17, and after Christmas break (which was probably on or around Monday, January 6^th, 1997), I was asked to write a small blurb about what I did over the holiday break off from school. I remember, while I was doing this writing assignment in class, that there was something I was trying to avoid writing about. I wrote a “just the facts” blurb about going to the Union League Club, and I left out whatever traumatic thing had happened to me, because I knew that it was not something I could talk about with the teacher or the rest of the class.

      I now recognize that what my father did – that is, 1) dress me up in constricting, uncomfortable clothes that made me look like an adult; 2) call me “cute”; and especially 3) caress the back of my head – are all signs of “pedophile grooming”. Grooming is a process by which child molesters do things to children to cause them to become accustomed to being touched by adults, and complimented for their looks. Grooming is often accompanied with behaviors that made children feel uncomfortable, and eventually afraid, to resist unwanted touching either verbally or physically.

6. Damages and Evidence Thereof

6a. Introduction

     During the incidents of sexual abuse which I have described, the defendant, RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK, caused me physical harm. I have also experienced symptoms consistent with those of emotional trauma, sexual dysfunction, and possibly also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I believe stem from the manner in which my father shouted at me growing up (and, most importantly, from the manner in which he molested me in Incidents #2 through #13, and groomed and possibly molested me in Incident #17).

      I may also have depression as a result of experiencing that sexual abuse; and I may have suffered additional mental anguish from experiencing emotional abuse, censorship, silencing, isolation, and intimidation at the hands of my father (which occurred in the years following the abuse, which is why I say that my father kept me permanently afraid of angering him in order to prevent memories of past abuse from resurfacing).

      I suspect that it is possible to produce physical evidence that these abuses were committed against me; I should have damage to my nerves, brain, joints, left lower ribs and rib cage, and/or my lungs, from this abuse. I also suffer from various nervous tics, of which I suspect that several may have resulted from the abuse (because my father bit his nails, and I do too; while I pull my hair compulsively but my father doesn't).

      If physical evidence of the crimes committed against me can be produced and accepted (aside from this written statement), then I will be prepared to explain in court, why I believe that these traumas resulted from my father's semi-suffocating me while molesting me when I was eight and nine (and perhaps also five-and-a-half) years old.

      As I explained, the earliest possible episode of sexual abuse occurred when I was five years old. What follows is the set of emotional and physical traumas I suffered after the earliest abuse I remember.

6b. Evidence of Childhood Trauma from Age Six to Twelve

     There are plenty of pictures of me happy and smiling as a child (see Image #5 in Section 14 of this document). Also, my mother has told me that I rarely cried as a baby (especially compared to my brother). However, there are also a lot of pictures of me as a child, in which I am frowning, or in which I have no expression on my face at all (see Images #6 through #12 in Section 14 of this report).

      As a child, I was quiet, introspective, observant about the world around me, and interested in fixing or improving things I found to be incorrect or imperfect. But also, as a result of my father's treatment, I had to be docile and submissive to avoid making him angry. As a result, many photographs of me at the ages of four, six, thirteen, and twenty (for example) show me with a blank look on my face (including numerous photographs in which I posed for pictures with other people, when I was a teenager).

      I don't appreciate being instructed to smile; I do not produce a genuine smile just because somebody tells me to do so. But before I was old enough to ever feel that way or understand that, I showed a lack of expression and a lack of happiness in pictures taken of me as a child. Being told to smile, these days, now even strikes me as a sort of gaslighting, if you're instructing a person to smile when they have struggled with depression or abuse. To tell a person to smile, when they don't want to, is to silently tell them to make-believe, for the moment, that nothing is wrong.

     There are so many pictures of me – with my siblings and cousins, and with my parents and their friends' families – in which I am frowning and everybody else is smiling. I have examples of such photographs in my possession. Those photographs include images from a birthday party of mine (probably around my eighth birthday) which show that I am smiling in very few photos, which is strange for a child who is celebrating a birthday. That birthday party probably occurred between Incident #1 and Incident #2.

     There are also two photographs of me from the age of four, one of which I have in my possession. In one photograph of me, from when I was about four years old, with my older half-siblings (Jodi and Aaron) and our cousin Tony, and I am noticeably the only one frowning. There is also another photograph from around the age of four, in which I was sitting on a wicker chair, resting my head on my hand, and looking impatient or frustrated, with my eyes sort of “bugged-out”. That happened before Incident #1, but even as a small child of age four, I didn't have much to be happy about, considering the state of terror my father would keep me in.

      I believe that the reason why I was rarely happy as a child, and had a blank look on my face a lot of the time, was because I had endured abuse, and also because my father hated seeing open displays of emotion. I also attribute it to my father's invasive, confrontational parenting style, and his lack of restraint in volume when shouting at me and my brother (while towering over us with his arms folded).

     It's probable that I was simply being shouted at so often (and, later, simply that I had been sexually and physically abused so many times) that I had no urge to smile whatsoever. It's also possible that my father used emotional manipulation and psychological torture (via deprivation of healthy forms of affection) to brow-beat out of me, the urge to feel or express any emotion at all.

      I have experienced symptoms of mental anguish and depression, as well as mild symptoms of self-harm, as a result of my father's abuses.

      I believe that the bullying which I was experiencing at home, at the hands of my father, made me more susceptible to bullying at school (and also made me want to bully smaller children). At its most severe, other kids' bullying of me, occurred between kindergarten and fourth grade (that is, from 1992 to 1997, the first few years during which my father abused me). That bullying tended to focus on the facts that I still played with toys, that I wore glasses, and that I was smarter than most of the other kids were.

      At school, I began to misbehave, but as far as I can remember, I did not have conscious memories of the abuses at that time; those lost memories did not resurface until 2015.

      At the age of six, in first grade, I was sent to Lake Bluff East School's speech therapist, because I had been stuttering at home. Curiously, the problem went away as soon as I entered the speech therapist's office, so no further action to fix the problem was necessary on the school's part.

      I suspect that my father's penchant for shouting at me at the top of his lungs when he was angry, even when I was very little, could have contributed to my difficulty speaking. I believe that I was not stuttering (as my parents suspected), but rather that I was stammering instead. I have never felt comfortable to express myself in front of my father; this has been a problem in my adulthood as well as my childhood.

      Even as recently as between February 2015 and February 2018 (when I lived with my father), I was often unable to utter even three words in a row without my father interrupting and shouting at me. Interrupting and shouting at a child, every time they try to talk, is by no means a recipe for ensuring that a child will speak confidently or frequently.

      At the age of seven, I wet my pants while doing pull-ups, in front of my entire class of about twenty-five first-grade classmates.

      I had urinated in my pants, while sitting down with my friends in the gym, waiting for my turn to see how many pull-ups I could do. I had neglected to ask the teacher in the previous class period whether I could use the restroom, so I peed my pants while sitting in the gym, and failed to do a single pull-up on the pull-up bar, all while my classmates saw that I had obviously wet my pants, and a lot.

      This was not the first time I had wet my pants in class, but it was the first time I had wet myself with a significant volume of urine while still in school, so it gave me the wake-up call I needed to fully toilet-train myself for school, and finally get used to constantly asking permission to go to the bathroom in school as often as I needed to.

      I suspect that both my difficulty controlling my bladder for the first several years of school, and my fear and embarrassment at having to – very publicly – ask a teacher for permission to use my own penis (i.e., to urinate), may have stemmed from my apprehension about my father's groping and fixation on my sexual and masturbatory development and maturation. To put it simply, I was so accustomed to having my penis controlled by my father at home, that I was too afraid to take control over my genitals when the time came for doing so (in the first few years of school).

      At the age of eight – inspired by an episode of The Simpsons which contained a joke about Richard Nixon's “enemies list” – I made a list of enemies, which my parents discovered. I made this list because I was being bullied. Unfortunately, the fact that self-defense was my motivation, did not matter to my parents. I suspect that if I had not been emotionally abused and shouted at – and, later, molested – by my father, I probably wouldn't have been bullied by kids at school (nor would I have had any reason to begin conniving against other children).

      I remember experiencing a nosebleed in class around third grade. The second graders had come into our classroom to observe what they were going to learn the following year. I was sitting in class, unaware that my nose had begun to bleed, and I wiped what I thought was mucus on to my pants, using my hands. After a few minutes, I noticed that my nose was bleeding, and I asked to be excused, and had to run out of the classroom with my face, hands, and pant legs covered in blood.

      That was another example of my hesitation to ask teachers for permission to leave the room to attend to taking care of my basic bodily functions and physical needs.

      At the age of twelve, I told an older boy that “I want to kill you right now” because he had rudely taken a computer that I was walking towards and about to use. I didn't really mean it, and the boy had been bullying me in the previous weeks. Nonetheless, the school ignored the fact that I was reacting against a bully, the school recommended that I see a psychiatrist because of that, and I did.

      I suspect that I would not have reacted in such a verbally violent manner, if I had not been bullied, shouted at, and molested at home.

6c. Evidence of Childhood Trauma in My Behavior from Age Fourteen to Present

      In eighth grade, I was deliberately rude to another student in Language Arts class, just so that the teacher would make me sit in the hall (so I wouldn't have to participate).

      I was beginning to show signs of being antisocial, but it wasn't because I disliked other kids, or couldn't get along with them. It was because I had been bullied in school, had no outlet for free expression at home, and had little social time with friends while at school.

     Also, in eighth grade, I had to run a mile in under ten minutes; and failed the first time, completing the task in twelve minutes. I ran a mile in just under ten minutes the second time I tried; this difficulty may be owed to the fact that I was diagnosed with asthma.

     However, I suspect that I would not have had as much difficulty running – or catching my breath, which is necessary to run effectively – if my father had not physically abused me. My father abused me while he had me, more or less, in a headlock, in a position which compressed my rib cage and lungs. My father also jabbed at my rib cage and armpits suddenly sharply with his fingers, while my lungs were already compressed; there is no way that that could have been healthful for my lungs or helpful for my breathing (let alone my asthma).

      My antisocial behavior and “negative attention” seeking, continued into high school.

      In high school, I grew frustrated with my telecommunications teacher's lack of expertise and inability to keep the class's attention, so I went into a nearby room and barked like a dog for 45 minutes.

     Later in high school, I spent a whole day refraining from speaking, much to the annoyance of one of my assigned partners in classes (although not to the detriment of either of our grades).

     Since becoming an adult, I have used cannabis (colloquially known as marijuana). I made that decision by myself, of sound mind and body while a legal adult, so I do not wish to blame my father for those choices of mine.

      But I also believe that I would not have developed a substance abuse dependency in my early twenties, if my father had not first sexually abused me (causing me both physical and emotional pain which would need to be medicated). Nor would I have been as likely to develop a substance abuse problem, if my father's alcohol dependency had not been as noticeable or problematic as it has been.

6d. Abuse and Disciplinary Style Caused Emotional Trauma and Difficulties Socializing

      The emotional damage which my father has inflicted upon me, began long before the earliest episodes of sexual abuse which I can remember. My mother wrote in a diary about my early childhood, that I would soon be expected to participate in an event at school, and my mother commented that my father thought I would not participate in it. I can't remember my father inflicting emotional abuse upon me as a result of that event, but this is the first time I'm aware of my father having been afraid that I will not socialize with others.

      My father's style of discipline consisted of standing tall and still, with his arms folded, looking as large and mean as possible, in order to strike terror in the hearts of his very small children. His methods of imposing discipline and inspiring obedience, also included shouting at myself and my brother at the top of his lungs.

     Since my father is my major male role model in life, his behavior led me to treat other males, and other people in general, with suspicion and apprehension, at the possibility that they would do something aggressive. I believe that my father's parenting behaviors made it extremely difficult for me to socialize with other children when I was young, and I believe that this problem continues to this day, as I have few friends.

      I believe that my father's aggressive, confrontational parenting style kept me afraid of socializing with others. I also believe that my father kept me afraid of socializing without his approval and guidance, and kept me isolated as a child, in order to keep me quiet about the abuse which he had inflicted upon me.

      Later in life, since the abuses have occurred, I have noticed that I have several other problems, mostly related to communication and socializing. These include:

      1) difficulty maintaining eye contact (including during job interviews, and even with my own family members),

      2) trouble interpreting social cues (including in the workplace, making it difficult to hold down jobs),

      3) difficulty to maintain emotional intimacy in, sexual intimacy in, and commitment to, romantic relationships, as well as an aversion to friendly touch;

      4) difficulty trusting others (especially authority figures, until very recently), and

      5) difficulty traveling, interacting socially, and participating in games and simulations with others (because I become afraid that I will get trapped).

     Regarding #5 in particular, I have experienced panic attacks (although they are minute, internal, controllable, and manageable) which I believe result from my fear of being trapped. I am not afraid of enclosed spaces, but rather, I am afraid of the actual action of becoming trapped. I worry that if I do as I am told too much, I will become controlled by someone forever.

     Sometimes when I travel by bus, I picture myself and the other passengers as if we were unsure of our destination, and then that we are in a cattle car in the Holocaust, heading to somewhere we might be killed. My mother and my brother should remember that, in late 2018 or early 2019, while at my brother's apartment, I verbalized my fear of people ending up in concentration camps after becoming accustomed to surrendering their privacy and possessions. I did so after my mother explained that she recently had to throw away most of the contents of her purse in order to get past security to attend a football game.

      I believe that my fear of becoming trapped, stems from my once very rational fear of becoming physically trapped by the hands and legs of my father. I suspect that my fear of following orders stems from my father's controlling nature and manner of discipline.

      I believe that most or all of these problems which I have experienced, are the direct consequences of my father's loud, confrontational parenting discipline style, and also from the sexual abuses which he inflicted upon me. I also suspect that I may be suffering from P.T.S.D. (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) stemming from the various abuses which I have suffered at the hands of my father over the years. [Note: I do not experience panic attacks; on the contrary, I suspect that I am nearly immune to noticeable panic attacks because my father shouted at me so much as a child that I sort of got accustomed to it.]

6e. Evidence That the Defendant's Sexual Abuse and Control Caused Sexual Dysfunction

      As I stated, I experienced bladder containment problems in school between Incidents #1 and #2, and did not masturbate with my underwear off for several years, ending around age 12, and having begun some time around the incidents of sexual abuse. That's why I suspect that these experiences are signs of sexual dysfunction, and why I attribute that sexual dysfunction to the sexual abuse inflicted on me by my father.

      I have suffered additional signs of sexual dysfunction in my adulthood; namely, that: 1) it seems more difficult for me, compared to other males, to achieve penile orgasm while there is lubricant on my penis; 2) it is difficult for me (but not impossible) to achieve penile orgasm without prostatic stimulation; 3) it is difficult for me to achieve orgasm without holding my breath (and engaging in “breath play”); 4) it is difficult for me to achieve orgasm without mild forms of pain; and 5) it is difficult for me to achieve orgasm without fantasizing about nonconsent.

      That third sign of sexual dysfunction may be attributable to my father's having restricted my breathing during the sexual abuse which he inflected on me. The “mild forms of pain” I mention in describing the fourth sign of sexual dysfunction, include incorporating constrictive clothing, testicular trauma, and/or duct tape, into the masturbatory act.

      This may be more of an example of a sexual fetish than a sign of sexual dysfunction, but I suspect that the manner in which my father would forcefully push his thumbs into my underarms (to hold me in place before and during molestation) resulted in an inordinate level of focus of attention being placed on my armpits. I believe that this inordinate and inappropriate attention to my underarms, resulted in my current maschalagnia (“armpit fetish” in layman's terms). This may not count as a dysfunction, but the strangeness of the fetish certainly decreases the likelihood of a romantic relationship occurring without an embarrassing discussion having to take place.

          My father has suppressed my healthy sexual activity, whether he was intending to or not; he did this by overreacting to my needs to masturbate and to have privacy.

      This occurred from the time he caught me masturbating when I was six years old, while lying on the floor under the table in front of him (in front of the same gray couch on which Incidents #2 through #13 took place). My father tried to pressure me into admitting what I was doing, and I told him that I had peed my pants, because I either didn't want to admit I was masturbating, or didn't even know that I was masturbating and thus couldn't verbally admit to what I was doing.

      I think my father told me to only touch myself in my bedroom after that, but I can't remember very well. What I do remember is that that conversation made me ashamed and confused. That is the earliest time I can remember my father having a problem with me expressing my sexuality while he was not present.

     Until the age of twelve, I was unaware that most people masturbated while fully naked. After discovering that people do that, from a classmate, I masturbated with my hand directly on my genitals for the first time.

      I realized later that it seemed strange that I had spent the previous six years masturbating through my clothes, without taking my underwear off. I now suspect that the reason I did this, was either that I was afraid of being caught naked, and/or that I was averse to being touched skin-to-skin on my genitals. If the latter is the case, then this may stem from the manner in which I was touched either under or over the skin, or both, during Incidents #2 through #13.

      I suspect that my father's groping of my genitals, made it difficult or impossible for me to learn about and explore my body in a natural or normal way, free from having to fear that my nudity or self-pleasuring would cause an adult to react to my behavior with attempts at sexual gratification or other inappropriate sexual advances. This should suffice as evidence that my father's sexual abuse caused me sexual dysfunction.

     Around the time I began to recover memories of the abuse (late 2014), I began to cry in bed with an ex-girlfriend named Annie Dean (who now lives in Wisconsin). I cried because I was thinking about how badly my father was treating me, and I was probably also subconsciously thinking about how he had mistreated me in the past.

      This happened around the same time I began to experience painful throbbing after sex, near my circumcision scar, a fact which upset me because it made me think about how my father had allowed my circumcision to happen. The fact of the circumcision, the pain from the scar, and the memories of past and current mistreatment, all made it very difficult for me to continue bonding romantically with my then-girlfriend. One day, I became unable to lay in bed with my girlfriend without my thoughts about my father's mistreatment intruding into my mind; my then-girlfriend said something to me (although I can't remember what it was) to tease me about my bad relationship with my father. She said this to me while we were still in bed together.

      Due to the pain involved in sex, and my preoccupation with the fact that I'd been circumcised, I suffered an inferiority complex, difficulty sustaining an erection, and some dissociative symptoms as well. It became difficult to masturbate or have sex without pain, and considering the way my father was treating me at the time, I was experiencing emotional abuse that contributed to and exacerbated my sexual dysfunction. It became difficult to have sex without thinking about the way my father had been mistreating me (this was in late 2014, before I realized that the abuse had occurred). My difficulty having sex comfortably, led to difficulties performing and finishing, and that led to the end of my relationship with that ex-girlfriend (in late December 2014).

     Before breaking up with Annie, I had a conversation with the person for whom Annie left me. I don't remember what I said, but I said something about rape, and that person asked me, “Why are you always talking about rape?” I thought about that for a while, and realized that my brother would use the word often, at the age of nine years old and perhaps earlier.

      I remember using our family's camcorder, when I was about 11 and my brother was about 9, to record my brother doing a New York accent and improvising a comedic fake exposé about how a local pizza restaurant owner had “raped everybody”. When my brother was four or five years old – right after we'd moved into our grandfather's former house in Lake Bluff (where Incidents #1 through #13 took place) – my brother would talk to me about coming up with “a plan for Claire”. This referred to made-up, joke plans to torture a neighbor girl; plans on which we never followed through. One day, my brother or I suggested painting the girl's bottom red to make her think she was bleeding.

      I don't know which one of us said this, but the important thing to take away from the fact that we were talking like this, was a clear indicator that our parents had not properly explained sex to us in a healthy way. Granted, we were probably too young to know anything about it at that point, but our parents should have been paying attention to us enough to know that we were talking about such things. Moreover, if any of my father's molestation occurred before those events, then his abuse would be the most likely explanation for why my brother spoke about such things at such young ages.

     Another possible indicator of sexual dysfunction as an adult, is the fact that I have scarcely dated since late 2014; I have only dated two women. I had to break up with the last woman I dated because I could not watch her spank her child without feeling like I was being traumatized by my father all over again. I did not appreciate that my girlfriend had brought physical discipline of children into my house. That was one of the key factors that made it hard for me to want to be physically intimate with her. That ex-girlfriend, Jessica, left for Texas with her child in October 2018.

      Over the past few months, I have had to come to terms with the fact that, because of my father's abuse, I will never be able to experience full emotional or physical intimacy with a woman, unless the abuse is disclosed. As they tell us in sex education class, “When you have sex with someone, you're having sex with everyone they have ever been with.” I think my future girlfriends, and wife (if I have one) would appreciate knowing that they're having sex with someone who was molested by his father as a child. I want my father to understand the seriousness of the fact that there are some women whom I might date, who could consider my own father one of my previous sexual partners.

      My father took my innocence. Since my father was the first person who engaged in sexual contact with me for the purpose of sexual gratification, he arguably even took my virginity. Granted, my role in the act was not to try to achieve sexual gratification; I was there against my will. But that is beside the point; my father knowingly engaged in an act of sexual contact with me. His intent was to achieve sexual gratification, and he touched my genitals; that is why the act was undeniably sexual in nature.

     These were deliberate acts of child molestation, by a 38 (and then 39) -year-old adult, upon an eight (and then nine) -year-old child, and I have experienced signs of sexual dysfunction (and difficulty finding, and committing to, mates) because of my father's abuse. My father must apologize for the fact that, because of his own action, he cannot get grandchildren from me until I find a wife who doesn't mind marrying a man who was molested as a child, and he must apologize for creating this state of affairs.

     [Note: I must also add this: I consider it disturbing that my father asked me to invite him to speak to my former girlfriend in French when she was thirteen years old. While this incident, and several other comments my father has made about girls in the neighborhood, have not caused me sexual dysfunction, they have nevertheless caused me to worry that I might become like my father. My father needs to apologize for those comments, and he needs to understand how serious the chance was, that I would experience sexual dysfunction, as a result of his molestation and his creepy behavior towards girls and towards boys (namely myself and possibly my brother).]

      The fact that my father had a responsibility to teach me healthy lessons about sex when I was a child, yet failed miserably by willingly inflicting sexual abuse upon me, should be construed to constitute an additional factor which aggravates the seriousness of the offenses (aside from fraud, intimidation, and manipulation).

      I cannot overstate the potential danger of molesting a child, and then rewarding them for being quiet about it, as it pertains to the potential effect on other children. By teaching me to endure sexual abuse, my father risked accidentally teaching me to sexually assault other more vulnerable children (and potentially even intimidate and manipulate them into keeping quiet about it). I could have molested other children when I was still a child, or perhaps even my own children as an adult. But thankfully, I never tried to do that, nor have I ever felt any impulse to do so. Keeping children safe from sexual abuse and kidnapping is probably the single most important thing in the world to me.

     Parents who physically abuse and molest their children, risk raising those children as bullies and child molesters; the seriousness of this should not be underestimated. If you consider the facts that most adults with emotional problems suffer from childhood abuse, and that all adult behavior is a potential example which children might emulate, then you will realize that child abuse is the most important problem that exists; maybe even the only problem in a way. That's because whatever evil we do, we condition our children to accept and enable and excuse, even if they do not do that same evil themselves.

      My father's lack of attention in me and my brother getting appropriate lessons about sex, and the difference between “good touch” and “bad touch”, resulted in me experiencing sexual dysfunction. So did the manner in which my father made inappropriate comments about girls in the neighborhood whom were much younger than he was at the time, as did the manner in which he touched my genitals against my will when he was pretending to “tickle” me at the ages of eight and nine.

      My father should have realized that molesting me could have resulted in other negative secondary effects, such as those which I have described. That is why my father's dereliction of his responsibility to teach me about sex properly – that is, without molesting me – should be considered another factor which potentially aggravates the nature of the crime (even though the law does not yet officially recognize this “dereliction of duty to teach healthy lessons about sex” as an aggravating factor).

      The sexual dysfunction which my father caused me, coupled with the emotional abuse which he has inflicted on me, have left me with a near total lack of interest in sex with people, and in dating, going out to meet women, and having a girlfriend. My family has always wondered why I didn't want to have a family when I was a teenager and in my early twenties; I now understand that my disdain for affection probably contributed to those feelings.

     Being forced to accept genital touching by my father, has made it increasingly difficult for me to enjoy being touched by a romantic lover, without my mind being bothered by past memories of abuse.

6f. Evidence That the Abuse Caused Thoughts of Self-Harm and Suicide

      I have experienced various forms of mild self-harm, self-abuse, and self-mutilation (some socially acceptable and some not), as well as thoughts about suicide and sharp objects cutting at me. I have also had serious thoughts about killing myself, as well as worries that people want me to.

      At the age of eight, I developed a fingernail-biting habit, after seeing a classmate's cuticles and noticing that she had been biting them.

      Soon after I developed this nail biting habit, my father began to trim my fingernails and toenails for me, in order to attempt to stop the problem from getting worse. Unfortunately, his plan backfired. When he cleaned under my fingernails, he scraped the nail bed and caused me pain, which he of course ignored when I tried to point it out. Fingernail cleaning was another routine activity which, like tickling or getting dressed, my father had managed to make into an excruciating form of torment.

     After several weeks of being forced to submit to my father's fingernail cleaning and trimming, I began to bite my toenails, because I couldn't bite my fingernails anymore without my father finding out. When he discovered that I had been biting my toenails, he stopped trimming all of my nails altogether, probably out of disgust. Several years later, when the condition of my toenails had gotten especially bad, my older half-sister Jodi saw my toes while we were sitting in my mother's car with her, and Jodi said to me, “Doesn't that, like, hurt, and, like, bleed?”. I replied, “Like, yes?”

      My nail biting problems continued after that – in fact, so badly that a few times I wore several bandages on my fingers at once – but at least I had control over when and how my own nails would be trimmed and cleaned. Still, I believe that my father's attempt at intervention, made the problem worse, because he did not succeed in reducing the discomfort I was feeling in my fingers, and also because I knew that my father had a fingernail biting problem of his own, which I could easily see.

     [Note: An example of parental discipline backfiring, regarding fingernail biting and cuticles, which is extremely similar to my own experiences with my father, is portrayed in the film Black Swan. That film includes a scene in which the main character, played by Natalie Portman, slowly and painfully rips a piece of her cuticle off. In the film, the main character's mother is hyperattentive to the state of the main character's fingernails, which is what drives her to take over that obsession from her mother.]

      At the age of nineteen, I began to wear my hair in dreadlocks. Making dreadlocks requires a lot of intentionally tangling, and also pulling at, one's own hair. When wearing my hear in dreadlocks, and when wearing my hair normally, I have developed a hair-pulling problem. I suspect that my past stresses, and possible Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which could have resulted from the way I was raised, could have contributed to my impulse to pull on my hair until my scalp hurts.

     Fingernail-biting and hair-pulling aren't the only forms of mild self-harm which I've developed; I have also developed more serious impulses to harm myself, which I have, for the most part, not acted upon.

      At home, I remember banging my head against my bedroom wall after reading and studying for a test too long, around the age of twelve. I did this in part because of the discipline and stress, and also the “helicopter parenting”, which my father was inflicting upon me in order to get me to study enough (and later, during high school final exams sessions, to plan that studying adequately).

      Some time when I was between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, my older half-sister Jodi started noticing that my mindset was getting negative, or that I was acting out, or having more disagreements with the other members of my immediate family. Perhaps even all of the above. Whatever the reason, my sister asked me via internet message something like “Do you enjoy your life?” or “Do you value your life?”. I can't remember exactly what she asked me, but I remember telling her that it wasn't a problem that I wasn't well-adjusted, and that part of me was looking forward to death because I wasn't afraid of it. I realized later that this resembles a suicidal thought, or at the very least, a thought which is neutral towards suicide. Either way, it's not a healthy way of looking at things. This was the first time I can remember having had something resembling a suicidal thought, or a mindset approving of, or considering, suicide.

      In my twenties and thirties, I have experienced fleeting thoughts about cutting my wrists, thoughts about razors cutting into my flesh, and thoughts about thumbtacks going under my fingernails. These thoughts have never been insistent enough to get me to cut myself, but they are still bothersome and invasive thoughts, which take conscious effort to chase away and avoid thinking about.

     However, on New Year's Eve of 2014 – several days before the recovering the first memories of abuse – I attempted (but failed) to pierce my own navel without anesthetic and without professional supervision. I later realized that this was an attempt at self-harm.

      I experienced bouts of depression while living in Portland, Oregon in 2013 and 2014. These depressive episodes included suicidal ideation and thoughts of self-harm. During the winter of 2014-2015, during which I first recovered memories of the abuse, I believed that I was experiencing symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.), which I believe aggravated and worsened those feelings of depression which I was already having.

      I communicated some of these suicidal thoughts through some Facebook posts (although I can't clearly remember what those thoughts or comments were), and the fact that I had made those posts, got around to my brother and mother. My brother (who had worked as a suicide hotline operator) told me that suicide was “selfish”. I considered his “advice” incorrect, unhelpful, and also extremely insensitive to people like myself, who feel that they have nothing to live for.

     Destroying your self is not selfish; it is the least selfish, most anti-self thing a person can possibly do. Fortunately, getting angry about the idea that suicidal people should be told they're selfish, snapped me out of my suicidal ideation for the time being.

      I realized later that constantly enduring my father's intimidation and emotional abuse, and beginning to recover subconscious thoughts about unwanted sexual touching possibly involving my father, had likely caused these thoughts of self-harm and suicide.

      Once returning home from Portland, Oregon to my father's house in Lake Bluff, Illinois (in late February 2015), I had frequent thoughts about killing myself, and I even believed that many people around me, wanted me to kill myself, or were encouraging me to do so.

      At one point, several weeks or months after coming home, my father said to me, “Everybody is waiting for you to do what you said you were going to do.” I responded, “What's that? Kill myself?” But he was talking about cutting my hair and getting a job. I suspected the worst out of what he meant, because he wasn't treating me well at the time, and I thought he wanted me to kill myself.

      I owe these thoughts to several causes, including suffering from difficulty distinguishing reality from fiction; and, in particular, trying to come to terms with the fact that I had been recovering memories of my father sexually abusing me. I probably could not have even handled having a job, emotionally, at that time.

     Aside from those thoughts about suicide and self-harm, and the instance of head-banging, I have engaged in various other forms of self-harm (some of them socially acceptable).

     Around the age of 21, I received an ear piercing from a friend, but he took a long time finishing it, causing me a lot of pain in the process, and the piercing became infected for several weeks (which I treated with hydrogen peroxide). I also have two tattoos, and the same friend who did my ear piercing (which I've since taken out) slapped the large tattoo on my left arm right after I got it. I realized years later that tattoos and piercings are socially acceptable forms of self-harm and mutilation.

      I have realized over the past five years that I am nearly constantly fidgeting, and I “can't not be doing something” with my hands. If I'm not twirling, nor pulling on, my hair, I'm crackling my knuckles (or my other joints), or biting my fingernails, or scraping under them with my other fingernails.

      I suspect that the pain which I cause to my scalp, with that hair-pulling, is a form of self-harm. I suspect that I subconsciously inflict these mild forms of pain upon myself, in order to sort of “empower myself”, to declare that “If someone is going to hurt me, then it might as well be me” (as opposed to my father).

      I suspect that I would not have these intrusive thoughts, and these self-destructive behaviors, if I had not been molested as a child, as well as shouted at and put in a constant state of fear, shame, guilt, and self-defensiveness.

6g. Physical Evidence of Sexual Abuse, and Evidence That the Abuse Caused Injuries

      I have provided as detailed and accurate an account as possible, regarding why I did not come forward sooner, as well as accounts about how I recovered lost repressed memories of sexual abuse, so that I may do as much as I can, as early and as soon as I can, to embark upon the task of beginning to substantiate any potential links between abuse and injuries which may yet be discovered.

     Aside from the physical evidence which may exist in the form of possible injuries to my left lower rib cage and/or my lungs, and the physical pain which accompanied the abuse, my father has inflicted additional injuries upon me. These include sexual dysfunction, decades of emotional abuse and trauma, damage to my reputation, and (most likely) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.).

      As provided in the Illinois Criminal Code - in ILCS § 5/13-202.2, subsection (b), “...an action for damages for personal injury based on childhood sexual abuse must be commenced within 10 years of the date [a person turns 18] or within 5 years of the date the person abused discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence should discover both (I) that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred and (ii) that the injury was caused by the childhood sexual abuse.”

      I am submitting this report well within five years of having discovered that my father's childhood sexual abuse resulted in emotional trauma, damage to my reputation, possible physical damage to my ribs and/or lungs, and sexual dysfunction. I have only realized that these injuries existed, and that they were the result of my father's abuse, within the last several months (i.e., during the second half of 2019).

     There might be physical damage to my body which could be attributed to my father's rough handling of me during Incidents #2 through #13; most likely to my lungs, rib cage, middle spine, and/or my arm and leg joints. If there is, then Incident #13 (the time I remember having difficulty breathing after the abuse) is the most likely incident of abuse which resulted in those rib cage and lung damages, while all of Incidents #2 through #13 could have contributed to possible trauma resulting from the stretching of the joints of my arms and legs when I was being restrained.

      I have some spinal issues, those issues have perhaps not yet been fully diagnosed, and I have only seen one chiropractic specialist about those issues. I have been examined by doctors at ChiroOne (ChiroOne Wellness Center Gurnee, at 3905 Fountain Square Plaza in Waukegan). Most of the skeletal and spinal issues which I have, are likely attributable to issues pertaining to my hips, the fact that I was born with my right foot twisted slightly to the right, and neck damage likely resulting from a car accident I was in with my family in December of 1989 or 1990.

     However, I have also noticed earlier this year (2019) that I may have problems with slipped ribs, perhaps my floating ribs, on the left underside of my rib cage. I strongly suspect that it could have been caused by the compression of my rib cage which my father inflicted upon me during the abuse, and I strongly suspect that whatever is wrong with the left side of my rib cage began during Incident #13 (the last incident wherein my father abused me on the couch in our basement).

      I have not yet sought a second opinion about my skeletal issues, but I would be interested in getting more opinions about what might be wrong with the left underside of my ribs. Since I had asthma and breathing problems as a child, and since I had difficulty running a ten-minute-mile at school when I was about 12 years old, I would also be interested in knowing whether there is anything wrong with my left lung.

     During the sexual abuse I suffered, I experienced violent shaking, in addition to the compression of my arms, legs, and rib cage. While my father was tickling me, he would bounce me up and down, so I would be shaking from the bouncing, and from being tickled, and also moving around quite a bit from trying to get away from my father's invasive “tickling”.

      It's possible that I might have experienced some form or another of nerve damage, or nervous system damage (perhaps even Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), due to the manner in which my father touched me during these incidents of abuse. That's because the way he touched me involved not only tickling and unwanted genital touching, but also harsh restraint and shaking of my body. My worries about becoming trapped, likely also resulted from the way he restrained me.

      The legal principle “corpus delicti” literally means “the body of the crime”, and refers to the principle that a person cannot be convicted of committing a crime, unless a crime has been proved to have occurred. And for a crime to be proved to have occurred, there must be some item or piece of property which is missing, stolen, or damaged; or there must be a person who can prove that they suffered some real wrong, in a way which produces some real victim who can claim they suffered this wrong. That is, there must be a real victim, and real physical evidence.

      Even if it cannot be proved that there is damage to my rib cage, lungs, and/or joints – and even if it cannot be proved that my father is responsible for this damage – I have still suffered emotional, psychological, and sexual functional damage, due to my father's abuse.

     Nevertheless, if there is no physical evidence of the abuse in terms of medical damages to my body, the abuse still happened. To fail to prosecute adults for molesting or physically abusing their children, on the grounds that there is no physical evidence, is to instruct adults that they can get away with beating and molesting children all they want, as long as they don't leave marks (or other forms of physical evidence). And indeed, that is the official position of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services regarding the physical abuse of one's own biological children; that it is acceptable to physically discipline one's child as long as one does not leave marks. To fail to convict an accused child molester because of a supposed “lack of physical evidence”, while the physical body of the victim is speaking to corroborate a physical written statement, is not only absurd, it is to tell the accused child molester that if he wants to molest children, he had damn well better make sure that he gets away with it.

