Introduction, Written on March 6th, 2021
What follows is an expansion upon the statement I provided to the Lake Bluff, Illinois police on December 31st, 2019, and published on May 22nd, 2020. That statement can be read at the following link:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/05/my-father-richard-steven-kopsick.html
The first statement does not identify anyone besides myself as possible or definite victims of childhood sexual abuse.
The second statement, however, mentions the possibility that children I know may have been molested, so their names have been redacted from the following text, to protect their identity and promote their safety.
Aside
from 1) the redaction of information about possible victims, the only
changes which have been made to the statement below, are as follows:
2) the editing of typographical errors, noted in [brackets]
3) formatting changes, such as omitting page numbers, and the placement and content of the Table of Contents; and
As I state early-on in the document below, I do not recant anything from the first statement, in the second statement. I have only expanded upon, and clarified and specified, what I reported in the previous statement.
I have also mentioned new details of the memories of abuse which I have recovered, and/or always remembered but only recently found necessary to mention. These memories were recovered without the help of a therapist.
I explain, in the statement below, why I experienced some so-called "false memories" in 2015, when I first began to recover possible, faint memories of being molested by my father. I have explained that these thoughts were not real memories, and that they resulted from "guesses" which my mind was taking, and confronting me with. This happened after I had begun to suspect - in Portland, Oregon in early 2015 - that I had been molested by my father.
The letter below was addressed to Victor o'Block of the Lake County State's Attorney's Office, Specialized Victims' Unit, or to whomever currently holds that position, if not Mr. o'Block. It was delivered to Lake Bluff police on March 4th, 2021.
Feel free to e-mail me with any questions at jwkopsick@gmail.com.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
Part
1: Salutation & Introduction
Part 2: List of 17 Possible
Molestation Incidents Expanded to As Many As 21
Part 3:
Description of the Incidents of Abuse
Part 4: My Therapists and I
Will Work with You to Move This Case Forward
Part 5: “False
Memories” vs. Recovered Memories
Part 6: “False Memories”
vs. False Accusations
Part 7: Johnson v.
Johnson (1984)
Part 8: Psychological Torture and
Narcissism
Part 9: Drugging
Part 10: I Am Still Afraid for My
Safety
Part 11: I Am Willing to Testify and Here to Help You
Part
12: The Physical Evidence in My Case
Part 13: Please Speak to My
and My Father's Friends and Family
Part 14: Punishment, and My
Father's Possible Defenses
Part 15: Questions to Ask My
Father
Part 16: My Father's Molestation Exposed Me to Untold
Dangers
Part 17: Conclusions, incl. Please Contact My Mother
Part
18: Signature
Part 19: Illustrations of the Abuse
Illustration #1 (genital touching on gray couch) [p. 314 of
original letter]
Illustration #2 (genital
touching on gray couch) [p. 316 of original letter]
Illustration #3 (trying to resist my father on gray couch)
Illustration #4 (sitting on gray single-seat chair after
abuse)
Illustration #5 (kneeling in my room
during Incident #2)
Part 20: Additional Resources & Articles
From:
Joseph William Kopsick
548
Archer Avenue, Apt. #3, Waukegan, IL 60085
608-417-9395
Case
Number [actually Lake Bluff police report number] 19-13631
To: Victor o'Block,
Chief of the
Specialized Victims' Unit with the State's Attorney's office of Lake
County, Illinois
___________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
Dear Mr. o'Block,
Hello, my name is Joseph William Kopsick. The first
officer to investigate my case was Officer Lisa Malkov of the Lake
Bluff Police Department, You might remember me; you and I last spoke
on May 20th, 2020, when I called you to ask why your
office declined to file charges, following my December 31st,
2019 visit to the Lake Bluff Police Department and spoke with Officer
Malkov.
I would like to apologize that I felt entitled to, or deserving of, your office filing charges against my father. I would also like to apologize for dwelling on the length of the victim's statement which I provided to the Lake Bluff police. I only meant to convey that there ought to be something criminally actionable in what I wrote, given the sheer length of the eyewitness testimony which I provided.
But I understand that I need to convince you that incidents of sexual abuse really happened, and that charges are worth pursuing. That is why I am contacting you again.
I would like to profusely apologize for my attitude and
tone during that phone call. I hope that you will understand that I
behaved that way because I am under a lot of stress and afraid for my
safety.
I fear for my safety due to my father, and I should also note that it is unnerving that my attempt to file an Order of Protection against my father after he repeatedly texted me. He has texted me again since that attempt failed. Also, your office informed me on May 20th, 2020 that it had been a full month since your office decided not to file charges, which evidently happened some time in April.
I did not mean to be demanding, nor entitled; I am just afraid, and I am requesting the state's protection. I am sorry if I made you nervous or upset.
I know that I can convince you that my father touched me inappropriately, that he attempted to cover it up, and that he put me in danger of unwanted touching at the hands of Scott B. Gibson, if you or local police departments will interview my mother, and other people who know my father and Gibson.
I
would also like to provide you with some legal background and
context, which will make it easier to prosecute this case,
considering the fact that I had to recover memories in order to
recall the abuse.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 2: List of 17 Possible Molestation Incidents Expanded to As Many As 21
As a reminder, in my previous statement, I named seventeen possible incidents wherein unwanted genital touching occurred or may have occurred. These have been expanded to 21, due to my recent recovery of memories, in the fourteen months which have elapsed since my first letter to Lake Bluff police.
I have recovered several additional memories since then, resulting in a new total of as many as 21 incidents involving either unwanted sexual touching, or severe injury (or both). I have assessed that fourteen of those incidents involved higher than a 50% probability that they occurred, occurred as I remember them, and/or that something sexual happened.
The incidents not mentioned in my first victim's statement are included on the following page with asterisks (*), alongside the clarity of the memory and the likelihood that sexual touching occurred during each particular incident, expressed as a percentage. In the next few pages, I clarify precisely what those percentages mean, wherever it is not obvious.
FULL
LIST OF ALL 21 POSSIBLE INCIDENTS OF MOLESTATION
*
= Not included in original victim's statement from 12-31-2019
Incident
# Name / Description Year Age % Positive Something Sexual
Happened
0a* (now #1)
Figure in hallway /
nightmare? 89-90? 2-3 10
__________________________________________________________________________________________
0b*
(now #2) Mirror /
kneeling 1992 5 60
__________________________________________________________________________________________
1
(now #3)
Gopher / hamster drawing 1992 5 85
__________________________________________________________________________________________
1a*
(now #4) Babs Bunny &
Elmer Fudd 1993 6 70
__________________________________________________________________________________________
2
(now #5) Couch
1 1995 8 100
3 (now #6) Couch 2 1995 8 100
4 (now #7) Couch 3 1995 8 100
5 (now #8) Couch 4 1995 8 100
6 (now #9) Couch 5 1995 8 70
7 (now #10) Couch 6 1995 8 40
__________________________________________________________________________________________
8
(now #11) Couch
7 1996 9 95
9 (now #12) Couch 8 1996 9 85
10 (now #13) Couch 9 1996 9 70
11 (now #14) Couch 10 1996 9 55
12 (now #15) Couch 11 1996 9 40
13 (now #16) Couch 12 1996 9 25
__________________________________________________________________________________________
14
(now #17) Grandpa's
house 1 1996 9 20
15 (now #18) Grandpa's house 2 1996 9 15
16 (now #19) Grandpa's house 3 1996 9 10
__________________________________________________________________________________________
17
(now #20) Union League
Club Hotel 1996 9 75
__________________________________________________________________________________________
18*
(now #21) Ribcage injury /
furnace rm. '99? '00? 12-13 55
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 3: Description of the Incidents of Abuse
The following statements should help clarify what I am
claiming happened during the incidents referenced in the table on the
previous page.
__________________________
#1. There is a 10% chance that my father molested me at
the age of two or three, but it's more likely that I had a bad dream
of a dark figure, or got out of bed in the middle of the night and
saw my father in the hallway, and got scared. This occurred before we
moved to 524 East Washington Avenue in Lake Bluff.
I have remembered this since it happened, but this is the first time I have discussed it in statements to the authorities.
__________________________
#2. There is a 60% chance that my father abused my buttocks and/or genitals from behind at the age of five, while making me kneel on my bedroom floor with my pants off, while making me look at the mirror on my chest of drawers, to distract me from the abuse. This incident occurred at 524 East Washington Avenue, shortly after we moved in.
I have remembered this since early 2020, but this is the first time I have discussed it in statements to the authorities, because this is the first time I have felt it relevant to disclose. I had only faint memories of this incident at the time when I presented my first statement to Lake Bluff police on December 31st, 2019.
I have included drawings, on the last several pages of this document, which I recently made, which show the way I was made to kneel on my bedroom floor while looking at a mirror and being molested from behind (Incident #2) [and also the molestation on the gray couch - Incidents #5-16 - from my own perspective, looking down].
__________________________
#3. There is an 85% chance that the reason why I
remember drawing an injured hamster or gopher, with holes all over
its body, running home to its mother – and then hiding the drawing
- is that it was my reaction to the trauma of being poked all over my
body (and probably molested for the first or second time) by my
father, and because I didn't want to, or didn't know how to, talk
about the abuse. This incident occurred at 524 East Washington
Avenue, shortly after we moved in.
I have remembered this since it happened, and included this information in my previous statement to the Lake Bluff police, on pages 28 through 30 of that document.
__________________________
#4. There is a 70% chance that the reason why I thought
I remembered (at the age of five or six) the character Elmer Fudd
performing a sexual act upon the Babs Bunny character from Tiny
Toons, is because my father may have done something to me while
watching Tiny Toons that exposed me to sex, or at least to what
ejaculate (or to what “cum” / “come”) is.
I'm pretty confident that I saw Elmer Fudd sticking his shotgun into Babs Bunny's guts, and her screaming, on television. I know that I had sexual thoughts about this afterwards, which involved white cream and Babs Bunny's crotch. But I do not know how I – at the age of five or six – could have known that white cream had anything to do with sex or orgasm, as I did not ejaculate any fluid until I was at least 12 or 13 years old. That is why I suspect that my father may have somehow exposed me to sex - or something related to ejaculation - while I was watching Tiny Toons. This incident occurred at 524 East Washington Avenue.
I have remembered this since it happened, but this is the first time I have discussed it in statements to the authorities, because I have only recently begun to suspect that my father, or the possibility of something sexual happening to me, might have had anything to do with why I knew that white cream was the result of sex at just six years old.
__________________________
#s 5-16. I was molested as many as twelve times, and no
less than four times, on the gray couch in the basement of my
childhood home at 524 East Washington Avenue, Lake Bluff, Illinois.
Since these incidents were so similar to one another, it would be
difficult for me to say exactly how many times it happened, but I am
estimating that it happened somewhere between 4 and 12 times;
possibly 6 times in 1995, and 6 times in 1996.
I would say that there is a 100% chance that I experienced unwanted sexual touching at least four times on the couch in 1995, and a decreasing percent chance that successive additional incidents occurred later in 1995 and then again in 1996 around the same time of year.
In October 2020, I got my father to admit – in front of my mother, my aunt, and my uncle - that he could not possibly have molested me on Saturday mornings, because he would always work on Saturday mornings, and Sundays were the only days he ever took off.
That is why I would like to update the information which I have provided, regarding the dates of the abuse, to include only the late Sunday mornings between April and August of 1995 and 1996.
The dates on which the as many as six incidents of abuse could have occurred during the first year wherein I endured abuse on the couch (i.e., 1995), are April 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th; May 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th; June 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th; July 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th; and August 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th.
The dates on which the as many as six incidents of abuse could have occurred during the second wherein I endured abuse on the couch (i.e., 1996), are April 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th; May 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th; June 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th; July 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th; and August 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th.
This amends, shortens, and specifies the content of page 26 of my first report to Lake Bluff police, which is part of the section regarding the dates on which the abuse on the couch occurred (pages 25 through 27).
I am absolutely certain that my father goaded and guilt-tripped and “gas-lit” me into sitting in the “triangle” created by his legs and the back of the couch, as he laid on his right side, on Sunday mornings in the springs and/or summers of 1995 and 1996, when I was eight and nine years old. I am certain of this because my brother Michael remembers sitting in the same place, and also being tickled by my father (although my brother does not remember being touched on the genitals).
As for me, my father violently tickled me, seizing upon me while I was distracted, and suffocated me, while compressing my chest, prodding me all over my body (including gouging his fingers into my armpits, and my collarbone), and taking advantage of my confusion and lack of breath (and lack of ability to voice an objection) to “tickle me” on my genitals, i.e., fondle my penis and testicles over my clothes.
My father also counted down from 10 to 1 to make me think he was going to let me go from his grip; this is when I tried to use my thumbs to push against his arms, to pry myself upwards to escape his grasp. I would always (or almost always) fail to get away, despite every attempt to fight back and escape.
I remember running around couches while playing with my brother, but I also believe that at least once, I ran and hid behind couches in order to get away from my father and prevent him from getting near me as well.
I suspect that the reason my father chased me around the couches, must be that I figured out that he was going to touch me, and managed to get away before he was able to grab me. I don't think the memory of hiding behind couches could have resulted from me getting out of his grasp. Once my father grabbed hold of me, and began to count down, there was no way to escape.
My father would subject me to a minute or two of
jostling, tickling, and prodding, followed by several minutes
(perhaps three or five minutes) of unwanted touching of the genitals
over the clothes (by means of shoving his hands into my lap while his
wrists were braced around my hips), and squeezing my testicles in
order to suppress my ability to breathe, and thus to object and
scream as well. I screamed “no”, “stop”, “let go of me”,
“let me go”, etc. whenever I had enough breath
in me to do so.
About 90% of what I wrote in the preceding paragraph was reported to Lake Bluff police in the previous statement. The only thing new is the estimate of three to five minutes of violent jostling and tickling and touching of the genitals at a time.
Since
submitting my previous victim's statement, I have recovered memories
in addition to those which I reported earlier. These include being
chased around the couch when I tried to
escape, and counting down
while pretending he would let me go.
I have also included some memories that I have always remembered, but have only recently realized that they are worth mentioning, because of their sexual context or content.
My father has admitted, and attempted to apologize for, violently tickling me in the past (in 2017), but he has not yet admitted to the unwanted genital touching.
In October 2020, at the home of my uncle Loren Peterson, my father admitted – in front of my aunt and mother, and me and Loren - that he tickled me until I screamed, and gouged his thumbs into my armpits. I asked him to call my brother Michael and admit that to him, and my father refused to do so in front of me, saying that he would do it later. I have seen no evidence that my father has told my brother that, which he would have no reason to withhold, because my brother says he was tickled in the same manner (minus the penis touching).
