Wedding Woes

Stop inviting her to things, whether or not you tell her why.

Dear Prudence,

You’ve answered several questions encouraging tolerance of friends’ terrible spouses, and I wonder if this takes it to a different level. We are a mom group with 5-year-olds, and one day Jenny called us together to tearfully report that her home had been raided by the FBI and her husband accused of child pornography. She said she wasn’t surprised based on his taste in porn that she had seen, mentioned some other odd behavior, moved out, and started divorce proceedings. After seven months, the FBI told her there was not enough evidence to convict, and her husband told her the videos of child abuse got on his computer by a virus. None of us believe that story and none of us can forget how completely she believed the FBI and agreed with them that it was likely. Now she is bringing him to events and we all feel so uncomfortable. We want to support her and her daughter, but we never want to see him. What should we do? He was never convicted, after all.

Re: Stop inviting her to things, whether or not you tell her why.

  • JENNY WASN'T "SURPRISED" BASED ON HIS 'TASTE' IN PORN!  Yes, I had to shout that. The F, the B, and the I don't show up at your house for an oopsie-daisy.  

    I feel bad if Jenny is being abused and manipulated by this man, but FFS.  I am giving you permission to be rude AF to get the point across to Jenny that her H is persona non grata and at this point, she is too because she's decided he's alright and it was all a mix-up. 
  • Child porn computer virus?  I have a bridge to sell you.

  • “Jane, JimBob is never welcome. If you insist on bringing him we won’t be able to invite you.”  You don’t need a criminal conviction to protect your kids!
    This is such a pet peeve I have with Americans.

    It's drilled into our heads from childhood that people are "innocent until proven guilty".  Except everybody forgets that this is specifically talking about criminal trials

    Yes, great.  It should be a high standard of proof when you are talking about putting people in prison for years and sometimes life.  But we also can't use this same brush to paint everything.  There's a big difference between someone being truly innocent and someone where the prosecutor just didn't have enough evidence to convict them.

    The LW's Prudie letter is a perfect example of why.  There's a strong possibility the husband is a danger to children.  If he truly is innocent, that is sad and heartbreaking for himself and his family.  But nobody should be putting their child at risk, just because he wasn't found guilty.
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  • I find it REALLY hard to believe there's an overwhelming number of people busted for child pornography who were wrongfully accused. 
  • banana468 said:
    I find it REALLY hard to believe there's an overwhelming number of people busted for child pornography who were wrongfully accused. 
    There aren’t. The crime is possession. If it’s on your computer, you’re basically always guilty. I’ve done a ton of research into this for professional reasons and it’s just not true that people are somehow getting this into their computers when they don’t want it. Child porn is illegal. It is hard to get. You pay for it. 
  • banana468banana468 member
    First Answer First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment
    edited September 2022
    banana468 said:
    I find it REALLY hard to believe there's an overwhelming number of people busted for child pornography who were wrongfully accused. 
    There aren’t. The crime is possession. If it’s on your computer, you’re basically always guilty. I’ve done a ton of research into this for professional reasons and it’s just not true that people are somehow getting this into their computers when they don’t want it. Child porn is illegal. It is hard to get. You pay for it. 
    That's basically my point.  You can't click on a pop up and get it.  The only way I could possibly see that you have it and it's not yours is if you are using a shared device and you are related to/friends with the person who did it.   

    ETA - OR we're seeing a situation where this is underage sexting that winds up on the shared family account - like the teen with the Apple device who's sending dirty pics back and forth with the GF and they're all in the family cloud.  But that is NOT what I think is going on here (side note - why I've been SUPER CLEAR with my kid that she is never ever ever to pose for a photo in any state of undress even if she thinks it's silly).
  • banana468 said:
    I find it REALLY hard to believe there's an overwhelming number of people busted for child pornography who were wrongfully accused. 
    There aren’t. The crime is possession. If it’s on your computer, you’re basically always guilty. I’ve done a ton of research into this for professional reasons and it’s just not true that people are somehow getting this into their computers when they don’t want it. Child porn is illegal. It is hard to get. You pay for it. 
    Where I used to work eons ago, it was a Navy facility.  Not a military base but, IT-wise, the same.  You pretty much needed to assume that the military was scoping out your work computer on a regular basis.

    The Navy's IT found child porn on a colleague's (different company) computer. They contacted the local police department and coordinated things with them. The police showed up and carted that guy away in handcuffs. They also took his work computer for evidence. I worked on the same floor as him and it was pretty crazy stuff to watch it all go down.
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