      Even if medical damages cannot be proven, the fact that I am making this statement, and the fact that I am willing to testify in court to corroborate and attempt to prove that these acts of sexual abuse happened, should suffice as physical evidence. I am physical evidence, my body is physical evidence, and this written statement about the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of my father is physical evidence. These abuses occurred, and although the house in which they occurred has been demolished and replaced with a new house, my willingness to make verbal statements using my body, and physically produce this statement, should constitute all the physical evidence which is necessary.

     Moreover, the psychological, emotional, and sexual functional damages which I suffered, also constitute physical evidence of Criminal Sexual Abuse having been committed. That's because emotional and psychological damage is not just a matter of “feeling”; emotional and psychological damage could not occur unless the human nervous system were a real thing. Thus, our ability to feel emotional and psychological pain, and to experience emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of other people, are very real.

      The fact that I still hesitate to engage in physical touch, whether for socialization or sexual purposes, should be considered evidence that my emotional and psychological suffering has manifested physically. I also feel the urge to hit at, or push away, or swat at, someone, when I think about the manner in which my father restrained my arms during Incidents #2 through #13 (although I only feel these urges when I willfully think about the abuse; I don't feel impulses to hit others).

     Those effects on me, in terms of physical touch and my reactions and behavior towards it, are the physical evidence that unwanted touching was committed against me. I feel a physical reaction when my father urges me to hug him; there is absolutely a connection between his unwanted touching and close monitoring of my socializing and communication, and my disdain for being touched and socializing.

      I should note that my mother and brother might be willing to testify about circumstances surrounding the abuses which they witnessed (which will confirm the fact that my father had ample opportunity to commit the abuse). The testimony of my mother and brother, and their potential presence in the courtroom – as well as records which the Union League Club Hotel of Chicago might have maintained since 1995 or 1996 – could also serve to corroborate my claims.

     The fact that I am here today, reporting emotional, psychological, sexual functional, and possible physical, traumas and damages, should be considered possible physical evidence, whether or not there is additional physical evidence which will corroborate my assertions.

     When I came home from Portland in early 2015, my mother told me that my father said to her that I seemed “broken”. My psyche and my mind were fragile – both as a child, and before remembering the abuse again as an adult – and then, my psyche and mind were broken and became damaged. So much so, that my father noticed. My father knows that he is the one who broke me. I believe that the cognitive dissonance which I experienced, at having to reconcile remembering my father's abuse and the idea that my father should be my hero, contributed to this fracturing of my psyche.

     Even if my body cannot be proved to have been damaged by my father, I myself am damaged. According to the legal principle corpus delicti (“the body of the crime”), something must be “missing”, “broken”, “stolen”, or “damaged”, in order for a crime to be said to have occurred. My father stole and took my innocence, and arguably my virginity (because he was the first person with whom I had sexual contact), and my innocence and virginity are missing because of my father's actions. Parts of me, too, are missing; the parts of me that trusted my father, and which allowed me to trust and touch other people easily. My innocence, my virginity, and my ability to trust others, are missing, and my psyche is fractured and broken. My psyche may not be a physical thing which my father could repair, but my psyche held me together, and my father broke it.

     The fact that this report physically exists – and the fact that, after completing and submitting this report, I will have physically traveled to the Lake Bluff Police Department, to become a sort of speaking piece of human physical evidence attesting to the abuse – should be construed to constitute physical evidence. I would have no reason to go to a police department otherwise. Police stations aren't exactly my favorite place to spend my free time. My physical presence in a police station cannot be explained, save for the fact that I have been made the victim of a serious crime. That is why my presence at the Lake Bluff Police Department, and my statement, should be construed to constitute physical evidence that a crime has been committed, and taken into (testimonial) evidence as such.

     My written and verbal testimony, and my willingness to come forward and speak and testify in open court that these abuses occurred, should demonstrate that I am an aggrieved person who suffered some real damage or takings. My innocence was taken, and the fact that real memories of abuse are in my brain, is all the “physical evidence” that should be necessary, to prove that fact. I not only remember these memories; I distinctly remember what it felt like to be held down, and to have my legs held down and my arms held back by my father, while I swatted his hands away from my groin.

      If this written and verbal testimony will be insufficient to establish a causal link between the sexual abuse and the fact that I have been injured by it, then conversations or exercises with psychiatric counselors, and/or medical examinations, should reveal that additional psychological damages, and maybe also physical injuries (to my left floating ribs, and/or my lungs and my lung capacity), were visited upon me during the incidents of sexual abuse which I described.

      To return to the subject of psychological damages caused by the abuse: There are many examples of behaviors I exhibit, and thoughts I experience, which are more than likely physical and psychological results of the sexual and psychological abuse which my father inflicted upon me as a child.

      Examples of physical and behavioral evidence of psychological abuse include nervous tics, bad habits, and socially acceptable forms of self-harm. Examples of psychological evidence of sexual and psychological abuse include stress and anxiety, confusion, and manageable panic attacks.

      As I explained, I have several nervous tics and bad habits, which likely resulted from the stress and anxiety my father's sexual and emotional abuse caused me. These bad habits include pulling and twisting my hair, and biting my fingernails and toenails. I have also gotten several piercings and tattoos, which I now realize are socially acceptable forms of self-harm. I doubt that I would have wanted to inflict pain on myself in these manners, if my father's infliction of pain upon my body, had not given me a sense of lack of control over my body (whether for pain or for pleasure).

      I have also experienced thoughts and impulses to cut my wrists, as well as other intrusive thoughts about bodily harm occurring to myself. It would probably be safe to say that I have felt somewhat suicidal since I was a teenager, with the most intrusive and relentless thoughts about suicide having occurred in 2014 and 2015. Additionally, I have exhibited self-destructive tendencies as an adult, such as the periods of time I spent nearly homeless, taking little care for my teeth, my need for consistent employment and housing, and other needs which matter to stably employed people.

      I have also experienced extreme amounts of stress and anxiety, as well as confusion, over a prolonged period of time, due to my father's shouting, gaslighting, and various other intimidating and psychologically manipulative behaviors. I have also suffered a near psychic break, due to experiencing cognitive dissonance, at trying to reconcile my father's reputation and image with the fact that I had recovered memories of him molesting me as a child.

      I also experienced intense fears of becoming trapped as an adult, which I believe stems from the manner in which my father trapped me with his legs and then restrained me before touching my genitals against my will (while groping and tickling me frantically).

      I cannot say that my father's sexual abuse caused me any nightmares, nor intense visual flashbacks, nor intense unmanageable panic attacks. I neither cry nor shake when I remember the incidents of abuse. Still, these incidents have caused me self-destructive and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, stress and anxiety, and confusion and cognitive dissonance; as well as an unrelenting feeling of dependence upon, and inferiority to, my father.

      I understand that, for as long as I continue to stay silent about my father's abuse, I will be socially, emotionally, and financially crippled, impotent, and powerless. My father wants me to depend on him for power, money, social status and influence, and emotional support, but that is impossible considering what an abusive, manipulative, controlling person he is. I have a right to put my mental health first in my life, and I cannot make progress getting the psychological therapy that I need, unless and until I and my father are both honest about what my father did to me.

6h. Evidence That the Abuse Caused Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.)

     There are many reasons why I suspect that I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.), and why I suspect that it resulted from my father's sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.

     I exhibit several examples of all four of the classic warning signs used to diagnose P.T.S.D.; intrusion symptoms, avoidance symptoms, negative alteration symptoms, and arousal and reactivity symptoms.

     Intrusion symptoms include distressing memories, dreams, reactions, and flashbacks. They also include intense distress at exposure to cues, and physiological reactions to cues.

I have experienced distressing memories of sexual abuse. I have had distressing dreams, most notably as a small child. I cannot remember having any nightmares pertaining to sexual abuse, except for a nightmare I had in Portland in late 2014 or early 2015, after watching the film The Trial. But my memory is plagued by several traumatic events, and/or nightmares, from my very early childhood (before Incident #1, the earliest memory of sexual abuse likely having occurred). I have difficulty distinguishing some of my earliest nightmares from reality.

     I do experience dissociative reactions; I know this because when someone is explaining a way to do something which is complicated, involves a lot of steps, or involves giving up a considerable amount of privacy and/or control, I start thinking about becoming trapped and being shipped on a train to a concentration camp. I believe that I experience these intrusive thoughts because my father trapped me with his legs in order to hold me down so he could grope my genitals.

     I don't know whether I experience intense distress at exposure to cues, or physiological reactions to cues. Exposing myself to cues brings me a small amount of distress. I would probably experience distress if someone willingly exposed me to a cue that reminds me of the abuse. I certainly have not reacted positively when my mother, and the stranger I met in Portland, have tried to tell me that my father didn't abuse me. I suspect that I do exhibit some sort of physiological reactions to cues, because if I touch my scrotum gently with one or two fingers over my clothes, it brings up a low-level (although nonetheless detectable) fear response within me. Granted, my father's handling of my genitals was rough, invasive, and intense, rather than gently. But I believe that I feel this fear response, because this is the same kind of touching which my father inflicted upon the same part of my body against my will; although the touching has different intensity, the part of the body is the same.

     Avoidance symptoms include avoidance of distressing memories about the event, and avoidance of external reminders about the event. I have probably experienced both, but I have certainly experienced the latter.

     I have avoided distressing memories about the sexual abuse in the past, but I am no longer avoiding those memories, now that I have to remember it, write it down, and disclose and report it. I have chosen to confront those memories rather than avoid them. On the other hand, I have chosen to avoid some external reminders about the sexual abuse.

     I avoid my father as much as I can, since he is the major reminder of the abuse. Additionally, I broke up with a woman in October 2018 after failing to talk her into finding another way to discipline her child besides hitting him. The way she slapped him on his stomach (as an alternative to spanking), told him to lift his arms so she could get a clear shot at him, and tickled him until he started to object, made me remember the abuse I had endured (which featured my father rendering me similarly incapable of resisting, except he did it physically, not by talking me into surrendering). I tried explaining to my then-girlfriend how to recognize signs that a child wants to stop being tickled. It really upset me to hear her son begin to raise his voice while being tickled. So I have certainly sought to avoid my father and a former girlfriend, because being around them reminded me about the sexual abuse which I had endured as a child.

     Negative alteration symptoms include inability to remember the event, persistent negative beliefs, persistent distorted cognitions, persistent negative emotional state, marked diminished interest in activities, feelings of detachment, and persistent inability to experience positive emotions. I have experienced all of those.

     I have had some difficulty remembering the incidents of sexual abuse; I have explained how I struggled to recover memories and distinguish false thoughts from true memories. I believe that the difficulty which I've experienced trying to remember the incidents of sexual abuse, result from the deprivation of oxygen, and state of near suffocation, which my father subjected me to, in order to stop me from breaking free of his grasp so he could continue to grope my genitals.

     I have suffered from persistent negative beliefs, such as the belief that I'm worthless, lazy, and unappreciative or ungrateful; these are the negative beliefs about myself which my father has drilled into me through his guilt, shaming, pressuring, and control.

     I have also suffered from persistent distorted cognitions; the worst of this was in early 2015, when I was suffering from cognitive dissonance, at trying to reconcile the fact that I'd just begun recovering suppressed memories of my father's abuse, with the fact that I had to start living with him then.

     I have already mentioned the thoughts of self-harm and suicide which I have experienced. I have certainly had a negative emotional state since beginning to remember the abuse in 2014 and 2015, and especially the last few months while completing this report. But I was also frequently troubled as a child as well (by bullying, at the hands of other students, and also my father). It's probably safe to say that I have had a persistent negative emotional state for nearly my whole life.

     I have noticed, during states of depression that I have experienced diminished interest in activities in which I normally found fulfillment previously. These activities include listening to certain types of music, playing music, and singing. They also include going out for social purposes, and dating and trying to find a girlfriend. I have no interest in trying to find ways to “have fun” like these, because I have a diminished ability to experience fun, due to the intrusive thoughts about sexual abuse and becoming trapped, stemming from my father's abuse, which plague me from time to time.

     I have experienced feelings of detachment as well. Aside from having little interest in dating, I have kept very few friends since I was a child, as I do now. I avoid Chicago as much as possible because I don't like being around large numbers of people; it makes me feel unsafe. I have experienced feelings of social detachment since I was very young. I remember inviting some of the “popular kids” to a party when I was around 6, 7, or 8 years old. I had difficulty keeping them entertained; I didn't really know many of them well, I just thought that making friends with the popular kids would make me feel less lonely. I neglected to invite my actual friends, because they were unpopular, and I thought I could make more friends by associating with my real friends less. This plan didn't work; somewhere between one and five years later, one of those kids invited me to a pool party for his birthday, and someone stole my underwear from a gym locker while I was swimming. Whoever did it, must have told someone, because nearly the whole party made fun of me out loud after one of the kids revealed that I'd lost my underwear (without explaining that someone had stolen them). That last story, in addition to the story about peeing my pants while doing pull-ups in front of my first grade class, are the worst examples of my difficulties socializing and being accepted.

     Finally, I have experienced persistent inability to experience positive emotions. I have already explained how I don't like to “have fun” (like by drinking, going to bars, and dating). But also, I have probably been in a persistent state of depression for the last five years, and I have probably shown symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for the last 23 to 26 years. I am rarely happy, except when listening to comedy or my favorite music, or when chatting with friends. It is very rare that I am happy or having fun for a sustained amount of time. Me trying to dance in public would be pointless, since most radio stations don't play what I like, and I can't even stay happy long enough to last for the duration of the average song. I suffered from an extreme difficulty laughing in early 2015; I actually had to figure out what could make me laugh, in order to snap myself out of the severe level of depression I was in. Most of the time, my emotional state is either placated, guarded, or angry; rarely happy.

     Arousal and reactivity symptoms include irritable behavior and angry outbursts, self-destructive behavior, hypervigilance, an exaggerated startle response, problems with concentration, and sleep disturbances. I have experienced at least four of these six symptoms, if not all of them.

     I have experienced irritable behavior and angry outbursts, but the angry outbursts have been almost exclusively the result of my father's shouting and provocations. I have noticed that I am irritable around people besides my father, however, including my friends and family. I think that this is mostly due to a sense of misplaced anger, and my inability to level with my father, and call him out on his behavior, and have him admit what he did. I lash out at others because I'm not free to criticize my father. I suspect that I would lash out less against people such as my mother and her cousin Lisa Cervac, if they did not tell me things like “Put your disagreements with your father in the past” and “He's not a horrible person”. My mother was telling me “He's not a horrible person” until the day before I filed this report.

     I have experienced multiple forms of self-destructive behavior. These include pulling and twisting my hair (causing pain to my scalp), biting my fingernails and toenails excessively, and several forms of socially acceptable self-harm (including piercings and tattoos). I have also had thoughts of self-harm and suicide, but I have not attempted suicide, nor any form of self-harm except a botched piercing. I have also led an arguably self-destructive lifestyle by “running away from home as an adult”, by which I mean being half-homeless, on and off, during my twenties. I left the Midwest to chase after women, and easier places to get a job and make money, but also to get away from my father and his control and manipulative gifts that kept me dependent upon him. While traveling and homeless, I spent long periods of time not brushing my teeth, not going to see doctors, having few possessions, and caring little (if at all) for my personal safety and whether I hang onto my possessions. There were times when I spent only a dollar a day on rent (to sleep on a friend's apartment floor) and whatever amount I could spend on an E.B.T. / S.N.A.P. card (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; i.e., Food Stamps). Needless to say, I went without adequate housing frequently while homeless. I did most of this out of what I viewed as necessity; to me, it was well worth the cost of giving up housing and security, as long as I could be a little farther away from my father, and gain a little independence (and experience taking care of myself while having very little money and few possessions) in the process.

     I have noticed some possible signs of hypervigilance. First off, I currently work as a private security guard, so whether I have hypervigilance is difficult to judge. I write down nearly every creative idea I have, which could be a form of hypervigilance. It could also be a sign of hypervigilance, that (as in my fear of becoming trapped) I come up with worst-case-possible nightmare scenarios when I become weary of or suspicious about someone's intentions.

     I may or may not have an exaggerated startle response. Sometimes I feel like I'm immune from being startled or traumatized, because of how often my father would shout at me, tower over me, and hold me down and touch me against my will. But I know that I'm not immune to being startled, because recently my phone alarm went off and I jumped up in my seat. The alarm was loud, but probably not so loud as to excite such a response in the average person.

     I have experienced problems with concentration. I explained how I banged my head against my bedroom wall once, while studying, around the age of 12; I had difficulty concentrating then. I feel confident that I did that in order to issue a “call for help”, because I knew that my father would hear the banging, and I hoped that him noticing that I couldn't study anymore without getting more stressed out. I have also experienced difficulty concentrating as an adult; in late 2019 I was trying to record a guitar track on my computer, and I kept making mistakes because I was distracted by thoughts of my mother's cousin, Lisa Cervac (who doesn't know my father molested me), having told me that I should put aside whatever disagreements I had with my father in the past.

     I don't know whether I've suffered sleep disturbances, either at all, or as a result of the abuse. For one, I am a security guard and I work overnight, so I am constantly subject to sleep interruptions (whether from schedule changes, or from not getting enough sunlight while I'm awake, or from getting too much sunlight in my room while I'm trying to sleep). It's certainly likely that I have suffered sleep disturbances since my childhood, considering that I experienced “nightmares” as a young child which I cannot distinguish from actual memories. Additionally, around the age of 13, I would sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to watch television; that was when my difficulty maintaining a normal sleep schedule began. I cannot say, however, that I suspect any of the sleep disturbances which I suffer, of having been caused by my father's abuse.

     Additional criteria for diagnosing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder include that the duration of the symptoms is longer than one month, that the disturbance causes clinically significant distress, and that the disturbance is not attributable to substance use nor to another condition. As I have explained, I have exhibited symptoms of P.T.S.D. beginning at a very young age, so the symptoms have certainly lasted longer than one month; they have lasted years and years, maybe even longer than two decades. I do not know whether the distress which I have experienced would be considered “clinically significant”; they probably would. I would have to meet with a clinician in order to find out. I am certain that my stress is not attributable to substance use, nor to another condition; mild cannabis use does not cause serious addiction, nor severe stress, nor am I (to my knowledge) suffering from any mental illness nor physical affliction which cannot be explained by either my natural illnesses (i.e., cat allergies and mild asthma) or by my father's sexual, physical, or emotional abuse.

     Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may occasionally be accompanied by dissociative symptoms or delayed expression. As I explained, I have experienced social detachment, and I experience dissociation when I become overwhelmed by stress at hearing discussion of controlling situations which remind me of the abuse. I'm not sure whether these constitute dissociative symptoms, however. Since I have not yet been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I probably have “delayed expression” (or “delayed onset”) of the disorder. But on the other hand, since I have not yet seen a clinician, it's possible that “delayed onset” still doesn't apply to me, because I haven't yet been diagnosed with P.T.S.D..

     According to what I have read about the “Adaptive Information Processing (A.I.P.) Model” of P.T.S.D., if the traumatic event (in my case, the sexual abuse) is not processed, then the mind will store the initial distressing perceptions intact, and those initial perceptions become the basis of P.T.S.D.. In my case, the “initial distressing perceptions” would probably mean either the memories of pain (which resulted from being subjected to painful restraint and invasive tickling and genital groping) or the feeling of certainty deep within me that I had been subjected to unwanted touching. I also read that P.T.S.D. symptoms occur when the brain holds onto unprocessed elements of the traumatic event. Given the manner in which I recovered my repressed memories of the abuse slowly, and the overwhelming likelihood that I did not process the sexual abuse until long after it happened, all of the preceding facts lead me to suspect that I have the vast majority of the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

6i. Conclusion

     I attribute my, what could be called “aggressive self-defense” and “verbally violent reactions”, against my bullies – and my disruptive behavior in some of my teachers' classrooms – to my subconscious need to act out.

     I believe that that desire to act out, stems from having been sexually and physically abused by my father, and also misunderstood by my mother when I tried to talk about the abuse (which resulted in there being no resolution nor closure after the abuses). Perhaps I acted out because I subconsciously understood that the more I obeyed and conformed at school, the more easily I could be forced to submit to domination by my father at home.

     I believe that there would have been no reason for me to want to stay silent all day, or bark like a dog for nearly an hour, at school, if I had been receiving enough attention at home; particularly, about my having been molested, and about my problems involving bullying. I believe that there would have been a much better chance that I might have “played well with others”, had I been raised by a father who knew how to discipline and get through to a child, without resorting to shouting at them, or committing acts of physical aggression and domination with the intent of gaining absolute control over them.

     I am saying this, so that I can own up to the way I behaved; I am not saying this as a way to shift blame from myself onto my father. However, I was a minor at the time, so legally speaking, instead of sexually and physically and emotionally abusing me, my father should have been making sure that nobody was bullying me. Unfortunately he chose to do the opposite. Also, it was strictly my parents' responsibility – not mine, that of a minor child who couldn't police his own behavior yet – to make sure that I behaved myself while I remained a child.

     I do not believe that those episodes of “acting out” were conscious, but rather, a subconscious effect of my father's abuse and my mother's lack of response to my attempts to disclose the abuse. Furthermore, I do not, as my father claims, “blame him for everything bad that has ever happened to me”.

     I only blame my father's sexual, physical, and emotional abuse for: 1) my mental anguish; 2) my possible P.T.S.D. and/or depression; and 3) the apprehension I feel when trying to interact with, get along with, trust, or follow the instructions of, other people. I do not blame my father for anything else but whichever of those symptoms have directly resulted from his emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.

     My mother and father will vouch for the facts that I was sent to speech therapy around first grade (age six or seven), and that I was later (around the age of twelve) sent to a school psychologist named Dr. Cohen after threatening a student who had been bullying me. But I am fully prepared to testify – in open court, and in front of the accused person, if necessary – as to the veracity of the other claims I have made about my behavior in school. Some of those incidents of misbehavior cannot be verified by my parents, because many incidents of misbehavior in high school were not reported to my parents. But teachers such as Christine Friedman will remember my behavior. I wish to apologize to my past teachers for this behavior; but I am also certain that I would not have acted that way if I had not been mistreated at home.

     I want my father to acknowledge that his aggressive, confrontational, loud, overbearing, intimidating, dominating style of parental “discipline” caused me emotional, physical, and sexual trauma, pain, and anguish – and difficulties with social interaction, including sexual dysfunction – from which I am still suffering to this day. I contend that the defendant owes me some form or another of compensation for these damages; although I am not requesting, and will not accept, monetary nor material rewards (unless that is the only way to produce a judgment or a finding of guilt against my father's favor, in which case I will seek the minimum amount legally possible).

     My father taught me some absolutely wrong lessons about how to behave properly; including how to treat females, and (most troublesome) whether it's acceptable to force other people to endure “bad touch”. I am thankful for the fact that I usually managed to resist the urge to pick on smaller children when I was in grade school, and also for the fact that I have not had any thoughts nor impulses to abuse children.

     I want my father to acknowledge that the way he bullied me at home, and isolated me (making me into a lonely child with few people to talk to), put me in danger (because being an isolated child predisposes children to abduction). I also want him to acknowledge the seriousness of the fact that what he did, potentially risked exposing other children at my school to danger. That's because my father's bullying risked turning me into someone who could have bullied, or even molested, smaller children.

     My father caused me emotional, psychological, sexual functional, and possible physical damages, and I suspect that there are ways to detect most or all of those damages with physical medical instruments, physical examinations, and physical and verbal interactions with me for psychological examination purposes.

     Even if I am not literally and physically “broken” or “damaged”, I am figuratively both of those things, and my father's actions are the reason for that. Even if physical evidence of his crimes, conforming to the standards set by police and prosecutors or by legislation, cannot be found, then he still undoubtedly caused me multiple different kinds of emotional pain and suffering (of which I have provided ample written statements within this report, and of which corroborating testimony could be obtained from friends and family members who may be willing to testify about my father's behavior).

7. Corroborating Evidence, Corroborating Witnesses, and Other Possible Victims

     The rules regarding discovery of physical evidence, pertaining to the reporting of childhood sexual abuse, can be found in Image #17 of Section 14 of this report.

7a. Regarding Incident #1:

     There is no way to corroborate the first incident with physical evidence. The first incident was the traumatic event which I cannot remember, to which I responded by drawing a “mother gopher” and abused “son gopher”. I kept those drawings a secret, and never told anyone about it until this statement. I either threw the drawings away, or discarded them secretly somewhere and forgot about them. I did not find that drawing when in February 2015 I recovered some drawings I had made as a child.

     My verbal and written testimony alone, is the only supporting evidence that the first incident of abuse occurred. I remember only the fact that the drawing was my reaction to some physically traumatic event which had recently happened to me, but I do not remember that traumatic event itself.

     What I do know is that the manner in which I was abused in Incidents #2 through #13 – which included the defendant jabbing and poking at various parts of my body with his fingers – seems to be the most likely manner in which I may have been abused in Incident #1, because I drew the injured “son gopher” with holes all over his body.

     I would be willing to testify and make statements regarding what I can manage to remember about this first incident of possible abuse.

7b. Regarding Incidents #2 through #13:

     There is no way to corroborate the second through thirteenth incidents with physical evidence, unless there is physical damage to my lungs, rib cage, spine, or joints, which could be traced to my father's rough handling of me.

     Thus far, no such damage has been found which has been conclusively linked to injuries resulting from that abuse. However, I do have some spinal issues, those issues have perhaps not yet been fully diagnosed, and I have only seen one chiropractic specialist about those issues, and have not yet sought a second opinion on the matter.

     My mother (Linda Anne Cervetti of Gurnee, Illinois) and my brother (Michael William Kopsick of Chicago, Illinois) may be able to corroborate many of my assertions regarding Incidents #2 through #13, which took place on the couch in my family's furnished basement. The reason why my mother and brother might be able to corroborate, is not because they directly knew about the abuse, but rather, because they both knew about myself and my brother sitting in “the triangle” formed by my father's legs and the back of the couch, while he lay down watching sports on television. My mother and brother therefore knew about the circumstances which surrounded the abuse.

     I am certain that my brother knew about “the triangle”, because he and I both sat behind my father's legs while he watched television. If my brother remembers correctly, he will remember that both he and I sat there at different times. In fact, each of us wanted to sit there; so much so that sometimes we would have to arrange to take turns. My brother should be able to corroborate all that I have stated regarding my father's typical activity on Saturdays (and some Sundays) in the summers of 1995 and 1996; namely, that he would lay on his side on the couch in the basement, while watching sports (usually golf) on television.

     I don't know whether my mother knew about “the triangle” until I told her about it some time in the last two years (2018 or 2019). She probably did know about the fact that my brother and I were sitting there, and she probably saw my brother and me sitting behind my father's legs on that couch, for a while when this activity began. She might have even known that my brother and I were calling it “the triangle” at the time.

     But my mother certainly was not around, for any of the times when this activity “went wrong”. My mother was never around to witness my father, seizing upon the opportunity to grab a hold of me, and using it to “tickle” my genitals until I was too confused and out of breath to articulate a clear objection. I'm sure that my mother would have stopped my father from doing this, or at least would have had a lot of questions, if she had seen this abuse.

     In the event that my case against the defendant, my father, goes to trial, it will most likely be necessary to issue subpoenas to my mother Linda Anne Cervetti and my brother Michael William Kopsick.

     I suspect that, combined, my mother and brother's statements about what they remember, will corroborate at least half of what I have said about Incidents #2 through #13 (as well as Incident #17). Since Incidents #2 through #13 are the incidents which I remember the most vividly and strongly – and the only incidents of unwanted sexual touching which I remember directly – the statements of my mother and brother will be extremely important to the outcome of this case. At the very least, their statements will help prove that my father had ample opportunity to do what I am claiming he did while nobody else was around (except for, perhaps, my brother).

     I cannot say for sure where my brother Michael was when my father was “tickling” and groping my penis and scrotum on our basement couch. I suspect that either my brother was in his room, or else out with my mother somewhere. I would be interested in knowing more about what my brother remembers about those weekends in the summers of 1995 and 1996. I would also be interested in knowing what happened to my brother when he sat behind my father's legs on the couch.

     I worry that my father may have molested my brother in addition to myself. My brother (born on May 11^th, 1989) would have been between the age of five years eleven months, and seven-and-a-half, when Incidents #2 through #13 occurred (that is, between April 1995 to August 1996). I think that it will be necessary to involve my brother in this case, but I must stress that he should be treated not only as a witness to circumstances surrounding my abuse, but as a possible victim of my father's emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse as well.

     I am concerned that my father may have molested my brother in a similar manner to that which I describe in the details of Incidents #2 through #13, and I worry that my brother may be suffering from lost and repressed memories of any such incidents which may have happened to him. If he is experiencing such memory loss, then I suspect that oxygen deprivation (resulting from the suffocation which he endured if he was abused) may be contributing to that.

     Still, I believe that my brother will distinctly remember sitting in “the triangle”. I believe that if someone were to ask my brother “Do you ever remember your father tickling you in too rough a way, or touching you inappropriately, when you sat behind his legs on the couch?”, he would probably remember that my father would treat us in a very rough manner, and also invade our personal space with “over-tickling”.

     Aside from the facts that my brother and I sat in the same place in relation to my father, and that I was abused in that place, another reason why I am concerned that my father victimized my brother in addition to me, is that I suspect that my father is (or at least was) sexually attracted to my brother in the same manner in which he was (and maybe still is) sexually attracted to me. In December 2019, I noticed that a photograph of my brother – shirtless and about one years old – was lying out on my father's living room table (see Image #13 in Section 14 of this report). It's possible that my father had the picture out because he thinks my brother is “cute”, but it disturbs me to think - at the age of 62, and after abusing me as a child – that my father is still looking at shirtless pictures of his children.

7c. Regarding Incidents #14 through #16:

     There is no physical evidence which will corroborate the odd set of occurrences which happened at my grandfather's house in 1996. However, my mother Linda Anne Cervetti, and my brother Michael William Kopsick, may be able to corroborate some of what I am stating went on there.

     My brother should remember being at my grandfather's house with me. My brother should remember, in particular, my grandfather's large brown couch cushions, and hiding underneath them inside of that deep, multi-section couch (sometimes while playfully hiding from my father and/or grandfather).

     My mother should remember picking me up from my grandfather's after I got sick and vomited, but if she didn't come and pick me up and it was my father bringing me home, then she might remember my father bringing me home after I got sick and vomited. I doubt that my mother will remember why or how I got sick, nor what I got sick with. I don't know why I was vomiting either. That's why I can't rule out the possibility that I was being molested. I know that feeling sick can be a result of being molested, and that could explain what happened, without alcohol having anything to do with it. But that still means that Incidents #14 through #16 likely involved molestation, the urging of myself as a minor to consume alcohol, or both.

     I know that alcohol was around, and that my father and grandfather were drinking it. I also know that my father has been very permissive about underage drinking as long as I can remember. This goes back at least fifteen years; over the years, he has allowed my cousin Bradley, my brother Michael, and my cousin Anna to drink alcohol in his presence while underage. My father's friends, too, have allowed even very young children to drink beer at parties; these included a girl who drank small amounts of beer at their parties from around the age of four, whose mother later died of liver failure from alcohol abuse. Given that my father was so permissive about children drinking, it's reasonable to suspect that he might not have any qualms about urging children to drink while underage.

     I suspect that the reason why I may have been vomiting, could have resulted from being drugged with alcohol to forget about molestation. If I was, in fact, urged to use alcohol when I was a minor, it might help explain – in addition to the suffocation, and possible memory loss, which I endured in Incidents #2 through #13 – why I previously suffered loss of memory concerning what happened to me at the ages of eight and nine.

     I cannot come up with any more reasonable explanation for why I would have needed to come home from my grandfather's after getting sick and vomiting, at all, let alone enough times that I would remember it (which is why I suspect that this happened two or three times). I have asked my mother whether she remembered my father ever telling her “Joey's vomiting”; unfortunately I asked her this question without enough detail, when I was still trying to recover memories of these incidents.

7d. Regarding Incident #17:

     Since the only people present for the seventeenth incident of abuse were myself and my father, there are no witnesses who can corroborate the abuse I described. However, there are numerous people who can corroborate the fact that my father and I were in that hotel room that week, and that night.

     The Union League Club Hotel in Chicago (at 65 W. Jackson Blvd.) should have records; hopefully they go back to 1996. Those records should show that RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK, and/or Scott Boen Gibson, booked a reservation in the second to last week of December 1996. I believe that my father had booked an adjoining room for our family, next to the Gibsons'.

     I am fairly confident that my father and I stayed in the hotel on the night of December 23^rd, 1996, as well as somewhere between one and four of the previous nights. If I am incorrect about the date, then this must have taken place either the previous year or the following year. The Union League Club Hotel should be able to verify that Susan Salidor performed a children's concert at the hotel on one of those years (either 1995, 1996, or 1997). Also, the entire Gibson and Kopsick immediate families should be able to recall that Christmas vacation.

     During that incident – when my father was with me in our hotel room helping me get changed for dinner – my father caressed the back of my head with his fingers, and I remember beginning to cry. I cannot remember what happened next.

     I remember returning to school shortly after some New Year's Day, and writing about the vacation as part of a class assignment. I believe that this was in January 1997, because I think I was in either third or fourth grade at the time, and I finished third grade in May 1996, and finished fourth grade in May 1997. This is obviously a long shot, but it's possible that one of my teachers (Debbie Barnes in third grade, Mary Strauss in fourth grade, or Tom Brown in fifth grade) could still have the assignment I did in which I wrote about the vacation.

     There would be nothing in that assignment about the abuse, though, because I remember trying not to mention anything negative, and trying to focus on only the basic, ordinary, banal, and positive facts regarding the vacation, in what I wrote. I do remember trying to avoid writing about something negative or traumatic, though, and that is why – in addition to the memory of my father caressing the back of my head, and me beginning to cry – I suspect that what followed that, and what I was trying to avoid writing about in that assignment, was more sexual abuse.

7e. Witnesses to Circumstances Surrounding the Abuse:

     As I explained, in my case, my brother Michael William Kopsick should be treated as both a witness, and as a possible victim of sexual molestation by my father. Again, I am not positive that my brother ever directly witnessed any sexual abuse which my father inflicted upon me, but my brother certainly witnessed events and circumstances surrounding my abuse, which could serve as evidence that my father had ample opportunity to commit these abuses.

     I suspect that, if my brother was abused in the same way in which I was, then his having been younger (by just over two years) and more vulnerable and physically weak at the time (and thus even less able to resist, and to clearly form memories), may have contributed to his lack of memory about being abused. If my brother was abused, and cannot remember it, then he might have suffered from oxygen deprivation during the abuse, due to suffocation, and that oxygen deprivation could have made it difficult for him to remember the event.

     Additionally, my brother and father both drink alcohol regularly, so it is possible that their memories are impaired due to nerve damage from alcohol use, and it is also possible that they are using alcohol as a way to “self-medicate” in order to physically and emotionally cover up and recover from the patterns of abuse we experienced as a family under my father's control.

     On the other hand, my brother might not have been abused at all. That is why it will likely be necessary to subpoena Michael William Kopsick (of Chicago), in order to find out what Michael remembers about my father's handling of him and myself on that couch. My brother Michael should also remember the “creepy” manner in which my father has talked about girls in the neighborhood (most noteworthy, Kate Mortimer and Mary Bibbs).

     Persons besides my brother, who should be considered potential witnesses (of circumstances surrounding my abuse), are my mother Linda Anne Cervetti (of Gurnee), and the four members of the Gibson family whom were present at the Union League Club Hotel during the same time period when Incident #17 took place (that is, Scott Boen Gibson, his ex-wife Joy, and their daughters Rebecca Gibson and Alyson Gibson, most of whom reside in Lake Forest, Illinois).