I believe that I can demonstrate that the fact that my father will not admit to everyone that he subjected me to unwanted tickling until I screamed, is evidence that he is hiding something. What he is hiding is the fact that he “tickled” my penis and testicles over my clothes, and possibly under my clothes as well.
If what he did wasn't wrong, or didn't involve genital touching, then there would have been no reason for him to hide what he was doing from my mother the way he did. He would also have no reason to apologize, if he didn't do anything wrong. He is trying to apologize without fully admitting to what he did.
Before one of these incidents of molestation on the couch – no earlier than “Couch 3” - I spoke to my mother in the laundry room and asked her not to go shopping. I could not explain why, so she did not stay home.
I know that my father had hurt me previously, because by the time I tried to tell my mother, I chose a weekend morning to do it. This happened because I noticed that my father had touched me inappropriately on several previous weekends in the late morning. My mother will remember that I asked her to stay home.
I will maintain, and never retract, the fact that this means I was molested on the couch at least two times prior. Two is the bare minimum amount of times necessary to notice a pattern.
Some time shortly thereafter – probably in the incident I listed as “Couch 4”, or perhaps later – I was tricked into getting molested again, after verbally resisting my father's request that I sit with him on the couch. He talked me out of my suspicions and then molested me again.
If my mother had understood what I was trying to tell her, then this case would have commenced 25 years earlier. I might have been treated as a Type I survivor (as in Illinois case Johnson v. Johnson, 1984), because I remembered some of the previous abuse, at the time when I spoke to my mother. But I probably did not remember all of the past incidents – certainly not in detail – when I went to my mother.
Each time that I was molested, my father intimidated me, and minimized what he did while speaking to me, until I believed that it was my fault, or that I has been “asking for it” in some way (like by coming towards him after he had convinced me that he wasn't going to touch me inappropriately again). He made me think this by telling me to come near him, thus putting some of the “decision” on me. But children cannot consent, nor make informed decisions by themselves.
My father was attempting to deflect responsibility onto me, for the act. But I know that I did not welcome this abuse, and I know that it was forceful. I previously explained why, in my first report to Lake Bluff police, on pages 126 through 134.
My father did subject me to unwanted touching on the genitals, and I know that he did it more than one time, because I noticed a pattern, and asked my mother to stay home one Sunday morning instead of going grocery shopping. I probably got molested either later that day, maybe even within a hour of my mother leaving the house.
I can't remember specific dates, but that's not because I'm not reliable as a witness. It's because of the shaking and deprivation of breath I was exposed to, when my father partially suffocated me, while holding me down during the violent poking and tickling, which deprived me of the ability to breathe properly even more. Additionally, all of the incidents of molestation on the gray couch occurred in such a similar, patterned, and repeated manner.
But I am absolutely certain that my father touched me in a sexual manner at least three or four times, and that he restrained and even injured me intentionally in order to render me unable to physically resist his unwanted touching.
My father would count down from ten to zero, while his wrists were pressed firmly around my hips, and pretended that he would let me go, if I escaped by the time he finished counting down from ten to zero. He said that he would let me go, but he never did, because he was always stronger than I was, with the exception of several times that I must have either escaped, or else ran away from him before any abuse started. I say this because I also remember my father chasing me around the couch, at least once or twice, and because I don't remember ever getting out of his grip after he would clamp down on my sides with his wrists and start counting down.
Most of the information from the last three paragraphs are newly recovered memories, but the memories of being molested on the couch were reported to Lake Bluff police in substantial detail, on pages 30 through 47 of my first statement.
I am 100% certain that I was tickled until I screamed and couldn't breathe, and gouged in the armpits with my father's thumbs, and restrained around the hips, by my father, in 1995 and/or 1996. I am 100% certain that this occurred no less than four times, and no more than twelve. I am 100% confident that my father touched my penis and testicles over my clothes, and perhaps 70% confident that he touched my genitals under my clothes.
It's really hard to say what that last probability is, exactly. At some point, my father has to answer some of these questions. As for myself, I have provided enough answers. I have now provided 389 pages of statements, illustrations, and photographs to corroborate my claims. I have written additional statements about my experiences as well, aside from the statements I've submitted to police.
My father did molest me, and he did it
in a very patterned, repeated manner, which resulted in
he and I
both sweating profusely, and struggling to calm down and catch our
breaths before my mother came home (after which I would run and hide
from my father, often in my bedroom closet). That is the way people
behave when they are masturbating, or engaging in sexual activity
with each other. I did not know that at the time, and that is why I
was unable to convey the nature or the urgency of what was happening,
to my mother.
In the table on page 3 of this document, Incident #11 is labeled “Couch 7”, and is marked with a certainty percentage of 95%. This refers to a 95% chance that the abuse happened in both 1995 and 1996, and a 5% chance that abuse only happened in 1995 or 1996, rather than in both years. I am almost certain that abuse happened in two different years.
I would be willing to answer any clarifying questions necessary, to explain what I mean when I say I am a certain percentage confident that an incident of sexual abuse happened the way I remember it and/or involved some form of sexual behavior.
__________________________
#s 17-19. I am about 10-20% sure that I may have been molested by my father while he and I were at my grandfather's house on Welwyn Street in Knollwood (part of Lake Bluff) in 1996, between one and three times. I believe it's possible that I was molested, because I remember my father calling my mother to come pick me up, because I was vomiting, and I can't explain why that could have happened, or how I could have gotten sick multiple times at my grandfather's house. I definitely remember wanting to go home very badly, and wanting my mother to come pick me up. I believe that my father may have molested me, and possibly given me whiskey in order to forget what happened.
I mentioned these memories in my first statement to Lake Bluff Police, on pages 47 through 50.
__________________________
#20. I distinctly remember my father taking me up to our
hotel room in the Union League Club Hotel in Chicago in December 1996
to change, while my mother and brother ate dinner (probably with the
Gibson family).
I remember my father caressing me on the back of my head, and feeling my short, recently cut hair, and telling me that I looked cute. I still don't remember what happened after that, as I told Lake Bluff police, but I believe that what happened next was another incident of molestation. As far as I'm concerned, I blacked out after my father touched the back of my head.
I believe that I returned to the dinner table downstairs tired and “woozy”.
__________________________
#21. I was 12 or 13 years old the last time my father tried to touch me against my will; this occurred at our home at 524 East Washington, in the furnace room. I am about 55% confident that attempted genital touching occurred during this incident, but I am 100% confident that my father injured the underside of my left ribcage, and possibly also my left lung, when I attempted to resist him and escape.
I cannot remember whether I escaped, but it's possible that I prevented him from touching my genitals, and/or from touching me inappropriately in some other way (such as subjecting me to uncomfortable forced tickling). I also distinctly remember screaming “You really hurt me!”, and after that, I remember my father saying he wouldn't take me to the hospital, and that I should instead do whatever made the pain lessen (which was breathing in for prolonged periods of time and holding my breath in, and then puffing my chest out; something my current doctor Arielle Levitan now tells me not to do).
This was the last time my father attempted to subject me to unwanted touching, aside from some uncomfortable hugging.
I forgot about this injury shortly after it happened.
This is one reason why I say my father subjected me to repeated
traumas, after the incidents of sexual abuse – in addition to
screaming – in order to make me forget about the previous abuse.
I did not remember this injury again until I noticed pain in my left side while getting onto the highway on a long on-ramp, causing my body to twist to the right. Dr. Asad Khan, a chiropractor at Chiro One in Waukegan, told me that it may be a ligament stretching over a bone. Dr. Arielle Levitan and the radiologist she worked with, were not able to conclude from X-rays I had done, that anything looked out of the ordinary. But my left rib still makes a popping sound when I breathe in all the way and puff my chest and lungs out. My left side pops, but my right side doesn't.
I distinctly remember my father injuring my side and inflicting an injury upon me which made it difficult to breathe. I am confident that he did not try to molest me after that, since he probably noticed how badly he had hurt me this last time.
I am aware that physical assaults from twenty years ago are not criminally actionable; however, I am still talking about this because my father probably tried to molest me during this incident, and my rib injury is perhaps the only piece of physical evidence still available which demonstrates that my claims about the injuries and assaults and abuses committed against me by my father, check out, and are still affecting me negatively on a daily basis.
Additionally, attempted child sexual abuse is a crime even when it fails, because of the malice of forethought and the acts in furtherance of committing the crime.
These notes expand upon the contents of pages 29 through 53 in my original statement to the Lake Bluff police. In that document, the full details of the abuse I endured on the couch can be found on pages 31 through 51.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part
4: My Therapists and I Will Work with You to Move
This Case Forward
Mr. o'Block, you informed me – during on our telephone
call on May 20th, 2020 – that statutes of limitations on
reporting childhood sexual abuse, are not applicable in my case, but
that the physical abuse (Incident #21) cannot be prosecuted.
Therefore, your office can still file charges against my father for the incidents of sexual abuse.
You also told me that, to you, it seemed like my brother and my mother believed me.
This means that, of the four people in my family (me, my brother Michael, my mother Linda, and my father Richard), three out of four of us believe that my father molested me, and the only one who disagrees is the accused, my father. That is by your own count. You effectively told me on May 20th, 2020, that you believe that a majority of my immediate family believes that my father did what I say he did, but that you're still not filing charges.
You have at least three people to call to the witness stand right there. I am prepared to testify, and my mother will tell you about the time I tried to report the abuse. My brother may be interested in testifying about my relationship with my father, and he will tell you that my father subjected him to a similar sort of tickling and had him sit behind his legs in the same way I did.
I believe that a jury would be very interested in knowing those facts. And I believe that it is the jury's duty – not the prosecutor's – to determine the facts of the case, and the law.
That is why I would like to encourage you to file charges, and provide that my mother be interviewed regarding what she remembers about the day in spring or summer of 1995 when I spoke to her near our basement laundry room (right next to the couch where I was molested) and tried to tell her about the abuse.
During our May 20th, 2020 phone call, you also expressed some concerns about my brother's and mother's statements, saying that their statements were not specific enough, and that they didn't remember things. The reason why they don't remember seeing any abuse, is because my father made sure to molest me when nobody else was around.
He would have to be stupid to tickle me the way he did around my mother; if he had, then she would have noticed that something was wrong. My father only molested me when my mother and brother were out of the house, going grocery shopping, or going to youth soccer games.
I never claimed that my mother or brother were direct witnesses to my abuse, but rather important indirect or tangential witnesses, who can attest to the way my father touched me and the fact that I tried to report abuse.
_____________________
Since providing the Lake Bluff police with my first victim's statement on December 31st, 2019, I have been directed to the Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center in Gurnee. For about nine months - beginning on February 11th, 2020 - Christine Berry provided me with temporary therapy. In the fall of 2020, her position or title changed, and she stopped seeing clients. So as a result, I am now seeing Dr. Vernice Wright of Truth Youth & Family Services in Waukegan.
Please feel free, if you wish, to speak to either Dr.
Christine Berry (cberry@zcenter.org),
or the legal advocate at Zacharias (named Evelyn), or my current
therapist Dr. Vernice Wright (vernicewright1@gmail.com),
about my state of mind and my case.
I have kept my mother, Dr. Berry, Dr. Wright, and Lake Bluff police officer Lisa Malkov, up to speed, as much as possible, about the memories which I have recovered since submitting the first statement.
Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center of Gurnee can be reached at 1-847-244-1187.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 5: “False Memories” vs. Recovered Memories
I know that you are concerned that I mentioned what are commonly called “false memories”.
I previously addressed these “false memories”, and related issues, in pages 135 through 211 of my original statement to Lake Bluff police; especially in pages 149-185.
I would like to reiterate the fact that I only included that information in order to be completely honest about how and when I recovered the true memories. I will also repeat that I made sure not to tell anybody (besides my mother and my then most recent ex-girlfriend) that I suspected that my father had put his penis in my mouth, until I thought about it more and recovered clear memories. I also made sure to tell my mother and ex-girlfriend that I only thought he molested me (at that point), and that I wasn't exactly sure what he did yet. But I knew that he had done something which was both unwanted and sexual.
I was careful to recover my memories, and write about them in great detail, before coming forward about what I remember.
I recovered those memories slowly, between January 2015 and just before writing this new victim's statement. The last memories I recovered were of my father tapping me to the “make a round circle” rhyme, and hiding from my father behind couches, which I recovered in mid-2020.
I want to make it clear that I understand that “false memories” are not real memories.
I am in full possession of my capacities, and I know the difference between the inaccurate thoughts which I briefly had in early 2015, versus the more detailed thoughts and accurate memories which I have recovered over the ensuing six years since experiencing those initial “false memories”.
I also wish to make it clear that it is well-known among psychologists and psychiatrists that when children experience traumas, their minds will often repress the memories, and relegate them to the subconscious or unconscious mind. This process is known as Adaptive Information Processing (A.I.P.).
The mind represses these memories because they are too upsetting to deal with, and because remembering them constantly or every day will only cause the person more trauma, and interfere with their ability to cope, and to process the ordinary, less-traumatic realities which they experience on a daily basis.
This is nothing unusual, and should not make my case any more difficult to prosecute.
My father's unwanted genital touching, and his subsequent denial of the fact that he did it, and how much it hurt me, caused my mind to relegate the memories of that abuse to my subcon[s]cious. My mind reacted to my father's molestation with Adaptive Information Processing. My mind literally withheld the information from me, that I had been molested, until I was safe enough to realize this, and until I was in a calm enough environment – alone, with enough peace and quiet - to focus on these memories, and come to terms with the fact that molestation happened (and to then begin recovering memories about how it happened). The first time I realize[d] that my father had molested me, I was sitting on my floor in my basement apartment at 2307 N.W. Hoyt Street in Portland, Oregon, in January of 2015, while listening to a lecture by Alan Watts that was unrelated to child abuse.
Additionally, I must note that the term “false memories” is a misnomer. The term “False Memory Syndrome” was coined by psychiatrist Peter J. Freyd, who also founded the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. That foundation, and psychiatric school of thought, closed in 2019, and has come to be discredited. That is because Peter J. Freyd's daughter accused him of raping her as a child.
Using the idea that “False Memory Syndrome” exists, parents and psychiatrists hoping to cover-up sexual abuse, can latch-on to any small perceived inconsistency or inaccuracy in a child's story, and focus on what doesn't make sense about it, instead of what does, in order to cast doubt on the child's claim, and throw them into a state of self-doubt as to what happened. This tends to put child victims of sexual abuse into spirals of self-blame, denial, feelings of guilt, and depression.
It is thus possible that Freyd concocted the entire idea of “false memory syndrome” to explain-away and discredit children's real claims of sexual abuse.
