My entire family has been thrown into a crisis situation, and I really need to just get the story off my chest and share it with someone. An anonymous forum seemed like the best place, since I�m not really allowed to talk about it anywhere else. This will probably get long, but I appreciate anyone able and willing to listen.

On Tuesday, my 17-year-old son was arrested for a crime he did not commit. I�m sure all mothers would defend their child in such a way, but it is true. He has been accused of a horrible crime by a very vengeful and mentally unstable ex-girlfriend. This is my �good� kid, and I really mean that. He has never been in any sort of trouble. He�s never been arrested, never been suspended from school; I�ve never even heard a single complaint about him from a teacher. He�s never once even given me cause to ground him. He is a senior in high school, two months away from graduation. He works on the yearbook staff and is an assistant in the office on campus. He is a very talented graphic designer and just an all-around goofy, funny, good kid. There is no physical evidence to back up the allegations this girl has made against him. It is just her word, and apparently, that is enough.

This good son of mine spent three days in juvenile hall with gang bangers and murderers and kids accused/convicted of other terrible crimes. We had to go to court on Friday and listen to someone say terrible things about him and sit quietly and not respond. Our son was released into our custody, but he cannot return to school. His senior year has been destroyed. We have no idea if he will even be able to graduate. He will miss his prom, grad night, and most likely walking at his graduation ceremony. All for a crime he did not commit.

We are trying to retain an attorney, but the fees will be $5000 - $10000. We live paycheck to paycheck. We have no money, no equity in our home. We own nothing of value. We have asked all of our relatives to help out, but they have very little. There is a possibility that my son�s biological father may be able to help, but he wasn�t around for 15 years of my son�s life and is very unreliable. The attorney we spoke with seems to think the evidence in the case simply isn�t there and our son has a very good chance of being cleared of all charges, but we have to come up with the money to pay him to take our case. If we cannot, we will have to go with a public defender.

My heart is breaking. All of this is happening because my son found out that this girlfriend was cheating on him and he decided he didn�t want to put up with it, so he broke up with her and started dating someone else and she couldn�t handle it. This incident she is accusing him of allegedly happened in December, and she just decided to press charges in March, literally within days of him starting to date someone else.

This situation has placed a terrible strain on my already strained marriage. My H and I have been having problems again for months now, though I suppose the problems never really went away. It seems like all we do is fight. If I try to express any of my fears or emotions over what is going on in this situation, he gets mad at me. I feel like I can�t talk to him at all, because I am met with only anger. I know he is hurting too, but I think it is important for us to pull together at a time like this, but we just seem to be drifting further apart. To make matters more complicated, as a condition of my son�s release, he has to be supervised by my H or myself or another adult approved by the court at all times. They generally only approve family members, and we do not have any nearby. Therefore, my H and I will have literally no UA time. Legally, we cannot. We cannot even go for a walk around the block without taking our son with us. Our house is very small and privacy is almost non-existent. This is really taking a toll on us, and it could go on for many months.

It feels like life is just trying to kick us when we�re down. Financially, this will ruin us. We will probably lose our home and have to declare bankruptcy. I fear that all of this is a blow that my already shaky marriage may very well not survive. I feel hopeless, torn up. It feels as though a bomb has gone off inside of me. I burst into tears for seemingly no reason at all. I am barely functioning, but I keep getting out of bed every morning because I know that there are people who need me to.

Thank you for listening. If anyone has any advice, or just words of comfort or wisdom, they would be greatly appreciated.

I am sorry you are going thru this. My girlfriend had a son same age, fought all the time with his girlfriend and he actually accidently killed her. They lost a lot in the court case and I think he is out of jail now.

Why did he date a mentally unstable woman in the first place? Did no one teach him how to break up with someone who is mentally unstable?

Maybe he could call her up and pretend to get back with her. If she drops the charges. Then get her to sign a paper saying he never raped her after all.

Then, once it all works out, he can let her down slow and easy by telling her some lie like he has herpes or AIDS or is GAY. That way she won't want to date him anymore. He can make himself undesireable to her. That is what he should have done from the first with that mess of a girlfriend. It is always better to break up with a clinger by "letting them break up with you". By making yourself undesireable to them in some way.

Did he dump her in a really hurtful way or something? Did he promise marriage and then dump her like a rock? Did he lead her on and then smash her ego?

For one thing, he will have to give up the new girlfriend. That is a must until he is thru this issue. Then you have to find out why he is attracted to crazies.

You have three adult children. Put all your kids to work at jobs and you will have the money for a good attorney. I bet the 15 year old could mow lawns. It would unify your family...to have to work toward a goal.

1. The 18 year old could bring in 1000 a month
2. The 20 year old could bring in 1200 a month
3. The 17 year old can mow lawns with dad when dad is home
4, Dad can work overtime perhaps (maybe he can net 5000 a month)
5. You can work fulltime bringing in 1200 a month
6. One of the kids can babysit the baby. While you work
7. Go to Winco to get food, it is a lot less
8. Call credit card companies and pay those off or settle.
9. If you all can bring in 10000 a month for a year you will have the money that is needed.


Then, when all this is over, make your 17 year old son work to pay the family back. He can work a couple years and pay the family back.

Get a referral to an attorney who will not only get him the proper defense for a conclusion of innocence, but stick her with the bill for malicious false accusation.