     Other persons who may remember other circumstances surrounding the abuse, include my ex-girlfriend Annie Dean, and families whom have been present at Scott Gibson's pool parties and observed his inappropriate behavior.

     My ex-girlfriend Annie Dean, whom I dated from late 2013 to December 2014, should be able to corroborate the fact that, while at her apartment, I experienced thoughts about being abused.

     The two families whom attended nearly all of the pool parties at the Gibsons' which were attended by my family, were the families of Jim Mocogni and Curtis Skinner of Lake Bluff. Jim Mocogni's wife's name is Marianne, and their children's names are Adam and Adrienne. Curtis Skinner's wife's name is Cari, and their children's names are John, Peter, and Paige.

     Any or all of those people should be able to corroborate the fact that Scott Gibson would pinch the bottoms of his children and other children present at those parties (which should help back up my claims that both Gibson and my father have difficulty keeping their hands to themselves around children).

     The statements and testimony of other people, can corroborate my claims about the circumstances surrounding the abuse, and the social and physical results of the way my father treated me, as well.

     My older half-sister Jodi witnessed the severity of my communication difficulties (saying she thought I might have Asperger's syndrome, or at least that I might be on the spectrum) and also the severity of my problems biting and picking at my fingernails and toenails. My aunt (my mother's sister) Marsha Peterson should be able to corroborate the statements I have made regarding under what circumstances my father chose Dr. Michael Feld as someone to pay for psychotherapy sessions for me.

     Teachers such as Carolyn Bielski, Christine Friedman, and Kenneth Finkelstein (of Lake Bluff and Lake Forest) will remember that I acted out to get negative attention in high school. Charles (“Chuck” / “Pooch”) Papousek (now of Iowa) should remember telling me about being arrested and cavity searched (the story which led me to make a post saying inaccurately that it happened to my father instead).

7f. Accomplices and Co-Conspirators:

     I am not alleging that any accomplices, nor accessories to the crime, assisted the defendant (or at least not yet). Nor am I alleging that either my mother, any member of the Gibson family, nor anyone at Union League Club Hotel, had any knowledge of the sexual abuses which my father inflicted upon me (again, at least not yet).

     However, if there are any grounds to suspect that the manner in which Scott Boen Gibson (of Lake Forest) constitutes a form of unwanted sexual touching which is unlawful, then I wish to charge Mr. Gibson as another defendant. If necessary, and if my future legal counsel deems Gibson's abuses legally actionable, then I will file additional charges against Gibson.

     Another troubling example of my exposure to unwanted sexual touching while growing up, pertained to the behavior of my father's law partner at the time, Scott Gibson, rather than to my father himself. This behavior is worth noting because my father observed it, and apparently condoned it (and so did many other parents present).

     Scott Gibson had a habit of getting into his pool, and repeatedly shouting to the child guests at his pool parties, “There's a butt-biter in the pool.” After shouting this sentence, Gibson would – with his thumb and his clenched-together other fingers – pinch the buttocks of his own children, myself and my brother, and numerous other children whom were present at these pool parties. The majority of this pinching occurred under water.

     I never heard any accusations of Gibson touching the genitals of any child present at those parties, but looking back on it, I find it extremely disturbing that all of the parents present at those parties knew about what Gibson was doing, condoned it, and even thought it was funny. I suspect that the parents wouldn't have thought it was so funny, if they had been the ones getting “pinched” in the buttocks instead of their children.

     As I explained, those pool parties occurred during the same period during which I was being abused. I suspect that experiencing public, unwanted pinching by Scott Gibson at those pool parties, may have conditioned me to accept unwanted touching, on or near my genitals, without any right to resist or question the older person doing it, at the time.

     Despite the fact that I've never heard any accusations of molestation leveled against Scott Gibson, his behavior, and the apparent approval of this behavior by the other parents present, cause me serious concern about whether some of those other parents and children understand the importance of setting boundaries and keeping your hands to yourself.

     I look forward to consulting with my legal counsel about whether there is any possibility that Gibson acted as a co-conspirator or accomplice of my father in Incident #17, and/or any possibility that my father acted as a co-conspirator of Mr. Gibson in his unwanted touching of myself and other children in his pool. I say this because my father and Scott Gibson are such good friends that Gibson once admitted to my father through a letter that Gibson used heroin while on vacation in Europe.

     In early 2015, while going through my old possessions at my father's house, I found a bin marked “Aaron” (the name of my half-brother, my mother's first child), and found letters and photographs which belonged to my father and Scott Gibson. I was not snooping for evidence, nor looking for “dirt”: I intended to return the bin to my half-brother Aaron until I realized that it wasn't his possessions which were inside. Upon inspection, I discovered that several of the letters were written by my father at a young age, while others were written by Scott Gibson in the late 1970s of early 1980s. I was struck by how strange the contents of these letters were. In one letter, addressed to my father, Scott Gibson admitted to trying heroin while on a vacation, back in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Also, many of the the letters written by my father, were written using names such as “Richard Melvin Kopsick”, and “Steven Kopsick”, as well as at least five other names which I can't remember. Most were variations on his own name, but there might have been even more because I didn't look through the whole bin. Those letters make me wonder whether my father ever mailed a letter to someone as a child, pretending to be somebody else.

     The reason why I say that Scott Gibson may have acted as an intentional accomplice and co-conspirator of my father – in getting away with their creepy behavior and unwanted touching – is because I have seen pictures of my father and Gibson, from the late 1970s, dressed in a very showy and effeminate manner. It makes me wonder whether they have ever been sexually or romantically involved with each other, and the manner in which my father declined to complain about Gibson's groping of children at his pool parties, makes me suspect that my father and Gibson might be intentionally and consciously engaging in subtle attempts to cover up for each other's sexual attraction to minor children. I may be wrong, however; the (usually inebriated) parents present at those pool parties could have very well not even known, nor cared, that Gibson was doing this to their children.

     Even if Gibson meant no ill will, or no sexual gratification, from his unwanted touching of children's buttocks, he still violated my personal space, and caused me and other children to fear for our bodily autonomy, privacy, and needs to feel safe.

     Even if Gibson is not a pedophile, my father's actions (by which I mean the molestation, and also the fact that he declined to stop Gibson from continuing this behavior) are still extremely troubling. Specifically, because my father's actions involved a much longer – and a more consistent, and more observably patterned - chain of incidents of sexually creepy comments and behaviors (including unwanted touching). Moreover, my father's invasion of my personal space was greater than Gibson's, because while Gibson pinched my buttocks, my father touched my actual genitals themselves.

     But the fact that Gibson's abuse was less severe than my father's, does not mean that it didn't happen, and it certainly doesn't mean that it was acceptable. To pretend that Gibson's actions were acceptable simply because they weren't as bad as what my father did, is the same thing as saying that my father's actions were acceptable simply because he didn't molest me as many times as he could have.

8. How I Know That I Didn't Welcome the Abuse, and How I Know That the Abuse Was Forceful

     I want to stress that I am absolutely certain that I did not welcome the abuse; I certainly wasn't “asking for it”, I tried to physically resist and verbally object, and I didn't do anything violent to my father which would have provoked him to respond with physical force nor resistance. He chose to tickle and molest me.

     The fact that I sat behind my father's legs, and was stupid enough to get tricked into doing it again after I had already been sexually abused there one or more times before, does not prove that I was okay with what my father was doing to me. I verbally objected, physically resisted, and cried afterwards. All of these are signs which any sane adult should be able to recognize as obvious signs of disapproval (of the manner in which my father was touching me).

     Furthermore, the fact of what I was wearing, had nothing to do with why I was molested. I was not acting, nor dressing, nor speaking, in any sexually provocative, nor “flirtatious” manner. I was wearing sweatpants, pajama pants, or shorts. Nothing about the way I was dressing or acting, could possibly be construed to have been sexual in nature, except in the mind of a pedophile.

     My father had a responsibility to protect me from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, but instead of protecting me, he actively inflicted those abuses upon me. He also took advantage of his superior position of trust and authority over me, in order to abuse me and in order to (thus far) get away with molesting me.

     The fact that I laughed during Incidents #2 through #13, should not be construed to suggest that I enjoyed the way my father was touching me. The thing that should set off an alarm bell, is the fact that I was laughing uncontrollably.

     My father started off by tickling me, and then he would “tickle” private parts of my body, while invasively jabbing at other parts of my body (like my underarms), which helped him grab hold of my arm and leg joints, in order to hold me down, so that he could have free rein to touch my genitals, without my hands being in the way.

     Granted, I did enjoy it when he would start tickling me, because he would start by tickling me in appropriate places only (such as my ribs). But when he touched progressively more inappropriate places (that is, when he forced his thumbs deep into my underarms after tickling them, and then touched my genitals), it forced me to laugh even more, uncontrollably and involuntarily. The reason why I was still laughing while having my genitals “tickled”, was in part because it tickled, and in part because the way my father was touching me was humiliating. That humiliation prompted embarrassed, nervous laughter.

     That was the only reason I continued to laugh after the tickling turned sexual; I could not help but to do so. Uncontrollable and involuntary laughter is the automatic bodily response to being forcibly tickled. It is also, as it turns out, the automatic bodily response to being aggressively and invasively tickled in the private parts, unrelentingly. I repeat: The only reason that I laughed, while being tickled in my private parts, was because my father, the defendant, was literally forcing me to laugh.

     I believe that my father understood then, and understands now, that a person loses their wits and their ability to clearly object, and breathe properly, when they are relentlessly, invasively, or inappropriately tickled. That is why I believe that he knew then, and knows now, that what he did was wrong.

     I verbally objected in multiple ways, and made attempts to physically resist – and/or escape my father's grasp – multiple times during the abuse. All of those objections were ignored, and all of those attempts to resist failed.

     My verbal objections to the abuse included “Ow”, “No”, “Stop”, “You're hurting me”, and “I don't like this”. Not only would my father ignore these pleas to stop, he would also mock me, and mock the way I talked when I said “I don't like this”. I made clear verbal objections multiple times during the abuse – that is, whenever possible; whenever he wasn't overwhelmingly tickling me in a way that limited my ability to breathe and speak – but he ignored them.

     I made numerous attempts to physically resist my father, the defendant. My father held me down, and restrained me, using both his legs (to initially grab hold of me) and his hands (to keep hold of me). I attempted, as often as I could, to slap and swat and push his hands away from my groin, whenever he tried to touch my penis and scrotum.

     My only chance at escaping, would have been pushing away one or both of his hands at the same time. The only thing I could have done to escape, would have been to risk direct physical injury to my father, and I do not believe that I had either the opportunity, nor the confidence nor strength, to attempt such a thing. All of my attempts to physically resist and escape – and my attempts to keep my father's hands away from my genitals (so that he could “tickle” them) – failed.

     Another reason why I am absolutely sure that I did not welcome or consent to this abuse, is that I distinctly remember being coaxed into sitting behind my father's legs again, after at least one incident of abuse had already occurred.

     Somewhere between Incident #3 and Incident #12 – and it's possible that this might have even happened several times – my father had to verbally convince me that he was not going to do to me again, what he had done the last time I sat in “the triangle”. That is why I believe that my father knowingly used deceit and fraud, via a false promise, to lie to me, in order to coax me into getting near enough to him, that he could use his powerful arms and legs, to turn his body into a trap, for me to fall into, so that he could molest me again.

     Another reason why I know I objected, and a reason why I know that my father knows that I objected, is that I cried both during the abuse, and afterwards. During the abuses, I made verbal cries for my father to stop touching me. I would also begin to cry, whenever my father would succeed in getting me to stop trying to scream and resist, and instead calm down and quiet down. Whenever I wasn't trying to object and screaming for him to stop, I was sobbing quietly.

     After the abuses I described in Incidents #2 through #13, I sat on a small gray “love seat” while crying, a few feet away from my father, while he continued to watch sports on television, this time while sitting upright. I remember sitting on that gray love seat – curled up, in the fetal position – asking my father for permission to go to the bathroom sink and drink some water; this probably happened more than once. I remembered that drinking water helped me calm down after being relentlessly “tickled”, especially because I was dehydrated and exhausted (from having my wits tickled out of me, from being aggressively jabbed and poked at with my father's fingers, from being shaken around, and from struggling to resist while being held down).

     Other factors which make me certain that I did not welcome the abuse, include the fact that I was not dressing in a remotely “sexy” or provocative manner, nor was I behaving in any “coquettish”, “flirtatious”, nor “seductive” way. I also know that I never touched my father with the intent of sexual gratification.

     I would absolutely never even consider doing such things to my father; the thought of doing those things repulses me. But it is necessary to mention this, because I anticipate the typical questions which rape and molestation victims are often asked, including “What were you wearing?” and “Are you sure that you weren't asking for it?”

     I can't remember clearly what I was wearing when the incidents of sexual abuse and unwanted genital tickling occurred. I was probably wearing what a typical white suburban child of age eight or nine would be wearing in the summers; something like a T-shirt and shorts. My father was usually wearing a “night shirt” (meaning an old, beat-up T-shirt which he wouldn't wear outside of the house) and either shorts or sweatpants. Nothing about what my father was wearing during the incidents of sexual abuse was sexual - nor sexualizing, nor sexually appealing - and nothing about what I was wearing at the time could have caused any sexual thought in someone's mind (unless they were a pedophile).

     The above comments pertain to the events described in Incidents #2 through #13, but not in Incidents #17. Clothing was a factor in the events which led to that possible incident of sexual abuse. That is not to say that I was wearing anything “sexy”, nor that I had any intent to derive sexual gratification from, nor inspire sexual arousal with, my clothing. To the contrary; it was my father dressing me in uncomfortable, constrictive, tight-fitting clothes – which made me look like an adult – that prompted my father to tell me I looked “cute”, and caress the back of my head in a way which I found to be inappropriate. I made it known to my parents that I didn't like getting dressed up, and they continued to pressure me into doing so; my mother probably had no idea that one of the reasons why I resisted having to dress like that, is that dressing up caused my father to “groom” me by showering me with unwanted praise (and unwanted touching) for being cute. If being cute and dressing up, got me touched inappropriately, and commented upon inappropriately, then I didn't want to be cute and I didn't want to dress up. I still feel that way today. I often tell people that “God wants you ugly”, citing Matthew 6:25-28, and the fact that mankind needs clothing and possessions to feel fulfilled and complete and beautiful, yet flowers “do not spin” yarn and are beautiful despite the fact that they do not wear nice clothing. My parents' focus on making sure that I look good, rather than focusing on whether I feel good and whether I'm safe from abuse, has caused me to question whether my parents have allowed narcissism – as well as materialism, and the need to “keep up appearances” in regard to their success in raising children – to interfere with the actual raising of their child (i.e., myself), and with the protection of that child from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

     I am certain that I did not willingly touch my father with the intent of sexual gratification. It's possible that, while I was sitting in “the triangle”, I may have inadvertently brushed up against his genitals or buttocks. But if I did that, I cannot distinctly remember it, it wouldn't have been intentional, it wouldn't have been for sexual gratification, and such a thing could not possibly justify my father responding by groping my genitals. Nor could the fact that I masturbated as a child, possibly excuse what he did.

     Had someone else been around for these incidents of sexual abuse – or for the many instances of my father saying and doing sexually “creepy” things – then all of my responses to my father's touch would have indicated to that person (that is, at least, to any person who is normal, and neither insane nor a child molester) that I was obviously upset and in a state of discomfort. Furthermore, that I was clearly objecting, both physically and verbally.

     Any person with eyes or ears would have been able to recognize that I was in distress when my genitals were being aggressively and invasively “tickled” in the manner in which my father molested me. Everything about my word choice and body language made that absolutely clear. It is not that my father didn't understand these words or signals; he deliberately ignored them and continued to touch me inappropriately, despite those objections.

     My father, the defendant RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK, was aged 38 in 1995, and aged 39 in 1996. He had been a voting-age, taxpaying, legal adult for no less than twenty years at that point. Moreover, he is an attorney who knows the law, and once even headed the Lake County Bar Association for a year. He should be considered to have been in full possession of his faculties, and in sound mind and body, when he committed these offenses against me. That is why no plea of mental incapacity should excuse his behavior.

9. When and How I Recovered Lost Memories of Abuse, Why I Didn't Come Forward About the Abuse Sooner, and Why I'm Coming Forward Now

9a. Introduction

     I realize that I will have to explain why I went as long as I did without disclosing the incidents of sexual abuse to anyone, and why I have decided to choose to come forward about this abuse now.

     I certainly regret not coming forward earlier; I would have liked to come forward about the incidents of sexual abuse which I suffered as a child, sooner than I did.

     However, I did attempt to come forward about it at the age of eight, and that attempt was unsuccessful. I was thereby discouraged from attempting to disclose the abuse again, until about nineteen years later, after I had spent nearly that whole time unable to remember the abuse at all.

9b. Instances When I Attempted to Disclose the Abuse

     Since attempting to disclose the abuse to my mother at the age of eight (in 1995), I have spoken to my mother again about the abuse several times. I also told two people in Portland, Oregon, while I was living there in 2014 and 2015; and I told several more people in late 2019.

     Between April 2015 and now (December 2019), I have spoken to my mother about several of the incidents of abuse which I suffered. I have spoken about the abuse to her every few months over those nearly five years.

     After I called my mother from Portland, and came home, she and I spoke about the abuse several times in person in February and/or March 2015, and during the several months which followed.

     Between late 2015 and late 2019, the frequency of our discussing the abuse, increased from approximately every six months (from late 2015 to early 2017) to approximately every two months (from mid-2017 until mid-2019), while it also increased in mid-2017 and late 2019.

     I also told my ex-girlfriend Annie, and a male stranger in his twenties whose name I never found out, that I had been sexually abused as a child. I told both of those people some information which turned out to be true, and some information which turned out to be false.

     I also told my mother some incorrect information about the details of the abuse which I experienced, but I have corrected those details in subsequent conversations with her over the last five years.

     My mother, Annie, and the stranger, were the only people I told about my father's sexual abuse, until I told my friend Elliot Lubet (of Madison, Wisconsin) and his mother Bonnie Schoenemann-Lubet (a therapist) about it in September 2019. I told several friends about the abuse after that.

9c. Why I Didn't Come Forward About the Abuse Sooner: Bullying and Memory Problems

     My fear of continued abuse as a child, my lost memories of abuse over the eighteen years which followed it (January 1997 to January 2015), and my fear and lack of legal knowledge regarding the prospects of coming forward today, have all contributed to my decisions to delay coming forward.

     But those reasons also explain why I am choosing to disclose the abuse now. I have spent the last five years resolving those obstacles which prevented me from disclosing the abuse prior to the time of the composition of this statement. Specifically, I have worked to recover memories of the abuse which were lost and repressed. I believe that those memories were lost as a direct result of the abuse, due to oxygen deprivation resulting from suffocation; but psychological factors also made it difficult for me to remember the abuse shortly after it stopped occurring.

     I believe that waiting until now was the best course of action to take, because taking my time has allowed me to recover memories, figure out how to best put into words what happened to me, and research basic facts about the type of offense committed against me.

     When I was eight and nine years old – that is, in 1995 and 1996 – I didn't disclose the abuse, because I was more concerned and preoccupied with simply avoiding being abused again, than I was concerned with telling someone about it.

     As I have explained, I did attempt to disclose the abuse to my mother. However, this attempt failed, so I was discouraged from trying again. At the age of eight, I lacked the vocabulary and the understanding of sexuality to adequately explain, and put into words, what had happened to me, and I also failed to understood the seriousness of what had happened. As far as I can remember, I only made one attempt to tell my mother about the abuse while it was still happening; I did not mention the abuse to her again until early 2015 (when I recovered the repressed memories again, around the time I turned 28 years old).

     For the five years which followed the abuse (1997 to 2002), not only was I too preoccupied with bullies, and with my father's anger with me, to worry about how I might successfully report the abuse again; I could not even remember the abuse at that time. Having to satisfy, and please, and ingratiate myself towards, my father – about grades, for example – also took up a lot of my time, focus, and worrying, during the years 1997 through 2005 (when I was still living with my parents and attending school).

     The memories of unwanted touching had all disappeared by around the time of my tenth birthday (February 24^th, 1997; two months after the last incident of abuse which I can recall). However, I also remember that when I was around of twelve or thirteen, I had an argument with my father wherein I told him that I thought my mother was going to divorce him. I remember thinking about my father's past physical abuse in that moment, but I'm uncertain as to whether I was aware of the sexual abuse at that point.

     I don't remember any time between turning ten years old, and that conversation, when I was conscious of past sexual abuse; nor do I remember any time between that conversation, and 2014, when I was conscious of past sexual abuse.

     After the abuse ended in December 1996, I went a full eighteen years without talking about what had happened to me in 1995 and 1996. I spent those eighteen years not even remembering the abuse, except (perhaps) for that conversation with my father which took place in 1999 or 2000.

     Some might argue that it makes no sense that I went nearly two decades without remembering the abuse, because I would have vividly remembered something so traumatic. However, I suspect that the reason why I lost those memories of abuse, stem from the manner in which I was restrained (especially around my lungs and rib cage), and tossed around, shaken, grabbed, jabbed at, poked, and relentlessly “tickled” until I couldn't breathe (and couldn't stop laughing as an involuntary response). I suspect that my father's rough handling of me, caused an interruption in the flow of oxygen to my brain, which made it especially difficult for me to form new memories of what was happening to me at the time, and also difficult for me to remember the abuse later.

     Moreover, my brain had every reason to not allow me to remember these memories of abuse, because it would be difficult for me to process without causing my psyche to fracture. Allowing me to process, and remember, those memories consciously, would have exposed my young mind to cognitive dissonance; a state of willful self-confusion as to whether my father had done to me what he did. I believe that that is exactly what happened; that my brain shielded my conscious mind from having to deal with these painful memories, between January 1997 (the month after the last incident of abuse which I can recall) and January 2015 (when I began to recovered the repressed memories again).

     The fact that the abuse happened so long ago – that is, between 23 and 27 years ago – is another reason why these memories have been difficult for me to access and recover.

     I admit that I have not included detailed accounts of Incident #1, nor of Incidents #14 through #16. I also admit that I cannot provide any specific details which differentiate Incidents #2 through #13 and set them apart from one another, in a sufficient manner from which to conclude that those abuses took place multiple times. I regret that lack of detail, and I apologize that I cannot provide more.

     However, the lack of detail regarding these accounts, could perhaps even serve better as evidence that my father's abuses did happen, than as evidence that they didn't (that is, because my father's suffocation of me during the abuse, explains my memory lapses from ages eight and nine).

     I swear that I have made these statements up, nor because I have willfully implanted these memories in my own mind (for example, because I want attention, or whatever reason). I am certain that I have not implanted any of these memories, because every time I think about the manner in which I was abused, as described in the details of Incidents #2 through #13, the memories get clearer and stronger and more vivid, rather than less clear, or more uncertain.

     I am absolutely certain that my father “tickled” my genitals multiple times on our large gray couch in our basement at 524 East Washington Avenue in Lake Bluff, Illinois, during the summers of 1995 and 1996. Also, I can now say for sure that I clearly remember trying to swat and push my father's hands away from my groin. I have completely recovered those memories of direct unwanted sexual touching, even if I can't remember every single detail of each instance of abuse. Each abuse occurred in such a similar way, that it is difficult to distinguish them from one another in my memories.

     I have included as much as I can remember about these incidents, in order to provide as detailed an account of every single episode of unwanted touching which I can remember my father inflicting upon me.

     Even if emerging facts are to show that I was abused in neither Incident #1, nor Incidents #14 through #17 (the incidents which I remember the least clearly), I would nevertheless be willing to swear to tell the truth, and testify in open court, that: 1) I reasonably believed, at the time this statement was composed, that these memories were accurate, according to my best recollection; and that 2) the volume of memories which I have, regarding the manner in which I was abused in Incidents #2 through #13, leads me to conclude that I couldn't have been molested any fewer than four to six times.

     I repeat: These abuses did happen; these memories are almost perfectly clear now; the only important thing about Incidents #2 through #13 which I can't remember clearly, is whether the groping was under my clothes or over my clothes (again, I believe over but not under, but I can't be sure). And to repeat again: The memories of being abused on the couch, get stronger and more vivid and detailed, each and every time I think about them (and the more that I try to figure out, and put into words, what happened).

     I have worked very hard over the last four years and ten months – January 2015 to November 2019; especially the first few and last few months of this time period – to recover these memories. One of the reasons why composing this statement took over one month to complete, is because I began the statement on October 20^th, 2019; and did not resume composing it until November 19^th. Additionally, forcing myself to compose this statement, and forcing myself to think harder to recover the details of my repressed memories, has been very unpleasant, difficult, and disturbing.

     I am writing this statement because I feel that I have recovered enough memories, and clearly enough, to say the following without hesitation: I have vivid memories of being “tickled” on my penis and scrotum against my will, at the hands of my father, between four and twelve times (in 1995 and/or 1996, probably both); and also I reasonably suspect that may have been molested as many as five additional times (in 1992 and 1996).

     I repeat: I began writing this statement – and I am completing this statement – as soon as I felt that I had adequately recovered the memories, and also that I had sufficiently explained the details in writing. I felt that it would be most appropriate to provide as much written testimony as possible regarding the abuses – and also to anticipate and answer potential questions regarding the abuse - before coming forward with this statement. I also figured that it would be productive to collect information which will be useful to this case – for example, information regarding evidence of fraud, intimidation, manipulation, and other psychological issues with which my father may be struggling – for inclusion in this statement.

     I have never had any intention, nor have I made any attempt, to conceal my father's crimes, nor to protect nor shield him from prosecution.

     The first time I noticed that there might be something wrong with my memory, was when I played the character of “Pigpen” in a production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown which was put on by Gorton Community Center in Lake Forest. I had difficulty remembering my lines in that play; one particularly long soliloquy about “blue bloods” made me so frustrated that I cried. The people who were running the play removed that long line and changed the script to accommodate me.

     That occurred before Incidents #2 through #17; some time between Incident #1 and Incident #2. I believe that I was about six years old at the time. These facts lead me to suspect that, if my father's abuses did, in any way, contribute to my difficulty remembering my lines, then it could have only been due to the abuses possibly committed during Incident #1. If my difficulty remembering lines is attributable to my father, but not to sexual abuse, then my abilities to memorize sentences and speak confidently might have been hindered by my father's confrontational, loud style of parenting (which would involve him towering over me, and shouting at me, even as a young child).

     The first time, during my adulthood, when I began to suspect that there was something wrong with my memory, occurred some time in my mid-twenties, perhaps around the age of 25. Some time during my mid-twenties, I tried to remember my childhood, and I noticed that I had difficulty doing that; I had difficulty retrieving clear memories of being any younger than eight years old. It became apparent that there were huge chunks of time and memory, from my childhood, which were missing, and could not be accounted for. It wasn't until I was at least 28 that I realized that the memory loss affected memories from when I was age eight and nine, in addition to before the age of eight.

     Finally, despite the fact that I have been singing all my life and playing guitar for nearly twenty years, I still find it very difficult to memorize whole songs. Memorizing the full set of lyrics, of any particular song, seems difficult for me when compared to the ease at which I have seen other musicians memorize songs. While playing guitar and singing, I struggle with difficulty breathing (in terms of getting enough air into my lungs to sing loudly enough) and memory problems alike.

     I believe that I would have a much easier time singing in front of my father, if he did not put so much pressure on me to sing when I don't want to. My father doesn't understand that he is the primary reason why I don't like to sing in front of him; he is so judgmental, that the risk that he could criticize me, in a way that humiliates me publicly, is so high, that it outweighs the potential benefits of playing music for people whom I like.

     I suspect that I would have a much easier time breathing comfortably, singing with full breath, and remembering all the lyrics of a song, if my father had not contributed to my breathing and memory problems (by compressing my rib cage and lungs, and by tickling me until I couldn't breathe) while committing Incidents #2 through #13 of Criminal Sexual Abuse against me at the ages of eight and nine.

     My father also made me too ashamed to play music for him, by accusing me of making reference to him, on one of the self-produced albums I recorded as a teenager. When I was around 18 years old (in 2005), my father told me and my mother that he suspected that the first track on that album, which was a dialogue, depicted a hypothetical conversation between myself and my father. It did not, but my father played the track on the stereo system in our living room, as if it were “evidence” that I meant something insidious by that dialogue, and meant to reference him. My father also told me that he thought that some of the album art, on an album I made around 2006, was a reference to him; that album art depicted a sample of a test in which a student had given an incorrect answer and was corrected with a red pen. The album art, and the track of recorded dialogue, had nothing to do with my father; neither was a reference to him, and he inspired neither of those things.

     To be perfectly clear, the manner in which my father treated me, both during the abuse and afterwards, was so severe and hostile that, from 1997 or 2000 until 2015, I was still too confused and scared to be able to consciously remember the incidents of abuse which he inflicted upon me between 1992 and late 1996.

     For those three years following the abuse (when I was between ten and thirteen years old), my father did not even need to engage in active nor conscious forms of intimidation to keep me quiet; his relentless brow-beating, shame, guilt, and pressure kept me too distracted by his current mistreatment to bother trying to recover and divulge his past mistreatment.

     This is why I suspect that – due to the trauma I suffered during the incidents, and the fact that I could easily be tricked into sitting near my father again and again – I may have begun to experience memory loss about the incidents of sexual abuse, while the incidents were still happening.

     It is not possible that the memory loss I have suffered, about what happened to me between the ages of eight and ten, could be attributed to the use of cannabis.

     For one thing, I didn't start smoking cannabis until I was 19 years old, more than nine years after the last time my father inflicted unwanted touching upon me. Short-term memory loss attributable to smoking cannabis at the age of 19, cannot explain memory loss surrounding events which occurred at the ages of eight and nine years old.

     I am certain that my use of cannabis, from the age of 19 until realizing the abuse had occurred in 2015, could not have caused such significant lapses in memory. First, because cannabis only causes lapses in short-term memory, and I know the difference between lapses in short-term memory (which occur on a day to day basis), and having several whole years being wiped and blanked from my memory. Second, because cannabis has not been conclusively found to cause long-term memory loss.

     The psychoactive ingredient in cannabis (Delta-9-THC) actually facilitates the growth of new neurons and new connections between neurons, rather than making “holes in the brain” and causing memory loss (as its detractors claim it does). The same chemical ameliorates the amyloid plaques which cause neurodegenerative diseases, also known as nerve cancers. That's why I suspect that my use of cannabis probably did no long-term damage to my memory.

     Moreover, marijuana is a mild psychedelic which causes only the slightest distortion of perception; on a level which is nowhere near the effects caused by opioids, narcotics, deliriants, and hallucinogens (none of which terms apply to cannabis). Ingesting cannabis does not cause outright hallucinations, let alone implanted memories; therefore my use of cannabis could not possibly have caused me to “make up”, nor incorrectly remember, my accounts of the abuses which I suffered at the hands of my father.

     Regardless of whether my use of cannabis contributed to my memory loss, I suspect that my father's physical restraint and near-suffocation of me during the abuse, and the loss of oxygen which my brain suffered during that abuse, were the main causes of my memory loss. Additionally, my father's subsequent treatment of me over the several years which followed the abuse (1997 to 2005), traumatized me further, and kept me focused on ingratiating myself towards him, keeping him placated about my grades, and avoiding setting him off. And the set of things that might set him off, was usually unpredictable.

     My father's confrontational, angry “style of parenting” – which, again, included shouting at the top of his lungs at his small children, and nearly slamming the door in his wife's face to keep her out of the room while he did this – in my opinion, served as a distraction from the abuse which I had suffered in 1995 and 1996, by exposing me to ongoing trauma. This caused me to be too preoccupied with continuing mistreatment by my father, and too worried about avoiding such mistreatment, to bother to try to report the abuse again, or to work to recover memories, or to run away, or to think of some other way to get the abuse to stop.

     The trauma to which I was exposed as a child, was constant; it varied only in terms of which particular type of abuse it would be (shouting, restraint, molestation, judgment and shame, mockery, etc.).

9d. When I Experienced “False Memories” of Abuse, and Why I Think I Experienced Them

     Before explaining how I recovered true memories, I must explain the “false memories” which I experienced, and why I think that I experienced “false memories” before recovering true memories. [Note: I put “false memories” in quotes because they are not really memories; they're thoughts about events which did not happen but which nonetheless seem like truly recovered memories.]

     At the beginning of 2015, I had not yet distinguished which thoughts of abuse were true memories and which were false thoughts. I had discovered some”false memories”, and despite the fact that some of the thoughts I was having, turned out not to be true, the most persistent thought which I was having about the abuse – knowing inside that my father had molested me, despite lacking vivid memories of the abuse at the time – did turn out to be true.

     The lack of vivid memories, and the difficulty which I had been having in regards to remembering events accurately (such as the cavity search conversation) – and also my difficulty distinguishing false thoughts from true memories of abuse – caused me to question the accuracy of the thoughts I was having. Between February and April 2015, I decided to think about it, and try to figure out which memories were false and which ones were true.

     The first “false memories” of direct sexual abuse at the hands of my father, surfaced in the first few days of January 2015. But the first memories which were both true and somewhat clear, resurfaced later; in the first few months of 2015, perhaps March or April, when I remembered having been pressured to wear penny loafers, as a child of about nine (one of the years during which the abuse occurred). This resulted in me recovering memories of Incident #17.

     Before going into the details of how I recovered those memories, I will begin with what happened in 2014, to explain how I began to experience the first “false memories” which pertain to both my father and sexual abuse.

     In the summer of 2014 – while I was living in Portland, Oregon – I made a post on Facebook about my father having been cavity-searched during a police search, while being arrested as a young man. I made this post because I was ashamed about the submissiveness and bodily invasion which the search required, and also fearful for our civil liberties, at the fact that such searches often occur without just cause. But unfortunately, I discovered later that what I had posted about was incorrect.

     Some time between 2010 and 2013 – at least a year before I made this post – a friend of my father who now lives in Iowa (named Charles “Chuck” Papousek, also known as “Pooch”), told me a story about getting arrested when he was a young man. When I remembered having been told this story, I made a post about it, but I mistakenly believed that the person who got arrested (and cavity searched) was my father.

     I am very sorry that I made that mistake, because it reflected badly on my father. It also reflects badly on me, because I should have thought harder about the story I had heard before discussing it, and also I should not have divulged something painful and personal about someone else. I sincerely wish to apologize for that, and I also want to make it clear that I had no intent to defame, nor commit libel against, my father.

     But my point is this: This was the first incident I can recall in my adult life, when I began to experience “false memories” associated with my father, which pertained to invasive actions committed against a person's private parts.

     Although this event may seem irrelevant to mention, I mention it in order to be as thorough as possible. This was the first time I thought that my father had been involved in some sort of sexual abuse, and I got it wrong. That's why it's essential to explain that this incident – which took place in mid-2014 – was the first event in a chain of several “false memories” concerning my father and sexual abuse, which I experienced, prior to recovering true memories of sexual abuse at the hands of my father. The process of verifying those memories, eventually caused the resurfacing of true memories, in the early spring of 2015.

     Another event which I believe accelerated the resurfacing of memories concerning sexual abuse at the hands of my father, was the fact that in November and December 2014 – while still living in Portland, Oregon – I was thinking about the fact that I was circumcised.

     I had been reading articles about the debate concerning the pros and cons of circumcision. I became increasingly displeased and upset at the fact that my parents, and the staff of Lake Forest Hospital, had taken part of my body just after I was born. I now consider circumcision to be an act of unwanted sexual touching, sexual trauma, and sexual mutilation.

     I had first became aware of my circumcision, and first became upset about it, when I talked to my father about it around the age of eight. I remember not knowing whether I was circumcised, and my father informing me that I was. I knew that circumcision involved taking a part of the penis away, and I remember feeling somewhat upset when I first found out that I was circumcised, because I felt that I had missed out on something. Later I discovered that circumcision removes many nerve endings, and thus decreases sexual pleasure.