In the 1980s,
child psychiatrists - trying to cure “Reactive Attachment Disorder”
- even stooped to subjecting
children to more unwanted touching by foster parents,
in order to cure them of their inability to attach to their foster
parents, which
was caused by previous unwanted touching and molestation by their
biological parents.
It is disturbing to note how similar the treatment for Reactive Attachment Disorder is, to the forced touching I experienced.
This treatment is
called “Coercive Restraint Therapy” (C.R.T.), and it involves:
1) intense staring in the eyes;
2) the adult shouting at the child directly into his face;
3) telling the child that he must respond directly and quickly;
4) subjecting the child to intense poking and prodding and close unwanted touching; and
5) telling the child that he must be fun to be around and “bring something to the table” socially if he expects to deserve good treatment.
My father did all
five of these
things to me.
Dr. Neil Feinberg is one of the “therapists” best-known for his involvement with Coercive Restraint Therapy. Coercive Restraint Therapy is also known as corrective attachment therapy, dyadic synchronous bonding, holding therapy, rage reduction therapy, and Z-therapy. Related forms of therapy include “re-birthing” and “re-birthing breathwork”, developed by Leonard Orr. Coercive Restraint Therapy became controversial after a young girl, Candace Newmaker, was smothered to death with sheets and pillows during one of these “re-birthing breathwork” sessions, which are supposed to simulate the child's birth again, to help form a bond with parents. Another related method is “psychic driving”.
I apologize if this tangent seemed unnecessary, but it was very shocking to discover this information. I saw videos of children being rolled up in mats in therapists' offices - as if they had just been murdered by the Mafia and were about to be thrown over a bridge - and to think this was passed off as “therapy” for the children in the 1980s!
It shocks me to discover that my father's treatment of me – which could easily be described as “Coercive Restraint Therapy Parenting” (C.R.T.P.; a real thing that is already recognized, and is named, and exists) – was so similar to the way Dr. Neil Feinberg and other psychotherapists treated their child patients.
Presumably these so-called “therapists” taught other parents that this was acceptable, and the appropriate way to discipline children and to induce bonds with them. It is not. The bond which Feinberg is promoting is nothing but a trauma bond. This is not healthy. C.R.T. and C.R.T. Parenting are not therapy, nor forms of parenting; they are child abuse, and they are grooming for child abuse.
Forced touching normalizes more forced touching, by getting the child accustomed to unwanted touching. Forced touching makes children susceptible to loneliness, and to someone noticing they're lonely (including, possibly, someone who might want to molest or kidnap them).
This form of “parenting” could have gotten me kidnapped or even killed.
It is important to focus on how my father poked and prodded me all over my body – especially my ribs and underarms – because I suspect that my father may have gotten ideas about how to molest me and get away with it, by observing my grandmother (my mother's mother) playing with me.
My grandmother Gloria Cervetti used to sit me in her lap, and draw a circle on my chest with her finger. She would chant, “Make a round circle, color it purple, somebody... tap, tap, tap!” Then she would tap against my chest repeatedly until I laughed. I did not have any problem with this when she did it.
However, my father did the same thing to me, shortly after my grandmother began doing it. I remember that my father poked my chest too hard, and that there was something I didn't like about the way he did it. I do not remember whether I tried to tell my mother about this, but I suspect that I might have tried. She probably wouldn't remember me trying to warn her about that. But she will probably remember her mother chanting that rhyme and tapping on my chest.
_____________________
I have not yet recovered any certain memory of my father making me engage in any form of oral or penetrative sexual interactions. Nor can I remember any sexual abuse which certainly involved direct skin-to-skin contact (as I am only about 50-60% certain that I was touched under my clothes). Nor have I recovered any memories of my father molesting me in his closet or our breezeway (these are the “false memories” which I briefly experienced in early 2015).
But I am absolutely certain that the type of molestation which occurred the most often, was unwanted genital groping over my clothes, during overwhelming tickling and prodding all over the body, while on our gray couch in the basement.
As I mentioned above, there is a stigma against the admission of testimony based on “recovered memories”. This is, in part, because of the “false memory syndrome” controversy which I have explained. But it is also because Sigmund Freud would probe deeper into his patients' possible memories of abuse from infancy, even if they had already disclosed abuse from later on in childhood (abuse which often should have been discussed more urgently than the possibility of earlier memories).
In light of the fact that “repressed memories” and “recovered memories” have become eclipsed and discredited by the controversy surrounding “false memories”, I want to stress that I recovered all memories without the active or direct help of any psychiatrist. These include the four new incidents, and the new details of molestation on the couch, which I mentioned in this report.
I was not on either street drugs or prescription medication, nor was I asleep or dreaming, nor was I speaking to any therapist or psychiatrist, nor was I under hypnosis, for any of the instances during which I recovered memories of abuse from my past. Therefore, there is a zero percent chance that there were “therapist-implanted memories” in my case.
Every time I recovered a memory of abuse from my past, I was either:
1. listening to music in the bath;
2. laying in bed trying to fall asleep (that is, struggling to fall asleep, because of the traumatic memories and the anger keeping me awake; I do not mean to say that I was drifting off to sleep or beginning to fall asleep);
3. answering clarifying questions about the abuse for my mother; or
4. writing about the abuse, while adding whatever details I could remember.
Please speak to Dr. Christine Berry and/or Dr. Vernice Wright to confirm that I have never recovered memories while speaking to them live - either in person or over the phone or video chat applications - during our sessions. That doesn't mean the therapy isn't working, however; it is working. I mean to say that I recover memories best when I am alone.
____________________________
To summarize the previous text, here is the list of memories which I have either recovered since submitting my original statement to Lake Bluff police on December 31st, 2019, or have always remembered but have recently realized should be disclosed:
[Note: the incident numbers refer to the new, expanded set of memories, found on page 3 of this document.]
-
Incident #1 (Nightmare about a scary figure in a hallway)
[Always remembered]
- Incident #2 (Kneeling in front of a mirror)
[Recovered in early 2020]
-
Incident #4 (Babs Bunny / Elmer Fudd / white cream)
[Always remembered]
- Parts of Incidents #5-16: Dad counting down from 10 to 0, pretending he'd let me escape
[Recovered in early 2020]
- Parts of Incidents #5-16: Leaning to my side on small love-seat after molestation
[Recovered in early 2020]
-
Parts of Incidents #5-16: Dad (and Grandma) poking me to the “Make
a round circle” rhyme
[Recovered in mid- 2020]
- Parts of Incidents #5-16: Running around, and hiding behind, couches, while Dad chased me
[Recovered in mid- 2020]
In
the “How I Know I Didn't Welcome the Abuse” section (Section 8;
page 132) of my original statement to police, I wrote the following
sentence:
It's
possible that, while I was sitting in “the triangle”, I may have
inadvertently brushed up against his genitals or buttocks.
I do not wish to
alter, nor retract, this statement in any way. But I regret failing
to specify that I mentioned this because it's possible that that
action could have caused my father to molest me on the couch for the
first time.
I also want to add that, when I was six (some time in 1993), I masturbated underneath several tables in the basement living room, in front of my father and brother, who were watching television. [Note: If I'm mistaken, and I was not in fact six years old when this happened, then I was seven, and it must have happened in 1994 instead.]
I did not take my clothes off, however, nor did I take my penis out; I was laying down on my side, pushing on my penis and bladder, over my clothes, using the palms of my hands. That was the closest thing to masturbation that I had figured out by the age of six.
My
father caught me, and I confessed to having “peed my pants”. I
knew that that was not what happened, but I also didn't know about
the word masturbation. I believe that I was vaguely aware that what I
was doing was sexually stimulating, and I knew that was taboo in the
household, so I told my father that I “peed my pants”, as a way
to admit to something,
which is what he wanted me to do.
It's
possible that discovering me masturbating at the age of six or seven,
might have caused my father to think about the fact that I had sexual
feelings. I suspect that that event was one of the catalysts that
caused my father to begin molesting me on the gray couch, later on,
at the ages of 8 and 9.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part
6: “False Memories” vs. False
Accusations
Having experienced “false memories” does not denote, nor imply, that false accusations, nor false claims, were made.
Having previously experienced “false memories”, and then getting over them (by realizing that your mind was just making guesses as to what happened to you), does not imply that false accusations were made.
Initially I struggled to remember the molestation clearly, and I experienced thoughts which contained fragments of traumatic memories. Bits and pieces of those suppressed, traumatic memories came up, and reconnected with my conscious mind, slowly over time.
None of that means that I made any false accusations. I withheld disclosing incomplete information about the partial memories of trauma which had begun to resurface - until the memories became more clear and more numerous - in order to avoid making accusations based on faulty or incomplete information.
On December 9th, 2014, the Washington Post published an article titled “The Truth About a Viral Graphic on Rape Statistics”.
According to that article, Sarah Beaulieu explains that the statistics in the graphic provided, mean that 2% of total reported rapes are false accusations, which is 1 out of every 50 reports.
The same article reported that, according to the Enliven Project, 2% of total claimed rapes are false accusations, which is 1 out of every 50. That is a slightly different statistic, however, since it is about claims rather than accusations reported to the police.
According to a study by the Making a Difference project, 7% of reports made to law enforcement are false, which is about 1 in 14 reports. The National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women says that this is the only reliable study which has been done regarding false reports to police.
According to the Washington Post article, other studies have concluded that somewhere between 2% (1 in 50) and 10% (1 in 10) of rape claims or accusations are false.
I wanted to make this information available to you, in order to highlight the sheer improbability that my claims and accusations are false, based on the statistics.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 7: Johnson v. Johnson (1984)
I would also like to make you aware that the 1984 child sexual abuse case of Johnson v. Johnson, established two classes of sexual abuse victims, in terms of their ability to access memories of abuse. These are Type I (survivors who always remembered the abuse), and Type II (survivors who recovered memories after forgetting the abuse).
I am a Type II child sexual abuse survivor. Please see the excerpt below – especially the italicized, underlined sentences – to learn more about what that means.
I quote from pages 269-270 of “Child Sexual Abuse: Adult Survivors, Repressed Memories, and Stories Finally Told”, by Rebecca J. Whitcombe, published in the U.C.L.A. Women's Law Journal:
Unfortunately, determining the point at which an incest
survivor knew or should have known of her injury is not easy. Usually
there is a complete lack of physical evidence since the harm is
mostly psychological for adults.
Also, there are many instances in which the survivor simply does not know that the abuse was wrong, and therefore may not know of a "harm," even though she remembers the abusive acts. Similarly, "although the victim might realize for a long time that she is suffering from abnormal psychological symptoms, it is often beyond the pale of reasonableness to charge the victim with the knowledge of making the connection between the abuse and the damage.
For these and other reasons, it has been difficult to apply the delayed discovery rule to incest survivors. The delayed discovery rule was first applied in the groundbreaking case of Johnson v. Johnson.
In Johnson, the court divided child sexual abuse cases into two categories: Type I and Type II. A Type I case involves a survivor who always remembered the abuse, but was unaware of the connection between the abuse and her psychological problems. A Type II case, however, involves a survivor who "has totally repressed the memory of the abusive sexual acts."'
Applying Illinois state law, the Johnson court held that "at some point the injured person becomes possessed of sufficient information concerning his injury and its cause thereby putting a reasonable person on inquiry to determine whether actionable conduct is involved. At that point, under the discovery rule, the running of the limitation period commences.
The court found that the plaintiff was a Type II plaintiff, and in such a situation, "the strictures of the statutes must sometimes be loosened in order to give the substantive law room to develop." Thus, the court held that the delayed discovery rule applied.
The Johnson court's division of child sexual abuse cases into two types provided the basis for other courts' application of the delayed discovery doctrine to incest survivors' claims.
Some courts have held that Type II plaintiffs are entitled to the benefit of the delayed discovery rule, but Type I plaintiffs are not.
Others have agreed to also apply the rule to Type I plaintiffs, reasoning that although the survivor may remember the abuse, she may not know that her psychological problems as an adult were caused by that abuse and thus should have the benefit of the rule once she discovers the causal connection.
This division of cases into Type I and Type II has also become "a convenient standard for measuring how lenient a particular state is in preserving the [child sexual abuse] victim's cause of action.'”
The case of Johnson v. Johnson should provide ample precedent and guidance for the prosecution of this case.
As I have stated previously, some time between 1997 and 2000, I forgot the memories of sexual abuse which occurred prior to 1997.
It seems likely that the time my father injured my left ribcage was the last time I remembered any abuse, and that the cessation of the abuse was one of the things that caused me to forget that the abuse had happened.
My father screaming at me after the abuse stopped, and intimidating me, was also a major reason that I forgot about the sexual abuse; every week he found something new to use against me or scare me about. I believe that is how my father was able to distract me from remembering the previous abuse, until 2015.
I hope you will bear in mind that – due to the trauma and fear involved, and due to inability to understand sexual matters at a young age – many victims of child sexual abuse go through the experience typified by the Type II description (i.e., forgetting that the abuse had occurred).
Having to depend upon, and trust, an adult, as a child, causes you to doubt your own experiences, when the person who hurt you tells you that “it wasn't that bad” or “I barely touched you” or “I didn't do anything to you.” You begin to believe it, and deny what happened, or else blame yourself. Either way, you sink into depression and despondency. At that point, suicide begins to seem like a real risk and a viable solution.
I will continue pursuing charges in this case because, if nothing else I have offered will be accepted as admissible evidence, then I will cease being able to take solace in the fact that my father did not hurt me any worse than he did. I will begin to wish that my father had seriously injured or even killed me, since that would be the only way to produce any physical evidence of the trauma which he has inflicted upon me (and thus, the only way to show what a danger my father is, and has been, to my mental well-being, my health, and my safety).
I contend that my father's abuse and neglect – and refusal to answer my questions – contributed to the difficulty I experienced discerning real memories from “false memories” in early 2015.
Beginning to recover memories of being molested, and then questioning whether those memories are real, tends to make a person wonder whether there were any other events in their life that they don't remember, and whether they are basing their lives on any other lie(s).
That is what is happened to me. I regret mentioning those “false memories”, but I did so in the interest of full disclosure, and I maintain that I have still not provided any false statements, since I have never attempted to mislead anyone into thinking that those early thoughts were clear memories.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 8: Psychological Torture and Narcissism
My father has told me several times that he feels that I
blame him for everything bad that has happened in my life. It is hard
not to, though, when he has always been there, monitoring what I say
to even close friends and relatives, screaming at me, spying on me,
withholding my mail and identification documents, and making most of
my major decisions for me. He also frequently twists what I and my
mother say to him, into attacks against him.