Call Greg Skordas' office and get a referral for an attorney who would take the case on this basis.

He will miss his prom, grad night, and most likely walking at his graduation ceremony. All for a crime he did not commit.

I would not worry about this, all this is boring crap anyway.

Get some evidence that she was cheating. That would help too. I i cannot remember who you call for someone to go interview her cheating partners and get affadavids telling when they cheated.

Was your son having sex with her? At that age sex can lead to explosive results. He is too young to be having sex. Is she underage?

Let's see. He broke up with her because he found out she was emailing naked pictures of herself to someone she barely knew who she met on the internet.

We didn't know she was crazy when he was dating her. When she started doing weird things (like the one above) he broke up with her.

Getting back together just to get her to drop the charges seems like a very bad idea, and he can't legally do it. If he has any contact with her, he goes right back to juvenile hall.

My two oldest children do not live at home. My DS 20 lives in Colorado and my DD 19 is a full time college student and lives in the dorms. I can't get a job because my son was released to my custody due to the fact that I am a SAHM and could provide 24-hour a day supervision. My H's work doesn't offer overtime, and because of the commute, he is already gone for 12 hours a day, so getting a second job would mean we would never see him and he would never sleep. We do all of our shopping at Winco. It is my favorite grocery store. My H has called the credit card companies, since we were having trouble paying even before all of this. We were doing okay with the payment plan we set up before, but it'll be difficult to impossible to pay anything on them now if we have to pay an attorney basically more than we make. He wants to set up a payment plan over 3 months, but we don't even bring home $10,000 in 3 months. Not even close, actually.

My son was very involved with school. He was very much looking forward to these things. It was important to him.

How old was she when she did this? She could be charged with distributing child pornography.

I'm sorry this is going on. Can he attend those events so long as you are with him?

Apparently, the guy she was sending naked pictures of herself to doesn't even live in our state. She's never even met him. She was sending naked pictures of herself to him even though she didn't actually know him. According to my son, she has deleted all evidence that she was doing this from her computer. I have no idea how to find out who this guy is.

Yes, my son admitted they were having consensual sex for 2 months prior to the incident. You're right, he is way too young to be sexually active. He realizes this now too, but it's a little late. I had no idea this was going on. I thought they were being properly supervised when over at her house. Apparently not. We know her parents. We talked to them about this extensively and thought we were all on the same page. My son has told me some very scary things he witnessed while over at her house. He didn't tell us about them at the time, because he liked this girl and didn't want us to make him stop seeing her. It seems that her parents are physically/emotionally abusive to her and that they use illegal drugs in their home. I just never would have expected it. They are very religious and I had no reason to suspect any of this was going on.

Get someone else, another adult, authorized to babysit your son while you go to work. Find out who this girl sent her pictures to and get copies. Have a detective in that state interview the reciever of the pictures.

If she was sending naked pictures online, she surely was having sex with your son, right?

She's 16 right now, so she must have been 15 or 16 when she was doing this.

He might be able to walk at graduation. The rest, probably not. We don't even know if he'll actually get his diploma, since he still has 2 months of school left and we don't know how he will finish them. It's spring break here, so I haven't been able to contact the school yet.

Sorry he had sex with her, sorry.

Sorry that she was not the age of consent.

Your attorney should subpoena her text/phone records to demonstrate the px came from her. Case should be thrown out at that point and your son reinstated to school.

Words of comfort here: I once went through an experience that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. There were about 60 of us in this class. Two were selected by the staff for a specific experience, which left them going through a celebration toward the end of the experience excluded from the celebration. I was aware of them being left out and wondering how things would ever be made up to them.

I listen to the leader of your church speaking about this same thing this morning - how will this loss be made up to your son?

I promise you - be faithful to your faith; teach your son to be faithful and trusting in Heavenly Father. The miracle will happen - if not in time for prom and graduation, in other ways, more lasting and better.

Teach your son Romans 8: 28 - and believe.

Another thing is that your son will have to grow up from this experiance and hopefully he will quit having sex until he is much older. This issue is difficult but could prevent him from getting into worse trouble in the future.

Just like me. I had breast cancer and doing the chemo and radiation for 8 months was really hard. But as my husband said, sure it is difficult but just think, doing that now could prevent a worse type of cancer from attacking you in the future!

Bubbles - I have a 17 year old son who is of the same faith as writer1's young son. You have no idea how hurtful your "helpful" comments are right now.

**** edit - you're right - there was sex. so there's another tough hurdle to get over. The conflict with his own faith's teachings. He may get in the way of his own defense.

Writer1 - have you and your son talked with your bishop this week? Enlist his help. You don't know all the workings of God's hand in this to bring your son back from a terrible brink. Trust Him.

There are so many other worse things that he will be protected from now.

1. He won't marry a woman like that now

2. He did not get her pregnant

3. He did not marry her or elope with her

4. He did not get his other girlfriend pregnant, yet

5. He will learn from this experiance and be wiser

6. He can quit having sex with girls until he is at least 21

7. You as a family can develop a better rule system for him


Lots of good can come out of this terrible situation.

""Yes, my son admitted they were having consensual sex for 2 months prior to the incident. You're right, he is way too young to be sexually active. He realizes this now too, but it's a little late. I had no idea this was going on. I thought they were being properly supervised when over at her house. Apparently not""

OK, I am outta here!!!