     Thinking about the fact that I had been circumcised, and wishing that I hadn't, got me thinking more and more – in the last two months of 2014 – about the topic of my father (passively or actively) inflicting sexual trauma upon my genitals.

     I can verify that I had an interest in the topic of circumcision around that time, by the fact that in November 2016 – two years after I began to research the topic – I published the following article on my weblog: http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2016/11/on-circumcision.html.

     I regret not being able to provide sufficient proof, but the fact that I ceased publishing new posts to my blog entirely, between November 30^th, 2014 and March 24^th, 2015 – and then again from March 24^th, 2015 to September 20^th, 2015 – ought to demonstrate the frailty and fragility of my mental state at the time. At the beginning of that time period (November 30^th, 2014), I had been thinking about my circumcision for somewhere between a few days and a few weeks, I remembered being pressured to wear penny loafers around March or April 2015, and in the late summer of 2015 I traveled to Florida and completed a written interview (while staying at a friend's apartment), which I published on September 20^th, 2015.

     I was unable to produce and publish original, complete articles during those two periods of four and six months; and that owes to the fact that my mind was too preoccupied with religious, spiritual, and psychological topics (circumcision included) to bother with political writing.

     On December 31^st, 2014, my then- girlfriend Annie broke up with me. I could say that “she left me alone on New Year's Eve”, but our breakup was inevitable and I should have expected it. I chose to spend it alone in my apartment in Northwest Portland, which I had acquired at the beginning of either November or December 2014.

     That night, at midnight, I briefly attempted (but failed) to pierce my own navel. I now realize that that was likely an attempt at self-harm (albeit a socially acceptable one). It was certainly harmful to myself, anyway, because I was using neither professional nor sanitary methods to do it. I believe that I attempted to give myself this piercing because I either wanted to hurt myself, wanted to feel what people feel when they harm themselves, was suppressing unconscious memories that were too painful to deal with, or all of the above.

     That attempt to pierce my navel, forced me to think about how other people I know (including my ex-girlfriend Annie) have inflicted harm upon themselves, and it helped me identify with their pain. In a small sense, it probably helped me focus on real forms of abuse which I had physically suffered, in addition to emotional abuse.

     The next memory worth mentioning, which followed New Year's Eve of 2014, is a memory of recovering a mix of true memories and “false memories”. This occurred some time around the second or third week of January 2015.

     My girlfriend had broken up with me on New Year's Eve of 2014, and some time in early or mid- January I went to her apartment, because I needed to calm myself down, and thought we were ready to talk to each other again. I also needed to talk to her, because I needed a little help making sense of reality, and making sense of things I had been reading about in the news. I remember sitting on a large recliner in her apartment in Northwest Portland, a large, hundred-year-old building near the intersection of Northwest 23^rd Street and Thurman.

     My ex-girlfriend and I were talking in her living-room-slash-bedroom at one moment, and the next moment, she went into her kitchen, and was still within earshot (it was a small apartment). Through no intention nor willful act of my own, I imagined a penis suspended in air in front of me, going into my mouth and ejaculating into it. This prompted me to jerk backwards into my chair, and say out loud, something like “Oh my God, I think my dad molested me.” At the very least, “I think my dad molested me.”

     My ex-girlfriend doubted me, and asked me to explain, so I explained the thoughts I was having. I explained these thoughts in terms of “this is what I think might have happened”; I was not confident about the memories to articulate anything in specific. I might have said something like “I think my dad made me suck his dick in his bedroom closet”, or “I think my dad touched me in his closet”, but I can't remember what I said for sure.

     I know I said those things to my mother, but I can't remember if I told my ex-girlfriend those things too. I don't know when I began to suspect that I was molested in my father's bedroom closet, nor the breezeway between our kitchen and the garage; it might have been during that conversation with my ex-girlfriend, or it might have been during the several weeks or months which followed. The thoughts about the breezeway might not have even come up until March or April; I wish I could remember more clearly when I had these thoughts, but thoughts are more difficult to remember than events or dates.

     As I stated, when I was at my ex-girlfriend's apartment, I recovered a “false memory” and a true memory at the same time. This was a “false memory”, in the sense that my father never made me perform oral sex on him, but what the memory made me say out loud was true. I hadn't yet, at that point, recovered the particular circumstances of the abuse, but this was the first time that I said to someone else, out loud, that my father molested me.

     I realized a few months after this happened, that it was a “false memory”. Before I realized that the memory was false, I unfortunately told my mother and my girlfriend that I thought my father had put his penis in my mouth. I told my mother and ex-girlfriend about those “false memories” of oral sex – which I then suspected were true, and now know are false – before any real, vivid memories of unwanted touching resurfaced.

     I would like to sincerely and profusely apologize for getting that wrong. However, I also stress that I was careful to explain the memories I was experiencing in terms of “this is what I think might have happened”, so I did not commit an act of slander against my father, nor did I intend to. Furthermore, I have corrected this error in conversation with my mother.

     Some time in January or February 2015 – perhaps before telling Annie and a stranger about the abuse, perhaps afterwards – I drew a symbol on a piece of paper, which looked sort of like this: (R->J), except the letters were within a fully enclosed circle instead of parentheses. The significance of the symbol was that the “R” was penetrating the “J” (which stand for “Richard” and “Joseph”). Although I cannot find this image in my old documents, I distinctly remember drawing it, and it captured what I was feeling; the feeling that my father had intruded into my body, my life, my identity, my name, and my essence.

     Drawing that image jogged my memories because I continued analyzing the meaning of the image after I had drawn it. I cannot say that I drew the image in order to consciously and purposely depict all of the meanings which I have drawn from it, but I know that the image captured what I was feeling; a feeling of certainty that my father had done something to me which annihilated my identity, my power, and my will.

     Perhaps a week or two after I visited my girlfriend, I disclosed sexual abuse by my father to another person. That person was a white male (perhaps with Hispanic heritage, perhaps not) whom was in his twenties.

     I had been letting this young man into my apartment to hang out. I never found out his name, though, because I never asked his name; I met him after he knocked on my window, and I opened the window up for him to come through. That may sound strange, but I was virtually alone in Portland at the time – having just broken up with my girlfriend, and ceased speaking with my best friend John – and thus I was so desperately lonely that I was willing to let a complete stranger into my apartment.

     I didn't ask his name, not only because I was lonely, but also because I was in a severe state of confusion at the time. I had turned from studying politics to stranger and more introspective topics such as psychoanalysis and religion, and I didn't know which memories of my father's abuse were real and which were false. I didn't know what to believe, and perhaps I needed a strange new person in my life who would lead me to new experiences; someone about whom I knew almost nothing, maybe even someone onto whom I could project whatever I wanted to believe about them.

     Again, my mental state was fragile; I was never more isolated and alone in my whole life, than I was between December 2014 and February 2015. The fact that I had only been associating with that ex-best-friend and ex-girlfriend on a purely social basis at the time, should be considered; especially given that both of them took medication for mental illness (the ex-girlfriend, bipolar disorder, and the ex-best-friend, delusionary schizophrenia). Their mental conditions likely contributed to the fragility of my state of mind at the time.

     Although I never found out his name, in February 2015, that stranger brought a guest to my apartment, a white female in her twenties or thirties. That woman told me that she and the stranger were friends of Jessie Sponberg. Jessie Sponberg is a resident of Portland, and at some point in late 2014, I either spoke with him over Facebook, wrote on the same message boards, or both. Jessie Sponberg is, more or less, Portland's most prominent vigilante, and he has sought the office of Multnomah County Sheriff. I suspect that Sponberg likely sent these two people to spy on me; if he did, then this may have been attributable to my political view, and/or to my posts about them on Facebook. Portland is now a divided city, and Sponberg would have had ample reason and opportunity to send his friends to spy on someone such as myself who was seeking to influence local politics. On the other hand, Sponberg may not have sent these people to spy on me at all; but that doesn't add up, since I can't figure out why the stranger and his female friend would take it upon themselves to spy on me (someone of whom they'd apparently never heard before that).

     Before I found out that my unnamed friend was associated with Jessie Sponberg, I confessed to him that I suspect that my father had molested me. The next time that I saw him after that, I brought the topic up again, and the stranger responded, “He didn't molest you” in a very matter-of-fact kind of way. But I insisted that my father did indeed molest me, and I offered an explanation related to forced oral sex (including a claim that I absorbed my father's DNA through ingesting his semen), and the stranger reacted with disgust.

     However, now I know that what I said to him that day was false, because I have still not recovered any clear memories of being forced to perform oral sex on my father. I regret misleading this person, and I regret slandering my father in the process; I only said this because I had not yet recovered memories of the specific sort of sexual abuse he inflicted on me (which I discovered, months later, was sexual “tickling”).

     Despite the fact that the “memories” of forced oral sex which had apparently “resurfaced”, turned out to be false – and the fact that I had not yet recovered any vivid memories of the abuse – I still, at that point, felt confident enough that some form of abuse had taken place. At least, confident enough to tell my ex-girlfriend, my mother, and a virtual stranger (whom I, for some reason, trusted at the time).

     The first time I disclosed the possibility of abuse to my mother, was after I had told my ex-girlfriend Annie and the stranger that I suspected that I had been sexually abused by my father. I disclosed the possibility of abuse to my mother during a phone call in early or mid- February 2015.

     This phone call occurred while I was standing outside of St. Mark's Episcopalian Church (1025 Northwest 21^st Avenue, Portland, Oregon). I had lost my cell phone once or twice in the preceding year, so I cannot remember whether I called from a cell phone or a pay phone. I think I used a quarter or two to make a call from a pay phone. I clearly remember being near the sidewalk outside of St. Mark's Church, calling my mother and telling her that I suspected my father of having molested me.

     This telephone call might have taken place on a Sunday; I can't be positive. That's because I had been researching Catholic saints, and Decembers through Aprils are full of Catholic holidays. I was following the Catholic calendar, and I decided to attend a service at the St. Mark's Church, which is near a park that is situated several blocks from where my ex-girlfriend lived at the time. That's why it's entirely possible that this phone call did not happen on a Sunday. The call probably took place between January 1^st and 20^th, 2015.

     I distinctly remember the phone call with my mother, and I distinctly remember speaking to the priest after the service, and thinking about whether I wanted to tell him that I thought my father had abused me. However, I was either too shy, or not confident enough about the accuracy of my memories (or both), to bring up the topic to him, and I did not tell him about the abuse at any point after that. I remember having difficulty looking the priest in the eye, when I thought about telling him that I suspected my father of having sexually abused me. I was probably, in part, intimidated by the sheer size and height of this priest. I believe that this attempt to speak to the priest, encouraged me to think harder about what actually happened.

     I have confirmed privately with my mother that she remembers the telephone conversation. I would like to apologize for divulging “false memories” before I confirmed them, and I want to be as forthcoming as possible about the fact that I divulged “false memories” of abuse before I had recovered any true memories. But once again, I stress that I only reported – to my mother, ex-girlfriend, and the stranger – that I suspected that my father had made me perform oral sex on him; furthermore, I have corrected the error in conversation with my mother.

     When I said that specific piece of information, I was incorrect and reporting “false memories”; but when I was telling people that I thought my father had abused me, I was correct. I did reasonably suspect my father of having abused me, and now I know for sure that he did.

     Additionally, at some point during the month or two which followed that phone call to my mother from outside St. Mark's Church, I told my mother that I suspected that I had been molested in the “breezeway” of our house on East Washington Avenue (between the kitchen and the garage). I also told my mother that I thought I might have been molested in my father's bedroom closet. As I explained, I believe that I experienced those “false memories” because of other distressful things I experienced in those locations; namely, being told by my father to get out of his closet and stop playing with his shoehorns, and being yelled at by my parents in the breezeway occasionally while coming home or leaving home as a child. However, I now know that I was not molested in my father's closet, nor in the breezeway, nor was I forced to perform oral sex on my father. The majority of the abuse occurred on the large gray couch in the basement (as described in Incidents #2 through #13), in the form of unwanted tickling and touching of my genitals. I have corrected this information in subsequent conversations with my mother.

     As I explained, after I told my mother about the abuse, during that February 2015 phone call, I attended the church services and talked to that priest at St. Mark's. For the next few days and weeks after that, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I felt confident (somewhere inside of me) that my father had molested me, and that I had admitted it to my mother. I didn't feel any urge to go back and tell either my mother, my ex-girlfriend, or the stranger, that I was wrong, or that the abuse didn't happen, though. Even if I lacked vivid, specific memories then, I still felt confident enough that my father had sexually abused me, to tell three people, and refrain from retracting my claim.

     The only things which I have retracted were the few “false memories”, regarding the location and method of the abuse, which I got incorrect, before working to recover the memories of the incidents of sexual abuse in more detail.

     About two or three weeks after calling my mother about the suspected abuse, I left Portland. This occurred in the final week of February 2015, after my father had bought me a ticket home to Chicago on a train. I then moved back in with my father, who lived then, and now still lives, in the Knollwood neighborhood of Lake Bluff, Illinois, at 132 Welwyn Street.

     When I got home, and my parents (divorced, by that point) were in my father's house, I went to my father's dark garage, and sat down on the step in front of the door, and cried. My parents came to comfort me. I don't remember whether I explained what was going through my head, but I remember that I was thinking about how confused I was, and how lucky I was to be alive, after I got fired from my job and lost my apartment, and my parents rescued me from the social isolation I was experiencing in Portland.

     I was very grateful to be out of Portland (which I left because I had begun to notice that a lot of methamphetamine addicts and Satan worshipers live there), and I was grateful for my parents' upcoming assistance in helping me get my life back together.

     But I was also displeased, because I had to live with my father after I was told that I could move back in with my mother. I didn't want to be around my father, much less touch him, because I was beginning to have thoughts that caused me to reasonably suspect that he had sexually abused me as a child.

     Furthermore, the minutiae which would upset my father, made living with him into a situation in which two or three shouting matches per week was the norm. My father would angrily confront me about things like where I left the kitchen sponge, or how I failed to completely close the door to the garage; he has always done things like this, I suspect to keep me in a constant state of fear, panic, and anxiety.

     The first thing that my father did when I got off the train was hug me. I understand why he did it, but I was not ready to touch him, nor ready to trust him. I still don't want to touch him or hug him, I don't like to be around him, and I am always aware of it whenever he attempts to closely monitor or censor my speech in front of other people. He is impossible to get along with, let alone live with, even if one were to put the abuse aside.

     On the positive side, however, having to live with my father, forced me to observe his confrontational, angry, gaslighting nature each and every day. I tried as hard as I could to avoid him, and avoid speaking to him, but his personality makes getting along without conflict nearly impossible. Being in close contact with my father, especially during the beginning of 2015, probably helped bring more repressed memories of abuse out of my subconscious and into my conscious mind.

     In mid-2017, I confronted my father about “half-molesting me”, and mentioned the overwhelming tickling, but I probably didn't mention the unwanted touching on the genitals. Aside from that conversation, I didn't tell anyone else about my father's sexual abuse, at any time between early 2015 (when I told three people) and the second half of 2019 (when I disclosed the abuse to my friend Elliot Lubet of Madison, Wisconsin, and his mother Bonnie Schoeneman, formerly Schoeneman-Lubet). Nor did I tell anyone about the abuse between 1997 and 2014, the time period during which I could not remember that abuse (unless I was aware of it for the first three years of that time period, and remembered it last around the age of 12 or 13).

     It would perhaps help explain why I believe that I experienced the particular “false memories” which I did, in late 2014 and early 2015.

     While writing this report, I have realized that the memories of Scott Gibson inflicting unwanted touching upon my buttocks, surfaced much in the same manner in which the memories of being abused at the hands of my father surfaced. In both instances, an image of my abuser appeared in my mind's eye, but it was an inaccurate image at first, and it only became clear months later what really happened during the abuse.

     When I realized my father had abused me, I imagined a penis ejaculating into my mouth, only to realize later that I've had no vivid memories of my father ever doing such a thing to me. Similarly, long before I remembered the “butt-biting” incidents, I had images of Scott Gibson standing in front of me in swim trunks in the living room of his house. As far as I can remember, Gibson never molested me, and never did anything inappropriate to me any of the times we were alone together.

     The most likely reason why I thought my father had molested me in his bedroom closet, was because I experienced a slight amount of distress when my father would tell me to get out of his closet and stop playing with his shoehorn. The most likely reason why I thought my father had molested me in the breezeway, was because I experienced slight amounts of distress when my parents would hurry me out of the house before going to school.

     I suspect that my subconscious was remembering those slight amounts of distress, and suggesting them to me as the possible causes of the trauma. They might have caused distress, but they only caused slight amounts, and the trauma which I experienced, was not either of those events; it was much more severe.

     I believe that I experienced these “false memories” (really, thoughts which I once mistook for memories), my mind was trying to take a guess at what happened to me, which it had to do in order to present me with a serious enough thought about abuse, which would cause me to question the validity of the thoughts, feelings, and possible memories which I was experiencing. My mind's guess was correct about the person who abused me both times, but both times my mind was also wrong (in the case of my father, or, in the case of Gibson, lacked information) about what specific form the abuse took, and which part of my body it affected.

     I suspect that, in both cases, my mind showed me an image of my abuser, doing something that never happened – but still something jarring enough for the mind to notice – in order to get my conscious mind “locked in” to the person of whom I was thinking, as someone of whom I should be suspicious (and, especially, suspicious of having abused me).

     Thus, these falsely recovered “memories” actually helped, because they prompted me to figure out which thoughts were false and which thoughts were real recovered memories that actually happened.

9e. When and How I Recovered the Lost True Memories of Abuse, and How I Distinguished False Thoughts from True Memories

     The first time I felt positive that I had been sexually abused, was in January 2015, when I was living in Portland, Oregon. In January 2015, I knew that I had been molested, but I had only experienced “false memories” about direct abuse at that point; I hadn't yet recovered any true memories.

     The first time I recovered true, somewhat vivid, memories of abuse, however, was a while after that; in March or April 2015, when I was living in Lake Bluff, Illinois. I tried to write down a list of words and terms to jog my memory; I'm not sure whether I consciously did this to try to figure out how I had been abused, but I think that I did.

     I would like to get to the point, and explain how I remembered the first incident of abuse of which I recovered vivid memories (Incident #17, the last chronological incident), but some background is necessary to understand what led up to that.

     Before recovering vivid memories of the abuse in early 2015, I got the distinct feeling, deep inside of my mind and my heart and my gut, that my father had molested me.

     The first memories of abuse were more feelings than memories; feelings of certainty that the abuse had happened, despite lacking details.

     In late 2014 and early 2015, my research had begun to drift away from political topics, and towards psychological and spiritual topics, which I was not then prepared to publish. I began to listen to lectures of Alan Watts on YouTube. Watts was a British mystic, who studied, wrote, and gave lectures on, psychology and spirituality (and the link between them) in the 1960s and 1970s.

     In early January 2015 – probably one of the first few days of the month - I remember sitting in my apartment on the Northwest side of Portland (on NW Hoyt Street) listening to one of Watts's lectures on YouTube. I was sitting on my floor with my legs crossed, facing my laptop computer and the window above and behind it.

     Unfortunately, I cannot remember the title of the particular YouTube video which contained the audio of Watts's lecture, nor can I remember the main topic of the content of the probably hour-long talk. Watts is such a prolific author and lecturer, that it would take weeks to go through all of the audio lectures of his which are available on YouTube alone. For anyone except an expert on Alan Watts, and/or mysticism or psychoanalysis, this task would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

     But what I do distinctly remember, is when Alan Watts came to a dramatic climactic point in his speech, and asked a pointed question at the listener. To the best of my recollection, that question was worded something like this: “What's the one thing that keeps coming up in your mind, over and over again!?” (or perhaps “What keeps coming up in your mind again and again?”) However the question was phrased, it caused me to think “My father molested me” as a response.

     I thought “My father molested me” in my mind, but I did not say it out loud. Nobody else was in my apartment at the time, so there was no need to say it out loud, and nobody else witnessed this event. However, I distinctly remember it happening, as I had recently become interested in researching spirituality and psychology, and Watts spoke on the relationship between those two topics so much that I listened to several of his lectures.

     By now, I have listened to more of Watts's lectures, and he has studied and commented on the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, so he has probably spoken on the topic of child abuse at one point or another. However, I still feel confident that Watts did not say anything about child abuse during his talk. I feel confident saying that neither molestation, nor child abuse, nor anything of the kind, were mentioned in that talk by Alan Watts. I do not believe that Watts did anything to subliminally implant any thoughts about child abuse, nor the phrase child abuse, nor anything similar to that. There was no indication from the talk that Watts was trying to prompt his listeners to think they were molested.

     In my opinion, Watts's desire was probably to cause the listener to confront some memory or possibility that they were denying in their subconscious mind; perhaps something causing cognitive dissonance, and interfering with their ability to process reality accurately. Only a person who had been molested or abused as a child, would think of child abuse as the one thought that they couldn't stop from coming up again and again in their mind, when confronted with such a question.

     Watts simply asked a question, which was, “What's the one thing that keeps coming up in your mind, over and over again!?”. This question really amounts to not much more than “What's on your mind?” or “What's bothering you?”. Yet my response to the question was “My father molested me”, even though his question was totally innocuous and neutral, and suggested nothing in particular. The possibility that my father had seriously abused me or even molested me as a child, was the one question that had recently kept coming up over and over again, in both my conscious mind and my subconscious.

     Listening to Alan Watts pose that question “What keeps coming up in your mind over and over” prompted me to think “My father molested me” for the first time; some time in the first two weeks of January 2015. At that point, I had still not experienced any vivid memories of being touched against my will in a sexual manner; those memories were recovered several months later (in early spring 2015).

     I remember coming away from listening to that lecture, wondering whether my thought was accurate. At that point, since I hadn't yet experienced any thoughts about sexual abuse, this wondering went no further than a simple matter of “did he or didn't he”. I had no intention to jog my memory, nor to recover repressed memories, when I listened to Alan Watts lectures in January 2015; at the time, I had, at most, only a vague, subconscious idea that the way my father had treated me was something serious and something to be concerned about.

     The next indication which I could trust, that my father had molested me, occurred to me several months later, in March or April, after returning home to Lake Bluff from Portland, and moving in with my father.

     I spent March and April 2015 struggling with insufficient access to phone and internet. I had no cell phone when I arrived home in the last week of February, the internet receptivity at my father's house was intolerably slow, and I was in the process of transferring the contents of my failing laptop computer onto an older working laptop of mine which I had found at my father's house after moving in. Once I got a new phone, and restored the old laptop, I had a fast enough internet connection to resume blogging, sending emails, and applying for jobs.

     After solving those problems, I set about going through some old possessions of mine which were stored in plastic bins in my father's garage (including toys from my childhood). I knew, even if only on a subconscious level, that I would not be able to remember what specific manner of molestation had happened to me – nor would I be able to distinguish the false “memories” of abuse from the real ones – unless and until I could reconnect with my childhood in some way. That's why I looked at and read a few of the pieces of art, cartoons, and stories I had drawn and written as a child.

     I also used aromatherapy at the time. My conscious reason for doing this was to calm myself down, but I also think that I did this because I knew that scent is the strongest sense tied to memory. At the time, I was using a vanilla-scented hand lotion that was very calming, and I was also treating my winter-dried hands with Burt's Bees Hand Salve. The scent of Burt's Bees products (which contain beeswax and honey), and especially the scent of the vanilla hand lotion, helped calm me down enough to begin recovering memories of abuse, and helped me remain calm amid the confusion and panic which accompanied the recovery of frightening new memories.

     At some point in March or April 2015, I willed myself to recall the memory of how the insides of Nintendo cartridges smell. I did this because I was trying to remember what had happened to me in my family's basement, in the house which formerly stood at 524 East Washington, Lake Bluff, Illinois. Nintendo cartridges – combined with the musty smell of a basement of a (then) forty-year-old house – helped jogged memories of abuse, because my father abused me, in the manner in which I described in Incidents #2 through #13, in the same room in the basement in which my brother and I would play video games as children. We would play video games using the same television monitor on which my father would watch golf before and after molesting me.

     In late February or early March 2015, I began listening to music while taking baths, using the Pandora application on my smartphone. I was a fan of English guitarist Nick Drake, so during one of those baths (which probably took place around the first week of March 2015), Pandora recommended the song “I'd Like to Walk Around in Your Mind” by English singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan.

     I remember being soothed by the song, but also perturbed by it. The mood and tone of the song are calm and soothing; featuring a female vocal, an acoustic guitar, strings, and other instruments, and containing pleasing chord changes and pleasant melodies. However, the lyrical content of the song was perturbing and “triggering”, enough to cause me to recover memories. But since the song is calming, and none of the lyrics are obviously upsetting – and nothing in the song alludes to abuse nor molestation, and most of the lyrics are positive – this song does not currently cause me panic attacks, nor did it cause me panic attacks back then in 2015. one line stood out.

     The lyrics of the line which stood out, and “triggered me” (by which I mean “caused me to recover repressed memories”), was the line, “I would disturb your easy tranquility, I'd turn away the sad impossibility of your smile”. An interpretation based on literal meaning would tell us that the singer wants to make the subject (or listener) happy, but also that the singer wants to, in so many words, “disturb” them. When Bunyan sings, “I would disturb your easy tranquility”; by “I would”, she means “I want to”, and by “disturb your easy tranquility”, she means she wants to interrupt or disrupt the listener's calmness. And indeed she did; my tranquility was certainly disrupted and disturbed when I heard that line of the song.

     Hearing Vashti Bunyan's “I'd Like to Walk Around in Your Mind”, while taking a bath in my father's house in February or March 2015, helped me recover the memory which I described in Incident #17, the final and most recent incident chronologically. Hearing Bunyan sing “I would disturb your easy tranquility” caused me to remember my father caressing the back of my head in a hotel room at the Union League Club in Chicago.

     The combination of expressing an intention to disturb someone, and an intention to enter their mind without them knowing (as in the penultimate line “but most of all I'd like you to be unaware”), made me remember that my father had touched the back of my head without my consent. I later realized that this touching was an episode of “pedophile grooming”.

     I might as well note here that Vashti Bunyan's music has been especially helpful, throughout the month of November 2019, to provide me with the calmness of mind which I needed to complete this statement. The fact that her music is therapeutic can be verified by listening to it; about 90% or more of her musical output consists of a whisper-like vocal over soft, finger-picked acoustic guitars, and sometimes feudal-era instruments. While most of her songs sound sweet, many of them contain brutal honesty, and even criticism of the subject or listener, of the variety that they perhaps don't want to hear, but need to hear (for example, “Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind”, although Bunyan didn't write it). Being confronted with something I needed to hear, but perhaps didn't completely want to, was certainly my experience, anyway.

     It is worth noting that “to disturb” or “to bother” is rendered in Spanish as “molestar”. Now, I am in no way trying to say that Bunyan intended such a double meaning by including the word “disturb”; few people would make that connection. But that just goes to show, as in the Alan Watts example before that, that it is my subjective interpretation – that is, the interpretation performed by myself, a victim of child sexual abuse – of what Watts and Bunyan were saying, which caused me to think of molestation consciously. My revelations had nothing to do with the content of Watts's nor Bunyan's words, and everything to do with what memories and realizations they evoked within me.

     [Note: I should also note that in 2017, two years after hearing Bunyan's song in the bath, I observed my father singing the Spanish-language backing vocals in The Clash's song “Should I Stay or Should I Go”, several times. Each of those times, I have heard him repeat the line “esta indecisión me molesta” (“this indecision's bugging me”), with the emphasis on the word “molesta”. I think it's reasonable to conclude that my father is entertained by the word “molest”; I suspect that this is because he got away with molesting his son.]

     Another event which caused me to remember the events of Incident #17 more clearly, occurred some time around the time I heard Vashti Bunyan's song in the bath. I'm not sure whether it was before or afterwards, but I remembered that I had been pressured to wear penny loafers to events as a child. Some time in March or April 2015, I thought about the possibility that I was abused, while hand-writing a list of words and phrases which were on my mind.

     If I remember correctly, I was thinking about coins at the time; for example, the possibility that my last name Kopsick might be a reference to a small denomination of Russian currency, the fact that a nickel can stand on its side and thus has three edges, and the design of the U.S. dime. I was likely also remembering, at the time, that my family had had a golden retriever named Penny when I was growing up. It was either this focus on coins (and Penny), or consciously trying to jog my memories about abuse, or both, which caused me to come up with the term “penny loafers”.

     Unfortunately, I can't vividly remember writing that term down, nor can I find any document in my possession which bears the term. But that could be because I thought of penny loafers after completing the list. Either way, remembering that I didn't like wearing penny loafers as a child, helped me remember other times I had been pressured to wear constrictive clothing (and pressured to accept unwanted affection and touching when I dressed so “cute”), and that memory helped me to remember my father caressing the back of my head (i.e., the events of Incident #17).

     Aside from the term “penny loafers” becoming a “trigger word” for me (that is, a word that prompts memories of abuse to come flooding back), the word “breezeway” may have resulted from that attempt to make a list of terms to jog my memory. I can't remember whether I first suspected my father of molesting me in the breezeway of our house in January 2015 or in March or April. My thoughts about being molested in the breezeway, and in my father's bedroom closet, turned out to be false, after I thought about them for a while.

     Thinking about possibly being abused in the breezeway of my family's house, eventually resulted in me realizing that those “memories”, as well as the “memories” of being molested in my father's closet, are false (and probably attributable to much less stressful events which occurred in those locations). But thinking about why penny loafers were on my mind, caused me to remember that my parents, and the school, had made me wear penny loafer shoes as a child. It wasn't primarily that penny loafers made me uncomfortable; I found some consolation and “coolness” in the fact that I could wear money on my shoes openly. But it was the other clothing, which the adults around me wanted me to wear, that bothered me.

     I remember being pressured to wear penny loafers, and other uncomfortable, ill-fitting and tight-fitting clothing. I remember being “rewarded” for wearing them, by being called “cute” by my parents and their friends. Students had to dress that way for musical productions, and other social events (such as golf outings). I had to dress that way on the evening of Incident #17, in order to dress appropriately enough to have dinner in a restaurant of the Union League Club Hotel in Chicago. During that incident – when my father was with me in our hotel room helping me get changed for dinner – my father caressed the back of my head with his fingers, and I remember beginning to cry.

     That memory of being touched on my head, is the memory which resurfaced then (in early 2015), and that is the memory which comes up now, when I think about penny loafers and being expected to wear constrictive, uncomfortable clothing (which made me look like an adult) as a child. This memory of being touched on the head by my father, is the same memory which resurfaced when I heard “I'd Like to Walk Around in Your Mind” by Vashti Bunyan on the Pandora app on my smartphone, while taking a bath at my father's house in March 2015.

     Before concluding on the topic of uncomfortable clothing, I also wish to note that I find it incredibly upsetting, hurtful, and irresponsible that my father has told me that I should be willing to – in his own words, verbatim – “prostitute myself” in order to get a job. I believe that being expected to “prostitute myself” includes looking the way others want me to, and “prostituting myself” for a job goes against not only my need for self-expression, but my sense of morals regarding what is an honorable career and an honorable way to acquire one. I especially struggle to understand how such “prostitution for a job” could help someone at all; because as a child, I was rewarded for being “cute”, and for dressing like an adult, by having adults get a little too close to me. At worst, my reward for being “cute” – in the case of Incident #17 – was being caressed on the back of the head against my will (and possibly more abuse which followed that, which I am still unable to recall). Dressing children like adults, in ill-fitting clothing, and telling them to prostitute themselves in order to get jobs, may produce someone who is well-adjusted for submitting, but it doesn't produce someone who is well-adjusted to being independent, nor someone who is confident in his appearance and self-esteem.

     Those events – hearing Alan Watts ask a question, hearing Vashti Bunyan's song, remembering the smell of Nintendo game cartridges (evoking the smell of the basement room in which the abuse occurred), and remembering portions of what happened during Incident #17 – are all the important early examples wherein I realized I had been abused, and then began to remember the first of the true memories of the abuse which I have recovered.

     The preceding accounts are all the instances between mid-2014 and April 2015 in which I reported and recovered false thoughts and true memories of serious abuse by my father. But they are, by no means, the only instances in which I recovered true memories of abuse. Hearing Watts and Bunyan were just footnotes, and early important examples, in what has turned out to be a five-year-long process of recovering lost and repressed memories.

     I also watched the films Anastasia and Ferngully in 2015, and The Sword in the Stone and Once Upon a Forest later, in order to try to help recover memories of my childhood from between the ages of five and ten years old. I did this because those were some of my favorite movies growing up, and I thought that watching them would help me connect with the memories, and state of mind, which I had around the ages at which I noticed gaps in my memory.

     I recovered the basic set of memories of Incidents #2 through #13 some time in the late spring or early summer of 2017. I recovered more memories about those incidents in late 2019, especially during the last three months of 2019 (while composing this report).

     [Note: I am not sure what the legal standards are, regarding how to prove that I “reasonably” realized, or should have realized, that the abuse had occurred (in the language of the Illinois criminal code, “discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence should discover”), but I should note that the fact that I didn't recover memories of unwanted tickling until 2017, probably means that I am still well within the five-year deadline of reporting the incidents of abuse.]

     It's difficult to say exactly when I recovered those memories, because my father had “tickled” my genitals so many times, that the memories were “just beneath the surface” of my conscious mind, and easy to access. A short time after recovering those memories of unwanted sexual tickling, I told my mother that my father had molested me after catching me in “the triangle” formed by his legs and the back of the couch.

     After becoming aware of these memories, and before and after disclosing them, I engaged in a form of “reality testing”, in order to discern whether these memories of being tickled against my will, were real or not. I latched onto the memory of sitting in “the triangle”, which I experienced plenty of times before and without being molested. I latched onto this memory because I'm absolutely positive that I sat there many times, and because I suspected (correctly) that remembering sitting in “the triangle” would help me remember part of (and eventually, nearly all of) the details of what would happen next.

     I can vividly remember the feeling of being trapped by my father's legs, scooped up in his arms, and tickled and jabbed at all over my body while he shook me and held me down so that I would be unable to resist. Thinking about my father inflicting this unwanted sexual touching upon me, evokes and provokes a strong feeling with me; an urge to resist physically. I think about having my legs clamped-down on by my father's legs, my arms held back by his hands, and my lungs and ribs being compressed while he groped my genitals, and I have the same thoughts and reactions which I had then: “Try to push and swat his hands away, and cover my crotch so he can't touch my genitals any more.” While being molested, I did that; while remembering it, I feel an impulse in my mind to do that, but I do not make any physical moves when I feel that impulse because I am a sane adult who is in control of his reactions and not governed by fleeting emotions nor whims.

     After recovering memories of unwanted sexual tickling on my family's basement couch, I “tested reality” and tested my own memory, in order to distinguish the false thoughts from the true memories; resulting in the realization that the memories of unwanted “tickling” were real, and the realization that I can still – on some level – physically “feel” the abuse, when I think about it.

     The urge to put up a physical resistance, which I have felt whenever I have thought about and visualized the manner in which my father molested and restrained me, makes me 100% confident that these memories are accurate, and also confident that that my father intentionally kept my arms away from my crotch so that he could touch my genitals without resistance.

     That is what I needed to do to confirm, in my conscious mind, that the thoughts I was experiencing were true memories, rather than intrusive thoughts which I realized later were false (as in the examples of the closet, the breezeway, and forced oral sex). I am more confident about what happened during Incidents #2 through #13, than I am about any of the other incidents which I described.