I want you to understand that I am taking this very seriously, and would not provide false information to the police. The fact that my father has not filed a slander or libel lawsuit against me – which he, as an attorney, could easily do – ought to demonstrate that he is not willing to consistently (nor steadfastly, nor formally) contest what I have claimed about him.
This, in addition to his alibi that – when I claim he was molesting me while tickling me – he claims that he was just tickling me. He admits that he was in the position I said he was in when it happened, and he admits that he tickled me in an overwhelming manner and is sorry that he ignored my screams and objections. He knows he was hurting me. He has effectively admitted that he had total access to my body, to do to me what I claim he did to me.
He has effectively admitted to 90% of what I have accused him of.
No jury in the world would believe my father if he said, “I couldn't have molested my son, because I was actually tickling him all over his body at the time”. Think of the absurdity of that statement: My father's alibi - when asked where he was when I claim he was tickling me all over my body including my penis until I screamed - is that he was only tickling me all over my body except my penis until I was screaming and gasping for air.
He has admitted to that much; in front of me, my mother, my mother's sister Marsha, and her husband Loren Peterson, at Loren's home, in October 2020.
No jury would believe that “all over his body” doesn't include my genitals. Not on top of the sexual dysfunction I have experienced, and my fear of going near and hugging my father, my hitchhiking thousands of miles to get away from him, and the homelessness and drug addiction I suffered during my twenties.
The last time I checked, a boy's penis and testicles are part of his body. My father knows where my penis and testicles are located, even with my clothes covering them. He touched my genitals on purpose.
The only reason not to prosecute someone who has admitted to 90% of what they're accused of, is that it would be too easy to prosecute and convict that person. It would be like showing off.
I know it seems like my father is a very distinguished, affable person who has contributed to his community, and is in good standing with the law. But he has worked hard over the years to cultivate a phony, narcissistic personality; and to hide the evidence of his abuse, by screaming at me every week.
He has friends and family who will deny it, but my mother and brother and I have seen him scream at the top of his lungs, so loud that my mother was worried that the neighbors could hear, multiple times.
My father also allowed my younger brother to beat me up over and over again as a child, which did not stop until after several years, when my father made him stop watching wrestling on TV. My father had no reason to stop this bullying; it only made me weaker, and easier to pin down and subject to unwanted touching.
Not only that; my father drinks and drives, follows cars too closely, and frequently pulls over, and frequently gets into accidents, and uses the fact that he is a lawyer to get away with it (by informing police of this fact).
I have witnessed him provide alcohol to underage minors multiple times; they were his nieces and nephews, but one such incident occurred in an establishment licensed to serve alcohol. My cousin, who was 17 or 18, got permission from her father; but my father also pressured me to lie about her age right there in the bar.
I am sick of having to live lies in order to please my father.
There are many people who have seen my father, as well as many of his friends, provide alcohol to their minor children.
My father also made jokes, numerous times when I was in my twenties, about how I was a “cheap date”. When I would order a soda instead of alcohol, my father would make that joke. I realize now that my father might have been pressuring me to drink alcohol, and/or even joking about me being a “cheap date”, in order to 1) make me forget the abuse by drinking, and 2) make fun of me for getting molested and then forgetting about it.
My father also recruited psychiatrists Dr. Sol Rappaport and Dr. Michael Feld to put me on drugs – the psychiatric medication Abilify – at a time when I was trying to remain sober. My father also pressured his older brother, and my mother, to try to get me to take psychiatric medication. I discovered later that Feld had had an affair with a patient, and that Abilify can have negative effects on the nervous system.
My father is not what he seems to be. He screamed at, and towered over, his children, and nearly slammed the door in his wife's face when she tried to enter the room to do her job as a parent and make sure he didn't discipline us too hard. She says that my father not only didn't let her parent; he didn't even let her be her own person. In my opinion, he treated her like a child, to say the least.
My father took advantage of his size, and my mother's fear of him, to treat her as a dependent child, while he alone exercised the parental authority in the household. This gave him sufficient cover to get time alone with me, when my mother would suspect nothing (and fear asking too many questions), to molest me while my mother and brother were out of the house.
The fact that my mother and brother do not remember seeing me abused, does not mean that it didn't happen. It means that my father abused me while they were out of the house. He was intelligent enough to make sure that my behavior was under control, and not suspicious, by the time my mother would come home.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 9: Drugging
All of this is evidence that my father has conspired to drug me, and tried to cover up what he did to me with that drugging and with psychological torture. Some patients who have taken Abilify have reported weight gain, difficulty thinking clearly, and even partial paralysis.
My father pressured four people – two of whom were psychiatrists who had never even met me, nor diagnosed me with any ailment – to convince me to take drugs that might have severely impaired my ability to think clearly about the incidents of abuse and to recall them.
The other two people were my mother and my uncle. I do not wish to blame them for this, however; my father, Rappaport, and Feld are more responsible for the attempts to pressure me into taking a drug I didn't know much about, without meeting me or diagnosing me with anything first.
My father consulted Dr. Michael Feld after my aunt specifically warned my parents that Feld had been accused of having an affair with a past client. I felt extremely uncomfortable knowing that I had recently recovered memories of my father abusing me, and his solution was to put me in a room with someone who has had sex with people who were in the same position as I was (i.e., his patient).
All of this was intentional on the part of my father.
He is trying to scare me, and dominate me, and control my life, and poison my brother and mother against me, and isolate me from my friends and family by making them believe that I am lying about what he did to me. He denies that he is out there lying, but even if he is not, he must be allowing them to believe that I am not perceiving the world correctly, or am grossly confused or misled about things.
He does not seem to understand the effect that his sexual and emotional abuse have had on me. He does not seem to understand that he cannot continue lying about the abuse while saying that he wants my mental state to improve. He does not seem to be making the connection that his abuse is the reason why I have struggled socially and emotionally for so long. He doesn't seem to believe that anything that's happening, means that he has to admit what he did.
I believe that my drug use, and extreme feelings of social isolation and anxiety, in my early twenties, were caused by my father's abuse and neglect, and from the fact that it has never been resolved. My father wants me to blame my problems on him, because he is responsible for them, he doesn't want anyone to know, and he wants people to think that I am a “bad kid” who is “out there” and brought all of this onto himself.
Children do not voluntarily bring negative attention on themselves. Children do not make decisions, because children cannot consent; to anything. Children do sometimes make cries for help, though. During my childhood, my father deliberately twisted, misinterpreted, and misapprehended my cries for help, as if they were terroristic threats.
I assure you that my father knows that what he did to me
was wrong. He is an attorney who should have been thinking about
morality his whole life. He should thus not be let off easily.
Moreover, my father informed me in Barcelona in April 2019 that “if” someone had sexually assaulted me, he would want that person to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
That is why I believe that both my right to adequate representation, and my father's right to confront his accuser in court – and also, his right to get justice after “somebody” molested his son – are in jeopardy, until charges against my father are filed.
Judging by my father's statement, he is asking you to file charges too.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 10: I Am Still Afraid for My Safety
My mother will verify, if you ask her, that I have been
afraid of my father for most of my life, and that I have been trying
to warn people about the way he treats me, for a long time. If she
doesn't admit that, then it will be because she is afraid of my
father, either physically, or in terms of what he could do to her
legally or financially, or all of the above. My father is paying for
my mother's car, and her mortgage, and he is employing her for an
amount lower than the state minimum wage.
To some degree, my father has my mother under his control. But I believe that she will at least be willing to talk about the time I tried to report the abuse to her, when I was eight years old, even if she has little or nothing to say about not noticing anything suspicious about the way my father was interacting with me and treating me.
I should also mention that I am especially concerned about the outcome of this possible case; first, because I have a nephew who could (and probably has) come into close contact with my father; and second, because my father's law office is defending clients who stand accused of molesting their children.
I know that everybody deserves adequate representation, but if my father - or the other occupant of his office, Doug Zeit - is defending accused child molesters, then I think their other clients – and the former spouses of their clients accused of child molestation - have a right to know whether someone in their attorney's office stands accused of molesting his own son. There could be a conflict of interest somewhere.
For the same reason, it is also concerning that Doug Zeit's wife, Victoria “Vicky” Rosetti, is a judge. This is for the same reason; it creates a potential conflict of interest. Given her relationship to my father's law office, and her pre-existing and longstanding friendship with my father, I believe that Rossetti could not possibly be unbiased if she were to preside over my case.
I would hate for the Lake County court system to develop a reputation that it is allowing well-connected lawyers to molest their own children, and then go about defending accused child molesters for profit. Sadly, that is what I already suspect is going on. Declining to file charges in my case will only affirm that that suspicion is appropriate.
My findings, regarding my father's 1993 defense of a previously accused sex offender (Kenneth Hasty) from sexual harassment of a much younger adult male, have confirmed to me the worst of what I suspected; that my father has defended clients whom he knows previously committed unwanted sexual touching of children. My father took this case when I was six years old, two years before the regular molestation on the gray couch began.
I am also concerned about the outcome of this case because of what happened with Diane M. Ross, Dave Miller, Jonathan and Susan Dick, and others. These are all accused child molesters in Lake Bluff and Lake Forest.
Diane Ross was arrested in 2000 after receiving child pornography while posing as a 13-year-old girl. David Miller, the theater director at Lake Forest High School, was recently revealed to have been having sexual relationships with 17-year-old male students.
Jonathan and Susan Dick, the owners of Sweet's ice cream shop in Lake Forest, stand accused of molesting the daughters of Karen A. Fennell. Fennell wrote a book called Straying Towards Truth, a fictionalized account of what happens when children tell their parents they were molested. Fennell told me that the book was based on her own experiences. Jonathan Dick has apparently changed his name to Jonathan D. Jonathan, because that is who is listed as the owner of Sweet's when you look it up on a search engine.
In addition to these facts, I know of a girl who was molested or raped by her father; she attended Lake Forest schools and was in one of my classes. Also, when I was about eight, my mother would take me and my brother to the Lake Bluff public pool (on Rockland Road / Route 176, near Central School) We were told not to stay in the showers too long, because old men might try to touch our penises. I found out from a friend my age, that there actually was an old man who had previously tried to touch a little boy in that shower. This was not treated as something to worry about much, by adults.
I am including this information in order to convey the urgency of the fact that your office has not yet filed charges against my father.
My father was on the District 65 school board when I was
a child. This means that he had connections to principals and mayors,
and exerted some control over what we were taught. This should be
extraordinarily concerning, considering that Kathleen o'Hara – then
a principal, and now the mayor of Lake Bluff – evidently did not
call any sort of town meeting to discuss the fact that the mother of
two of our schoolchildren had been arrested for receiving child
pornography.
The fact that Ross's crimes were not publicized by the town and school leadership – for example, not even with a “stranger danger” or “good touch, bad touch” lecture for the children – should indicate that somebody in charge did not want to talk about child molestation. So why should they have been surprised when the owners of Sweet's – patronized by dozens of children a day – were accused of molestation as well? Why should they be surprised about the guy in the Lake Bluff public pool shower, or Dave Miller?
Why should they be surprised that my father tickled my penis, when Scott Gibson made it OK to touch kids' butts at his pool parties? Who is going to notice that a man has molested his son, when they're busy pretending it's not creepy that the same man (i.e., my father) likes to provide minors with alcohol, and then tries to play beer pong with them?
My father normalized his behavior by desensitizing
people; to his drinking, his voice impersonations, his constant
fixation on my clothing and appearance. My father groomed me and
fixated on my appearance, and made me wear restrictive clothing,
until it was normal. Everything I had no power to resist (which was
everything) became normal. I was rarely free to object, and over the
years I grew less free to speak, until after he knew that I
remembered the abuse in 2015, right before he began screaming over me
whenever I couldn't get my message across in three seconds.
My father is a gaslighting, psychological abuser, who uses intimidation, distracting jokes, and a false sense of confidence, to lead people to believe that there is nothing wrong in his household. There is something wrong. My father psychologically tortured all three of us; my mother, my brother, and myself. And he molested me multiple times; and choked me during, and screamed me afterwards, until I forgot about it.
My father used the cover of his “strict” parenting, to silence my mother and push her out as a parent, until he had so much control over his household, that my mother trusted him enough to leave me alone in the house with him, only to come home later and not have any idea that I had recently been screaming, and crying, and struggling for breath, and running away from or trying to escape from my father, and desperately waiting for her to come home. When she would come home, I would run to my room.
Somebody has to stop this chain of abuses, which have gone virtually unnoticed until recently. Remaining silent, refraining from filing charges, and preventing a grand jury from hearing the evidence and testimony I have presented, is not going to help protect the children of Lake County. This is about more than just me.
I guarantee you that, between Gibson and o'Hara, if you start digging at my father, you will find other child molesters. Kathleen o'Hara screamed at children until they would have been too afraid of her to report any abuse by their teachers or parents. O'Hara's actions may have created a “free speech chilling effect” upon the reporting of abuses (not just sexual; any sort of abuses, whether by parents or by teachers) at Lake Bluff Middle School. I'm certain that I would have felt less afraid to go to her to discuss any problems, if she were not well-known as the loudest employee of the school system besides the elementary school bus driver, Sharon.
Also, it's possible that Scott Gibson not only touched his friends' kids on their butts, but also may have molested his daughters. His wife is an alcoholic who has had to get therapy for her drinking problem, and their daughters don't talk much. They also look nervous all the time, and have rings around their eyes like they're tired. Child molestation victims will often look like that, because they're terrorized. Or they're exhausted from running away from, or trying to warn people about, their abusers.
I am familiar with how child molestation victims tend to look, because in my twenties, I acquired several friends, whom I later discovered were child molestation victims, whom I had drifted towards unconsciously, almost as if part of me knew I had been abused and needed to find people with similar personalities. I have about six living friends who were molested as children or abused as teens.
That is why I suspect that [REDACTED] Gibson may have suffered some form(s) of abuse at the hands of their father which their mother might be trying to repress with drinking.
It was technically not illegal for Gibson to pinch my behind, but the state should still speak to his daughters and ask whether their father has ever touched them inappropriately. He has almost certainly, at the very least, pinched their butts in front of others, and then proudly and loudly made “jokes” about it.
This community has failed me. You, Mr. o'Block, have the ability to change that, and to redeem the legitimacy of this county's authority over the criminals within it.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 11: I Am Willing to Testify and Here to Help You
I know that, if you will accept my assistance and speak
with me and others a bit more, they and I will help explain to you
how there is a culture of silence about this issue, among the parents
of children my age, in Lake Bluff and Lake Forest.
Parents are so silent about underage drinking, that they don't notice that it's creepy the way my father plays beer pong with teenagers, bought them alcohol, hung out with young people while making me stay near the adults' table, made bizarre jokes and voices (including comments about teenage girls) while socializing (especially while drinking), and pressured me to lie about my cousin being underage.
Somebody in the list below, must remember something. If they don't, then they are thinking of my father's behavior in general, and not about specific instances. My father has made sure to stay in his friends' good graces, including by hiding the way he treats his family, from those friends.
I also want you to know that my previous statement to police, is not just a set of claims; it is my autobiography. I have only made my claims more detailed and more specific, as time has gone on. I assure you that this is characteristic of someone who is recovering accurate memories; not of someone who is trying to make something up.
The only doubt which can be cast on my claims about what happened to me, will come from people who were not paying enough attention to me to notice that I was being abused. I wish to focus on what my father did to me, though; not on other people's failure to notice what was going on.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part
12: The
Physical Evidence in My Case
I acknowledge that there is a deficit in physical evidence proving my claims. However, I will provide all the information that I can regarding the physical evidence which previously existed, and which can be considered, if the courts will permit it:
1. The Gray Couch
The gray couch on which my father molested me while
subjecting me to unwanted tickling, was thrown away. This occurred
some time between 1998 and 2005. It is possible that my sister Jodi
Magnani McLellan had the couches at some point, because she took a
set of couches from my parents later.
But it's likely that the large gray couch, and the small one-seat chair on which I sat crying and recovering after the molestation, were simply thrown away directly (after they began to look old and when my parents had bought replacements), and were taken by Lake Bluff Public Works some time between 1998 and 2005.
If that gray couch could have been found, it's probable that investigators would have found sweat from both myself and my father, and possibly also semen from my father and maybe also myself. I do not think I ejaculated while being molested by my father, but it's possible that my father did. However, I masturbated on that couch alone multiple times, so there could be semen or pre-ejaculate from myself on that couch.
I regret that these pieces of physical evidence are not available. But that is what I know about their whereabouts, and about the evidence that existed in the past.
On page #57 of this document – in illustration #4, two pages from the very end – I have included a drawing of the way I sat on the single-seat chair while recovering from the unwanted genital touching.
2.
My Left Rib
The injury to my left lower rib, which I sustained
during Incident #21, is still observable. It has a noticeable popping
sound, which it makes when I inhale deeply and puff-up my chest. It
sounds, and feels, to be “clicking into place”. I believe that
the injury resulted from chest compression which I suffered when my
father tried to subject me to unwanted touching during that incident,
which he may have done in order to try to molest me again.
I don't remember being touched on the genitals during that incident, but it is still worth mentioning; because of the injury, and because it may have been an incident of attempted child sexual abuse, which was a crime despite the fact that it failed.
Any doctor could observe this movement of my rib with their hand, or hear it with a stethoscope. It can even be heard with a simple microphone, or even with the naked ear, if you are close enough. It is certainly much louder and noticeably movable than anything I am feeling on my right lower ribs. I maintain that my father caused me this injury and that it could be heard through a microphone in open court.
I spoke with a male chiropractor at Chiro One in Waukegan about these concerns, and he told me that he thinks that what I'm hearing and feeling is a ligament sliding over a bone. I spoke to Dr. Arielle Levitan, who reviewed X-rays that I received, and she had no explanation for my concerns. All she did was tell me to stop puffing-up my chest.
I cannot seem to get a straight answer from doctors. I suspect that one of my lower ribs was loosened, and/or that something underneath an area between two of my ribs may have been perforated by my father's finger(s). I believe that these pathologies would show up on a CT (“cat”) scan, but not on an X-ray. However, doctors did not deem it necessary to give me a CT scan, despite the fact that I specifically asked for one. Nor did they give me a lung capacity test, which I asked for.
I would be willing to submit to additional X-rays, and to CT scans, and to any examinations which doctors or attorneys may deem necessary or helpful to prove that this injury exists. I will also maintain that the injury is causing me persistent discomfort, especially while driving, and even, increasingly, while sitting and trying to maintain a normal posture.
It will be necessary to hold my father accountable for this injury, because it is among the worst examples of aggravating factors (which I detailed in pages 212 through 295 of my original statement to Lake Bluff police). It shows that he physically hurt me – even damaged my ability to breathe – in order to hold me down and subject me to unwanted touching.
It's likely that the way I sat on the love-seat after the abuse, as well as the physical abuse I endured in Incident #21, contributed to the posture problems which I experienced in high school, and am experiencing now.
I am planning to schedule a CT scan or M.R.I., and a lung capacity test – as well as a psychological evaluation – as soon as possible.
3.
My Breathing Problems
I believe that the breathing difficulties which the
injury to my rib caused me, significantly contributed to my inability
to run a ten-minute mile on the first attempt.
Lake Bluff Middle School physical education teacher Scott Morehead may remember that I was not very athletic, and not in great physical shape, and even struggled to breathe while running for prolonged periods. And, at that, noticeably more than the other students. My first attempt to run a ten-minute mile took about twelve minutes, and I succeeded only upon my second attempt.
I should also note that I was diagnosed with asthma around the age of nine years old. I have needed to use an albuterol inhaler to deal with allergies to cat dander, dust, mold, pollen, trees, and and extreme temperature changes. This does not explain all of my breathing problems, however, as the asthma was noticed by doctors at least two or three years before my rib was injured by my father in 1999 or 2000.
Additionally, the fact that I had asthma meant that my father should have been extra careful not to compress my ribcage, or subject me to any touching, that might make it difficult for me to breathe.
My father thus showed reckless disregard for my health in covering up his physical and sexual abuse of me.
4. My (Comparatively) Small Size
I stand five feet, eleven-and-a-half inches tall, and
143 pounds. My father is 6'2” and over 200 pounds. My father and
brother are avid golfers and sports fans, and get much more physical
activity than I do.
This could be attributed to the fact that, as a child, I stayed inside a lot of the time. I liked to draw, do arts and crafts, read, and watch television. I especially enjoyed watching stand-up comedy on Comedy Central, after the age of 10 or 12.
At the age of eight, I had been given a series of allergy tests, which determined that I was allergic to egg yolks, cat dander, grass, mold, dust, trees, and pollen. I believed that this meant I should stay away from eggs and refrain from going outside much.
It was obvious that I was allergic to cats, and I have used an albuterol inhaler since I was a child to regulate my breathing when around cats and to adjust to extreme temperature changes. But I soon figured out that I did not react to eggs in any way, so I continued to eat eggs (and things that contain eggs) normally.
When I was about 20, I met someone from New Jersey named Mike Nelson. I told him that I am allergic to grass, mold, dust, pollen, and trees, and Mike said “That's just hay fever”. He explained that nearly everybody is allergic to at least one of those things. I realized that this meant I had probably stayed inside as a child too often. It made me wonder whether my parents (by which I mean my father, who didn't allow my mother to make any major parenting decisions) may have overreacted to my allergy diagnosis.
I began hitchhiking and going outdoors a lot more after that conversation.
Another factor that helps explain why I stayed inside so often as a child, was that I enjoyed watching stand-up comedy on television. Many times when I was doing that – which I did calmly, sitting by myself, usually on the floor, minding my own business – my brother Michael would come up to me from behind, and start engaging me in very emotionally charged physical shoving and pushing matches. He would also pull moves on me that he learned from watching W.W.F. matches (the Worldwide Wrestling Federation, now W.W.E.).
It took several years of me complaining about these attacks to my parents, before my father eventually made my brother stop watching wrestling on television. I no longer blame my brother for what he did, since he was a child and legally not responsible. Also, he wanted to interact with me, and roughhousing is one of the forms that often takes with male children. But I repeat that these attacks were very physical.
Additionally, I never wanted to be involved in those fights. As I explained, I would have rather been watching people tell jokes on TV. Moreover, I initiated zero of those fights. I didn't even want to resist, because I didn't want to hurt my brother. But he repeatedly attacked me and gave me no choice other than to defend myself. I remember ripping the collar of his T-shirt because it was the only thing I could come up with to get him off of me. I didn't want to physically hurt him, but I wanted him to stop, so I ripped his shirt collar. He yelled at me about it.
I still struggle to wrap my mind around why he cared more about his shirt than both his own and my own physical safety and well-being. I regret ripping his shirt, but my brother and father do that. They intentionally incite me, and other people, in order to humiliate them by pretending they're overreacting to my brother and father's toxic, provocative behavior.
I believe that my father intentionally neglected to stop my brother from beating me up, in order to “soften me up” so that he could take control of me more easily. I believe that if my brother and father had not been my first bullies at home, then not only would I probably have had fewer bullies at school; I probably also would have had a chance at developing normally, with the muscular and skeletal structure which are appropriate for someone of my five feet and eleven and a half inches. Again, I weigh only about 143 pounds (as of March 1st, 2021), while my father weighs over 200 pounds.
It is also noteworthy that I remember seeing my father and brother shovel forkfuls of food into their mouths very quickly, while I was struggling to catch up and eat as quickly as they were eating. My mother ate at a normal pace.
Looking back, it seems strange that my father and brother could eat so much more quickly than I could. It has since occurred to me that my trying to eat as fast as my father and brother, could have been a sign of an eating disorder. I certainly struggled with what I should eat in late 2014 and in 2015 (before an after beginning to recover memories of the abuse).
I believe that a major part of the reason why I didn't develop as much as my brother did, was because I got beaten up by my brother, and was held down during unwanted touching and molestation by my father, so many times between the ages of five and thirteen years old.
My father held me down while molesting me, and allowed my brother to beat me up for about three years, because my father wanted me to have no means with which to defend myself. A fact which is compounded and proven by the many times he has pressured me into accepting his legal advice, which is a form of my defense.
My father does not care about my well-being; except
insofar as my well-being reflects positively upon him. He only cares
that he looks like he's helping me, to other people. He only cares
about helping me if that help will cause me to become more dependent
upon him for help and safety and advice.
My father is a narcissist and a child abuser, who denied my body the right to develop normally and fully into a strong man. He did this because he wants me weak and easy to dominate and subjugate.
5.
My Broken Life and Past Addiction
When I returned home to my father's house in Lake Bluff
from Portland, Oregon in early 2015, my mother told me that my father
told her that I seemed “broken”. I am. My father is the one who
broke me.
He broke me physically, by damaging my rib and my ability to breathe, and he broke me emotionally, by bending me to his will. He also broke me sexually and caused me to experience sexual dysfunction, which I detailed in my previous letter, on pages 65 through 74.
My experimentation with drugs and hitchhiking in my early twenties could be attributed to the fact that I was trying to “find myself” and explore the country. And that is not untrue.
But the hitchhiking was also a way to get as far away from my father as possible. And I began using marijuana, and later increased my use of it, as a way to recover lost memories (because Delta-9-THC promotes the interconnection of neurons and the growth of neuronal stem cells into adult neurons).
I also used marijuana to aid in my difficulty socializing and communicating (because THC assists in diminishing the causes and effects of neurodegenerative disorders, may of which carry communication disorders as side effects).
I also used psychotropic drugs in my early twenties, due to feeling alienated and feeling incapable of feeling like a normal person or experiencing normal emotions or joy without artificial means.
I believe that I would not have had these communication disorders, difficulties socializing, behavior problems and “acting out for negative attention” - and desperate need to get physically far away from my father and out of his control - if my father had not molested me so badly that I forgot about it for fifteen years, and also monitored my communications and socializing as closely as he did, which caused me to become isolated and mostly silent. He also discouraged me from showing affection and emotions, and would then mock me for seeming emotionless.
As I explained in my previous statement, I also suffer from numerous nervous tics, such as nail-biting (which my father does) and hair-pulling (trichitillomania, which my mother does a bit when she twirls her hair). My father made me submit to painful fingernail and toenail trimming as a child. He may have done this to make me submit to him in general, making me easier to molest and easier to trick into coming near him. I would probably not bite my fingernails, nor engage in compulsive hair-pulling, if my father had not molested me as a child and also trimmed my nails while ignoring my warnings that he was hurting me.
There is no crime unless there is physical evidence, or if something is missing, then the fact that something is missing is also physical evidence. I contend that I, myself, constitute physical evidence. I am damaged, physically and mentally. I am broken; something is wrong with my left lower rib and possibly also my lungs. I may have medical needs that my father and his medical insurer should be providing me.
In body and voice, I will remain available to police and attorneys, for any requests for statements, questions, or medical or psychological tests, to confirm what I have stated above. Therefore, let no one say that there is no physical evidence in my case.
I hope that the following will suffice as a set of facts pertaining to physical evidence which may be considered relevant to this case, from which pieces of evidence may be cited, and developed, until they eventually constitute something which can be deemed admissible in court.
1) my statements about the couch;
2) examinations of my left lower ribs;
3) analysis of my past and present breathing difficulties;
4) comparisons of my size to that of my father; and
5) my statements about my past addictions, past problematic behaviors, and ongoing nervous tics (which can be checked against observation of my mother's hair twirling and past electrolysis appointments, and against an examination of my and my father's fingernails).
For additional details on the full set of damages which my father inflicted upon me, please see pages 53 through 107 of my original statement to Lake Bluff police.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 13: Please Speak to My and My Father's Friends and Family
I am prepared to testify to the veracity of this
information in open court, as many times as I may be requested to do
so. Please speak to my therapists to confirm that I am of sound mind
to testify and make statements, and please speak to friends and
family members who may have seen my father mistreat me or break the
law.
________________________
Please call any or all of the following people, to
confirm that my father provides alcohol to minors. Also, specifically
ask them “Did you ever observe Scott Gibson inappropriately
pinching children's buttocks in his pool, and/or shouting 'There's a
butt-biter in the pool!'?” Ask those questions separately if
necessary.
If they say “Yes”, then ask them “Did you ever say something?”, and “Why didn't you stop this?”. Most of them were drinking and their familiarity with Gibson probably caused them to write this off as harmless fun. But it might also be appropriate to ask, “Wouldn't a good parent have noticed that their child is splashing around in the pool in fear, trying to get away from this hairy, shirtless adult who is coming towards them with his thumb and forefinger, and proudly announcing that he's about to grab their butts?”
The detail of this information, and my insistence upon its truth, and the number of specific individuals with whom I am asking you to speak in order to back it up, should tell you that I know what happened to me, and am willing to put my reputation on the line to prove these facts. But I do not put it past these people to have failed to notice, or even to pretend like they didn't notice anything odd. Some of them are self-absorbed people who are care more about image and wealth than they care to admit. My father's and Gibson's image and wealth – and their families' and friends' dependence upon them for legal advice – may have made it difficult for them to see things objectively.