     I am still trying to figure out if several images are real, however. I have an image in my mind, of myself at a very young age, being forced to kneel in my bedroom, while facing the mirror on my dresser. In this image, my brother is kneeling to my right, and we are both naked. I feel like my father told us to disrobe and kneel, while looking at the mirror, as a way to distract us while he molested us from behind. I have no vivid memory of this happening – in terms of either remembering how the possible abuse felt, nor in terms of it provoking a physical response – so I suspect that this did not happen. However, I can't be sure that it didn't happen, because I also know that I experienced incidents of unwanted genital touching which I blanked-out for entire decades at a time. So the fact that I can't remember any more than what I described, doesn't make me feel any more certain that that was not another incident of abuse (and, if it was, then it was perhaps the earliest one).

9f. How Concern Regarding Potential Legal Obstacles Has Delayed My Reporting of the Abuse

     One reason why I have delayed my reporting of the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of my father, concerns my lack of knowledge and expertise regarding what the laws in Illinois surrounding the various types of child sexual abuse and the reporting thereof.

     Additionally, the following facts have also made it difficult for me to come forward as early as I would have liked to: 1) the fact that I know little about how gag orders work, and that I don't know whether or when I might be subject to one; and 2) the fact that my father is an attorney, and an influential one at that, and also someone who is likely to know any judge who may be asked to serve in this case.

     The main legal obstacle which could have made it difficult if I had attempted to come forward about the abuse any earlier, was the fact that I believed that the Illinois statute of limitations for reporting the abuses I suffered, had expired.

     However, if I am not mistaken now, I was wrong then, and I was thinking about a slightly different crime, whose statute of limitations had expired. Whatever the case, Illinois repealed a statute of limitations concerning some form of child sexual abuse, in 2003, and I became aware, through finding out about that repeal, that I could still file charges against my father.

     In mid-2019, I believed that I had until I turned thirty-eight (38) years old – that is, that I had within twenty years after turning eighteen (18) – to report the abuses, because that was my reading of the laws at the time. That reading was incorrect, however, as the 2003 Illinois law set that limit at ten years after becoming an adult. I cannot even say that I know for sure whether this law applies to my case; I think it does, though.

     I suspect that I have either until the first week in January 2020, or else some time in spring or summer 2022, to come forward and report these incidents of abuse; depending on when I “reasonably” should have known that the abuse had occurred. I am not sure what constitutes “reasonable diligence” in discovering “that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred” (to use the language found in ILCS § 5/13-202.2), and I am not sure what is “sufficient to start the discovery period”. Nor am I sure what “through the use of reasonable diligence should discover” means, exactly (see Image #16 in Section 14 of this report for more information about statutes of limitations on reporting childhood sex crimes in Illinois).

     Furthermore, there may be a new law, regarding statute of limitations on reporting childhood sexual abuse, which could take effect on January 1^st, 2020 (the day after I am filing this report). I am coming forward now because I want to make sure that I don't pass a five-year deadline (if it exists), and I want to make sure that I file this report before the law changes in a way that alters or revokes my legal privileges to file a police report and to press charges.

     That lack of knowledge is why I am coming forward; I need the assistance of legal counsel to help me determine how and when I can pursue these charges.

     However, I believe that, if necessary or required, I will be able to produce evidence that I have physical injuries and emotional traumas, and that they resulted from the childhood sexual abuse which my father inflicted upon me (as well as from his emotional abuse, intimidation, and manipulation). I also have this written statement, which I hope will be considered the first piece of evidence in the discovery process (or, if not that, then this statement should at least be the basis for a police report).

     I am willing to testify in open court, and willing to produce more verbal statements and police reports, about my accusations against my father; and I am willing to answer any questions which police investigators and the defense team may have for me. I intend to call several witnesses to corroborate the circumstances surrounding the incidents of abuse (which I believe will help jurors understand that my father had ample opportunity to commit the acts of sexual abuse, and condoned several other forms of sexually creepy behavior).

     Another potential legal obstacle which has contributed to my hesitation in coming forward, is the facts that I do not know much about how gag orders work, and that I do not understand the laws regarding libel and slander.

     I am not sure what I am legally allowed to say regarding my father, before what I want to say has been proven in court. I would like to go through the proper legal channels which are necessary to report these abuses, and pursue a case against my abuser. I am making this statement because I need the assistance of legal counsel to help me determine what I can say, outside of this statement, without risking being subject to punitive consequences.

9g. How Concern About My Father's Professional Ties Has Delayed My Reporting of the Abuse

     Two additional factors which have made it difficult for me to come forward earlier, concern my father's profession, and his social and professional ties to other attorneys and judges in Lake County, Illinois.

     My father is attorney in private practice, and a member of the Lake County Bar Association (L.C.B.A.). He specializes in personal injury, criminal defense, medical negligence, and other areas of law. He works at the Law Offices of Richard S. Kopsick, P.C., located at 415 Washington Street, Suite 207, in Waukegan, Illinois. From June 2004 to June 2005, my father served as the President of the Lake County Bar Association (L.C.B.A.). Since the BAR Association is the most powerful and populous attorneys' union in the country, President of the L.C.B.A. is the highest level of leadership and power, in attorneys' professional associations, which is attainable in Lake County, Illinois.

     The fact that my father is a former L.C.B.A. president, and a successful attorney – with many connections to circles of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and police officers, in the counties of Lake and Cook (in Illinois) alike – causes me significant concern about my chances at getting a fair trial in Lake County. This is especially so, considering the fact that any judge who might be called to serve in my case, has probably met my father already, or at least heard of him. This means that it will likely be very difficult to avoid a potential conflict of interest, in the judicial selection process for this case.

     Despite the odds being stacked against me, I am pursuing these charges. I am doing so, because I feel that I owe it to myself to do so; first, because I may be the only person with legal standing to do so (aside from, possibly, my brother). Merely asking my father to admit what he did, would result in no more people knowing the truth; and turning himself in would be useless, because there is no warrant out for his arrest, so he would almost certainly not be booked if he tried to turn himself in. I have standing to press charges against him, and that is what I am doing, because I don't need permission from anyone (neither victim nor aggressor) to hold my child molester responsible and accountable for his criminal actions.

     I am also pursuing these charges because I feel that I owe it to the community which has supported myself, my father, and his business. I know that the residents of Waukegan, Lake Bluff, etc., would be very interested to find out that an influential attorney in their community – at that, one who once headed the county's Bar Association – molested his own son when his son was aged eight and nine. The residents of Lake County, Illinois would probably take their business elsewhere if they knew that.

     It's not that I want to see my father's business suffer; I don't. My father derives his income from that law office, and so does my mother, who works as his secretary. I am not filing a report against my father in order to sabotage his business; on the contrary, I do not want money out of this, and I don't like seeing my mother struggle financially.

     All I want is the following: 1) for my father to publicly admit what he did; 2) for my mother and I to be able to support ourselves independently, without having to shut up and pretend everything is fine, in order to keep my child-molesting father happy; 3) for my father to get the punishment and/or psychological counseling which he so badly and clearly needs; and 4) to be able to rest easily, knowing that child custody attorneys and G.A.L.s (Guardians Ad Litem) associated with my father, are not having their morals about what constitutes child abuse, nor their opinions about me, negatively influenced by my father.

     It would certainly be unfortunate if being around my father has made it more difficult for other attorneys to detect pedophiles and child molesters in their midst. I would also hate to allow the legal community of Lake County to continue to think it is acceptable to let child molesters to get off with reading about why child abuse is bad, and doing community service instead of hard time in prison, simply because they've been a provider for, or caretaker of, the child, in the past. As I explained, my father used gifts and bribery – and shame, guilt, and manipulation – to make my mother and I dependent upon him, and to deter us from criticizing his emotional abuse (and his other upsetting behaviors). Child sexual abuse is a serious crime, and it cannot be resolved nor forgiven through activities such as reading a pamphlet (which to a psychopathic abuser may inspire absolutely no remorse nor introspection whatsoever), nor can it be resolved through settling monetary with the victim (which, like gifts, only serves to purchase the victim's silence).

     I worry that my father's friends believe that I am insane, and/or spiteful and vengeful about some unnamed past wrong perpetrated by my father, and I worry that they think that I hate my father (or at least, that I don't get along with him) for absolutely no reason. I do not hate my father, but I suspect that he hates me, because that's the only logical explanation for the fact that he molested me when I was eight and nine years old.

     Even if my father doesn't hate me, he molested me; it's possible for child molesters to offend against children without having any hatred for them, nor attraction to them. What my father did to me was probably the result of a power trip, which had a secondary benefit to him, of sexual gratification. The possibility that sexual gratification might not have been his main goal, however, does not make what he did any less harmful, nor any less innately sexual; and it has nonetheless left me with the impression that my father hates me.

     I would like to come forward about my father's sexual abuse, but I cannot in good conscience go forward with the case, if there is any chance that judges, attorneys, or police officers who know my father, will be involved in the case. These include current Lake County judge Victoria Rossetti, attorney Doug Zeit, attorney and Guardian Ad Litem Joseph McKeown, prosecutor Steve Scheller, former Lake Bluff police officers Carl Schons and Dan Dunn, and others.

9h. How Concern About My Father's Potential Reaction Has Made it Difficult to Cease Contact with Him

     Looking back on things, I grew up not really remembering the full reason why I didn't get along with my father; now I know that it was because he had sexually abused me, and had subsequently embarked on a more than twenty-year-long campaign to subtly smear and silence me, while also pretending he was trying to raise me to have self-esteem and independence. Everything he did eroded my self-esteem and independence.

     I must explain how and why the difficulties which I have encountered in trying to become financially independent from my father, and why the difficulties I've encountered in trying to decrease and cease contact with him, have contributed to why I did not report these crimes earlier.

     To be clear, before continuing: I want to decrease and cease contact with my father. I want that, not because I hold some grudge against him, nor because I hate him. My father suspects that I hate him and hold a grudge against him. He has told me that many times, since I was about 13 years old. He feels like I hate him, and he thinks that I blame him for everything that has ever gone wrong in my life. He would also insist to me, “You think I'm the biggest asshole who's ever lived.” Again, he told me these things verbatim, multiple times throughout my teenage and adult life, despite the fact that I have never said such a thing to him.

     I do not hate my father, nor do I blame him for everything bad that's ever happened to me, nor have I ever told him that I think he's an asshole. In fact, when I would tell him thinks like “I don't hate you” or “I never called you an asshole”, he would keep on insisting that I did hate him. My father responded as though he would rather be correct that I thought he was an asshole, than reassured by my statements that I didn't hate him. My father chose not to believe me; he needed to incite drama, and fabricate pretend attacks that never happened, in order to make it seem like he was under a constant state of emotional attack by me. This was what was necessary to protect his ego.

     I believe that the reason why my father has said those things to me, is that he feels like he needs to defend himself. Maybe he knows that he did something wrong when he molested me, and he wants to distract from that molestation by fabricating some new conflict between himself and me (over and over again). Growing up, if I criticized or questioned him, he would overstate and exaggerate the nature of that criticism and questioning, to make it out to seem like I was attacking him, or even criticizing or questioning or challenging his very existence. My father would take every disagreement we had, and then make it look like an attack, turn it into a fight, and overreact. In so doing, he succeeded in making himself look like the victim.

     That is what my father did to manufacture a new conflict between us, every single time I challenged him while in my teens and twenties. Every time I opened my mouth to question or criticize him – or even asked him to explain his reasoning before I agreed to do something he told me to do, just so I would understand it better – he would respond almost as if I had told him that I hated him, or that I wished I had never been born. He perceived every criticism and question as a direct attack on his credibility, which threatens him because without his reputation, he is nothing more than an alcoholic domestic abuser.

     I have always been as submissive and accommodating as I can possibly be towards my father. I could not possibly be any more submissive, without becoming either a mouse, or else invisible.

     I am seeking legal recourse to the abuses I suffered, because I find it practically impossible to heal my relationship with my father by myself, or even with the help of family members. My family always makes it out as though I'm the one who has to learn to accept my father the way he is; they say “That's just the way he is”, “He's like that with everyone”, and “You can't change people”. It is additionally difficult for me to “heal my relationship” with my father, because now that I have recovered the memories of the molestation which I suffered, and told my mother and father about it directly to their faces, reconciliation with my father is (in my opinion) now impossible without direct legal intervention to facilitate it.

     The idea that our problems can be reconciled, implies that our conflict is ongoing; but it is only ongoing in the sense that it is unresolved. The conflict stems from a series of incidents of molestation; therefore, the only things which will resolve and end the conflict, is the revelation and admission of the facts that that molestation occurred; and, following that, the resolution of legal matters regarding the events which occurred during those incidents of sexual abuse.

     Furthermore, the idea that I can “end” the conflict (i.e., the lack of resolution and closure regarding the incidents of sexual abuse which I suffered) by decreasing or ceasing communication with my father, has proven to be difficult, all but impossible, and false. Ceasing contact with my father, and becoming fully independent of him, has proven to be an insurmountable obstacle.

     My father pays for a car (a blue Kia Forte) which I use, which is leased from a Kia dealer (Classic Kia at 425 North Green Bay Road, Gurnee) and he also pays for my car insurance. The last thing I want is to be called ungrateful or unappreciative for refusing to accept that gift, or for returning it. And my father implied that I was ungrateful for the car on the day that he gave it to me. He asked me if I liked the car, and I probably said a simple “Yeah” without much excitement in my voice (which I did because I knew that my father hates outbursts of emotion). My father responded, in an almost angry-sounding way, “I think it's pretty fuckin' cool.” I thought his response was strange; I have never understood how to show gratitude for my father's gifts without him becoming angry and without me feeling shame for not expressing my gratitude.

     In order to cease all contact with my father, it will be necessary to return the car which he leases for me. I would like to return that car, not only to reduce contact with my father, but also to avoid any possible criticism which could be leveled against me, by those who may suspect that I am making these charges up because I am spoiled and want more money and gifts. That is absolutely not the case; every gift from my father is “an offer I can't refuse”, and I cannot wait to stop being influenced and manipulated by them.

     I am not asking for monetary nor material compensation, I will only seek such compensation if it is the only way to produce a judgment of guilt against my father, and if that is necessary, then I will seek the minimum amount which the law allows (whether that's a penny, a dollar, twenty dollars, or whatever it may be). I will do this to communicate that this is about principles and justice, not rewards; I do not want my father's money, I just want my child molester in jail (and to get psychiatric treatment).

     I would gladly give up the car - and start taking the bus to work, or start taking taxicabs or Uber, or buy a cheap car from one of my friends - in order to become more independent from my father. However, I also know my father well enough to be able to say that if I returned the car to my father's garage, he would suspect that something was up, and he would probably start asking questions. He might even tell my mother that he thinks I returned the car because I hate him, or am harboring resentment against him. If I spoke to him about it directly and in person, he would probably do the exact same thing, but sooner and more quickly and angrily.

     I am composing this statement, and filing a police report, before attempting to return the car to my father, because I know that if I return the car, my father will begin to suspect that I am attempting to become fully financially independent from him, and/or that I am attempting to cease contact with him (which is true). I want to avoid tipping my father off, because I am confident that returning the car to him will cause a backlash against me, and might even cause my father to re-launch his smear campaign against my character.

     At the very least, he would probably guilt-trip me for either not accepting his gift, or describe me as ungrateful or unappreciative. I say this because he routinely did so during my childhood and adulthood; offering me what I have always described as “gifts with strings attached”, which I believe are intended to help maintain his control over me and my decisions.

     One more reason why I did not come forward about the abuse as soon as I could have, pertains to the manner in which my father coerced my mother into dependence upon him.

     My father's successful manipulation of my mother into dependence, has served to make my mother into one of what are sometimes called “Flying Monkeys”, the “helper monkeys” of narcissists who defend them and make excuses for them. My mother has helped my father shame me into accepting my father's gifts, and into refusing to criticize my father on account of those gifts and his financial support.

9i. Why I Am Coming Forward Now

     I am coming forward now because I have just recently finished resolving the obstacles which prevented me from coming forward. Those obstacles included lack of sufficient legal knowledge about Criminal Sexual Abuse, gag orders, and slander; and the fact that I had not yet produced this statement. I have researched the laws and written about them in this statement, in order to “kill two birds with one stone”.

     In 2003, Illinois passed a law which states that adults whom were abused as children, have five years after discovering that they were abused, to report the crimes. If I have explained the law correctly here, this means that I have until January 2020 to report the abuses. That's because the first time I knew that my father molested me was in the first few days or weeks January 2015. I might have until March or April 2020, however; because it wasn't until March or April 2015 that the first vivid memories of being touched on the back of my head (during Incident #17) surfaced. Either way, I am completing this statement in late December of 2019, so that five-year limit is still either at least a day away, or else three or four months away, or two years away (if you consider that the most important memories were recovered in spring or summer 2017), so I am still within the window of opportunity to file a report.

     The law passed in 2003 – ILCS § 5/13-202.2 (b) – reads as follows: “...an action for damages for personal injury based on childhood sexual abuse must be commenced within 10 years of the date [a person turns 18] or within 5 years of the date the person abused discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence should discover both (I) that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred and (ii) that the injury was caused by the childhood sexual abuse. The fact that the person abused discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence should discover that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred is not by itself, sufficient to start the discovery period under this subsection (b). Knowledge of the abuse does not constitute discovery of the injury or the causal relationship between any later-discovered injury and the abuse.” More information about the 2003 Illinois law can be found at the following web address: http://corporate.findlaw.com/litigation-disputes/the-statute-of-limitations-for-childhood-sexual-abuse-in-illinois.html.

     That five year limit (on reporting the abuse after discovering it) does not apply, however, if the abuser used “threats, intimidation, manipulation, or fraud” against the victim. I will explain later in this statement, in which forms of intimidation, manipulation, and fraud my father engaged; I suspect, in order to keep me quiet about the abuse. I cannot remember my father threatening me in any direct manner, but the intimidation, manipulation, and fraud which I experienced, could arguably be construed to constitute indirect threats.

     As I explained, a legal obstacle which has delayed my reporting of the abuse until now, is the fact that I have had, and am still having, difficulty understanding the laws concerning when and how I can report the abuses which were inflicted upon me.

     I am making this statement and filing a police report, before 2020 begins and the five-year reporting limit passes, in order to make sure that I am not reporting the crimes outside of the window of opportunity in which I can legally do so. According to my reading of the current laws on the matter, if I am unable to prove that my father used threats, intimidation, manipulation, or fraud; then I must file charges before January 2020, or March or April 2020, if I wish to hold my abuser responsible.

     There are probably additional laws on the books in Illinois which provide for the punishment of people who knowingly withhold information about abuse in a manner which serves to hide, protect, or provide cover for those who commit child sexual abuse. If I can be held legally responsible for failing to report these crimes, then I wish to profusely apologize, and swear that I did not do so intentionally, and especially not with malice of forethought. I do not wish to be charged with a misdemeanor or felony for providing aid, shelter, comfort, assistance, or any further appeasement, to my abuser; that is why I am coming forward now, which was as soon as I could reasonably come forward with a detailed written statement to back me up.

     That is why I am reporting these abuses now, without knowing for sure whether I am legally obligated to do so; I am also coming forward because I admit that I need the assistance of legal counsel to make a more informed decision about when and how to report these crimes and how I can hold my abuser accountable.

     My father has seized on each and every opportunity to bribe me into silence, and into doing what he wants, with conditional gifts. He has also engaged in verbal and physical intimidation (as well as fraud and manipulation) to keep me in a state of denial, confusion, and silence, about what he did to me as a child.

     Child abuse can occur through deprivation, but spoiling a child is child abuse too. Especially if you spoil the child in order to control them, like by offering them gifts which they can only have if they agree to other conditions which they wouldn't accept in the absence of such coercion and ultimatums.

     I believe that if I were, right now, fully financially independent from my father, I would have even fewer qualms about coming forward about the abuse. My concern is that people will think I am making these stories up because I am ungrateful for my father's gifts, and for his paying for my car. But I repeat: I am not after my father's money, these stories are absolutely true, and I know that I am being pressured into continuing to accept gifts from my father. It hurts my heart to continue to accept these gifts, and it causes me a sense of moral conflict. I want this pattern to stop as soon as possible, but I cannot stop it on my own.

     My primary concern, in filing this report, is not for the destruction of my father's business, nor for the preservation of my own ego and reputation. My primary concerns are about: 1) past victims of child sexual abuse in Lake County, who may have to suffer through being represented by an attorney whose morality concerning child sexual abuse is colored by my father's embrace of that problem; 2) the possibility that my father, the defendant, may sexually abuse someone else in the future; and 3) my father's mental state, and his need of psychological counseling.

     I suspect that my father may have some sort of superiority complex, and/or an inferiority complex, as well as a victim complex, resulting in a martyrdom complex. He sees himself as deserving something more than what he has, which he can never have; probably because he lost his mother at a young age and had to grow up quickly. He probably believes that he is a victim, due to the sense of abandonment which his mother's death made him feel, and believes that as a victim the world owed him a mother. I believe that my father's being overpowered by his older brother and his younger (but nonetheless strong) brother, contributed to his feelings of inferiority, and to his need to overcome those feelings of inferiority by controlling others physically (and, to a lesser extent, manipulating them socially).

     I also worry about my father's ability to serve a morally purposeful life, and his ability to understand morality in the first place.

     I fear that my father's world-view is too pragmatic to be anything other than an outlook which is ultimately self-serving and self-excusing (and justifying of his own past crimes). He certainly has enough of a moral purpose to want to do his job, but I worry that he also suffers from a sort of cognitive dissonance regarding his obligation to serve clients to the best of his ability, especially in regard to times when “going above and beyond” to do so, isn't necessarily called for, nor in the interest of justice. He also hates being criticized, and takes criticism and questioning extremely personally; almost as if it were an attack on his very life or well-being.

     I worry that my father has no sense of morality, and that he is a nihilist. In fact, he told me on Christmas 2019 that he doesn't know whether there is a difference between right and wrong. Granted, he was speaking about factual matters, but that still doesn't make sense; things are either true, or they're false. My father might have been speaking in a moral sense as well. I am concerned that my father doesn't concern himself with other people's needs, except insofar as their needs can be manipulated in a way that serves my father's goals of gaining control over people and being accepted socially.

     My father suffers from a total lack of realization that the way he treats people needs to qualitatively change, and a need to maintain the illusion that he is an innocent, honorable, and accomplished person. Since I was a teenager, I have struggled to communicate this to him; first regarding his relationship with my mother, then regarding his relationship with me and other people.

     My father's parenting style showed, time and time again, his utter contempt and disregard for his children's needs of bodily autonomy and privacy. Perhaps emotionally, physically, and sexually abusing me, were his forms of misdirected revenge, for that trauma which he suffered as a teenager, when his mother died.

     Perhaps most importantly, I want those of my father's friends who have children, and I want my brother Michael – whom is due to have a baby with his wife some time in May 2020 – to know what my father did to me, so that they can keep their children away from him, to prevent their children from suffering a fate similar to the one which I suffered in 1995 and 1996.

     It especially worries me that I know my nephew is a boy, because I am a male as well, and my father preyed on me. I know that if my father is allowed to remain a free man, I will always have to defend my nephew from him, or else I will have to convince my brother that he has to defend his son because my father is the threat which I claim he is.

     The fact that my father has had a vasectomy since molesting me, might mean that he has less of an urge or an impulse to want or “need” to commit sexual abuse against male children, but the vasectomy doesn't make it impossible for him to do such a thing. For all I know, I am the only person whom my father ever molested; but for all I know, he also could have molested my brother, or perhaps other children. Maybe, like the way he molested me, he could have molested them so viciously that they didn't remember who did it, or didn't remember it happening at all. Whatever the case, I'm certain that I won't find out, unless I file charges against my father concerning what I personally observed (and experienced) him doing to me.

     I believe that my father continuing to be a free man, constitutes a standing threat to the physical autonomy and integrity, and sexual innocence and purity, of all male children who may be around him. My father is a standing threat to boys, whom will not be fully neutralized, until he is in jail or prison. I will not be held responsible for following my father around for the rest of his life, making sure that he does not abuse my nephew, and other children whom he may encounter.

     Although fraud, intimidation, and manipulation were all present in my case, it's possible that I might fail to satisfactorily demonstrate that they occurred. That is why I am reporting these abuses now; before the new year and before January of 2020 begins.

     At the time of the composition of this statement, and the filing of my report against my father, it has still been less than five years since I recovered the lost and repressed memories, and discovering the abuse; that happened in January, March, and April 2015. Since the process of discovering evidence of Criminal Sexual Abuse must begin within five years of discovering the abuse, that means that I should be within the authorized time frame to file a police report on this matter.

     The final reason why I am coming forward now, is that I know that if I wait any longer to file a police report and seek justice from my aggressor, I will effectively waive my right to do so thereafter, in the eyes of the law. I don't want to be accused of either passively waiving my right to hold my abuser accountable; nor do I wish to be accused of “asking for”, nor welcoming, the abuse.

     I witnessed and experienced these acts of Criminal Sexual Abuse, I might be the only witness, and I have an obligation to talk about what I saw and felt, and the way I was touched. To my knowledge, I am the only person with standing to do so. The safe bet would be to report the crimes, whether they can be prosecuted or not, because those abuses did happen, and I will only have myself to blame for what happens if I fail to come forward in time to hold my abuser responsible.

     In summary, I'm coming forward to set the record straight; I'm coming forward because I want to make it known what my father did to me, and in so doing, I want to hold him accountable. Those are my only goals in all of this; to achieve a justiciable – and, most importantly to me, peaceful and violence-free – resolution to this conflict in which my father admits wrongdoing (and then, also, to get him the psychological counseling that he needs).

     I am coming forward because, despite the odds stacked against me (i.e., as much as half of the legal community of Lake County potentially being on my father's side), I owe it to myself to try to get justice for what happened to me; not only for myself, but for the safety of the community. Additionally, I owe it to the community to explain how my father tricked me into getting molested and manipulated me into staying quiet, so that the residents of Lake County can learn to notice signs that a child is trying to communicate that an adult has committed an act of unwanted touching against them (which the child may be incapable of even recognizing as sexual).

     I'm coming forward because I have the duty to report this abuse, because even if I can't go to jail for failing to disclose this abuse, I am not sure that I won't be punished later in life, or in the afterlife, for protecting a child molester. Child molesters belong in mental health facilities and prisons, not representing people in courtrooms and running law offices. I am not going to behave like a whore who was paid to shut up after sex, and continue to be quiet about my father's “indiscretions”. I want to disclose the abuse, and I want people to know that he molested me, because he did, and it's a fact, and he broke the law, and he victimized me.

     I spent the last twenty-three years in silence about my father's molestation; first I repressed memories of the abuse until I was unable to remember them, then I suffered all kinds of social and communication problems due to my father's ongoing emotional abuse, and then finally I had to spent several years struggling to recover memories, while sorting the true from the false, and having to worry about whether true memories would come out of my mouth when I tried to report the abuse. I know now what happened to me, and now that it is written down, what happened to me now exists in physical form which I can carry around with me, and I can be silent about the incidents of abuse no longer.

     I allowed my father to turn twenty-three years of my life into a long attempt to hide a child molester and shield him from justice (by allowing him to intimidate and manipulate me into refraining from criticizing him). I will not spend the rest of my life protecting any child molester, especially not my own.

     Aside from having the duty to report this abuse, I also have the right to do so, both legally and in terms of innate human rights and the rights of a victim. Furthermore, it would, frankly, be both unpatriotic of me, and unappreciative of the State of Illinois's reforms, not to report this abuse, after the state's statutes of limitations on reporting this crime had changed so as to allow me to come forward. I'm referring to the changes in the law which occurred in 2003; as well as to the fact that, from 1991 to 1993, Illinois law prohibited the commencement of childhood sexual abuse lawsuits by people over the age of 30.

     If laws limiting the reporting of childhood sexual abuse by adults, hadn't been repealed and amended in 1993 and 2003, then I would have no legal standing on which to come forward.

     I am coming forward about this abuse, because it is likely the only way to repair the frayed relations between myself, the members of my immediate family, and other more distant relatives. I want my father to admit to my mother and my brother that he molested me.

     This will almost certainly cause a strain in my relationship with my brother, but I am not worried about that because: 1) that relationship is already strained, and wouldn't be made much worse by suspicions of false accusations of abuse; and 2) that strain will not last long, because eventually my brother will realize that I am telling the truth, and when that happens, his suspicions about me will go away, and he will realize that most of the animosity between he and I are the fault of my father's abuse.

     My father has destroyed my ability to get along with nearly every member of my family, because I seem to hate my father for no reason, and none of my family members except for my mother knows that I only seem to “hate” my father because he molested me. I have been taking out emotional aggression against my loved ones, and I cannot stop myself from doing this as long as my father cannot level with me about the abuse, or admit to what he did.

     I want justice because the only way for my family to have its son back (i.e., me), is for them to finally understand what has been troubling me all these years, and how truly horrible my father's mistreatment of me has been (which they have typically doubted, downplayed, or disregarded).

     Finally, I'm coming forward now, because I have all the information I need, and because I suspect that if I were to wait any longer to finish this statement and file a police report, I would not be any more likely to recover any additional memories which I have not yet recovered. What I have described, is all the information I can divulge about what I remember, without risking saying something that I'm not positive about.

     I swear that these statements are 100% true, to the best of my recollection; any errors or misstatements found were not intentional, nor have I attempted to commit libel in any of my statements.

10. Aggravating Factors Include Fraud, Intimidation, and Manipulation

10a. Introduction

     Between Incident #1 (which occurred in 1992) and Incident #17 (which occurred in the last month of 1996), my father engaged in fraud in order to trick me into getting close enough to him for him to grab a hold of me and molest me again. He also intimidated me into getting near him after I could not be tricked into doing so any longer, and he intimidated me into accepting unwanted sexual touching during that abuse. He also manipulated me into staying quiet and being alone most of the time; I believe in order to reduce the chance that I might talk to someone about the abuse.

     Between January 1997 (the month after the abuse ended) and February 2018 (when I moved out of his house), my father engaged in fraud, intimidation, and various forms of manipulation, in order to keep me in a state of silence and confusion about what he had done to me in 1995 and 1996.

     Between some of the incidents of abuse, my father committed fraud in order to get away with more sexual abuse. After the sexual abuse ended, my father committed additional fraud – through gaslighting – to keep me in a state of confusion about whether the abuse had happened at all. He also engaged in physical and mental intimidation, and made numerous successful attempts to scare me, both as a child and as an adult.

     Additionally, my father engaged in a wide variety of manipulative behaviors. These have included shaming, pressuring, and guilt-tripping me. My father has also manipulated me into remaining silent about the abuse he inflicted upon me; by censoring me; by monitoring, limiting, and spying on my communications; and by forcing me into a state of social alienation, isolation and loneliness (thus making it difficult or me to talk about my problems, let alone the sexual abuse which I had suffered).

     Additional forms of manipulative behavior in which my father has also engaged, include depriving me of privacy, teasing and humiliating me publicly, limiting my contact with my family members, and starting shouting matches instead of listening to me speak for five seconds.

     Moreover, my father's decision to pay for psychotherapy sessions for me in early 2015 proved to be counter-productive; in part because my father insisted on attending the first two sessions, and also because I was unable to trust any therapist hired by my father. Let alone the fact that I had not yet recovered any memories which were specific or vivid enough to report, the fact that that therapist had had an affair with a patient, made it impossible for me to disclose the abuse. That's because the environment in which I would have to do so, was not a trusting environment; it even risked containing my father, because of my father's insistence on attending the first two out of five sessions.

     The patterns of fraud, intimidation, and manipulation, in which my father engaged between 1992 (Incident #1) and February 2018 (when I moved out of his house) are consistent with the behaviors of a child molester using “grooming” tactics to defraud and manipulate a child into repeatedly getting near him, and to then intimidate a child into refraining from objecting to or reporting the abuse.

     My father's actions amount to what should effectively be considered five years of on-and-off sexual abuse, followed a twenty-one-year-long smear campaign against my character, which severely damaged my ability to communicate and function socially with family, friends, and acquaintances (and, moreover, to have successful romantic relationships). By manipulating me into silence and confusion, my father also coerced me into a state of dependence upon him (for both material support, and for moderation of and introduction to my social interactions).

     I believe that my father wants people to think that I hate him, and that I hate him for no reason, and also that I am lazy and that I don't like to work; if he can convince people that I don't like working and I hate him for no reason, then they will think that he never did anything wrong to me, and that my difficulty maintaining employment is caused by something other than the communication and socialization damage which my father inflicted upon me (by shouting at me, molesting me, and limiting my communications).

     The presence of “threats, intimidation, manipulation, or fraud”, committed against the victim, aggravates the crime of Criminal Sexual Abuse, and also causes the five-year limit on reporting abuse after discovering it, to no longer apply.

     Proving that this fraud, intimidation, and manipulation took place, will be essential to demonstrating that: 1) there were factors which accompanied and followed the abuse, which should be construed to aggravate the seriousness of the offense and the harshness of the punishment; and 2) the presence of these aggravating factors, means that the five-year limit on reporting abuse after discovering it, does not apply in my case, and that therefore, I may have until January, March, or April of 2020 to report the abuse.

     Although those factors were present, I may fail to satisfactorily demonstrate the veracity of my claims of fraud, intimidation, and manipulation. That is why I am reporting these abuses now, before the new year and before the spring. At the time of the composition of this statement, and the filing of my report against my father, it has still been less than five years since I recovered the lost and repressed memories, and discovering the abuse.

     As per the Illinois criminal code - ILCS § 5/13-202.2 (b) - “...an action for damages for personal injury based on childhood sexual abuse must be commenced within 10 years of the date [a person turns 18] or within 5 years of the date the person abused discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence should discover both (I) that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred and (ii) that the injury was caused by the childhood sexual abuse.”

     I hope that this written statement will suffice as the first piece of physical evidence that the incidents of Criminal Sexual Abuse which I described, occurred. I also hope that the submission of this statement is sufficient grounds for commencing the process of discovery of evidence. It should, because I have composed and submitted this statement before five years will have passed since I realized that the sexual abuse had occurred. Furthermore, I have composed and submitted this statement before five years and several additional months will have passed since I began to recover memories of that sexual abuse which are specific and vivid enough to report in detail in writing.

10b. Fraud

     My father committed fraud; both during the abuse, and after the abuse ended. He committed fraud during the abuse (promising not to touch me inappropriately again) in order to trick me into getting abused more times. He committed fraud after the abuse as well; in order to gaslight me into a state of confusion and denial about what had happened to me.

[Note on Gaslighting:

     “Gaslighting” refers to the process by which an emotionally abusive person engages in psychological tricks to confuse their victim; specifically, by attempting to implant false memories into the victim's mind, in order to make them doubt the accuracy of their own memories until they can no longer trust their own judgment, and must rely on and trust someone else (usually the person implanting the false memories) to make sense of reality.

     As I stated earlier, my father would intentionally try to provoke and upset me, and shout at me, and accuse me of things I didn't do (more often than anything else, of withholding my grades), or accuse me of having ulterior motives, in order to get me so aggressively defend myself that I would begin raising my voice back at him. It's not that I even had anger in me that made me want to shout; my father would speak so loudly and angrily, and interrupt so often, that raising my voice significantly, and over him, was the only way I could be heard.

     My father and I haven't had any serious fights since I moved out of his house in February 2018, but between 1992 and 2018, my father shouted at me both frequently and unpredictably. As I explained, I believe that my father did this for entertainment, and to make himself look less crazy than I am by comparison.

     What I have just described, isn't exactly the same thing as gaslighting, because those shouting matches didn't involve any direct attempts to implant false memories. However, it's still a sort of gaslighting, because these arguments were conflicts which distracted from the original problem of the sexual abuse which had occurred. The false memory which he implanted in my mind, was the problem that the current conflicts between he and I, were more important than the preceding abuse. That probably made me doubt whether the abuse had really happened, and caused me to forget it easily.

     What my father did, might as well be considered gaslighting, since what he did had the effect of implanting ideas in my mind, rather than false memories. The ideas that he implanted in my mind were that I must be guilty of something, and that I was worthless (in addition to the notion that he had never had any conflict with me prior to whatever given moment in which we were arguing). Whether he intended to implant those ideas or not, that was the effect of the way he spoke to me.