- [REDACTED] (now divorced from Scott), and [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] Gibson, of Lake Forest
- [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] Callaghan of Lake
Forest
- [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] Mocogni of Lake Forest
- [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] Skinner of Lake Bluff
([REDACTED] can be reached at [REDACTED])
- [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] Kopsick of Lake Forest and
Lake Bluff
([REDACTED])
- Also, please contact my uncle Kevin Kopsick of
Hollywood, Florida if you wish to confirm that my father condoned my
(at the time) 17- or 18-year-old niece drinking, and even told me to
my face while I was in the bar that I should agree that she is 21 or
older. My father has Kevin's number.
________________________
Also, please feel free to speak to any one of my past teachers about my behavior when I was a child, and whether they noticed anything suspicious about the way my father was treating me.
None of them will remember that I bit another kid during a fight once, but Christine Friedman will remember that barked like a dog during class, and Kelly Urso will remember that I verbally disrespected a girl, Sarah Townshend, just so that I could get told to sit outside in the hallway.
My teachers from grades 3 through 8 (Harris, Ipsen, Barnes, Strauss, Tom Brown, and others) will remember that I experienced random nosebleeds - probably from the stress at home - and bit on pens and my fingernails profusely.
Jane Twohig (my eighth grade homeroom teacher), Kathy o'Hara, both of my parents, and a Lake Bluff police officer whose name I can't recall, should all remember that I drew a sketch of a school blowing up on my notebook near my last day of eighth grade; in May 2000. The librarians and principal at Lake Bluff Middle School at the time will remember that they made my father put me in therapy (with Dr. Richard Cohen) after I told a kid who had been bullying me that I wanted to kill him, after he stepped in front of me to take a first-come-first-serve computer, around 1998 or 1999.
I did not do these things because I was “crazy”, or even “seeking negative attention”; they were cries for help. I had been abused. My mother couldn't figure that out based on what I was able to tell her about it, and the crazier and more reactive I seemed, the more my father could observe aloud that I was acting crazy. I was being bullied at home, so the male role model I would have gone to, in order to stop that bullying, was not a reliable source of advice, nor of protection. I had nobody to talk to about my safety, who was in any position to do anything about it.
Please contact any or all of the following teachers at
Lake Bluff and Lake Forest schools, especially about what they
remember about my father from parent-teacher conferences. They may
remember my father being a strict disciplinarian (if he didn't
distract them from noticing with his superficial charm), or they may
remember something odd about the way my father always dominated my
mother in conversation.
Specifically, ask them any of the following questions:
- “Did you ever observe Joey Kopsick masturbating in class?” and “Did you ever observe Joey picking up garbage during recess instead of playing with the other kids?” (only the kindergarten teacher(s) and/or Mrs. Harris would remember this), or
- “Did Joey Kopsick seem quiet, or have a stuttering or any sort of speech problem, as a kid?” (ask Bonnie Castro, Susan Ipsen, or Debbie Barnes), or
- “Did you ever observe Joey Kopsick getting nosebleeds or wetting his pants in class?” (ask Ipsen, Barnes, or Strauss, or anyone who may have been a gym teacher at East School around 1993-1995), or
- “Did you ever notice Joey Kopsick being alone during playtime more often than the other children?”, or
- “Did you ever notice anything overly strict, domineering, or bullying about Joey Kopsick's relationship with his father?”, or
- “Did you ever notice Joey Kopsick exhibiting inappropriate behavior in class?”, or
- “Did Joey Kopsick ever do anything negative to call attention to himself, which in retrospect should have been seen as a cry for help?”.
Whom to call:
-
my kindergarten teacher (although I can't remember her name; it was
someone who taught at Lake Bluff East School in 1992-1993, and there
may have been more than one; school records should have this
information)
-
Mrs. Harris (mother of Kristen and Meghan and other daughters,
current or former 1st grade teacher at Lake Bluff
East School)
-
Susan Ipsen (2nd grade teacher at Lake Bluff East
School)
-
Debbie Barnes (3rd grade teacher at Lake Bluff
Central School)
-
Bonnie Castro (my 3rd grade speech therapist, and
also the adoptive mother of my friend at the time, Kyle Castro)
-
Mary Strauss (4th grade teacher at Lake Bluff Central
School)
-
Tom Brown (5th grade teacher at Lake Bluff Central
School)
-
Jane Twohig (former 8th grade homeroom and social
studies teacher at Lake Bluff Middle
School)
-
Scott Morehead (gym teacher at Lake Bluff Middle School)
-
Kathleen “Kathy” o'Hara (former principal of Lake Bluff Middle
School)
-
Kelly Urso (teacher at Lake Bluff Middle School)
-
Carolyn Bielski (teacher at Lake Forest High School)
-
Christine Friedman (teacher at Lake Forest High School)
-
Ken Finkelstein (teacher at Lake Forest High School)
-
Jim Thiel (dean at Lake Forest High School)
-
Laura Clegg (teacher and dean at Lake Forest High School)
You may also wish to ask Kathleen o'Hara whether she ever remembers yelling at me or any of the other students (she did; she was known for her loud voice). Ask her whether she thinks children are likely to report parental or teacher abuse to the principal if the principal is known for yelling at people all the time.
35
Also ask her what her response was to the Diane M. Ross child pornography arrest, and whether she thinks it was adequate to fail to inform the students (and possibly the parents) about this. Finally, ask her whether she thinks David Miller would have been caught earlier if she had brought more attention to the issue instead of “brushing it under the rug” the way she did.
________________________
And finally, please feel free to contact the following
psychiatrists who spoke to my father in early 2015 about me,
regarding how they came to know my father, and why they agreed to try
to get me on Abilify before they had ever met me or attempted to
diagnose any condition.
You may wish to ask Dr. Feld about whether he had an affair with a client, and whether he thinks a child molestation victim would want someone who did that to be his therapist, and whether he thinks that creates a potential conflict of interest:
- Dr. Michael Feld (847-400-5806 / office at 666 Dundee Rd., Suite 1302, Northbrook, IL)
-
Dr. Sol Rappaport, PhD, ABPP (847-680-2715 / office at 900 Technology
Way., Suite 320, Libertyville, IL; affiliated with the Association of
Family and Conciliation Courts).
If you wish, you may contact my mother's sister Marsha Cervetti Peterson of Lake Bluff, to ask her whether she has noticed my father's domineering nature towards me, or noticed that I don't like to be around him, or talk less or open up less often when I am around him. Ask her if I have ever complained about the way he treated me when I was younger. Marsha will also confirm that she told my mother not to get Dr. Michael Feld to be my therapist because Marsha knew that Feld had been accused of having an affair with a client.
Marsha's phone numbers are [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].
Loren's phone number is [REDACTED].
You can reach my brother Michael on his cell phone at [REDACTED] to confirm that he was tickled in the same manner that I was (minus the genital touching), if interviewers have not already asked him about that.
I previously named all possible tangential witnesses to my abuse, and to what Scott Gibson did, on pages 108 through 125 of my previous statement to Lake Bluff police.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 14: Punishment, and My Father's Possible Defenses
If there is any doubt in your mind that prison is appropriate for my father – either because he is supposedly too weak, or of too high stature in the community – then please keep in mind that if he is too weak for prison, then he should have been too weak to beat up and molest an eight-year-old boy.
If he is of too high stature and too distinguished an attorney – or too trustworthy – to serve in prison, then it should be asked why he did not use his sense of honor, morality, and knowledge of the law, to avoid committing criminal child sexual abuse, which as an attorney he knew was illegal, and as an adult he knew was wrong.
If you trust him, then “trust but verify”, and let a jury decide this matter. Attorneys, police officers, and other public officials must not be above the law; but additionally, they must be subject to a higher standard of ethics, if they are supposed to be exemplars of moral fortitude whom the rest of the community should admire.
My father's having been hung over during most of the times he molested me on the couch, is no excuse for what he did. He probably had a headache from drinking too much the previous night, and took those feelings of discomfort out on me. If I did anything to annoy or pester him during those times, I regret it. I was minding my own business, while sitting behind his legs watching TV with him, and I was absolutely not trying to provoke my father into any sort of physical interaction.
When my father molested me, he was thirty years older than I was (as he still is), and he was at least three times my size. There is no way that my father could have been, in any way, “out of control” or “out of his own control” (in case he decides to start making any sort of “I don't know what came over me” defense). He is also one of the most controlling people I have ever met. The idea that my father could not be in control of his actions – even for a moment – is a complete joke, and is impossible.
If you believe that my father simply didn't know what he was doing, or touched my genitals by accident, then my responses are that any rational adult knows where a boy's penis and testicles are on his body, and that he knew that shaking me and poking me all over my body was hurting me (because I was screaming) and he did it anyway.
He knew that he was hurting me, he knew it was wrong, he knew it was illegal, and he did it anyway.
In the 25 years which have passed since the worst of the abuse, my father has made jokes at my expense in front of my uncles, screamed at me several times per week whenever I have lived with him, and provoked me into confusion and anger as often as possible.
He has done this in order to provoke me into a reaction which, to others, looks disproportionate to what he did to me. He gets away with this by being expressionless and neutral and calm, after screaming and berating me. When called out on it, he pretends that this psychopathic, unpredictable behavior is nothing more than his ability to quickly “forgive and forget” and “get over” whatever happened. Even if that were true, it would not explain his fits of rage and screaming, which occur whenever he doesn't get his way or get the information he desired.
I explained in my previous statement to Lake Bluff police, that my father used Fraud, especially during the “Couch 4” incident, when he tricked me into getting molested again after saying he wouldn't hurt me this time the way he did the previous time. I detailed that fraud on pages 216 through 235. Additionally, I detailed my father's acts of intimidation on pages 235 through 252, and his manipulative behaviors on pages 252 through 288.
My father has also tempted and manipulated me with gifts, in order to bribe me into silence and into refraining from criticizing him.
Those are your aggravating factors of fraud, intimidation, bribery, and manipulation.
My father is guilty of somewhere between three and twenty-one intentional counts of criminal child sexual abuse; most of them aggravated. I am confident that about two-thirds of these incidents happened the way I remember them and involved sexual abuse.
I will never retract these claims; not even on my mother's, father's, or my own deathbed. I will only add information; if ever and whenever I recover more repressed memories.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 15: Questions to Ask My Father
If you choose to interview my father again, please do
not just allow him to calmly say “no” to everything. Ask him
pointed, specific questions, rephrased in multiple different ways.
Ask him questions for which a simple “yes” or “no” is not a
sufficiently detailed answer.
You should be able to guess the true answers to these, based on the information I have provided above and previously. Ask him these questions, in this order:
1. Do you have a good relationship with your oldest son Joe?
2.
Have you had a good relationship with him in the past?
3.
Do you love your son?
4.
Do you think he loves you?
5.
Would you say you love your son more than other parents love their
children?
(Ask him this, and the next question, to throw him off. If you ask him too many nice, easy, softball questions in a row, then he will forget that he is not in control here. Keep him on his feet by asking questions which will make him uneasy, and which will make him confused as to how to answer without either obviously lying or risking revealing the truth.)
6.
Have you ever had sexual feelings for your son, or become aroused in
his presence?
7.
Have you ever accused your son of hating you? (He has, repeatedly,
when I called him out for being too hard on me)
8.
Why do you think your son doesn't speak to you anymore?
9.
Why do you think your son doesn't like touching you?
10.
Did you molest your son when he was two or three years old?
11.
Did you ever molest your son while he was watching cartoons?
12.
Did you ever molest your son after he was watching
cartoons?
13.
Did you ever molest your son while he was watching a cartoon show
about a pink rabbit that he thought was pretty?
14.
Did you ever molest your son because he said he thought the pink
cartoon rabbit on TV was pretty?
15. Did you ever tickle your son on the couch while you were watching golf?
(He will probably admit to this, and that's the sport I remember him watching the most often).
16. Did you ever tickle your son on the couch while you were watching basketball?
(I don't think he was watching basketball; the N.B.A. is not in season between April and August, when the incidents on the couch happened)
17.
Did you ever poke and prod your son all over his body, including his
ribs, armpits, and collarbone?
18.
Did you ever lay on your side on the gray couch, while watching
sports on TV, with your children sitting behind your legs, in what
they called “the triangle”?
19.
Did you ever subject your son Joey to prolonged tickling, on the gray
couch in the main recreation room in the basement of 524 East
Washington Avenue in Lake Bluff?
20.
Did you ever subject your son Michael to prolonged tickling, on the
gray couch in the main recreation room in the basement of 524 East
Washington Avenue in Lake Bluff?
(My brother says this did happen, but he does not remember any genital touching.)
21. What was the longest amount of time you ever subjected Joey to prolonged tickling?
(I would say that the answer is about five or six minutes.)
22.
While tickling Joey as a child, did you ever gouge your thumbs into
his armpits in a way that, in retrospect, you should have known was
hurting him?
23.
What was Joey's general reaction to this prolonged tickling? Did he
like it or not?
24. Did you ever tickle Joey until he screamed or begged you to stop?
25.
Why didn't you stop tickling him when he started to object and
scream?
26.
Did you ever do anything to console Joey or calm him down after you
made him scream and beg for you to stop?
(Feel free to ask follow-up questions.)
27.
Did you ever squeeze Joey's testicles to get him to stop screaming?
28.
Did you ever count down from ten to zero, and tell your son that you
would let him go if he escaped by the count of ten?
29.
Did you ever shake your son violently while you tickled him?
30.
Did you ever hold your son down, or hold his arms back, while
tickling him, to make it difficult for him to resist? About how many
times did you do that?
31. Did you ever compress your son's chest, or restrict his breathing, while tickling him? How hard?
32. Did you ever put your forearms around your son's hips, while tickling him?
33.
Did you think it was funny, or cute, when he couldn't escape?
(Don't let him pretend this isn't a serious question. Get an answer.)
34.
Where were your hands, while your forearms were around your son's
hips?
35. Did you ever shove your hands into your son's lap?
(This question may throw him off; don't clarify the question, just ask him to respond with as much detail as he can provide.)
36. Did you ever touch your son's penis over his clothes? (He did.)
37. Did you ever touch your son's scrotum over his clothes? (He did.)
38.
Did you ever touch your son's penis under his
clothes? (He might have.)
39. Did you ever touch your son's scrotum under his clothes? (He might have.)
40.
Did you ever chase your son around the couches in the basement in
order to molest him?
41.
Did you ever make your son sit on a small gray one-seat couch, after
prolonged tickling?
42.
Did you notice that he was crying?
43.
Did you attempt to comfort or console him in any way?
(He would say things like “I didn't do anything to you”.)
44. Do you remember Joey begging you to let him to go the bathroom so he could drink water out of the faucet, after he was exhausted, out of breath, and thirsty from being shaken, poked and prodded at, and subjected to overwhelming tickling?