     My father did, at the very least, deliberately attempt to confuse me about things. For example, whether I had done something I didn't do (like throw a magazine down the stairs with malice, around the age of eight). Additionally, whether I meant something mean or nasty by what I said, when what I said was innocuous. Also, whether I had ulterior motives when doing normal things which every child does (for example, trying to get a little bit of privacy in my father's house).

     For as long as I can remember, my father has never trusted me, and I think that is because he doesn't trust me to keep quiet about the sexual abuse he inflicted upon me.]

     My father committed fraud during the abuse; to trick me into getting near him, so that he could molest me again (with minimal resistance, by having me sort of “walk right into his hands”). As I explained, some time between Incident #2 (the first time I was exposed to unwanted sexual touching on our couch in the basement) and Incident #13 (the last time I was molested on that couch), my father tricked me into getting molested again.

     My father told me that he wanted me to sit behind his legs on the couch in the basement; this was nothing out of the ordinary, as I had done it before. But after I had gotten molested at least once or twice, my father had to actively coax me into sitting with him. And in order to do that, he had to first convince me that he was not going to do to me that time, what he had done to me the previous time (or times); that is, “tickle” my genitals forcefully.

     It is my opinion that my father's actions – in promising that he wouldn't repeat the abuse (which occurred at least once, but maybe even two or three times) – constituted fraud. He betrayed me and lied to me, by molesting me again, after he had promised not to. Judging by his behavior, I believe that he did this deliberately, in order to trick me into getting near him, so that he could inflict unwanted touching upon my genitals, yet again, with minimal effort being exuded on his part to capture me.

     I also have memories of my father creating distractions and diversions, to get me to look away – for example, out of the basement window, or somewhere else in the basement – so that he could take advantage of a moment in which I wasn't paying attention, to tickle me and then molest me again. My father intentionally caught me off guard, and fraudulently led me to believe that something was happening elsewhere in the basement or out the basement window. He did this in order to prey on my gullibility, by tickling me until I was in hysterics and unable to resist his groping of my genitals.

     My father's use of distractions and diversions, should be considered a separate and distinct form of fraud which my father used to grab hold of me in order molest me, aside from and in addition to the form of fraud which he used to make me believe that he would not repeat the abuse.

     Those repeated acts of fraud, committed by my father, were also examples of betrayal of trust, by a person with an implicit position of trust and authority over myself as a child. I was a small, weak, vulnerable child, who implicitly trusted and obeyed his parents because he had to. My father had the responsibility to protect me from child sexual abuse, and had a responsibility to tell me the truth; instead, he chose to directly inflict sexual and physical abuses upon me, and since then he has implanted false ideas in my mind which have confused me about the truth of what he did to me.

     The fact that my father abused his authority, and his position of trust – in a way that fractured my psyche and made it extremely difficult for me to socialize and trust others – should be considered a factor which especially aggravates this heinous crime of serial child sexual abuse. And that goes regardless of whether my father's abuse of his position of authority, legally constitutes fraud, or not.

     My father should, additionally, probably be charged with something like reckless child endangerment, since he knowingly caused me pain during the abuse. Since my father held me down forcefully during the sexual abuse, he also deliberately inflicted pain on me in several ways. These included pushing his thumbs into my underarms forcefully.

     My father's admission to me as a child that he wouldn't repeat the abuse, should not only be considered an act of fraud and a betrayal of trust; it was also an admission of guilt. My father knew what he had done, he knew that I remembered him doing it, and he knew that I didn't like it. Next he chose to defraud and gaslight me into a state of confusion and denial about whether that abuse had happened before at all, because that's what he had to do to get away with molesting me more.

     Another time my father gaslit me as a child, involved him quoting The Dick Van Dyke Show or some television show from the 1950s or 1960s. My father would tell me “I love you, but I also like you”, and then he would explain that, in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, the son went to Mary Tyler Moore's character and said that he knew his father loved him but wasn't sure whether he liked him.

     I understand why my father thinks he was saying something loving and endearing and positive. However, the fact that he molested me, either before or some time around the first time he fed me the “I love you but I also like you” line, makes me suspect that he didn't mean what he was saying (i.e., he molested me because he didn't love me). Either that, or perhaps another disturbing possibility; he might have been trying to tell me that he literally, as pre-teens say, “like-liked me” (by which I mean “liked me” in a romantic way).

     Whatever the case, my father seemed to only like me insofar as I would follow his orders, do things that reflect positively on his reputation, and entertain him. And he seems to love me enough to raise me and help me out financially, but not enough to avoid turning his “love” for me into something romantic and sexual.

     One example of my father gaslighting me was when I was in high school. My Spanish teacher, Ken Finkelstein, called me “antisocial” out loud in front of my class. Soon after this happened, my father got mad at me for being disrespectful towards my Spanish teacher. I told my father that the teacher had called me antisocial. My father sided with the teacher.

     I believe that my father bullied me so badly at home, and I believe that this caused me to react by: 1) briefly bullying one or two smaller kids myself; and 2) acting out for negative attention while school was in session. I have explained how I barked like a dog in a high school class once to get negative attention, and I wouldn't have done that if I'd had someone to talk to at home.

     One year, when I was around 10 or 12 years old, I hit a boy of about age 8 with a thin wooden stick; I don't know how much pain or damage it caused, but I feel very sorry about picking on younger kids. My father and my bullies had taught me “bully or be bullied”, and I picked on other kids because I was being picked on. I absolutely regret doing that, but I would have not done it if I hadn't felt so powerless from the way I was being treated at home.

     I suspect that I would not have bullied smaller kids – and that I would not have had such a difficult time making friends and socializing, and being calm and focused in class –s if I'd had someone to talk to about the way my father was treating me. Between being shouted at and ordered around by my father, being somewhat ignored by my mother (at least as far as the abuse was concerned), and having few friends at school, I had nobody to talk to. Perhaps I tried to draw “negative attention” as a way to let people know that something was wrong.

     It is also worth noting that this was not the first time my father wrongfully assumed I was badmouthing a teacher. When I was seven years old – in the first grade – my father asked me if I was paying attention in school and if everything was going well between me and the teacher. My father asked me “Do you talk back to her?” I assumed that he meant “Do you respond when your teacher asks you a question”, but he was actually asking me if I ever gave my teacher “lip”, or “talked back” with a sassy or disrespectful attitude. I answered my father, “Yes”. Within a moment, he figured out that I misunderstood his question, and I told him that I had never given sass to my teacher.

     I am still trying to understand why my father would suspect me, then just seven years old, of even being capable of back-talking a teacher. I was a very quiet, calm, shy, polite child, who kept to himself; I don't even think that I had ever shown sass to my father before that point. This is what makes me think that my father has been suspicious of me since I was a child, usually for no good reason.

     In my opinion, my father's leading me to believe that my difficulty socializing and respecting my high school Spanish teacher, had nothing to do with him, constitutes an act of gaslighting. It wasn't gaslighting when he assumed I was talking back to my first grade teacher, but that is an example of my father using manipulation to shame me into thinking that I was guilty of something.

     Another thing my father does, which I consider to be gaslighting, is pretend that he does not understand why I am afraid of him. This should serve as an example of intimidation, although admittedly it is arguable whether his intimidation was intentional in this instance. Still, though, this should serve as an illustration of the manner in which my father cannot help but cause me to feel intimidated, whenever I am around him.

     While living with my father at 132 Welwyn Street in Lake Bluff, between February 2015 and February 2018, I would often try to avoid being too close to my father while he and I were in the kitchen at the same time. I did this mostly because his kitchen is small, and thus it is difficult to move easily around the kitchen when someone is cooking or doing anything else, and I wanted to give him a little bit of respect in his own house by leaving him free to move around the first floor as he pleased. I considered this an act of basic politeness, and deference to him in terms of who has priority of movement in the townhouse which my father rents.

     However, on one occasion – some time in 2017 or 2018 – my father talked to me about my arguably “avoidant” behavior, saying something like, “What are you doing? You're moving away from me, with your head down, like you're afraid of me or something.” I believe that my response included “I am.”

     I do not buy the idea that my father doesn't understand why I'm afraid of him. He knows what he did to me, and he is an adult who ought to be perfectly capable of understanding why his son would be afraid of him at the age of 30 (as I was in 2017), after being molested by him at the ages of eight and nine.

     I consider my father's behavior then, as a possible example of him trying to gaslight me. I say that because I believe that his comment was intended to make me think that I have no reason to be afraid of him. I would not be writing this statement if I had no reason to be afraid of him. I believe that my father wants me to think that I have no reason to fear him, and he wants to downplay and deny our past conflicts, in order to distract me from the episodes of sexual abuse which he inflicted upon me.

     Another example of gaslighting pertains to a conversation which I had with my father in the third week of April 2019, while staying at Hotel Colon in Barcelona, Spain.

     My father and I had been discussing the accusations of sexual harassment against Woody Allen and Joe Biden. I was saying that I thought the legal system was being too lenient on them, and noting that they had both been openly accused of harassing women, but that the accusations against them which pertained to groping children, did not stick.

     One thing my father said during that conversation, which stuck out and upset me, was “If somebody raped you, I would want that person to go to jail.” I believe that my father said that, as a way to implant the false idea into my mind, that nobody had ever raped me. But someone has raped me. My father sexually molested me when I was eight and nine years old, by forcibly restraining me and “tickling” my penis and scrotum. Since that conversation, I have never believed for one second, that my father has any intention to help send “somebody who raped me” to jail, because that would involve him going to jail.

     I believe that my father has been trying to subtly implant false memories, or else false ideas, in my mind, in order to cause me to doubt the accuracy of how I process information and understand reality.

     My father has also said numerous bizarre things to me, which I believe were intended to intimidate me, and/or to gaslight me.

     These included telling me “I'm not trying to get you” when he wanted me to admit a mistake, or divulge my grades, or wanted me to explain something. Oftentimes, he actually was trying to “get” me, by which he meant “find something to get angry with me about”. My father would criticize every single mistake and fault he could find; the idea that he “wasn't trying to get me” on anything, was preposterous. If he really “wasn't trying to get me”, then he wouldn't have had to work so hard, and repeat it so many times, to convince me and himself that it was true. What bothered me most about my father saying this, aside from the frequency at which he said it, was the emphasis he placed on the word “get”. He would practically bark the word “get”; the guttural “g” sound would hang in the air, and resonate with vindictiveness and violence. He poked at my mind with harsh words, the same way that he poked at my ribs with his fingers. It is impossible to deny that my father was “trying to get me”; he grabbed a hold of me and then held me down in order to molest me, and then spent years telling me that he wasn't “trying to get” me, and the irony of that fact is not lost on me. When my father said “I'm not trying to get you”, he was both defending himself and trying to gaslight me into believing I had no reason to suspect ill intentions on his part.

     My father would also tell me “You're crazy” whenever he would succeed in provoking me and inciting me to the point where I would have no choice but to raise my voice and shout back over his own constant shouting and interruptions. He would also say, “Wow, you are out there, man”, in a denigrating way, whenever I would express either anger or a controversial viewpoint. He would also say “What's wrong with you”, and really draw-out the word “wrong”. He has also said things about me like “something's really wrong” or “something seems really wrong with you”. He has also asked me many times, “What's your problem?” Once in my teens, I replied that he was my problem. Of course, he didn't like that one bit, but it was true; he was my main problem. He was emotionally abusing me, and, unbeknownst to me until age 27 or 28, he sexually abused me when I was a child.

     My father would routinely respond with anger, disgust, outrage, and a need to control the situation, whenever I would confront him with a viewpoint, opinion, or a way of looking at things, which opposed his own (or even potentially challenged his own way of thinking). I believe that my father wants people to think that I am crazy and excitable, and that I have anger management problems. I believe that he wants people to think I'm mentally disturbed, so that he can cast doubt on anything and everything critical I might have to say about him (including, and especially, the accusations of sexual abuse which I am now submitting). My father wants people to think that I am delusional, so that when I accuse him of unwanted sexual touching, he can easily claim that I hallucinated those memories or made them up to get attention.

     One important instance in which my father engaged in gaslighting about my abuse, happened to my mother, rather than myself. The following took place in either February, March, or April 2015.

     In either late February or early March 2015, my mother told me which she'd had a conversation with my father about the abuse. That conversation took place in late February 2015 (probably on the 24^th or 25th), when she and my father were driving to Lake Forest to pick me up from the train station (when I was returning home from Portland).

     My mother told me that, during the conversation, she had said to my father, something like, “Someone told me that they saw a post that Joey made about you on Facebook.” That probably wasn't exactly what she said, but what she said to my father had something to do with the fact that I had been talking about my father, and/or the possibility that someone had sexually abused me, in my posts to Facebook. According to my mother – and I remember this verbatim, from my mother's recounting of it to me – what my father said in response to my mother's comment was “I didn't molest him.”

     The way my mother repeated what my father said, put the emphasis on the first word “I”. In my opinion, the tone of my father's voice, when saying that, makes it sound like he was being defensive, rather than just an innocent “matter-of-fact” kind of way. When my mother told me this story, she said that my father's response seemed strange, since she hadn't said anything to my father about molestation, at any point before that during their conversation. I felt the same way she did; it was strange that he said “I didn't molest him” without molestation being specifically brought up.

     A few weeks or years after telling me about that conversation, my mother must have forgotten about having told me about it. In late 2019, when I would try to remind her about the conversation, she told me that she could not remember the conversation. Nevertheless, I clearly remember that she told me this; I distinctly remember my mother telling me that my father had said “I didn't molest him” in response to my mother bring up my Facebook posts. I talked to my mother about that conversation twice before she forgot about it, so I'm certain that she told me it happened.

     I believe that my father said “I didn't molest him”, because he knows that he did, and has a guilty conscience. I think he knew, during that conversation, what he had done – and knew that I was either consciously or subconsciously aware of his past abuse at the time – and I think that saying “I didn't molest him” was my father's first attempt to try to “get out in front of” the accusations of molestation before they even started piling up.

     Since I know now that my father had either made a fake Facebook account, or else enlisted some Facebook user whom he knew, to send him screenshots of my posts, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the reason why my father said “I didn't molest him” was because he had been reading some of my posts. These posts included the one from mid-2014 about him being arrested and cavity-searched (which, as I explained, actually happened to somebody else), and a post I made around Christmas 2014 which read something like “If all of our parents had fucked us underneath a Christmas tree when we were younger, would society be any different from the way it is now?”.

     Soon after that happened - in early 2015, several months after I returned home from Portland - my mother told me that my father had told her that I seemed “broken”. My mother told me that she responded by saying something like, “He's not an object” or “He's not a toy”.

     I believe that my father has been aware that he sexually abused me all along, and I suspect that he told my mother that I seemed “broken” as a way to suggest to her that something was wrong with me and he had no idea what was wrong. But he knew exactly what was wrong; he had been spying on me on Facebook (or else enlisting someone else to do that for him) and he knew that I had made a post or two which alluded to child molestation.

     My father knew exactly why I was “broken”; he was the one whom had broken me. He broke me by fracturing my psyche, by inflicting sexual abuse upon me which created a state of cognitive dissonance in my mind.

     That state of cognitive dissonance made it difficult for me to process reality accurately, and difficult to accurately judge my father's past actions.

     Two incidents wherein my father attempted to gaslight me about matters related to child molestation, pertain to our conversations regarding two figures – one in political activism and the other in entertainment – whom have said controversial things regarding the subject of child molestation. Those figures are Milo Yiannopoulos and Louis C.K..

     In February 2017, after a clip emerged of “Alt-Right” figure Milo Yiannopoulos evidently defending child molestation on Joe Rogan's podcast, my father confronted me about it. My father probably doesn't understand the difference between Alt-Righters like Milo Yiannopoulos, and libertarians like myself; and my father probably also didn't understand what Yiannopoulos said. Yiannopoulos did make excuses for older men and teenage boys engaging in sexual relations, but while doing that, he also mentioned that he had been abused by an adult priest when he was a young teen. On one hand, Yiannopoulos was defending his own abuser, but on the other hand, victims of child molestation are often manipulated and brainwashed into defending their abusers. My father - as well as those who attacked Yiannopoulos for his, by then, year-and-a-half-old comments – probably had no idea that Yiannopoulos was a victim of child sexual abuse, who was still rationalizing his abuser years later. I know that, because, after the old clip of that interview emerged, Yiannopoulos gave a press conference in which he sincerely apologized for his comments, and explained exactly that; that he was rationalizing his childhood sexual abuse at the hands of an adult. While I pity the fact that Yiannopoulos was sexually abused as a child, I do not share the majority of the controversial views for which he has become infamous. Despite my father's having no idea how much I disagreed with Yiannopoulos, and also (probably) no idea that Yiannopoulos was a child sexual abuse victim, my father confronted me out of the blue with the accusation that Yiannopoulos was defending child molestation. After I struggled to explain what the truth was, I got the impression that my father thought I was defending Yiannopoulos. I had never mentioned Milo Yiannopoulos to my father before that happened. This conversation began and ended very quickly.

     This is an example of how my father commits acts of subtle accusations of guilt by association, followed by drive-by character assassinations based on that guilt. I suspect that my father was trying to get me to defend someone thought to be a defender of child molestation, in order to gaslight and confuse me into thinking that I was the child molester instead of him. I also suspect that my father intentionally put me “on the defensive” in order to provoke me to push back against him, which he does to try to make me raise my voice and get angry (which he does because he isn't entertained unless there's a argument going on near him).

     In May 2017, several days after Louis C.K. hosted Saturday Night Live, my father criticized the comedian's opening monologue because it contained child molestation jokes. Louis C.K.'s comments about child molesters that night included, “They really like to molest childs”, and other absurd and intentionally tasteless jokes. My father told me that he did not appreciate Louis C.K.'s jokes, but when he explained why, he told me that C.K.'s monologue included a joke about child molesters having “a taste for boys”. I watched that monologue, and Louis C.K. said nothing of the sort. I honestly suspect that my father watched that monologue by Louis C.K., made up a joke about having “a taste for boys” in his own mind, and then accidentally told me a joke he had made up as if it had been part of that monologue.

     The fact that my father did not seem particularly upset by the monologue, suggests to me that he was reacting with feigned outrage. Perhaps he even criticized the child molestation jokes in order to try to attract attention to the problem of joking about child molestation, rather than attracting attention to the more serious problem of actually molesting children (of which he is guilty), thus vindicating himself (or at least making himself look better by comparison) in the process.

     I believe that my father is suffering from cognitive dissonance from having to stay quiet about molesting me, and also from various mental illnesses (which I explain later in this report). I believe that these mental struggles are so severe, that I suspect that my father may be experiencing a problem with processing information and interpreting it in a realistic manner. I say this because this would help explain my father's difficulty in correctly re-stating what other people have said, and it would help explain why he believes that he is virtually infallible and has never done anything wrong to me.

     My father's high opinion of himself, and his controlling nature, make it virtually impossible for him to engage in what psychotherapists call “reality checking”; he is unable to level with other people, and he even seems unable to recognize other people as anything other than either projections of himself, or else as pawns whom he can manipulate, use, and abuse. If my father were capable of being leveled with, or capable of “reality checking”, then he would be able to speak to me as if we were both voting-age taxpaying adult citizens (which we are). He would be able recognize that, when I tell him that he has harmed me or started an argument unfairly, he has to deal with it and accept that I feel that way for a reason. Instead of checking-in with others to see which of his views are unrealistic and which aren't, my father creates his own reality, and shouts at, intimidates, and manipulates, anybody who questions it or doesn't conform to his expectations.

10c. Intimidation

     My father engaged in intimidation which was physical as well as mental (or psychological, or emotional). He has also scared me many times throughout both my childhood and my adulthood; sometimes deliberately, sometimes unintentionally.

     While my father never communicated, in a direct and clear manner, that I should be afraid of him, and timid in his presence, because he abused me, he did not have to do so in order for me to be intimidated, and for his intimidation to achieve its desired result.

     While some of this intimidation occurred without any conscious effort on my father's part, I believe that many of these attempts to intimidate and scare me, were done with the intention of keeping me in a perpetual state of confusion and fear, and of scaring me into silence and submission (especially about the abuse).

     As I explained in detail in my accounting of Incidents #2 through #13, my father engaged in various forms of intimidation (both physical and mental) after those incidents of abuse. Whether or not that was his intent, that was the effect; however, I do believe that this intimidation was intentional, and moreover, done with the deliberate intent of keeping me quiet and keeping me vulnerable to being abused again.

     Even if not all of my father's intimidation was intentional, the way he treated me in general accustomed me to living in state of constantly being intimidated. My father's treatment of me as a child left me timid, shy, and too afraid of conflict and confrontation, to report the abuse to the authorities, or speak about it with anyone.

     In fact, the way my father treated me, both during the abuse and afterwards, was so severe and hostile that, from 1997 or 2000 until 2015, I was still too confused and scared to be able to consciously remember the incidents of abuse which he inflicted upon me between 1992 and late 1996. For those three years following the abuse (when I was between ten and thirteen years old), my father did not even need to engage in active nor conscious forms of intimidation to keep me quiet; his relentless brow-beating, shame, guilt, and pressure kept me too distracted by his current mistreatment to bother trying to recover and divulge his past mistreatment.

     I have already explained how my father would use overt, direct physical intimidation and force against me, during Incidents #2 through #13. He would suddenly grab hold of me, hold my legs down with his own legs, use his hands to hold my arms back while he groped my genitals, jabbed and poked at my torso, and compressed my rib cage and lungs in the process of holding me down. These were forceful acts of physical restraint which facilitated the abuse (by allowing it to happen, since I couldn't resist), and I believe that those acts of holding me down were intended to intimidate me out of trying to escape. The numerous incidents between Incidents #2 and #13, when my father subjected me to such harsh restraints, are examples of overt physical intimidation.

     Another thing that my father would do, to intimidate me (and my brother), had aspects of both physical intimidation and mental intimidation to it. Upon entering my room to discipline me and my brother, my father would stand up as straight and as tall as possible, to make himself look bigger, and towering over us with his arms folded. He would often shout at us at the top of his lungs after taking that posture. He did this long before the incidents of abuse began; even when I was as young as perhaps five or six years old, and my brother was three or four.

     Despite the fact that my father should have realized that it was totally unnecessary to scare the living hell out of his small three- and five-year-old children by shouting at them as loud as possible – and despite my mother's objections, when she would try to get into the room, and my father would very nearly slam the door in her face – my father continued this confrontational, loud style of parenting until long after the abuses ended in late 1996. He continued engaging in loud outbursts and unpredictable egging me on to shouting matches as recently as 2017.

     Additionally, at least once when I was somewhere between eight and ten years old, my father stood in front of me and put his hand on my head while I swung at him with my arms, trying to hit him. Him putting his hand on my head, kept me at enough of a distance from him, to stop me from being able to reach him with my arms in order to hit him. I can't remember how much of that was my father's idea; I don't ever remember wanting, nor trying, to hit him; I think my father told me to try to hit him, and then put his hand on my head. It was clear that he was doing this for fun; I think he was imitating something he saw on The Three Stooges. He clearly found it funny, and he was laughing at the time. Looking back on it now, it seems that he was reveling in his ability to physically stop me, control me, intimidate me, and keep me from resisting. I can't remember exactly when this happened, but it's possible that it could have given my father the idea to hold me down and restrain me so he could touch my genitals against my will.

     In addition to that physical restraint which intimidated me and kept me from trying to resist or escape, and the times my father would tower over me and shout at me, my father would also engage in more subtle forms of intimidation; i.e., mental, emotional, and psychological intimidation.

     The forms of psychological intimidation (and manipulation) in which my father engaged, included censoring my speech in front of people, and accusing me of things I didn't do and without evidence, earlier in life; spying on me in person and on the internet later in life; and generally intimidating me into silence whenever possible between 1997 and 2018.

     In 2015, I discovered that my father had been spying on my Facebook account and printing out things I had been posting. In his defense, he probably began spying on me because I had recently posted a story about him being arrested, which I now know to be false. My father kept the printouts from Facebook in his office at his home at 132 Welwyn Street in Lake Bluff, and in 2015 I found them, to my father's dismay.

     Two or three years later, after my father had found out that I had gone into his office to find those printouts, I was at my father's house. For a moment, I stood in the doorway of his office, and immediately my father began to interrogate me about why I was “in” his office, and whether I was going in there to look for something. I might not have even entered his office that day at all; I think I was standing in the doorway to the office as a way to temporarily allow my father to move around his first floor smoothly (or maybe I was grabbing a piece of printer paper).

     That was not the first time my father accused me of something I didn't do; he did this to me several times when I was a child. I have explained the unfounded accusations which my father would make regarding why I hadn't told him my grades yet (which, as a refresher, was because I hadn't received them yet). My father also once got angry with me because he overheard me talking to my brother and concluded that I was conspiring to throw one of his golf magazines, Golf Digest, down the stairs to the basement. I had no intention to do so, yet my father could not come up with a better explanation as to why he had heard me say “Golf Digest” and “stairs” in the same sentence.

     I believe that the reason my father did this, was to put me on the defensive, and keep me there forever, so that there would always be something he said, which I would deny. And the more things of which he could accuse me, without any evidence, the more defensive (and righteously indignant) I would get. My father accuses me of things I didn't do, in order to provoke me into getting justifiably angry, so that he can make me look crazy, when all I am doing is resolutely and consistently defending myself against his baseless lies and accusations.

     Other examples of what I suspect were my father's deliberate attempts to intimidate and scare me, include times when he has touched my neck inappropriately, let go of the steering wheel of his car to scare me and my brother, and called me names making fun of my weakness and my disliking sports.

     When I was a child, and I would go to the grocery store with my father, he would often scold me for being in the way of other shoppers and their carts, telling me “You have to pay attention to where you are in the world.” I wasn't running around, nor being rambunctious, nor starting fights with my father nor brother; yet my father would always have the same angry reaction and say the same line, whether or not the customer seemed angry.

     Once in a Jewel-Osco, around the age of maybe eight or ten years old, I remember my father wringing my neck from the back with his thumb and forefinger. That was an example of him deliberately trying to hurt me. And I believe that he did that without sufficient cause, because I was a quiet and usually very well-behaved child, so I can't imagine what I could have done that would have made it necessary to wring my neck. He didn't even wring my neck in order to move me; it seemed that he only did it to inflict pain on me. All for being in the way of another grocery store shopper.

     That is not the only time I remember my father touching my neck area in an aggressive and painful manner. I explained how my father would dig his hands into my underarms, and jab my ribs with his fingers, while tickling me and then molesting me (in private). My father would also dig his hands into my neck and collarbone (in public), while making a cracking sound with his mouth. He made that sound to imitate the sound of my collarbone or spine breaking; that is why I suspect that my father did this in order to scare me deliberately.

     My father would also scare me and my brother by the way he drove his car. Aside from his usual routine speeding and following other cars too closely, my father would seat me and my brother together in the front seat – usually without sufficient seat belt restraint – and control the steering wheel with his knees while traveling at considerable speeds. This, of course, inspired terror in the hearts of myself and my brother. We would beg him to start driving with his hands again. Our father would then resume driving with his hands and reassure us that he has so much experience driving that it was not risky to steer with his knees. This did not reassure me.

     My father, along with his older brother (Joseph Michael Kopsick) would call me names like “tough guy”, “fruitcake”, and “Joltin' Joe”. It took me more than two decades to realize that they were calling me these names in order to tease me. They called me “tough guy” because I don't like sports and I'm physically weak. They called me “Joltin' Joe”, after Joe diMaggio, possibly to make fun of me for not being athletic. I suppose it's possible that “Joltin' Joe” has been a past nickname of my uncle Joe and/or my grandfather Joe, so maybe they were trying to pass that nickname on, but I still suspect that they were just being mean on purpose. I suspect that they called me “fruitcake” because I am sort of “feminine”, in the sense that I am shy, timid, introspective, as well as distinctly not the athletic ideal of masculinity.

     If my father did not call me these names in order to intimidate me, then he at least intended to hurt my feelings, make me feel bad, and make me feel different from the rest of his side of the family for not being as athletic as they are. Either way, it had the effect of intimidating me, even if he did not have the intention to do so.

     My father also did numerous things which had the effect of intimidating and scaring me, even if they were not intended to do so. I mention the following incidents because the importance of their disturbing nature outweighs the need to omit them as irrelevant on the basis that they are instances of my father scaring me unintentionally.

     When my brother and I were young, my father would occasionally say “raus” (the German word for “out”) to tell us to get out of a room. During a therapy session with Dr. Michael Feld (whom I visited between April 18^th and May 18^th, 2015), I asked my father to his face why he had spoken German to me when I was a child. My father denied speaking German to me. It's possible that he wasn't clear on what I was talking about; I did not intend to suggest that my father spoke to me in whole sentences in German. He only spoke several German words to me and my brother growing up. My father studied German in college; I know this because he has told a story about struggling to pronounce the name of the city Munchen (Munich) numerous times. My father would use the words “raus” and “morgen”, and the phrase “guten morgan”, on occasion, to me and my brother, when we were children. My father may not remember it, but it's true. It just strikes me as strange that he would deny having spoken German to me in front of Dr. Michael Feld. There could be no connection whatsoever between my father saying “raus” to me as a child, and the fact that I've had manageable panic attacks about being put on trains and sent to concentration camps, but on the other hand, it would be careless to refrain from mentioning it, because it's just as likely that being told to “get out” in German, would have such an effect on a person.

     One or two years ago (in 2017 or 2018), my mother told me that the Mickey Mouse drawings which hung in my room when I was a child, were drawn by a murderer. My father knew someone – perhaps a prosecutor or a defense attorney – who somehow ended up with drawings or paintings of Mickey Mouse which were created by someone who was convicted of murder. My father never told me this, neither while growing up, nor as an adult.

     I sing and play guitar, but my father has a tendency to pressure me into singing, and then to criticize me. Even if he doesn't criticize what I sang or played, he teases and criticizes me, and gives me back-handed compliments, about other things, so often, that he, in effect, rarely if ever shows me overall approval nor reward for anything I do around him. I have never been able to sing and play music around him without fear of being judged; I simply do not feel comfortable trying to entertain someone who is so confrontational and domineering whenever I am not trying to play music for him.

     My father has exhibited strange behaviors, movements, and manners of speaking, which as a child and an adult have evoked a sense of fear in me; even if he did not intend to scare me with these behaviors, he did.

     When my brother and I were children, my father would sometimes speak slowly in a low baritone voice, while making a sort of “grabbing” motion with his hands (sort of in the same way in which Homer Simpson of The Simpsons would move his fingers before picking up donuts). I can't remember much more about this, but I suspect that my father did this intentionally to scare us. Whether he did it for Halloween, or in good fun, is one thing; I just mention it because I can't think of any reason why he would have done such a thing other than to scare us.

     My father's behavior additionally exhibits evidence of various nervous tics. The fact that he wears contact lenses, likely explains why he flinches his eyes while suddenly looking in a diagonal direction; he is probably doing this to get his contact lens to move into the correct place. But he also exhibits rapid movements of the tongue; I have noticed while speaking to him that sometimes while I am talking, he will stand with his mouth open, and his tongue darting back and forth inside of his mouth slightly (as if he's getting ready to start speaking as soon as I am done talking).

     My father flinches, darts his tongue, and breathes in a sort of panting pattern. Seeing my father standing still and getting ready to speak is really a bizarre spectacle to watch, if you're aware that all of those are happening at once. Granted, I have my own nervous tics; such as nail biting, hair twirling and pulling, et cetera. But I suspect that my father's nervous tics – which are certainly evident around me, even if not around anybody else – may be due to his constant fear of being exposed as a child molester. If that's the case, then it would certainly explain why my father is so eager to interrupt and silence me, or begin speaking himself, every time I talk.

     My father intimidated me and scared me, both intentionally and unintentionally, and both as a child and as an adult. These forms of intimidation included overt physical intimidation – such as overpowering me with his legs, prior to incidents of tickling followed by molestation; and shouting at me while standing as tall as he could, while nearly slamming my bedroom door in my mother's face to keep her out of the room while he shouted at us – as well as more subtle forms of psychological intimidation.

     Those forms of psychological intimidation (and emotional abuse and torture), again, included the following: engaging in unpredictable shouting matches, spying on me over Facebook, accusing me of things I didn't do without evidence, grabbing at my neck and collarbone in a painful way which was not necessary to discipline me, driving with his knees so as to intentionally scare his children, calling me names intended to mock my lack of athleticism, speaking German to me as a child, hanging drawings of Mickey Mouse which were done by a murderer in my bedroom as a child without informing me, pressured and then judged me in a way that has effectively discouraged me from playing music for him, making strange sounds and grabbing motions, and exhibiting various nervous tics.

     These incidents of intimidation have had profound effects on me. My father's intimidation has caused me to do things such as hide, and to want to be away from my father, as a child; and, in my twenties, to leave Madison, Wisconsin without telling my father, and to have thoughts of self-harm and suicide.

     Between the ages of five and twelve years old, I would hide in my bedroom closet. Sometimes I would do this to hide from my brother (who would often pick physical fights with me), while other times I would do it to hide from my father. Once I realized that the closet was an effective hiding place which kept them away from me, I would sometimes go there just for the hell of it.

     Doing anything else around the house, for fun or entertainment, would require being in contact with either my brother who would roughhouse with me, or my father who would roughhouse with me and also shout at me. My brother was into World Wrestling Federation (W.W.F; now W.W.E.) wrestling, and he would learn wrestling moves on television that he would use on me later. I found this not only painful, but also very annoying and distracting, as he would often come up to me while I was watching stand-up comedy on television in the basement, and begin to engage me physically in a fight.

     When my brother would attack me on the first floor, I would lock my bedroom door to try to keep my brother out, but my father didn't appreciate me locking a door in his house. He didn't seem to care that locking my door was the only way to stop my brother to come into my room and start punching me whenever he felt like it. My father also didn't seem to care that I was almost never the one who started the fight; he seemed more intent on collective punishment. Maybe he did that because he didn't know which one of us to trust.

     It also didn't seem to occur to my father that one of the reasons why I might have had the door locked at times, was because I was trying to masturbate in the privacy of my own room. My father was too controlling, domineering, and invasive, for that to happen; as a result, I grew up having to masturbate in constant fear of being caught (and then, later, probably, shamed and guilt-tripped about it).

     Another time I hid, I probably did for attention. Beginning when I was around the age of eight, my father and mother would take me – and sometimes my brother as well – to parties hosted by a friend of his. His friends would drink beers there, and I would find some toys to play with, or watch television, or talk with the adults.

     One night, I grew tired of going to these parties (although I previously enjoyed it), and I noticed that nobody seemed to be paying any attention to me. Granted, I did walk away from the party on my own to spend time in an empty living room, but I was a child, and my parents should have been paying closer attention to me. When nobody was looking, I crouched behind a potted plant, and stayed there.

     After five or ten minutes, I noticed that a few people had begun to look for me. Eventually all of the guests thought I was missing. Before things got too out of hand – and after a few adults had looked right at me but failed to notice me – I waited for the room to empty out, nonchalantly sat in front of the fireplace, and waited for someone to notice that I was in view again. Needless to say, my parents were relieved that I had not been kidnapped.

     I can't say that I consciously knew why I hid; maybe I was just bored, or maybe I was trying to find out who cared about me enough to find me, and silently call for attention. But looking back on it, I was a lonely child who was often neglected and ignored, and pressured to hang around mostly adults. I rarely had other children to play with at those parties, and it is not healthy for an eight-year-old to be around a bunch of adults while they are drinking. My father should have known that this was not an appropriate environment in which I could socialize in a healthy manner.

     It is worth noting that I started attending those drinking parties at the age of eight, the same age I was during Incident #2 and several subsequent incidents (I'm not sure exactly how many, though).

     When I was around eight years old, my father became a member of the District 65 school board. That meant that he would be out of the house on Tuesday nights. When I found out that my father would be attending school board meetings every Tuesday night, I was relieved. I knew then, even at eight years old, that I would be happier, and less worried and afraid, the less my father was around. (See Image #4 in Section 14 of this report, to see what my father and I often looked like when we were around each other during my childhood).

     Since that event, I have read about signs of child molestation, and I have realized that I was exhibiting one of the same behaviors which victims of child molestation frequently display. Evidently, being afraid of a parent, being shy or timid around a parent, and not wanting to be around a parent, are signs which suggest that a child may have been victimized by that parent. I wish that more parents knew that wanting to avoid a parent is a warning sign of abuse, and that children are statistically more likely to be abused by someone they know rather than a stranger.

     While I was only able to casually and partially avoid my father while I was a child, my freedom and ability to travel long distances significantly increased between 2005 (when I began college) and 2007 (when I learned to hitchhike). While my younger brother had made a half-hearted attempt to “run away from home” when he was around four or five years old, I can't remember ever attempting such a thing as a child. I never tried to run away from home, but in summer 2007, I quit an Italian language summer course, and hitchhiked to Arkansas to go camping with friends in the Ozarks. In mid-2007, most of the year 2010, and 2013, I traveled around the country, going back and forth from Illinois and Wisconsin, to places like Florida, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and California. My father paid for me to attend college, so in a very real way, he was chiefly responsible for me ending up in Madison with no realistic means with which to support myself (with few marketable skills, and living in the post- Katrina, post- financial collapse, highly competitive, highly professionalized economy of the late 2000s). After I had decided to take that 2007 summer course, I could not escape my father's control without literally physically escaping him, and not telling him that I had quit the course. As an adult, looking back on those travels, I now realize that I was “running away” from the Midwest (and from my father's control) as an adult, because I had missed out on opportunities to do the same when I was a child and then a teenager.

     Although many of the things which my father has done which have scared and intimidated me, were not intentional, the fact that these behaviors had the effect of intimidating me, matters too. So does the fact that my father could have easily avoided scaring – and psychologically traumatizing – his children; by doing simple things which would have taken little to no effort (such as refraining from hanging murderers' drawings on my nursery room wall, and keeping his hands on [I meant “off”] the steering wheel while driving his only sons around in a two-ton hunk of steel at 60 miles per hour.

     Even if my father did not intend for these behaviors to intimidate me, his behaviors exhibit a pattern of gross negligence regarding the difference between healthy ways to scare children for fun, and unhealthy ways to scare them which end up traumatizing them.

     I believe that I have demonstrated how my father's intimidation tactics not only scared me as a child, but also inflicted various forms of psychological damage which, as an adult, I am still only just beginning to notice and understand, and from which I am still recovering.

10d. Manipulation

     The manipulation which my father inflicted upon me, is one of the factors which aggravate the crime of Criminal Sexual Abuse; along with threats (which did not occur in my case) and fraud and intimidation (which did).

     My father used all of the following tactics to psychologically manipulate me: picking fights with me, confusing and scaring me into guilt and shame and submission, monitoring and limiting my ability to communicate freely with others, and teasing me in front of others (making it even more difficult for me to find social acceptance), etc..

     My father's penchant for picking fights with me (for entertainment or fun), and the other manipulative behaviors in which my father engaged, ought to demonstrate that my father engaged in a wide variety of manipulative tactics. I believe that the goal of manipulation was to keep me too scared, confused, quiet, alone, and dependent upon my father, for there ever to be a chance that I would report the abuse (or even criticize my father openly about anything else).

     I believe that my father engaged in these forms of manipulation out of fear that, one day, when I opened my mouth and had nobody around me (like him) to stop or inhibit me from speaking freely, I would tell somebody about the sexual abuse which he inflicted upon me in 1995 and 1996.

     My father would engage in manipulative behaviors such as shaming, pressuring, and guilt-tripping me over things such as my grades and my hesitance about accepting gifts from him. My father also deprived me of privacy, humiliated me publicly, and limited and intervened in my contacts with friends and family (causing me to become isolated, socially alienated, and lonely). Finally, my father made it difficult for me to disclose the abuse which he had inflicted upon me, by hiring a therapist in 2015 whom, it turned out, I had valid reasons not to trust.

     My father has also used limitation and surveillance of my communications; I believe intentionally, in order to manipulate me into silence and into states of social alienation and isolation. By keeping me apart from other children and family members more often than not, my father effectively limited my contact with them, and reduced the chance that I might divulge something critical about my father (or divulge the abuse) while speaking with them.

     By manipulating me into silence and confusion, my father also coerced me into a state of dependence upon him (and did something similar to my mother). I believe that my father deliberately engaged in these forms of manipulation, in order to keep me silent, and to keep me in a state of confusion about what had happened to me on the couch in our basement. I also believe that the fraudulent acts of gaslighting, in which my father engaged with both myself and my mother, should also be considered acts of intentional psychological manipulation.

     While my father did not manipulate me out of disclosing the abuse in any conscious, overt, obvious, nor verbal manner, which acknowledged the abuse, he did not need to do so in order to achieve the goal he intended that manipulation to accomplish. My father's manipulation and emotional abuse were strong enough to keep me in a perpetual state of shame and guilt, which made it difficult for me to gather up the courage to criticize my father, which he deserved.

     My father's efforts to make me feel ashamed and guilty, and his efforts to pressure and shame me into confessing, began at a young age. I have already explained how he would pressure me into saying things about my grades before I had any idea when they were coming or what they were. I have also explained how my father would accuse me of doing things, and even of conspiring against him, without any evidence. My father would insist that I had some malice of forethought in an action, or in what I said, and so he would repeatedly insist to me that I had done something wrong, and knew it, even when I didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about, and when what I had done was totally innocuous or else a mistake which was completely unintentional on my part.

     One such example, of my father manipulating me by instilling a sense of guilt in me when I had done nothing wrong, pertains to a time when I was about seven years old. I had recently begun first grade, and my father was asking me some questions about how first grade was going for me. One of the questions he asked was, “Do you talk back to your teacher?” I responded that, of course I did. I was only seven years old, so I was still too innocent to understand that “talk back” had a negative connotation. I had not been rude to my teacher at all; I only responded “yes” because I thought my father was asking whether I responded when my teacher called on me. I find it strange that my father would suspect a seven-year-old of even being capable of smart-talking his teacher (let alone, why he would suspect that I – a very quiet, shy, timid, and introspective person, who was nowhere near as disrespectful or as violent as, for example, my younger brother was, growing up – would be willing to do such a thing). That incident is but one example of how my father would attempt to instill a permanent sense of guilt in me, and perhaps even to instill a feeling of need to confess to him (including things I hadn't done).

     Between February 2015 and February 2018 – the last time I lived with my father – he made it extraordinarily difficult to speak with him, tell him something, or even ask him a question. I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that I spent the majority of those three years trying to speak more than three words of a sentence before my father would begin talking over me and shouting at me.

     I believe that my father accused me of things I didn't do when I was younger, and incited and provoked me into arguing and shouting over the last two decades, in order to excite me, make me look crazy, make himself look sane by comparison, and entertain himself. I believe that my father's impulse to do this, may be motivated by an addiction to the chemicals which are released in the body when a person is angry. I suspect that my father craves conflict because it excites and entertains him.

     Granted, my father does “seem better” these days, by which I mean he shouts less, and it is nowhere near as easy as it was three years ago to do something that caused him to react with anger. However, I believe that there are two main reasons why my father has not shouted and been angry as often over the last two-and-a-half years, as he did before mid-2017.

     Those reasons are that, around the same time (spring or summer 2017), both of the following occurred: 1) my mother stopped accepting my father's abuse at the workplace, and told him off; and 2) I told my father to his face that I knew that he had “half-molested me”. [Note: I said “half-molested” because I couldn't remember my father having engaged in any skin-to-skin contact while molesting me; however, I still consider what he did to have been molestation even though it may not have involved any groping under my clothes.]

     I distinctly remember being in my father's living room in spring or summer 2017, and saying something like “Don't you know that you're not supposed to tickle a kid until he screams and can't breathe?” I remember my father apologizing for that, even though I don't distinctly remember him having apologized for molesting me. The fact that he apologized for tickling me until I couldn't breathe, means that he has acknowledged that he tickled me against my will, to me, in private. He has thus admitted to me that he did to me the exact same thing I am claiming he did right before he touched my genitals against my will.

     Additionally, his “seeming better” nearly always, and almost exclusively, manifests itself in the form of him giving more gifts to people. I suspect that he knows that giving gifts to people extravagantly, can make them feel like they owe him something, and I believe that my father's “cooperative” gift giving is nothing more than a bribe to stay silent about his faults and his past behavior which has harmed people.

     Another manner in which my father manipulated me, was by heaping shame, and feelings of weakness and worthlessness, upon me, for spending 2010 traveling instead of working, and for not having worked much in my life.

     In 2010 or 2011, after meeting a family on a farm in Georgia, I had dinner with my father and his two brothers at a restaurant. I remember telling them about how I was excited to be on a farm, and to travel, and I expressed a bit of interest in either going back or else becoming a farmer myself. My father's response was something like, “That's really cool. You know, I hear that some of those farmers actually have to wake up before noon.”

     He was giving me a back-handed compliment, designed to tease me for being lazy, sleeping too much, and/or working too little. It especially hurt me that my father would openly mock and tease me in such a way, because he did it right in front of my two uncles.

     My father has never apologized for this incident, nor for making fun of me when I was employed. I have had my current job for nearly two-and-a-half years, and my father has still never apologized for all the times he has accused me of not wanting to work. I have always wanted to work; it's just that my opportunities to acquire skills and education are limited and expensive, and I decided that it was worth the effort to spend a few years of my twenties figuring out which states might be a more hospitable place to live and an easier place to earn money and keep it. If my father cared as much about me having a job as he pretends he does, then he would not have expressed so much embarrassment and shame at the prospect of me working for McDonald's and other fast food restaurants when I was in my early twenties.

     My father's manipulation caused significant damage to my abilities to socialize and communicate, but also to my willingness and ability to display emotions openly around my father and other people. My father engaged in censorship, silencing, monitoring and surveillance of my communication on social media, and limitation of my communication with friends and family members.

     My father's hyper-vigilance about with whom I was socializing, whether I was participating in class, and whether I was speaking appropriately to adults, contributed to my own hyper-awareness about what comes out of my mouth. My father taught me to think before I speak, but he also did it in a mean and confrontational way, so it worked too well. I eventually realized that speaking, or expressing any emotion, around my father, usually resulted in me being judged, shamed, or accused of lying.

     My father's first noticeable attempts to isolate me and alienate me came around the time of the abuse, or afterwards. But his first attempts to excessively monitor my social interaction began earlier; in preschool.

     My mother recorded in her diary that my father told her that he thought I was not going to participate in a preschool event that would occur a day or two after the diary entry was made. I believe that my father's irrational fear about my ability to socialize by myself, actually backfired. My mother has told me about how, when they attended parties while they were married, he would tell her a lot of basic and mundane facts about people he knew at the party, before introducing them. My mother said that she wanted to talk to those people, and find out those facts on her own.

     My father's fear that I wasn't socializing enough when I was a child, and my father's habit of monitoring my speech and social interactions when I did socialize, didn't help make socializing any easier as a child; it only made socializing more confusing, and more difficult to engage in without my father's guidance.

     As a child, my father would also criticize me for showing too much emotion in my voice, as well as for showing too little emotion. If I would be excited or angry about something, my father would respond almost as if my open expression of emotion presented some sort of challenge to his authority.

     I suspect that my father thinks that boys who express their emotions openly, are “effeminate”. I know that he thinks I'm effeminate because on two occasions in the past, he criticized my choice in eyeglasses and cell phone color as effeminate (and he did so while teasing me in front of complete strangers). Of course (not that it really matters), my father is arguably more “effeminate” than I am, in several ways; first because he and I have both worn our hair long, and second, because, when he was 38 and/or 39 years old, he molested an eight- or nine-year-old boy (me). Therefore, he exhibits the arguably “feminine” characteristic of being attracted to males.

     I believe that my father's fears that I am “effeminate” and antisocial, stem from the facts that he is every bit as effeminate and antisocial as I am, if not more antisocial (because he is so self-conscious about his reputation, and his appearance, and how other people see him).

     After a while, knowing how negatively my father would react when I displayed emotions openly, led me to become more reserved in my display of emotions and my manner of speech. Some time between the ages of eight and twelve, I began responding to my father with a flat affect, in order to avoid setting him off and making him angry. Unfortunately, my plan backfired, because my father responded to my flat affect, with accusations that I was deliberately trying to speak in a “robotic” or “monotone” fashion. He would even imitate the way I was talking, which I have always interpreted as mockery. Raising my voice to be heard, shouting, and getting angry, didn't help me get my father to listen to me. Unfortunately, being quiet and calm, or submissive, got me nowhere too.

     All I was doing was trying to avoid upsetting him. Expressing myself freely didn't work, and acting submissively and timidly didn't work either. I discovered years later, that this flat affect which I employed, involves the same type of lack of reaction as “the gray rock method” of dealing with narcissists. Becoming a “gray rock” only made my father more upset; not less.

     In the “gray rock method”, a person makes himself as uninteresting to argue with, as a rock would be; that is, no fun at all. It's possible that my father grew psychochemically addicted to the rush of arguing and shouting and fighting; cortisol and adrenaline are released in the brain when the “fight or flight response” is activated. If my father craved such a neurochemical rush from the conflict of arguing, then the only way to decrease the chance of an argument happening, would be to deprive him of what he wanted (my excited and defensive reaction). I have tried to avoid putting up active resistance against him, but that just results in him getting what he wants (that is, people following his orders) even more quickly. But I have at least learned how to control my reactions, and how to avoid shouting back at him when he began to shout at me. Once beginning to try this “gray rock method” I was no longer any fun to shout at, because it had become more and more difficult to excite and provoke me, and get me to shout back.

     But I repeat, my plan still backfired. My father continued to find ways to get angry with me, even when I would try to be as non-confrontational as possible. Eventually, even such mundane things as asking questions, speaking for more than three seconds at a time, or standing in the doorway of his office for several seconds, would prompt my father to levy wild, unfounded, evidence-free allegations, and interrogations, at me, leaving me confused, defensive, full of righteous indignation, and eventually angry (as was his intention).

     I have always had a fondness for all things peaceful, calm, colorful, beautiful, and serene, and I recoil at the thought of hurting other people. But my father has had years and years of practice provoking me to the point of screaming anger; he has become an expert at making a mountain of wild accusations out of a molehill of difficult-to-explain (but nonetheless usually innocuous) behavior.

     I have explained how my father's actions resulted in frayed relations between me and my cousins on both sides of the family. But there are even more examples of my father's actions deepening divides, and contributing to awkward and estranged relations, in our family.

     One example of this, is also an example of my father's hyper-vigilant monitoring of my communication, backfiring against his intentions. When I was about eleven or twelve years old, my mother and father took me to my mother's cousins' house (the Cervacs) for a Fourth of July party, where they were barbecuing racks of lamb. Before arriving at the party, my father told me to be respectful and “shake hands with everybody”. Since I didn't want to defy him, when I arrived in my cousins' garage, I literally shook hands with all three of the people who were in the garage at that time. I was doing what my father told me to do, but I felt like an idiot because I was shaking everyone's hands like I was running for office and meeting voters at a “meet-and-greet” -type event. My father probably had no intention to embarrass nor humiliate me, but I was humiliated by what happened. I suspect that I would not have been so embarrassed, if my father were not such a domineering person. If my father had made me feel more comfortable about asking him questions, then I probably would have been able to ask a clarifying question which would have resulted in me being less likely to shake the hands of cousins whom I already knew well, as if I were an insane person.

     My father has also shown disdain and derision for some of the less well-off, more “working class” member of my mother's side of the family (including the Cervacs). A few of them have gone to my father for legal representation, and for help with financial troubles, and although my father has readily helped them, I suspect that he also looks upon them neither as true equals, nor as beloved in-laws and respected members of his (now ex-, then current) wife's family.

     My relationships with several of my cousins on my mother's side, have also been damaged because of my father's actions to keep me apart from them, and because of his disdain for them. Some time around 1995 or 1996, my parents informed me and my brother that we would be visiting the family of my father's brother Joe (Joseph Michael Kopsick, born in 1956) less often. My parents' explanation for this, was that my uncle Joe's family had had some sort of fight or disagreement with some other relatives of theirs (however, I can't remember which ones).

     This event upset me as a child, because it meant I wouldn't be celebrating Christmas at my cousins' house in Lake Forest as often, or maybe not at all anymore (I wasn't sure). I don't think I accepted my parents' explanation. I was somewhat upset with my parents, because I wasn't sure whether I would see my cousins again, and I thought my parents were being pessimistic about the chances that whatever conflict was occurring between my cousins' family and their own cousins, could be resolved. Fortunately, however, my contact with my uncle Joe's children did not cease completely, and I still have good relationships with all of them, but we did see each other, and have seen each other, less often after that.

     Another incident which resulted in me seeing members of my family less often, for which I have felt my father responsible, occurred when my father criticized my cousin Daniela for a quirky thing she did. My mother's brother Billy lives in New Jersey with his wife Susan and their daughter Daniela, my first cousin. I remember that when I was around the age of twelve, my father told another family member of ours that when my father had last seen Daniela, she did something like spin around, and/or dance, and then half-sing “I'm a person!”. Daniela was a teenager when this happened, and what she did was completely inoffensive and unproblematic, so I thought it mean-spirited of my father to openly criticize my cousin like that, in front of myself and another family member.

     After reflecting upon this incident later in life, I have realized that my father has, for a long time, had a serious problem with people (namely, myself, my mother, and my cousin Daniela) expressing themselves, as well as the expression of individuality in general. He also seems to have a fear and hostility towards all things which are difficult to explain and predict. I see now that these are traits of a controlling person. I also understand now that, had I been allowed more freedom to express myself as a child, I probably would have disclosed the abuse much earlier.

     My father's alcohol problem has also been a source of embarrassment for me, which has served to deepen divisions in my family unnecessarily. Some time around 2010, at the wedding of my second cousin Brooke Olenick (the daughter of my mother's cousin Marisa), my father drank too much, spent too much time hanging out with the groom (whom he barely knew), and insisted on driving his mother-in-law home when he had been drinking and my uncle Loren (sober) was offering a ride as well.

     Additionally, the social dysfunction and social phobias which my father caused me, have resulted in me having difficulties expressing affection with family members. It is difficult for me to gather up the courage to hug my sister's son, because I grew up afraid of my father's touch, and because it is difficult for me to be around children without remembering the abuse.

     More examples of my father's hypervigilant monitoring of my communication, which I believe stunted my social and emotional development, include encouraging me to talk to adults rather than play with children during parties, and keeping me away from (and even showing disdain towards) some members of both my mother's and father's sides of the family.

     Between approximately 1994 and 2000 (when I was between seven and thirteen years old), my parents would bring me and my brother to the home of my father's then law partner Scott Gibson, for pool parties with other families we knew. While at these parties, I wanted to spend time with both the other children and the adults, but as I grew older, my father would increasingly encourage me to spend more time talking to adults, than playing with the other children. Granted, I was among the oldest of the children at the time, but I was still in need of interaction with children as well as adults.

     I realize now that socializing with those other children more, would have helped me socialize better, later on in life. I know now that that critical development of the ability to play well and speak to other children, was much more important than showing off my ability to speak intelligently to my father's friends.

     My father has also attempted to silence and censor me, and also to tease and humiliate me (often with back-handed compliments) in public; including in front of his friends, and even in front of our relatives.

     My father's confrontational, interventionist style of discipline and parenting, meant that he behaved as a “helicopter parent”, i.e., in a hyper-vigilant way. My father would monitor my communications; not only to make sure that I was being polite and behaving appropriately, but also to make sure that I did not say anything negative nor critical about him.

     My father would also accuse me of being secretive, when I was younger, when I tried to assert my need for privacy.

     As I explained, my father did not appreciate locked doors in his house, regardless of the fact that I often needed to resort to locking my door in order to stop my brother from coming into my bedroom and starting physical fights with me. I suspect that, at the time, my father probably considered me locking my door, to be a form of questioning or challenging his authority.

     My father often made it clear that he didn't care whether I or my brother started a fight, and my father didn't like having to explain himself (even if explaining his orders would help to convince me that I should do them, and/or would help me understand how to do them better and to the desired effect).

     Around 2010 or 2011, while out to dinner with my father and his two brothers, I told my father and uncles that I had visited a farm in Georgia. My father responded, “Wow, that's great, I hear some of those farmers actually have to wake up before noon.” It was an obvious attempt to make fun of me for being lazy, or for being unemployed, or for sleeping too much, or all of the above. My father has believed for a long time that I “don't want to work”; he has never apologized for saying this any time over the past two years (while I have been consistently employed full-time).

     On another occasion – in mid- or late 2017, while I was working as my father's temporary secretary – I had lunch with my father and some of his co-workers and attorney friends. We were talking about the Millennial generation, and the older people at the table were trying to figure out what makes someone a Millennial. I said that I wanted to explain, and my father asked me something to try to invite me to speak. However, the manner in which he asked me, involved piling-on a series of three or four questions. I suspect he did in order to make me too frustrated and overwhelmed with questions to speak. When I opened my mouth to answer, my father interrupted me with yet another question or comment. Denis McKeown, an attorney with whom my father was then sharing office space, noticed in that moment that my father was rudely bombarding me with questions and then interrupting me. He chimed in, and said to my father something like, “Counselor, you are out of order, please allow the witness to respond.” My father looked embarrassed. I explained why birth year, and which birth years, make someone a member of the Millennial generation.

     During my 2010 trip to Georgia, I told the family with whom I was staying, a little about my childhood, and the grandmother told me that I'd been deprived of a childhood. She might have meant that I “didn't have a childhood” because I didn't grow up on a farm, or near nature.

     But that is not the only fact which shows I didn't have the kind of healthy, normal, fun, care-free childhood which parents want for their children. I was also sheltered, and indoors most of the time (mostly due to my own overreaction to the fact that I had mild allergies to outdoor allergens). Furthermore, I was sheltered in the sense that I was often kept apart from other children when my father was around.

     I believe that my father sheltered me, kept me lonely, deprived me of privacy, and humiliated me in front of loved ones, because doing so was necessary to limit the chances that I would tell somebody about the sexual abuse which he inflicted upon me.

     I believe that my father thinks he is above me, my mother, everybody else, and also the law. His smugness and sense of superiority, and his insistence that people defer to him on major decisions and come to him for legal and financial and insurance advice, made it all but impossible for me to make any major decision without his input until February 2018 (when I moved out of his house without consulting him about my apartment choice). My father's personality also makes it extremely difficult for me to feel comfortable, and at-ease, around other family members, when in my father's presence. I am always on guard and I know that I will not be allowed to say what I feel (without him trying to censor me, silence me, or talk over me and interrupt me).

     I believe that my father's hyper-vigilant, controlling attitude concerning the manner in which my mother and I speak and interact with people, caused me to grow up excessively shy, and nearly unable to strike up a conversation without the assistance of someone else (namely my father). I believe that my father made me dependent upon him to provide a context for most of the social interactions in which I engaged, and I believe that that left me emotionally and socially stunted, and dependent upon others to help me find new friends. Given the fact that my now deceased friend Michael Nelson introduced me to so many people in 2007, when beforehand I spoke to few people, that certainly seems the case (and perhaps Michael Nelson served as sort of a replacement “social wingman” in my father's absence).

     All of this is why I believe that my father's hyper-vigilant monitoring and censorship of my self-expression, communication, and socializing – even with my own family members – has served as a form of manipulation and intimidation (as well as a tool with which to coerce me into a state of dependence upon him).

     This manipulation not only helps explain my delay in coming forward; it also helps demonstrate that my father's sexual abuse was aggravated (again, because manipulation, as well as fraud and intimidation – the factors necessary to prove aggravation – were present).

     I feel confident enough to say that my father spent a significant amount of time between 1992 and 2018 figuring out how to control me, figuring out what to say and do to me to get me to respond with anger, and finding ways to keep me in a state of confusion and silence. I believe that my father understood then, that if he could keep me both dependent on him to facilitate and approve my social interactions, and could keep me too afraid to speak with him (the person with whom I interacted more frequently than almost anyone else), then he could repress my impulse to express myself towards others. The result of that was that I did not disclose the abuse as a child, and my father would have had every reason to make sure that that outcome was achieved (and many opportunities to reinforce his silent message that there would be repercussions for criticizing him).

     In a manner of speaking, what my father did has kept me like a dependent child, who only does and believes what his father tells him, until well into adulthood. I believe that my father had it in his mind that he wanted me to stay a child as long as possible. This makes sense considering not only the fact that he sexually abused me while I was still a child (and thus must have been attracted to me as a child, and presumably wanted me to continue to look like I did then), but also considering how controlling, aggressive, confrontational, and domineering his parenting style has always been. I believe he has been plying and tempting me into continuing to try to get along with him, by offering me gifts; and guilt-tripping me when I express hesitation about accepting them.

     In addition to expecting me to silently accept his gifts, my father has also pressured me into coming to him first for legal advice. He does the same thing to my mother, when she goes to anyone other than he, regarding either legal issues, taxes, or her car. I appreciate my father's past help in helping me get my taxes done and recommending attorneys, but one of the reasons why I am now going through legal avenues to pursue these charges against my father, is because this could offer me a chance to finally be represented by an attorney whom is neither my own father, nor a person chosen by my father.

     I have never felt like a true adult since the moment I turned eighteen years old, and I have never felt fully liberated, nor emancipated, from my father. I cannot think of any way to get him to stop controlling my legal, social, and financial decisions as an adult, in the same manner in which he controlled those things and my education choices while I was a child.

     A few months after I returned to my father's home from Portland – around the middle of 2015 – my father told me to my face, “I don't understand why you don't... sort of... subordinate yourself to me.” Immediately after saying this, however, he tried to back-track, and said that he hadn't chosen the right word. He did this because he knew by my reaction that I didn't appreciate his choice of words. I immediately compared the idea of pressuring someone to subordinate themselves to you, to what a slave master does to a slave. Despite my father's attempt to back-track and choose another word, I believe that he used the word “subordinate” because it was the word in his mind which best expressed what he wanted me to do. He believed that, by “subordinating” myself to him, I would take his advice more, and it would lead to me getting a job and my own place to live. Despite apparently looking forward to me moving out, he still guilt-tripped me for declining to consult him before deciding to move out and rent my own apartment in Waukegan.

     Some of my father's behavior almost suggests that he thinks that I am literally “his” son, and therefore his property. I say this because of the way he has bossed me around, treated me like a dog (like by leaving his discarded food to me, and telling me to get onto my knees in order to pick up a garbage bag), and encouraged me to dress up and “prostitute” myself in order to get a job. And, of course, when I was younger, to molest whenever he felt like it.

     My father still gets away with pressuring me, and subtly shaming me, into hugging him. This makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and unsafe, and it needs to stop. But I cannot make it stop by myself; I need help. If I am only free to talk about the abuse around my mother and few other places, then I worry that I might forever be shamed and brow-beaten into agreeing with my father, and into trusting him, forgiving and forgetting the abuse and subtle blackmail. I will not be shamed into acting as if he did nothing to me.

     My father's monitoring, censorship, and intervention in my social interactions, not only served as forms of manipulation and intimidation; they also caused me severe social dysfunction, social phobias, and trust issues.

     Due to my inability to trust my father (my main male role model, and the most important authority figure in my life), I have struggled to trust others both as a child and as an adult, and I have had difficulty looking people in the eye (including potential employers).

     As I explained, my older half-sister Jodi McLellan (formerly Magnani) told me that she thought I might have Asperger's. She told me this some time in the mid 2000s, maybe around 2005, when I was 18 years old. I suspect that my sister thinks this because of my difficulty socializing, my sensitivity to stimuli, and other factors.

     It's entirely possible that I have undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome. I can't easily detect social cues, and I noticed in my early twenties that I had done things not intended as social cues, but which could have been interpreted as such. This led to a few awkward situations.

     Whether I have Asperger's or not, I attribute my oversensitivity to becoming overwhelmed, not to Asperger's, but to my father's sexual abuse, while I attribute my difficulties socializing, to my father's emotional abuse. I have an irrational fear of other people, because I know that in some way, they are like my father. That is why I suspect that anybody I talk to, might take advantage of me, judge me, say something mean to me, or even attack me unprovoked.

     The way my father has treated me, has thus made it difficult for me to do my job properly, because I am a private security officer (security guard). Nobody wants a security guard who's afraid of everybody.

     My father probably has no idea how difficult it is for me to go to job interviews, and go to work, and try to look people directly in the eye and speak clearly to them. He probably has no idea that the reason why I work third shift, is because it allows me much greater freedom than first and second shift would, to avoid talking to people and socializing with people.

     My father would shout at me every time I tried to speak clearly and look him in the eye; I think that is why it is so difficult for me to look and speak directly at other people. I wish my father would understand that, when he gets angry with me for not working enough, a major reason why I can't get a job is because my father's abuse destroyed the confidence which I would have otherwise been able to use to get past the job application process.

     My father has made my mother and me afraid of him.

     While growing up as a child, and even still today, any time I say something critical or “negative” about my father in front of my mother, she opens her eyes wide and shushes me. Even if my father is nowhere to be seen – even when my mother has known that my father was on vacation – she has shushed me out of fear that he will hear us.

     As if it weren't enough that my mother shushed me every time she or I said something critical or negative about my father (creating an environment in which it was impossible to criticize him), my father's abusing me and terrifying me into submission, made me unable to be assertive, set boundaries, speak up, or be a leader in any way. To the best of my recollection, my father made no attempts to encourage me to set boundaries, nor to be assertive; there would have been nothing in it for him.

     I have never wanted to be a domineering, nor controlling, person. I have never wanted to inspire fear in people, especially not fear of physical violence. Since my father was the opposite way, I grew up with no ability to set boundaries, nor to assert myself. I grew up thinking that it's “mean” or “controlling” to set boundaries with people.

     I let people walk into my apartment after I tell them not to, because I have no real sense of permanent ownership of the things I own. I think that's because what I owned was routinely taken away from me for punishment as a child, but also because my father took my innocence away, something that was much closer to the core of who I was than any possession or apartment.

     I see myself as a caring, honest, affectionate person. I was certainly more so as a child. But my father's abuse has turned me into an angry, bitter, resentful person, whom is afraid of human touch, and afraid of looking too attractive (because of the grooming I experienced when I dressed up as a child). I have no desire to even look presentable, let alone any desire to become like my father and have wealth and influence. I care about being a good person and getting justice for what happened to me; I want to be myself again and give my family their son back.

     The way my father treated me as a child, was especially risky and reckless, because the way my father abused me, and then left me unable to speak about it, made me into a lonely child. And pedophiles have been known to choose lonely children as victims, because they are usually off by themselves (and thus easier to catch), and are usually more desperate for someone to listen to them. If a child molester or kidnapper had driven past Lake Bluff East School when I was in first grade, he would have seen me on recess collecting trash, yards and yards away from the other children (this occurred between Incident #1 and Incident #2. A kidnapper could have easily identified me as the lonely child in the class, and could have preyed on my vulnerability.

     My father probably had no idea that, by bullying me and sexually abusing me at home, he put me at risk of not only being bullied, but also potentially being molested again (or even kidnapped). I honestly suspect that my father does not think, nor care, at all, about the way he has hurt my feelings, brow-beaten me into submission, and guilt-tripped and shamed me into doing what he says is good for me.

     I believe that he is trying to drive me insane – and make me emotionally, socially, and financially crippled – without his involvement in my life (“assistance”, in his mind).

     Aside from all of these examples of manipulation through deprivation of unmonitored social interaction, my father failed in his efforts to provide me with psychological counseling about the abuse he inflicted upon me when I needed that counseling in early 2015.

     He failed so miserably, in fact, that I suspect it was an act of sabotage. I know that's a strong statement, but I say that because my father arrived at his decision about which therapist to choose for me, in a manner which I suspect could have put me at risk of experiencing more sexual abuse. Those therapy sessions were nothing more than another attempt by my father to intervene in, and obstruct, my attempts to communicate that something was wrong.

     When I returned home to Lake Bluff from Portland, and began living with my father, I wasn't making much sense. This was because: 1) I had been studying religion and psychology; 2) I was extremely lonely from having just lost my best friend, girlfriend, job, and apartment, all within the span of two months; and 3) I was occasionally attempting to communicate through the use of similes, comparisons, and metaphors. The latter enraged my father, because that made it difficult for him to understand me; as I explained, he is typically enraged by anything that is difficult to explain or predict.

     My parents did decide to send me to a psychiatric counselor in early 2015. However, they chose Dr. Michael Feld (based at 666 Dundee Road #1302 in Northbrook, Illinois). My father paid for me to see Dr. Feld for five hour-long sessions, which took place once a week for five weeks. After the fourth session, I told my parents that I thought I was beginning to benefit from the sessions. For some reason, my father didn't want to pay for a fifth session (each session cost $200), but I convinced him to pay for it, and he did, and that was the last session I attended with Dr. Feld.

     When I reminded my father, several months later, that he was hesitant about paying for the last session, he responded by telling me that he remembered it the opposite way; that I was the one who didn't want to go to the final session, and that he wanted me to go. But that was incorrect; I know that because the only reason that the fifth session was the final one, was because after the fourth session, I had to try so hard to convince my father to pay for one last session.

     My father may have remembered that event incorrectly, or he may have been trying to gaslight me again; I'm not sure. But I suspect that he was trying to confuse me, because I think that father ended those sessions because he knew that I was beginning to learn about and research psychology and personality disorders. He probably suspected that I was trying to figure out which psychological issues were affecting him. I was, though; but not out of a lack of concern for him. This was not the first time my father had expressed disdain about members of his family learning about psychology; he called my mother “Freud” at least once, probably when she said something insightful, or perhaps critical, about his personality.

     A few months after ending sessions with Dr. Michael Feld – some time in the autumn of 2015 – I spoke to my mother's sister Marsha Peterson and her husband Loren. Marsha told me that she had specifically warned my mother not to choose Dr. Feld for me. My aunt's reason was that she had heard that Dr. Feld had been accused of having an affair with one of his patients.

     Since I had no idea whether Feld is heterosexual or homosexual, the revelation of that fact disturbed me. That's because if Feld had been accused of sexual impropriety with a patient, and also homosexual or bisexual, then he might have tried to sexually abuse me. That was the absolute last thing I needed at the time. That's because at the time I was seeing Dr. Feld, I knew for sure that my father had molested me (and by that time I had even recovered memories about being pressured to wear penny loafers, and recovered some of the memories described in Incident #17).

     When I found out, after the sessions ended, that Dr. Feld had had an affair with a patient, I called my mother and father, and told them to meet me at my father's kitchen table for a conversation (about multiple things which they and I wanted to talk about). I confronted them about what I had discovered, explained how betrayed I had felt, and then abruptly went to the patio to smoke a cigarette. After that, my mother and father began to argue with each other, and my mother left my father's house without saying goodbye to me.

     I have been telling my mother about the sexual abuse which I suffered at the hands of my father in 1995 and 1996, since the month I came home to Lake Bluff from Portland (February 2015) and also the month before that (January 2015, when I called my mother from Portland to tell her I suspected that some abuse had occurred). I desperately needed psychological counseling at that point, to help recover from having experienced trauma from sexual abuse as a child; but my parents' response was to send me to a therapist who had had an affair with his client, and then pressure me into taking anti-depressant medication.