45.
And you claim that you touched his penis during none of
these interactions?
46.
Not even over his clothes?
47.
What about accidentally?
(This might trip him up, and tempt him to either accidentally confess, or try again to cover up for, or make excuses for, what he did?)
48.
Did Joey ever do anything that indicated to you that he wanted to
be molested, or touched inappropriately?
(Give him another chance to blame me, and deflect responsibility, like he always did. He might take it. He might say that I was the one who approached him, but that is only partially true; he tricked me into approaching him. I sat behind his legs willingly, but that doesn't mean I was molested willingly. He would seize hold of me in calm moments when I suspected nothing. He took advantage of my trust.)
49.
Did you ever caress the back of Joey's head in a room at the Union
League Club Hotel in Chicago in December 1996?
50.
Did you ever tickle Joey at your father's house?
51.
Did you ever molest Joey at your father's house at 106 Welwyn St. in
Knollwood?
52. Did you ever give Joey alcohol while at your father's house?
53. Did you ever give Michael alcohol while he was still a minor? (I believe he did.)
54.
Did you often drink and play beer pong with your son Michael and his
friends when they were college-age? (He did.) Were they under 21 at
any of these times?
55. Did you ever allow your nephew Bradley to drink alcohol in your presence while he was still a minor? (He did.)
56.
Did you ever allow your niece Anna to drink alcohol in your presence
when she was still a minor? (He did.)
57.
Did your wife Linda ever object to you allowing his minor son and
nephews and their friends to drink alcohol on his property?
58.
Did you do anything that showed you valued her advice? Why or why
not?
59.
Why did your wife divorce you?
60.
Did Michael seem to take the divorce harder than Joey did?
(If he says no, he is lying. My brother was extremely distressed about the fact that we had to move across town as a result of this. I was relieved because it meant I would eventually be able to stay in touch with my mother without seeing my father all the time. I also knew that my father was mean to her, and I was thirteen years old when I first suspected they were going to get divorced. I taunted my father about the fact that my mom was going to divorce him and didn't love him, in fact. So if my dad says I took the divorce hard in any way, that is completely made up. It in no way inconvenienced me, as I had already left for college by that time.)
61.
Do you think it is appropriate for someone who practices law, and is
presumably supposed to uphold it, to allow minors to drink on their
property?
62.
Have you ever called Joey “a cheap date” after he declined your
offers to provide him with alcohol?
63. At what age did you stop asking Joey if you could buy him an alcoholic drink?
64.
Why do you think your son has refused your offers to buy him alcohol
over and over again?
65.
Do you think your son judges you for drinking, when he does not
drink?
66. Have you ever driven while inebriated?
67.
Have you ever been pulled over for speeding?
68. How many times have you gotten into a car accident after following too closely?
69.
Have you ever cited the fact that you are an attorney to get out of a
moving violation?
70.
(If he says “no” to the previous question) Your son says he
witnessed you do this about five years ago. Why do you think he would
lie?
71.
Have you ever steered the steering wheel, or let go of the steering
wheel – forcing your children to take the wheel – while driving,
when your sons were children?
(He absolutely did this, at up to 40 miles per hour. It scared the shit out of us.)
(If he denies it) Why do you think Joey would make that up?
(If he admits it) Did you think that was funny?
72.
Did your sons think it was funny?
73.
Do you understand that this could have damaged your children's
ability to trust you, since they were incapable of understanding that
you “were only joking”?
74. Have you ever made fun of Joey for being scared or afraid? (He has. He made fun of me for saying “I don't like this” when I was about to sled down a small hill at the age of 2 or 3, and he would bring it up over and over again to mock me for years after it happened.)
75.
Do you feel that you have been a good role model to Joey, as far as
it concerned standing up to bullies?
76.
Do you feel that you have been a good role model to Joey, as far as
it concerned sexual morality?
77.
Did you ever explain to Joey the difference between “good touch and
bad touch” when he was a child, or explain to him that kidnappers
might not just want money, they might want to touch his penis?
(I have no specific memory of this ever happening. He taught us that babies come as the result of a penis going into a vagina, and he told us not to use a listening device toy to spy on the neighbors, but he never taught us to distinguish good touch from bad touch. Feel free to ask him why he didn't have that talk with us.)
78.
Did you ever tickle your son, or rough-house with him, so hard that
you caused him an injury? (He did, in 1999 or 2000; Incident #21.)
79.
Did you ever subject your son to unwanted touching, tickling, or
rough-housing, in the furnace room of the basement of 524 East
Washington Avenue in Lake Bluff?
80.
Did you attempt to subject your son to unwanted touching around the
age of 12 or 13, causing damage to one of his ribs and/or his lungs?
81.
Why do you think your son would say that you broke one of his ribs or
collapsed his lungs, during the last time he tried to subject you to
unwanted touching?
82.
Did Joey ever yell “You really hurt me!” at you after you tickled
him or rough-housed with him?
83.
Have you ever heard your son say that he wanted to die, or that he
looked forward to death, or that he wanted to kill himself?
(If he says yes) What did you do when you found out about this? (He cried, according to my mother.)
84.
Your son says his mother told him about a conversation she had with
you in early 2015. Do you remember telling Linda, “I didn't molest
him” when she brought up the topic of what your son had been saying
on the internet just prior to that?
85. According to your son and ex-wife, your ex-wife didn't mention molestation, in that conversation, until after you did. How do you account for that?
(My father said it because he had heard that I had made a Facebook post wherein I mentioned molestation. I think my father knew that I was starting to figure out that he had molested me, and wanted to “nip it in the bud” and claim innocence, before I even made a concrete accusation. This shows a guilty conscience. This was detailed in my previous statement to police.)
86.
Why do you think your son turned to drugs and hitchhiking when he was
in his early twenties (if not to get away from you)?
87.
When did you begin to express disapproval of your son's choice in
friends? What was his reaction?
88.
Are you aware that Joe recently discovered that many of his friends
from his 20s had been sexually abused while growing up? Why do you
think he would have gravitated towards people like that without even
realizing it at the time?
89.
Do you think that your son blames you for some of his problems?
(He has told me several times that he feels like I do blame him “for everything bad” in my life. He does this to guilt-trip me and get away with more abuse. If he does not admit that he thinks I blame him for my problems, then he is lying, because he used that line over and over again when I was younger. He feels that I owe him respect, and answers to his interrogations, without regard to whether he treats me with respect and decency or not, or even believes my answers).
90. Why do you think your son would repeatedly claim that you molested him, for six straight years, and says that he will never retract his story, even on his own, his mother's, or his father's deathbed?
91.
Are you aware that, in the State of Illinois, conviction for charges
of criminal sexual abuse are punishable by six years in prison?
92.
Did you commit somewhere between 1 and 21 counts of aggravated
criminal sexual abuse, upon your son Joseph William Kopsick, between
1989 and 2000?
93.
Did you cheat on your wife with your first-born son?
94. Do you think your wife would have continued to have sex with you, if she had known that you had been molesting your son?
(If he says no) Don't you agree that using fraud to get sex is coercion, and a form of rape?
95. Did you commit acts of incest with your first-born son?
(If he says no) Don't you agree that sexual touching with a family member is incestuous, even when it doesn't result in offspring?
96.
Your son has published these claims about you. You
are an attorney with access to legal resources. Why have you declined
to file a libel or slander lawsuit, or a defamation lawsuit, against
him?
(It's because he knows I'm telling the truth, and can't prove me wrong.)
97.
Do you remember telling your son, in a hotel room in Barcelona, that
if someone had raped him, you would want that person to be
prosecuted?
98.
(If he says no) Why do you think your son would make that up?
99.
If you are found not guilty of molesting your son, will you support
his attempts to find “the person who really did it”?
(Like
I said, ask pointed questions; ones that show him that this
will not stop until somebody goes to jail.)
100.
Did you ever allow your sons to go near Scott Gibson after hearing
him yell “There's a butt-biter in the pool” and pinching
children's buttocks at his pool parties?”
101.
(If he admits to this) Why didn't you stop Gibson from doing that?
(The answer is that everyone was drunk, thought it was funny, and didn't care enough about their kids to take it seriously.)
102.
Do you think Gibson would have stopped pinching kids' butts if you
had spoken to him about it?
(This question assumes Gibson did it, which Gibson has denied. This information, and my father's response, should be all you will need to understand that Gibson is lying, and that everyone knew he did what he did, and that therefore my father exposed me to other possible child molesters with reckless disregard for my safety).
103.
Would it be irrational for Joey to accuse Scott Gibson of unwanted
touching? Why or why not?
(My father might give a legalistic explanation; this shows that morality does not enter into the equation for him. He is amoral, without morals. He will care more about whether the ass-grabbing was legal, than whether it was right or wrong.)
104. Did you knowingly allow your son to go near Scott Gibson, after hearing him announce that he was grabbing other children's behinds?
(He probably did.)
105. When and how did you first hear about Diane M. Ross being arrested for child pornography back in 2000? Did you tell your wife or children?
106. How many parents of students around your children's ages, do you know who have abused their children, or have been accused of abusing their children? Did you ever discuss this with your wife?
107. How many clients have you defended, on charges of sexually abusing children?
108. Did you ever defend anyone who was previously charged with sex crimes against minors?
(If he says no) Then who is Kenneth Hasty? (My father defended Hasty in 1993.)
109. What is it that you love so much about the Jethro Tull song “Aqualung”?
(The song is about a homeless pedophile who is “eyeing little girls with bad intent”, and about the author of the song identifying with that pedophile. Several times when I was a teenager, Richard would suddenly play the song loudly on the stereo while I was eating breakfast at the kitchen table. After looking up the lyrics and meaning of the song, I finally understand, now, why he did it.)
110. What is it that amuses you so much about the line “ésta indecisión me molesta” - meaning “This indecision's bugging me” - from the Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go”? (He once repeated this line in front of his friends and myself. He did it to mock me by discreetly referencing molestation in a way that his friends wouldn't find strange.)
111. Can you name the first name of any friend who your son Joe has spent time with in the last ten years?
(You may wish to ask this as a test, to confirm that he has very little sympathetic interest in who or what I actually care about. Acceptable answers include Jenn, Elliot, Ethan, Fernando, and Anton. I no longer speak to John or Kaci, and Mike / Blame died several years ago. Patrick and Jake were my roommates more than 10 years ago.).
112. Did you touch your son's penis on any late Sunday morning in April or May 1995 or 1996?
113. Do you think that your son hates you? Why or why not?
_________________________
By the end of questioning, it should be obvious that my father's opinions – on whether I like him, and why or why not, and whether we have a good relationship – are completely inconsistent.
He cannot logically deny the things I claim happened, without making me out to look like a liar. And then he will either have to explain why I would want to lie about it, or else he will have to explain why it is not unfair of him to accuse me of lying, when he cannot prove I am making it up.
I am not asking for the interrogators to trap him. I am saying that he is stupid enough to put himself into a trap. He cannot possibly account for the way he has treated me, if I am such “a good kid”, and he cannot possibly account for all the lies he has told throughout his life, if they are all examined at once in a single police interview.
I believe that my father will try to make it look like I hate him, while pretending that he is not trying to make things look that way. He will paint himself as innocent, and he will paint me as unpredictable and inexplicably bitter, mean, and angry, towards him; when the opposite is true. But he will, bizarrely, somehow try to maintain the idea that I am a “good kid”. If I were making up these accusations, then my father praising me would make no sense.
He wants people to think that I am confused, and basically hallucinating the memories of him molesting me. I suspect that he wants people to think that, so that if I kill myself, everybody will think I was a “misunderstood kid with a good heart” who had “unresolved issues with his father”, and who knows why.
I am not going to kill myself. I am not going to be another sexual abuse victim who does not get justice. I refuse to be another statistic. I will see this through to the end.
I want my father to get the help he needs. I want to know that he is not going to be allowed to continue to lie, and cover up his lies with more lies. I want to see him tell the truth, when it really matters, for once in his life.
My father can be reached on the phone at 847-533-1467 and 847-623-8700.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 16: My Father's Molestation Exposed Me to Untold Dangers
My father tried to mold me into the same kind of alcoholic, psychopathic narcissist that he is. He molested me, and prevented me from speaking out about it, and prevented me from getting any outlet for either my anger, my aggression, or my fear for my safety.
He also monitored my social interactions – not just with friends, but with family members – so closely that I almost couldn't have any without his supervision. He made me into a lonely child who wanted to do nothing but sit inside and watch TV. I was so afraid of rejection by other kids, and socially inept, and unable to experience joy, that I had very few friends and have struggled to be understood to this day. My father stole my childhood from me.
As I got older, I realized that I didn't like small talk, and now I understand that it was because I had more serious things on my mind, like how I was going to stay safe from my father's constant screaming and judgment.
It is worth noting that children who are isolated – as I was – are more predisposed to being molested, kidnapped, or bullied, than children whom are not. My father's molestation and psychological abuse thus put me in even more danger than he possibly understood. But he, as an adult, should have been capable of that foresight, so the fact that he didn't understand the danger, should not be construed to excuse his molesting me. I could have ended up kidnapped or beaten to death because my father was supposed to protect me, and instead chose to deprive me of protection (the opposite).
It doesn't matter whether you understand exactly how much, and what type of, damage, subjecting a child to repeated unwanted genital touching, might do. You just have to not touch children's genitals. My father knows this. He is an attorney who practices law, and has possibly even defended accused child molesters. He knows that child molestation is wrong, and he knows that it occurs when you touch a minor on their penis and testicles. That goes whether you touch their genitals over their clothing or under it.
I will also remind you that I detailed, in my previous
statement, that my father's actions and the way he has treated me,
have caused thoughts of suicide, and self-harm, as well as sexual
dysfunction. Those suicidal feelings have increased as I have neared
completion of this document.
The thoughts of suicide and self-harm are listed on pages 75 through 81. The sexual dysfunction is described on pages 65 through 74. These are included as some of the damages which I have suffered as results of this abuse, in the section spanning pages 53 through 107. Also included in that section are my descriptions of the emotional trauma, difficulties socializing, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which my father's abuse has caused me. I have also had a flat emotional affect, due to my father punishing me for showing too much emotion, since I was somewhere between the ages of 5 and 10.
If you wish, you can contact my older half-sister, Jodi Magnani McLellan, to confirm that I have been talking about looking forward to death, and wanting to die, since I was about thirteen years old. Jodi's phone number is [REDACTED].
Additionally, it is worth nothing that studies have shown that people with trauma in their past will see their mental illness worsen, if the traumatic events are not resolved.