     I may have been experiencing a little Seasonal Affective Disorder, from the winter and the lack of sunlight in Portland, at the time, but I was not depressed; I was disturbed and sad because I was recovering memories of having been molested as a child. If molesting a child causes that child to experience “depression”, then that so-called “depression” is a perfectly rational response to a depressing thing such as molestation befalling them. Anti-depressant medication does not “un-molest” a person; therefore, I did not need anti-depressant medication. In fact, anti-depressant medication probably would have only served to placate me, and also to shut me up about the sexual abuse which I had suffered, for even longer.

     Aside from the risk that the anti-depressant medication could have inhibited my attempts to recover lost repressed memories of abuse, the fact that my father was paying for my sessions with Dr. Feld, almost certainly would and could not have resulted – and in fact, did not result – in the recovery of those memories.

     Both of my parents were present during my first session with Dr. Michael Feld. When the session began, Feld asked me a question which I can't remember; it was probably something general, like “What's wrong?”, or “What's going on?”, or “Why are you guys here?”. I stayed quiet; part of me didn't want to respond, because I suspected that my father would not accept whatever I said. Instead of answering Feld, I decided to find out whether either of my parents thought they had the right to speak on my behalf. My father started explaining to Feld what he personally thought was wrong with me. When my father spoke on my behalf, it became clear to me that he sees me as a ventriloquist's dummy, which is supposed to sit on his knee and say what he tells it to say.

     Feld and I discussed a single one of the intrusive, nonsensical thoughts I was having, and he talked about how there's a way to get rid of those intrusive thoughts, or at least stop them. We never got around to talking about how to do this, but my conversations with him did motivate me to take some steps towards getting out of the house more often, getting more sunlight and physical activity, and thinking about getting a job. More than anything else, we mostly talked about my need to be outside, and my need for sunlight, socialization, employment, and independence, as well as my own place.

     At no point during those sessions – either while my father was present, or while he was out of the room – did either I or Feld discuss any of the “false memories”, nor any of the other hints I'd received in my subconscious by that point, about sexual abuse having occurred during my childhood. I simply didn't feel comfortable bringing it up, and my father and Dr. Feld seemed to have more important priorities (namely, getting me to the point where I could have a job and keep it).

     There was simply no way that I could bring up, during these sessions, the fact that I suspected my father of having molested me as a child, without having to worry that my father might find out. I know that patient confidentiality supposedly protects me, but if my father was paying for the sessions, there was simply no way that my father spending money would result in a disclosure or accusation of him sexually abusing me. Those five sessions were thus a waste of a thousand dollars.

     I realized, around the time these sessions occurred, that the only chance I had at recovering more memories of abuse, was to try to jog my own memory. I didn't mention the thoughts about abuse to Feld, and had to cope with the resurfacing memories on my own, without anybody to talk to about it over the next few years (except, occasionally, my mother, when I had something important enough to say about what I had recovered).

     In March and April 2015, I had stopped smoking cannabis, and save for my cigarette smoking habit, I was effectively sober. However, since Dr. Feld had prescribed me an antidepressant (I can't remember which one), I couldn't help but feel like my family was trying to get me back on drugs. I knew that taking antidepressants would make me gain weight, become more lethargic, and become placated with my financial and family situations, and I didn't want that. I wanted to take steps to improve my life. Since trustworthy psychiatric counseling was out, I had to research psychology on my own, and jog my memory to recover suppressed memories, and write them down and talk to my mother about it, instead of going to a professional (which I couldn't afford on my own, and still can't).

     One final form of manipulation in which my father engaged, which affected me then and continues to cause me problems, pertains to my mother, rather than myself. My father has manipulated and intimidated not only myself, but also my mother, into submission and dependence upon him.

     My father gives my mother money every month because of the divorce, and also pays my mother's mortgage. But he also employs her as his secretary at his law office in Waukegan (Law Offices of Richard S. Kopsick, P.C., located at 415 Washington Street, Suite #207). He pays her $7 per hour, which is $1.25 below the legally mandated minimum wage in Illinois of $8.25 per hour. My father has thus engaged in illegal activity to keep my mother dependent upon him for money, in addition to his legal but manipulative gift-giving (i.e., bribery, in the form of the mortgage, and other gifts).

     My father's successful manipulation of my mother into dependence, has served to make my mother into one of what are sometimes called “Flying Monkeys”, the “helper monkeys” of narcissists who defend them and make excuses for them. My mother has helped my father shame me into accepting my father's gifts, and into refusing to criticize my father on account of those gifts and his financial support. This is another reason why I did not come forward about the abuses as soon as I could have.

     Another form of manipulation in which my father engaged – with me in addition to my mother – was subtle bribery.

     As I explained, my father would give gifts with strings attached, which he would use to control me; most often, he would control how and when I could use the gift. He would make me feel ashamed if I didn't want to accept them, or expressed hesitation about accepting them (usually because of the possible strings attached which could have been involved).

     He would also make me feel ashamed for not expressing my gratitude enough, and not appearing happy enough, when I would receive the gift (for example, when he started renting the Kia Forte for me); but the only reason I didn't express my gratitude openly, was because I was afraid to express my emotion in front of him, for fear of him calling me “effeminate” or making fun of me for the supposedly “feminine” trait of showing how I feel.

     I later realized that my father's gifts were attempts to bribe me into silence, and into accepting his continued emotional abuse, and into refraining from criticizing him. I also believe that the shame which my father inflicted upon me for being hesitant to accept his gifts, was a way to gaslight me; he likely knew that his past mistreatment of me has made it more and more difficult for me to accept his gifts.

     The myriad ways in which my father manipulated me, cannot be overstated.

     My father has routinely used pressure, coercion, bullying, and shouting, to get his way, both during my childhood, and still today in my adulthood. He issued ultimatums to make it impossible for me to make my own decisions. He tried to shame and pressure me into confessing things of which I wasn't guilty. He has bribed me, and guilt-tripped me over my hesitation to accept his manipulative gifts.

     My father has gone months at a time having extreme difficulty being able to listen to me for more than three seconds at a time. He has subjected me to deprivations of privacy and public humiliation through mean-spirited “teasing”. He has silenced and censored me. He has monitored and limited my communications with friends and family, and even printed out my posts on social media once. He forced me into a state of isolation, social alienation, and loneliness; a state in which I never felt safe nor comfortable talking about my problems (let alone the abuse).

     My father caused me social dysfunction and social phobias in addition to sexual dysfunction. The way he has treated me has caused me to experience invasive memories about self-harm and suicide. Finally, he delayed me getting trustworthy therapy for the abuse which he himself inflicted upon me, before finally concluding that drugging me with antidepressants was the best way to shut me up about everything that had happened between us.

     My father has manipulated me throughout my life, and I suspect that most of the things which he did to manipulate me, since the last incident of abuse occurred, were done with the intention of keeping me quiet about the abuse (as well as too confused about my relationship with my father to explain what had happened).

10e. Conclusion Regarding Aggravating Factors

     The law allows that, for the five-year limit on reporting abuse after discovering it to be held not to apply in a case of Criminal Sexual Abuse, the aggravating factors of “threats, intimidation, manipulation, or fraud” must have been made against the victim, subsequent to that abuse. As I explained, I have not been threatened directly, but I was defrauded during the abuse, and intimidated and manipulated after the abuse. That's why I believe that the five-year limit should not apply in my case, and also that the presence of fraud, intimidation, and manipulation, should be construed to aggravate the seriousness of, and punishment for, the crimes committed against me.

     Illinois's 2003 law on childhood sexual abuse, ILCS § 5/13-202.2, provides in subsection (b) that “an action for damages for personal injury based on childhood sexual abuse must be commenced within 10 years of the date [a person turns 18] or within 5 years of the date a person abused discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence should discover both (I) that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred and (ii) that the injury was caused by the childhood sexual abuse.”

     That time limit on reporting abuse, does not apply, however, if there were “threats, intimidation, manipulation or fraud perpetrated by the abuser or by any person acting in the interests of the abuser”. My father did not threaten me, but he did use intimidation, manipulation, and fraud against me; three of the four factors necessary to prove that the crime was aggravated. My father's fraud and manipulation were overt and obvious, while his intimidation was less obvious but nonetheless took place.

     I have explained thus far in this statement how my father used fraudulent denial of his past abuses, physical and psychological intimidation (including arguing, shouting, and various forms of emotional abuse), and forms of manipulation (including silencing and censorship, social isolation, gaslighting, shaming, guilt-tripping, pressuring into confession) to discourage me from making a second attempt (since my childhood) to come forward about the abuse.

     My father used fraud between the incidents of abuse in order to get away with more abuse, he used intimidation to scare me into submitting to him (both physically during the abuse, and in terms of his control over me), and he used manipulation and gaslighting in order to pressure and control me, and confuse me, into trusting my own mind (rather than relying on him) to figure out what had happened, and to judge whether I had been touched against my will. And that touching certainly was against my will; I clearly objected, in a variety of ways, from the very moment these incidents began to happen, and he ignored it, because he didn't care about my objections.

     Additionally, my father has refrained from mentioning the abuse out loud to me, likely because between 2000 and 2014, he probably had no idea whether I could remember the abuse, and (I suspect) because, if I had forgotten the abuse, he wanted to avoid causing me to remember it. That is how my father managed to defraud me, intimidate me, and manipulate me into staying silent about the abuse, all without ever verbally acknowledging or admitting, out loud, what, specifically, he had done to me.

     And as if all that weren't enough, when I was finally ready for therapy in 2015, I was unable to trust the therapist whom he had hired, and I had to resist my parents' attempts to put me on antidepressants when I was trying to stay sober.

     I have also explained why I feel that additional factors which potentially aggravate the seriousness of the crime, should be considered.

     To repeat, these factors include: 1) my father's dereliction of his responsibility to teach me about sex in a healthy manner; 2) my father's sexually awkward and creepy behavior and comments towards me and several teenage girls with whom I grew up; 3) my father's apparent approval of the unwanted touching inflicted upon me by Scott Gibson; and 4) my father's hiring of Dr. Michael Feld despite my aunt's specific warning to both of my parents about Feld's past sexual impropriety.

     Finally, the fact that 5) my parents tried to get me on anti-depressants, after my father may have encouraged me to drink whiskey following Incidents #14 through #16, should also be considered as potential aggravating factors. The outcome of me drinking alcohol as a child, or taking anti-depressants as an adult, could have only served to shut me up and placate me about the abuse, and risk exposing me to further abuse by causing me to let down my guard, and to lower my toleration for (and my resistance against) abusive treatment.

     In his book The Mass Psychology of Fascism, psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich wrote that “Suppression of the natural sexuality in the child, particularly of its genital sexuality, makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, good and adjusted in the authoritarian sense; it paralyzes the rebellious forces because any rebellion is laden with anxiety; it produces, by inhibiting sexual curiosity and sexual thinking in the child, a general inhibition of thinking and of critical faculties. In brief, the goal of sexual suppression is that of producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation”. Reich continues, “The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring of sexual inhibition and anxiety.”

     I believe that my father has done exactly that to me; he has repressed my sexual expression (by, intentionally or unintentionally, causing me to feel ashamed to discuss sexual topics with him). He has also repressed a related function; my ability to communicate and socialize without his guidance. He has done so in a manner which caused me to submit to his authority for approval and assistance, more and more as time went on when I was a child (and for a considerable number of years into my adulthood).

     I believe this has been his intention; from the time my father told me around the age of six “Don't masturbate too much”, up until just several years ago when I became unable to ask him a single question without him shouting at me. My father knows that, if he can snuff out all questions and criticism from the start (by simply ignoring them, talking over them, or shutting me up as soon as I begin to speak), then he can make it impossible for me to interact with him at all, without getting someone else involved. That's why I'm getting someone else involved, in order to resolve this dispute.

     My father defrauded and tricked me into getting molested, manipulated and intimidated me into states of silence and confusion, and shamed and guilt-tripped me whenever I doubted or criticized him (or expressed hesitance about accepting his gifts, or could not prove that my grades hadn't come in yet). He also groomed me, and kept me afraid to verbally or physically resist his restraint and molestation.

     He kept me so afraid from the ages of ten to thirteen years old, that I could scarcely (if even at all) remember the abuses which I had suffered during the ages of eight and nine. He made it impossible to talk to him openly and frankly about anything – grades, employment, whatever I'd be doing while he wasn't looking – without risking a shouting match. He made me into a shy and lonely child, afraid to talk to most people without my father's supervision and introductions. My father also limited my contact with family members. I believe that he did this to keep me from talking.

     My father kept me in a constant state of terror as a child. Before his sexual assaults, I was a quiet, yet fun-loving and happy, child. After his abuse, I stayed quiet, but I could no longer trust my father, didn't want to be around him, and experienced severe difficulties getting along with other children. Later in life, I experienced difficulties trusting others and sustaining romantic relationships.

     I believe that I would have a much more healthy social life, less sexual dysfunction, and much less fear in general, if my father had not terrorized me as a child by depriving me of privacy, [shouting] at me, inflicting these various forms of emotional abuse and psychological torture which I have described (i.e., fraud through gaslighting, and mental intimidation), and molested me.

     All of what I have described – that is, my accounts of incidents and descriptions of patterns of my father's fraud, intimidation, manipulation, gaslighting, and other creepy behavior – ought to help explain why I have waited so long to come forward. It also ought to help explain why the five-year limit on reporting childhood sexual abuse after discovering it, should not apply in my case. Finally, the fact that three of the four accepted aggravating factors (fraud, intimidation, and manipulation) were present following the abuses which I suffered, should help explain why the maximum punishment should be considered for the crimes committed against me.

     Hopefully it will not be necessary to plan around that five-year limit; I intend to submit this statement to police before the five-year anniversary of discovering the abuse. That anniversary is either in January 2020 or March 2020, or else in spring or summer of 2022, depending on whether the standard regarding “discovering the abuse” pertains to the first time I felt confident that I had been molested, or the first time I successfully recovered true, specific, vivid memories of sexual abuse).

     “Discovery of the abuse”, however, apparently pertains to something more specific in the law; that is, the discovery of a causal relationship between Criminal Sexual Abuse and some injury. I explain in this statement why I believe that my father caused me sexual dysfunction, emotional trauma, and damage to my reputation, as well as possible injuries to my left lower rib cage and/or my lungs.

11. Proof of the Defendant's Guilty Mind

11a. Introduction

     I have observed several behaviors, and patterns of behaviors, of my father, which indicate to me that he both knew what he was doing when he sexually abused me, and knew that I objected but did it anyway. Additionally, I have observed behaviors which suggest that my father feels guilty about what he did, as well as fearful that he will be exposed. I will also explain what I have confronted my father about and what I haven't confronted him about, as well as to what he has admitted, and to what he hasn't.

11b. Mens Rea: Proof of Criminal Intent

     A necessary element of many crimes, is the presence of intention of wrongdoing, on the part of the accused. The Latin legal term which is relevant here, is “mens rea”, which means “guilty mind”. This is to say that, for a crime to be said to have occurred, the accused person doesn't need to have only committed some injurious action or conduct; the accused must also have had malice aforethought. That is, the accused must have known that what he was doing was wrong (and injurious to someone) and decided to do it anyway, despite that fact.

     The behaviors which my father displayed, which suggest to me that he had malice of forethought, knew what he was doing, and knew that what he did was both wrong and unwanted, include the fraud which he committed in order to get away with more abuse, apparent intent to derive sexual gratification from the abuse, and the patterns of intimidation and manipulation in which he engaged in order to cover-up the abuse after it had happened.

     As I explained, some time after Incident #2, after the first time I was molested on the couch in our basement, my father tricked me into sitting behind his legs, so that he could abuse me again. He did this by telling me that he was not going to do to me what he had done the previous time (however he phrased it, I don't think he admitted specifically what he had done). He knew that I didn't want to get close to him, because I suspected that he would subject me to more unwanted touching. He knew that he had to either apologize, or tell me that he wouldn't do it again, in order for me to trust him enough to get near him.

     I suspect that my father intended to derive, and did derive, sexual gratification from the sexual abuse. For one, he was groping and grabbing and fondling my penis and scrotum at the time, and touching and poking and jabbing all over my body (especially my underarms). My father would also be very sweaty after the incidents of abuse, as a person would be after masturbating, or having sex, or achieving sexual climax.

     I also feel confident in saying that my father had malice of forethought, and intent to commit wrongdoing, when he engaged in patterns of intimidation and manipulation in order to cover-up the abuse (and silence me, and scare me into submission) after it had happened.

     The frequency with which I objected to my father's unwanted touching, during this abuse, and the variety of manners in which I attempted to object and resist, should have indicated to any sane person that what was happening to me was both painful and unwanted. My father, with absolute 100% certainty, knew what he was doing, and knew that he was hurting me. He could have stopped each and every single time I begged and pleaded him to, but he didn't. He could have let me go when I tried to get loose from his grip; he kept fondling my penis and scrotum from below instead.

     My father knew that what he was doing was wrong. He did it either because he didn't care that it was wrong, or because he doesn't believe that there is a difference between right and wrong, or both. Or maybe he just wanted to gratify himself sexually, using me as a tool with which to do so. Whatever the case, my father is not only guilty of acting in an extremely inconsiderate manner; he intended to commit these acts of Criminal Sexual Abuse against myself as a minor aged eight and nine years old. Therefore he had criminal intent, has a guilty mind, and should be considered a criminal offender from the perspective of Illinois state law.

11c. Proof of the Defendant's Guilty Conscience

      I have observed behaviors in my father, and have witnessed conversations involving him, which indicate to me that he remembers what he did to me, knows it was wrong, and feels not only guilty about it, but also feels afraid that he will get outed, exposed, or caught.

      On several occasions, during the spring or summer of 2017 – between early March and mid-June – I confronted my father in his living room about some of the most traumatic events of my childhood, of which I felt (and still feel) he was responsible.

      On the first occasion, I asked him to apologize for the way he would slam my bedroom door, almost in my mother's face, when she would try to get into my bedroom while my father was “disciplining” me and my brother (really, shouting at us at the top of his lungs, and trying to scare us into obeying him and behaving well). He apologized, saying “I'm sorry” and nothing more. It was the kind of matter-of-fact, obviously pressured apology which you would expect to receive from a child, who doesn't really understand what he has done, and is just apologizing to save face and because someone prompted him to do so.

     Possibly on the same occasion as the previous conversation, I told my father that I remembered him tickling me until I couldn't breathe when I was younger. I told him that he should have been able to recognize that I was objecting, and that you're not supposed to tickle a child until he can't breathe and is screaming at you and begging you to stop. My father apologized after asking a few clarifying questions about what I was talking about. I don't believe that I mentioned any unwanted genital touching during that conversation; I didn't have the courage to do so. [Note: I don't believe that I have yet mentioned any specific details of the abuse, having to do with genital touching. I could be wrong, however; I might have mentioned molestation during this conversation, and forgotten about it later. I don't think I did, though.]

      On a later occasion within that same time frame, I asked my father something like, “Are you ever going to apologize for half-molesting me when I was a kid?” I can't remember his response, but the fact that I can't remember it, makes me suspect that he probably didn't say anything. Maybe he apologized, but if he did, then it was a very short apology, and nothing about his reaction to my question stuck out as evidence that he understood the full details of what occurred during the events for which he was apologizing, nor that he understood how much those incidents of abuse hurt me physically and emotionally.

      My father may have apologized for mistreating me and my mother, but he has still not verbally acknowledged – either to myself, or to anyone else – that he engaged in unwanted touching of my genitals. He admitted to, and apologized for, doing what he did to me right before the unwanted genital groping would begin, but he still hasn't admitted to, nor acknowledged, the actual unwanted touching of my penis and scrotum (over my clothes) itself.

      If my father had any genuine remorse about what he did to me and my mother, then he would admit to somebody besides my mother that he mistreated her, and he would admit to somebody besides me that he molested me. If my father had remorse, then he would attempt to come forward, or turn himself in, or come to me to apologize before I confronted him. If my father had any remorse, then he would be able to talk about the specific details of what he did, explain how he came to understand that what he did was wrong, and explain why it was wrong, and apologize based on that line of logic. However, he has done none of those things. That is why I suspect that my father has feelings of guilt, but not genuine remorse. The only thing he feels guilty or sorry about, is the possibility that he will eventually get caught or exposed, or arrested, for what he did.

     There are also some examples of my father's attempts at gaslighting, which to me suggest that he is being plagued by feelings of guilt over what he did. His attempts to confuse and shame me into thinking that I am insane and that the abuse did not happen, as well as one attempt he made to deny molesting me, cause me to suspect that my father is like a leaky pipe about to crack, whose words are betraying him, as he struggles to “get out in front” of the potential future accusations of sexual abuse before they start.

      My father would engage in gaslighting, to make me think that there was no legitimate conflict between us, and that the abuse didn't happen, and that I was radical, “on the edge”, and out of my mind. My father has said things to me such as “You are really out there, man” and “You're crazy”, whenever I have expressed unusual viewpoints, or viewpoints which criticize or conflict with his own opinions. I believe that my father engages in this pattern of manipulation in order to make me and others think that I am crazy and my father is not. The opposite is true.

     There might be several reasons why my father called his victim (i.e., me) crazy. One explanation that seems likely, is the possibility that my father knows that attacking and undermining the credibility of the victim is only the second most effective way to intimidate a child molestation victim into submission after abuse. By making me doubt the validity of my own memories (and also my own convictions about right and wrong), my father found a way to get away with his crimes, which required even less effort on his part.

     Another reason why I believe that my father knew what he did, and is experiencing feelings of guilt – and even a need to confess his crimes – is the fact that he denied molesting me in a conversation to my mother, without being prompted by anything.

      On approximately February 25^th, 2015, my parents picked me up in my father's car, from the Metra train station in west Lake Forest; I was returning home from Portland, Oregon. Some time within the following week or two, my mother told me that she had recently had a conversation with my father, during which he denied having molested me. This conversation might have happened in my father's car, while my father and mother were on their way to pick me up, or it could have happened earlier or slightly later; I'm not sure.

     Whenever the conversation happened, my mother told me about it later; probably some time in either the last few days of February 2015, or else the first two weeks of March 2015. My mother told me that she was talking to my father about some posts which I had made on Facebook. By this, she was probably referring to either the posts I made which seemed to have suicidal content, or the post I made about my father getting cavity searched (which actually happened to someone else), or she could have been referring to both of them. Whatever the case, from my mother's telling of the story, her question was probably as vague as to simply reference “Facebook posts”.

         It's odd that the mere mention of my Facebook posts, caused my father to respond the way he did. My mother said to my father something like “People have told me they're concerned about what Joey's been posting on Facebook”, or maybe “Joey's been making some posts on Facebook that are kind of worrying”. I wasn't there, so I don't know the exact question she asked. But my father responded “I didn't molest him.”

      The way my mother tells the story, makes it sound like my father placed the emphasis of the sentence on the word “I”. The way he intoned the sentence, suggests that he said it as a way to assert his innocence, and to get an accusation of guilt off of himself in particular, as opposed to anybody else. However, this would not make sense if he were innocent, because my mother had not accused him of molesting me in the first place. She didn't even mention molestation, nor unwanted touching, during that conversation, and I know that because I've asked her clarifying questions about that conversation between her and my father.

      I know that my father had been reading my Facebook posts at the time, because I discovered printouts of screenshots of my Facebook posts from late 2014 and early 2015, in my father's home office, shortly after I moved in with him in late February 2015. Considering that my father had been reading my Facebook posts, and considering that my mother called me in late 2014 about the post about the cavity search, my father probably knew that I had been posting about both him, and unwanted sexual touching. However, I never mentioned sexual touching at the hands of my father in any of my Facebook posts, nor did I allude to it in any specific way (which was because I hadn't yet recovered any vivid enough details to mention to anyone).

      What all of this means, is that, even if my father had been monitoring all of my Facebook posts, and closely, he still would not have been able to know for sure whether I had told anyone, or made posts, about specific abuses at the hands of my father. That is probably why he said “I didn't molest him” as soon as my mother brought up my Facebook posts, without molestation having even come up until that point in the conversation.

      This is why I suspect that my father has a guilty conscience, which is catching up to him, and making him admit things to which he doesn't want to admit. In the most literal sense possible, he has still admitted nothing, but the fact that he specifically denied molesting me, at a totally inappropriate and nonsensical time to do so, leads me to believe that he knows what he did, knew it was wrong, is plagued by guilt from it, and still (despite all that) wants to deny it and cover it up.

     Another example of my father's behavior, which I think shows his guilt-ridden state of mind, was the trip to Barcelona which we took in April 2019. I suspect that my father's goal of taking me on this trip was to literally “guilt-trip” me; that is, to bribe me into silence, and into refraining from criticizing him, by giving me an extravagant gift, which he could use to manipulate me and inflict feelings of shame upon me for feeling hesitant about accepting.

     My father did two things during that trip, which I consider to have been indicators of his guilt-ridden conscience. On the evening we returned to his house from the trip, he hugged me. He didn't force me to hug him, nor did he coerce me. I can't remember whether he verbally asked for a hug. I hugged him, even though I felt extremely comfortable doing so. I hugged him because I felt obligated to do so, and because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't hug him. Most likely, an argument would start, or my father would pretend to feel sad and confused about why I seem to hate him so much for no reason.

     That hug communicated to me that both the trip and the hug were my father's attempts to resolve the “disagreements” between us, but I cannot be bought with trips, nor placated with being pressured to hug my abuser. I avoided hugging him on Christmas 2019, but I don't know how long I can keep it up without either someone else's help, or my father admitting to what he did.

     The other indicator of a guilty mind happened during the trip itself. One night, my father and I were staying in our hotel (Hotel Colon in Barcelona), and I was telling him about how former vice president Joe Biden was caught pinching a young girl's nipple live on C-SPAN. I also explained the accusations of childhood sexual abuse which Dylan Farrow leveled against her father Woody Allen. My father and I also discussed criminal prosecution of childhood sexual abuse, statutory rape, and other similar crimes. During that conversation, my father told me, “If somebody raped you, I would want them to be punished to the fullest extent possible.” This seemed as clear an attempt as any of the others, to gaslight me about the abuse and deny responsibility at the same time.

     My father's guilty conscience is making him admit what he did, by making him deny what he did in too specific a manner. It is like saying “John Smith got murdered”, and then hearing someone say, “I didn't kill John Smith!” as a response.

     I really didn't appreciate hearing the phrase “if somebody raped you” coming out of my father's mouth. Somebody did rape me, it was my father, and I believe that he has no intent whatsoever to make sure that “whoever raped me” is punished to the fullest extent of the law.

     I should also mention a set of incidents which occurred when I was between the ages of twelve and twenty years old, because these incidents may also indicate my father's thoughts, or frame of mind, concerning childhood sexual abuse.

     In 2000, a resident of Lake Bluff was arrested for possession of child pornography. That woman's name is Diane M. Ross. She formerly went by Diane Buck, while she was married to Willis Buck, Jr.. Their children, Marie Buck and Willis Buck, attended Lake Bluff schools with me and my brother. I can't remember exactly which year I discovered that Diane Ross had been arrested for possessing child pornography, but I do remember my brother telling my father that she had been arrested.

     I remember being in my father's former residence at 12859 Atkinson Road in Lake Bluff, either in 2005 or 2006, when I was either eighteen or nineteen years old. My brother Michael, my father, and I were sitting around his dining room table. My brother told my father that Diane Ross had been arrested for possessing child pornography; it had been at least several years since her arrest at that point.

     My father's reaction seems strange in retrospect, because he did not show any signs of being outraged, sickened, nor afraid for either his safety nor the safety of the community. More than anything, he seemed dumbfounded and incredulous. Granted, most people react to news of child sex crimes with incredulity and disbelief; but my father's reaction seemed to lack any sense of genuine shock, despite his disbelief. My father asked a few clarifying questions to make sure that we were talking about the same Diane Ross whose two children went to our school, and once my brother confirmed her identity, my father simply seemed surprised and slightly alert, and incredulous but not visibly shocked, nor outraged in the manner which one would expect from a parent.

     Looking back on that conversation, it seems likely that the reason why my father's reaction seemed so underwhelming, is because learning about Diane Ross's possession of child pornography probably prompted him to remember sexually abusing me at the ages of eight and nine. It's possible that my father was too worried - about the possibility of his own eventual arrest for similar sex crimes against a child – to display any signs of shock, horror, or outrage. His lack of outrage could also be explained by the fact that he would hardly have any right to be angry at someone who committed a sex crime against a child; because judging by what happened to me, committing sex crimes against a child is literally one of his favorite things to do. He could not have felt, nor expressed, outrage, at Ross's crimes, without feeling a sense of guilt, or a sense of outrage at himself for his own actions.

12. Proof That I Am a Reliable Witness, That I'm Telling the Truth, and That My Memory is Intact

     I know that I said a lot of strange things in late 2014 and early 2015; many of which didn't seem to make sense. However, I was in a state of confusion and cognitive dissonance because I had been recovering suppressed memories of my father's sexual abuse, which I had to deal with while I began living with him.

     I was also very lonely from losing my best friend and girlfriend (and soon after this I lost my job and my apartment). Any person would have exhibited symptoms of confusion, depression, or even a disturbed mental state, if so many bad things had happened to them over such a short period of time.

     Despite the fact that I provided incorrect information the first few times I tried to report the abuse as an adult, I regret those errors, I have corrected those details whenever I have recovered new information, and I am not suffering from anywhere near as much confusion as I was five years ago.

     I am certain that none of the memories of incidents are implanted memories. Neither anyone with whom I was speaking at the time (i.e., Annie Dean), nor anyone to whom I was listening over the internet (i.e., Alan Watts and Vashti Bunyan), implanted memories of sexual abuse in my mind.

     I know that Annie did not implant memories of abuse, nor suggest sexual abuse to me, because I remember being the one who first brought it up to her, when I was in her apartment in early January 2015. I know that I wasn't under her powers of suggestion, because we had already broken up at that point, and I had previously expressed disapproval at the fact that she wanted me to take estrogen pills like her previous boyfriend did. Additionally, I openly disagreed with Annie all the time.

     At numerous times between attempts to report these incidents of abuse, and at numerous times during the composition of this report, I have engaged in several forms of “reality testing” to see if the thoughts I've experienced are true memories.

     When I think of being “tickled” on the gray couch in our basement, my mind floods with memories of trying to swat and push and pry my father's hands away from various parts of my body. These memories are so intense and vivid that they cause me to experience a feeling of need to strike someone or physically resist.

     The visceral, physical response I experience, when I think of these thoughts of abuse, makes me absolutely certain that they are memories of something which I really experienced.

     I would like to make it clear that the fact that I have provided such a detail report, and the fact that I am claiming that memory problems prevented me from coming forward earlier, do not conflict with one another.

     I owe the fact that I am able to remember vivid details of some of the incidents, but not others, to the facts that I suffered oxygen deprivation during the abuse (which likely negatively impacted my ability to form new memories at the time) but I do not drink alcohol as much as most people do.

     I believe abstaining from alcohol has allowed me to remember as much of the details of abuse as I have included within this document.

     I should also make it clear that the reason why this report looks so polished, is because I have a lot of experience writing (political theory and legislative analysis, not fiction). Moreover, I work as a private security guard, and as part of that job, I was trained according to state standards, regarding how to fill out an incident report, and what types of questions to ask during the discovery of information.

     I would not have written a 330-page report, if I weren't sure about the sexual, emotional, and physical abuses which my father inflicted upon me. I would not have written this report unless I had projects pending which were much more important. There is no political topic about which I could write, which would be more important to me now, than it is to hold my child molester accountable for his criminal actions.

     I also want to make it clear that I would not engage in deliberate acts of slander, nor libel, against my father; nor would I waste the time of the police (nor risk my own freedom) by knowingly filing a false or falsified police report. I have not done so; all the information in this report is true to the best of my recollection, and any errors or inconsistencies are not intentional, and are purely the result of mistakes on my part.

     I should explain, before concluding this statement, how I am so sure that my father did not molest me “by accident”, and how I am so sure that what my father did to me was only tickling and I am exaggerating it.

     My father is a very controlling, domineering person, who doesn't accept faults, nor failures, and acts as if every mistake a person makes were intentional. There is no way that such a controlling person could have “accidentally” molested his own son. Moreover, an “accident” implies that the mistake was made only once or several times, and then fixed. My father has not “fixed” the problem, because he has not admitted the abuse.

     Additionally, there is simply no possible way that a person could “accidentally” molest a child more than four times (the minimum number of times I could have been molested). Most, if not all, of the incidents of my father's abuse, were intentional on his part; I know that because the statement which he used to defraud me into more abuse, seemed to acknowledge what he had done (although without communicating any responsibility nor remorse for it).

13. Conclusion, and Signature of the Plaintiff

     I, JOSEPH WILLIAM KOPSICK, hereby swear that all of the above information is true to the best of my recollection, and that I am of sound mind and body, and competent to appear in court, and competent to testify and make statements against my abuser, RICHARD STEVEN KOPSICK.

Signed,

["Joseph William Kopsick", signed in script writing.

Signature included only in copy made available to the police.]

JOSEPH WILLIAM KOPSICK,

author of this statement

signed on December 31^st, 2019

14. Appendix of Images and Documents

     14a. Image #1: Positions My Father and I Would Be in Before the Abuse Started (Drawing)

14b. Image #2: Positions My Father and I Would Be in Before the Abuse Started (Drawing)

   

14c. Image #3: Positions My Father and I Would Be in During the Abuse (Drawing)

14d. Image #4: Me as a Child, With My Father (Two Photographs)

14e. Image #5: Me Happy as a Child (Two Photographs)

14f. Image #6: Me Unhappy as a Child, With Cousins (Two Photographs)

14g. Image #7: Me Unhappy at the Ages of Five or Six, and Seven (Two Photographs)

14h. Image #8: Me Unhappy at My Seventh Birthday Party (Two Paragraphs) [i.e., Photographs]

14i. Image #9: Me Unhappy at My Seventh Birthday Party (Two Paragraphs) [i.e., Photographs]

14j. Image #10: Me Unhappy at My Seventh Birthday Party (Two Paragraphs) [i.e., Photographs]

14k. Image #11: Me with a Blank Expression at Around Ten (Photograph)

14l. Image #12: Me with a Blank Expression at Around Eighteen (Photograph)

14m. Image #13: My Brother's Baby Picture on My Father's Living Room Table (Photograph)

14n. Image #14: Two Texts From My Mother Stating That She Believes My Claims

(Computer Image)

14o. Image #15: Components of Sex Crimes in the Illinois Criminal Code (Document)

14p. Image #16: Statutes of Limitations on Reporting Sex Crimes in Illinois (Document)

14q. Image #17: Rules of Physical Evidence Concerning Sex Crimes in Illinois (Document)

For More Information

Watch my video about a Lake County prosecutor declining to file charges against my father:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qit5ZbbZeU

Read about Diane Ross's 2000 child pornography bust, at the following links:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-05-09-0005090245-story.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-07-02-0007020099-story.html 

Read about the allegations against Dave Miller, at the following link:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-forest/ct-lfr-miller-teacher-theater-tl-0622-20200621-tqfrbm2e5vca5bupqjkymv3w4a-story.html

Read my letter to Kathleen o'Hara, at the following link:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/letter-to-former-principal-kathleen.html

Read my message to Lake Bluff and Lake Forest parents regarding child molesters in their area, at the following link:http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/message-to-lake-bluff-and-lake-forest.html

Read the description of a Facebook group I created to facilitate discussion of child sex crimes in Lake County:http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/description-of-facebook-group-lake.html

Read this article about an image I created for a child molestation discussion group:http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/explanation-of-image-i-created-for.html

Post Created, and Introduction Written, on May 22nd, 2020

Introduction Edited and Expanded, and Images Added,

on May 23rd and 24th, 2020

Sworn Victim's Statement,

Addressed to the Lake Bluff Police Department,

Written Between Early October 2019 and December 31st, 2019

Links Added on July 2nd, 2020

Most photographs replaced with censored versions

on May 25th, 2021