That is why I am requesting that criminal charges be filed in this case, and will continue to do so, until charges are filed, and a grand jury is convened to examine the testimony of myself and my mother and what I have said about the physical evidence.
I will continue to do so, because I can think of no other way to achieve closure, and to peaceably resolve my dispute with my father. Also, this is not solely between my father and myself, since my father violated a criminal statute, and thus, the whole public is threatened by his actions, and by his remaining a free man, until your office decides that it is time to protect Lake County's children from him.
Richard Steven Kopsick is a criminal child sexual abuser who tried to cover up his crimes. He would rather destroy his first-born son's reputation – and even drive him to homelessness, drug abuse and thoughts of suicide – than fully admit to, and take responsibility for, what he did. He should be treated as such.
He continues to pretend that denying his crimes have no effect on people's opinions of me. This is not tolerable. I want to be an independent adult and he is not allowing me to be. The attempt to obtain a restraining order failed, and multiple attempts to get him to stop texting me “accidentally” failed until mid-2020. I am a beneficiary of my father's life insurance policy, and I do not want to be; and I would have no way to verify if he were to claim he took me off of that policy.
I need the state's help to stop my father from subjecting me to unwanted association with him. I have the natural right to freedom from involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime, so the state should recognize that I have that right as enumerated in the 13th Amendment, and it should instruct my father to remove me from all contracts involving both he and I, in which I have not consented to be involved.
If the state will not require my father to remove me from his life insurance policy, and will not put him in prison for molesting me, then I will remain an unfree person, subjected to coerced association, affiliation, and involuntary servitude to my father. I demand no less than to completely dissociate from Richard Steven Kopsick, who subjected me to unwanted criminal sexual touching as a child.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 17: Conclusions, incl. Please Contact My Mother
If you think it will help my case, I would be glad to focus solely on the three or four incidents of abuse which I remember the most clearly; the incidents before and after I attempted to tell my mother what my father was doing to me.
I will still insist that you pursue charges of aggravated child sexual abuse, since my father used intimidation, fraud, and manipulation – by way of brainwashing and gaslighting me into thinking I hadn't been molested before, and tricking me into getting molested again – and also subjected me to emotional abuse and psychological torture.
He did this in order to prevent me from easily remembering the abuse; he distracted me from previous abuse with new abuses – shouting, interrogation, etc. – every week, usually about something different, and wildly unpredictable.
He used these aggravating factors to get away with and cover up his crimes.
_________________________
Please feel free to call me at 608-417-9395, or e-mail me at jwkopsick@gmail.com, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.
I wish to clarify that my mother Linda Cervetti and my brother Michael Kopsick are not exactly direct witnesses in this case. But what they did witness is important, because my brother can attest to the fact that he sat behind my father's legs on that couch in the same way I did right before I was molested, and my mother is willing to testify that I tried to warn her about the abuse while it was still going on. I would describe them as important indirect witnesses to the abuse, or as important witnesses to circumstances which directly surrounded my abuse; that is why their testimony will be essential.
I believe that my mother's testimony will be essential to helping a jury understand what happened, and understand that there was a time when I was a Type I (Johnson v. Johnson, 1984) survivor at one point, who remembered previous abuse.
My mother, Linda Cervetti, can be reached at [REDACTED].
Please ask her if she remembers me having behavior problems, stuttering problems, or have seemed afraid of my father, or seemed afraid to go near him as a child, or tried to warn people about him in any way, as a teen. Ask her why she divorced my father, and why she left the house late at night to go to her mother's house. It is because he was berating, mocking, and/or demeaning her.
Ask her if Richard has ever done anything to her that caused her to believe that he was being mean or insensitive on purpose. Ask her if she remembers telling my father that he shouldn't provide minors with alcohol on his property. She does not remember my father losing sexual interest in her after the regular molestation began in 1995, but you may ask her whether she would have continued to have sex with him – or would have divorced him earlier – if she had known that what I tried to tell her when I was eight year old, was that my father was sexually abusing me.
Ask her whatever questions you believe are relevant.
But whatever you ask her, please make sure to ask her everything she remembers about the time I tried to tell her about the abuse, while it was still going on, when I was eight years old. This happened when she was in the laundry room in the basement, and I was next to the couch where the molestation occurred. This will confirm that I was molested at least twice before that, and that therefore my father molested me no less than three times (because I remember being tricked into getting molested again, shortly after trying to warn my mother, as I described in the incident labeled “Couch 4”.)
Ask her whether she remembers any other times I asked her to stay home. I have asked her; no memory of me asking her to stay home stands out in her mind. Me asking my mother to stay home was an unusual occurrence, and it only happened this once. That is for a reason; I wanted her to stay home because I knew that would prevent my father from harming me. This will help establish that I tried to come forward about the abuse when I still remembered it, and that I was a Type I victim (Johnson v. Johnson) during that short time.
It will also show that my father is a serial child sexual abuser who is guilty of at least three counts of criminal sexual abuse, punishable by 6 years of prison per count, resulting in a total of 18 years in prison (or more, if more incidents can be proven to have occurred, or if Richard will confess, or accidentally divulge true information which he cannot walk back).
I got my father to admit that he could have only molested me on the couch on Sundays, by saying that he molested me on Saturdays and/or Sundays. My father is so arrogant, and overly confident, and obsessed with minor details, and obsessed with being right, that he will actually offer corrections to my testimony out of spite.
I believe that it will be completely obvious, to everyone in the court, that he is guilty. That is, as long as the prosecution focuses on the inconsistency of his statements about the nature of his relationship to me, and focuses on the ridiculous alibi he offers about the molestation on the couch (in which he basically admits to about 90% of what I have claimed about those incidents).
The fact that he is amoral and narcissistic, and thus incapable of experiencing remorse for what he has done, does not mean that he isn't guilty of molesting me. There is a difference between someone who is not guilty, and someone who is incapable of feeling guilty about what they have done. My father is a remorseless, guilty person. He is not innocent; he is playing innocent. He still pretends to be “confused” about why I am not talking to him and why I'm claiming he molested me. He is not confused; it is he whom is trying to confuse all of us.
Normal people do not remain completely calm when accused of serious crimes. Observe his reaction to your questions, and you will see that it is almost as if he is responding to another question entirely. It's as if he is protecting his fragile ego with complete denial of what's happening to him, where he is, and how much trouble he is in. This is what a guilty person does when they're in so much denial that they don't understand what they've done, why it was wrong, or how much they've hurt their victim.
It's possible that he has used alcohol to shield his conscious mind from the painful truth of what he did.
My father's only defense, aside from denial, is silence. When urged to explain his side of the story, he has no details to confirm, nor to add (aside from the specification about the touching on the couch happening on Sundays rather than Saturdays, which he admitted).
My father is guilty, and he has no counter-story, nor any excuse for what he did. His story is that he tickled me all over my body except my genitals, while I claim that he touched my genitals in addition to tickling, prodding, and poking at my ribcage, armpits, shoulders, collarbones, etc..
He had the ability to do so, when he held me down and groped my penis and testicles over my clothes, and he did so, numerous times. He admits that he was in the position to do so, and thus had access.
_____________________
Thank you for considering filing charges, and thank you
for reading this statement.
As I said in my previous statement, I am not one to risk libel lawsuits, slander lawsuits, or charges of providing false statements to the police, lightly. I also do not believe my father will file any such lawsuits, because I am not lying, and he cannot prove my claims wrong.
This is not a prank, nor is it a joke. I am not doing this to inconvenience or mess with my father. I understand that I could be labeled “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” if my claims are not taken seriously and charges are not filed. I take the safety of children very seriously, and I would not waste the police's time on a false report.
This process is not fun for me. I say this not to complain, but only to convey that I would not be doing this unless I were taking it very seriously. I am confident about what I'm saying, and have been saying, now, for four years in detail, and six years and general, about the sexual abuse. And, additionally, after twenty years of trying to warn people about my father, and how mean, unforgiving, vindictive, deliberately misapprehending - or else generous only for manipulative purposes - he has always behaved towards me in general).
I will continue to attempt to recover memories, and keep my therapist and my mother informed about them – and I will continue reaching out to you – until you decide to file charges.
If you decline to file charges, I hope that you will not judge me for taking that to mean that attorneys and judges and police officers have a sort of de facto qualified immunity – a special privilege – to abuse their families, because they are above the law.
A decision not to file charges may also serve as an indication to aspiring child molesters and child rapists that they will get away with their crimes as long as they hide the evidence; by subjecting the victim to further intimidation and trauma, and by refraining from subjecting their victims to only those physical and emotional injuries which cannot be detected by the naked eye.
In my opinion, it is so obvious that my father molested me, and then covered it up through denial and then weekly screaming, that it would be difficult to inform the public about the threat my father poses, without accidentally teaching a few aspiring child molesters how to get away with their future crimes (and also teaching them that they can call my father or his friends if they get caught).
I hope that this is as serious to you as it is to me.
Denial is not a defense. I refuse to watch my father deny his way out of his, and shrink from controversy.
I do not want to see the Lake County court system help my father intimidate me into silence. I do not want to see the Lake County Bar Association let one of their own attorneys continue to defend child molestation suspects after molesting his own son. The conflict of interest there, presents too great a risk to the safety of the community, for it to bear.
The people of this county have a right to know if one of their child molestation defense lawyers is a child molester. I cannot continue to live in this community if it refuses to put its child molesters in prison where they belong, instead of in law offices helping other accused child molesters go free.
It is completely unconscionable, for me, to let these mistakes go uncorrected. That is why my efforts – recovering memories, and writing additional statements about those memories and about my father's psychological state – will never cease as long as I live. I was born in Lake Forest, and I'm not leaving Lake County until these grievances are redressed.
_____________________
I was victimized by Richard Steven Kopsick. He committed
multiple acts of aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse against me as a
child; mostly at the ages of eight and nine – certainly on several
late Sunday mornings in April and May of 1995, and almost certainly
also 1996 – with several possible incidents also
occurring before and after those incidents (as early as age two or
three, and as late as age 12 or 13).
Thus, Richard S. Kopsick should be imprisoned for no
less than twenty-four years; six years, times as many counts as can
be reasonably proven to have occurred, which in my opinion is at
least four:
1.
at least once directly after noticing the pattern of molestation on
the couch (i.e.,
either
Incident #7, #8, or #9);
2-3.
at least twice before that (i.e.,
either Incidents #5 and #6, or #6 and #7, or #7 and
#8), and
4. any one of the other 18 incidents I mentioned.
Additionally, he needs psychiatric therapy, and he needs to be added to a registry of sex offenders.
A monetary settlement will not solve my safety problem. I was used as an incestuous child sex-slave by my father, and I was lied to about it for nearly a quarter-century. Three-quarters of my life have been a lie. No monetary amount can be placed on the years I spent in confusion, operating under the assumption that my father hadn't ever seriously harmed me physically or sexually (aside from the time he spanked me as a small child, and the time he wrung my neck lightly at a grocery store around the age of 8).
I will not cease pursuing criminal charges until I see my day in court. This is my right as a person who has been victimized, and it is my duty as a citizen to prevent more children from coming to harm (through his physical action, or through his defense of clients charged with child sex crimes).
The only way to restore me to my pre-injury state is to put my father in prison, where he cannot control or affect my life – nor lie about our relationship – any more.
I contend that my child molester father is a clear and present danger to his grandson, and will maintain that position until someone does something about the heinous acts committed against my person by my pedophile father.
Every act of denial which my father undertakes, is an effort to further intimidate me into confusion and silence, to make me seem crazy by pretending these accusations are coming out of nowhere, and to confuse the authorities into inaction.
Please bear in mind while interviewing him that he is having trouble understanding the seriousness of what he did. He has never understood how deeply his actions – his verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse alike - have hurt me.
I have thought about suicide every day while finishing this statement.
I will not allow people to lead me to believe that I am persecuting or mistreating my father.
Please notify me as soon as possible when your office decides whether to file charges.
Thank you.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 18: Signature
[Joseph
W. Kopsick]
Sincerely, Joseph W. Kopsick
Composed between January 9th and February 3rd, and between February 27th and March 3rd, 2021
Signed on March 3rd, 2021
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part
19: Illustrations
[Illustration #2: genital touching on gray couch]
[Illustration #4: sitting on gray single-seat chair after abuse]
[Illustration #5: kneeling in my room during Incident #2]
___________________________________________________________________________________
Part 20: Additional Resources and Articles
I want to
point out that there is statistical evidence showing that the
likelihood of being abused by someone you know, and the likelihood of
being abused by someone to whom you are related, are not low.
According
to the Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of
Justice Statistics 2000 study Sexual
Assault of Young Children
as Reported to Law Enforcement, 93% of juvenile victims of sexual
violence knew the perpetrator. The other 7% were strangers, while 34%
were family members, and 59% were acquaintances.
According
to “The Lifetime Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse and Sexual
Assault Assessed in Late Adolescence” (written by Finkelhor,
Shattuck, Turner, and Hamby), one in fifty-three boys experience
sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult before the age of
18.
The
same link which I provided above, also provided information on the
effects of childhood sexual abuse (C.S.A.). This information is from
the 2012 study “Prevalence and risk of psychiatric disorders as a
function of variant rape histories: results from a national survey of
women”, written by Zinzow, Resnick, McCauley, Amstadter, Ruggiero,
and Kilpatrick.
- Victims of
C.S.A. are four times more likely than non-victims to develop
symptoms of drug abuse
- Victims of C.S.A. are four times more
likely than non-victims to experience Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (P.T.S.D.) as adults.
The article below lists major warning signs of childhood sexual abuse. I have exhibited many of these symptoms, both as a child and as an adult; especially the emotional and behavioral signs (except for “persistent sex play with friends, toys, and pets”).
The fact that my genitals were fondled, rather than being anally raped, explains why I have only experienced some of the physical symptoms (such as changes in appetite, and difficulty controlling my bladder as a child) rather than all of them.
I have experienced about three-quarters of the symptoms listed in this article, or more.
http://www.earlyopenoften.org/get-the-facts/signs-of-sexual-abuse/
Here is an article that shows that my father, Richard Kopsick, defended a convicted child molester named Kenneth Hasty, who was accused of posing as a basketball recruiter in order to lure young men and teenage boys into sexual relationships. My father and Hasty blamed the younger party – a 19-year-old who was 14 years younger than Hasty – for initiating the attempt to have a sexual encounter, despite the fact that the incident occurred at Hasty's home, where he would have a home advantage over his much younger, and therefore arguably vulnerable, accuser.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-06-11-9306110377-story.html
___________________________________________________________________________________
Detail about "case number" / report number
Typographical errors edited on May 18th, 2021
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