I didn’t know how I would feel about laying eyes on Ken knowing the lengths to which he had gone to ruin another human being’s life—and a child’s at that. In my opinion, he had not quite succeeded. But the jury was still out on that, so to speak. I braced myself psychologically for what I might feel at the sight of him. Would I feel sickened? Would I be frightened? Would I be enraged? I was as nervous as a cat as I sat and waited impatiently on the hard, cold bench in the federal courtroom in Portland. When Ken was led in locked in handcuffs, I went numb, and for an instant felt removed from the scene. I quickly reentered, and thought how pathetic he looked, and I felt sorry for him. Bif and Simon flanked me, providing much needed support through the legal jargon and pomp and circumstance of robes, suits, and ties, which seemed too ill fitting at this particular occasion to determine the fate of a man so pale and bloated that he appeared to have been stuffed into his orange jumpsuit.
The proceedings seemed to crawl in waves, like a tide that would surge ahead two inches and then recede and regroup before making another attempt to come ashore. There were motions heard from both the defending attorney and the government’s, one asking the judge to impose a sentence in the lower range of the guidelines, and the other requesting a departure upward from the range. There was a question as to the authenticity of Mariah’s written statement, to which I testified that it was indeed hers. Both attorneys presented their cases regarding the appropriate sentence. And finally, witnesses were asked to speak. I was the only witness.
As I was sworn in, my voice cracked and I was afraid that I would melt down as I had in front of my community so many months, tears, laughs, triumphs, failures, and days of frustrating anguish before. I was asked before I began to please avoid the use of names. Because Mariah was a minor, I should refer to her as “MJ” or “my legal ward.”
My name is Linda Greenlaw and I’m here on behalf of some of the victims in this case, primarily a young girl whom I will refer to as my daughter, because that is what she has become. Although I’m sure Your Honor understands that MJ is not my biological daughter, according to the state of Maine, I am her legal guardian. Prior to guardianship, I had what I would consider limited involvement and contact with MJ.
Limited contact and involvement is a pretty relative term. We live on a small island where there is a year-round population of about fifty people, so the involvement and contact in a small island is much deeper and more frequent than you would see in a big city.
Around half a dozen years or so ago, the defendant moved to the island from Memphis and was soon followed by this little girl he referred to as his niece. His story was that he was saving his niece from a very bad family situation, including a heroin junkie stepfather, extreme poverty, abuse, and a half-wit mother who, it appeared, had virtually given her daughter away.
We love our children on my island. We value family. The community accepted with open arms the defendant and his niece. The defendant was thought a hero for saving this beautiful little girl. Fast-forward four years: The defendant got sloppy. An admitted alcoholic, he fell off the wagon in a big way, bringing to light the fact that he was not saving this little girl. He had, in fact, taken her from the frying pan into the fire. With all due respect to the defense, my entire community was duped by the defendant. I think the defense has been duped by his client regarding the question of intent. The defendant is an extremely clever pedophile who fooled an entire community. I can’t ask or expect Your Honor to put yourself in the victim’s shoes. Imagining the abuse she endured is beyond comprehension. The lengths to which the defendant went to destroy the life of an innocent child is unimaginable. He began grooming—and I do believe “grooming” is appropriate—his victim long before moving to Maine. They shared a bed every weekend for at least three years in Memphis, Tennessee.
I can’t ask you to put yourself in the place of the victim, but I can ask you to try, if you will, to see this from my perspective. Imagine reprimanding a young girl about personal hygiene: MJ, you are thirteen years old, you need to bathe every day. You know, it’s very important. Imagine how you would feel later when you learned about the hidden camera in the bathroom and the fact that she became aware that her trusted and loved guardian had been photographing and videotaping her while she bathed. The last year under the defendant’s guardianship, MJ was taking her dry and clean clothes into the shower with her to change because she didn’t know if the camera was on, or where it was. And she knew that it was connected directly to her uncle’s computer. Imagine explaining to your daughter that the advice from public health to parents to talk about sex with their kids did not include show-and-tell. Does the advice to talk about sex with your kids give a guardian license to share details of his own sexual exploits and complaints of abstinence from certain sexual activities due to the extraordinary size of the penis?
Imagine explaining that driver’s education at the age of fifteen does not require sitting in the instructor’s lap. Imagine explaining to your daughter that the twelve-year-old boy Cody, who coerced her into taking and sending over the Internet naked pictures of herself, was actually a fabrication of her guardian and uncle, the defendant. As were the young girls from Texas who sent pictures of the defendant’s penis to my daughter. As was Marie the defendant’s self-manufactured French girlfriend and cybersex partner, complete with broken English.
The defendant fits the definition of the classic pedophile by his mind control and total manipulation of his prey. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, and I won’t go on because I’m sure you’ve heard plenty.
Last, imagine, if you can, explaining to this beautiful young lady why the defendant, her abuser, did not, if it happens today, receive the maximum sentence. What he did wasn’t bad enough? That’s a tough sell. He got brownie points for having no criminal record? He’s just never been caught. The defendant did not wake up at the age of forty-six and decide he had sexual desires for young children.
What makes this case different from others? What makes this case different from others of sexual abuse and child pornography? I’ve been asking myself that question. Why should Your Honor consider a sentence upward rather than below the range? Most crimes and offenses of this nature are hidden and private. The defendant made this abuse public when he invited his victim’s male peers to become voyeurs and abusers themselves. He sent my daughter’s school friends pictures of her naked in a way that falsely indicated that she had sent them herself.
Imagine forming some compelling and reasonable argument to urge your daughter that she did, in fact, have to return to high school. Imagine convincing her that she has nothing to be ashamed of and that she can hold her head high above her school chums’ voices calling her a “porn star.” I hate what the defendant has done to my daughter. I hate what the defendant has done to my community. He has shattered our naïveté. We are riddled with guilt for not seeing the truth and, in fact, enabling the abuse.
I hate what the defendant has done to me personally. I now question the way I interact with the island children. Is it okay for me to hug Johnny or pat Alex or ruffle Andrew’s hair? Is it okay for me to share a hotel room with my daughter? The eye-opening and stomach-turning truth about the defendant has made me paranoid and has profoundly changed the way I think and act. I understand that it is within my rights to seek financial restitution in this case. I have chosen not to do so. No amount of money will erase the years of abuse suffered by my daughter. Believe me, I’d love for her nightmares to go away. Money can’t restore my community’s innocence or ease our feelings of guilt. The best we can do is ask Your Honor for the maximum sentence. I consider the opportunity for this little bit of input today a real privilege and I thank you for hearing me.
Phew. I was sure the entire courtroom heard me exhale as I sat down between Bif and Simon. Bif squeezed my hand and Simon gave me a reassuring nod. Frankly, I was amazed that I had referred to Mariah as my daughter without planning to. It just came out, and seemed okay. Thank God she hadn’t heard it
, I thought. The hint of being my anything right now might trigger her oversensitive gag reflex or cause pain in her chest or bring on hives. Ken had his turn at the podium and, as I recall, was remorseful. I figured his attorney coached him on that. I didn’t hear most of what he read from the single white sheet of paper that crinkled in his shaking hands. My mind was more on Mariah’s birthday and how we’d celebrate it a few days late in conjunction with her graduation party and congrats-on-college-acceptance soiree. We’d do it up in true Greenlaw fashion, I thought. The judge left the courtroom for his chambers, leaving me in the caring hands of Bif and Simon.
…
The judge returned to the courtroom. We all rose. The judge asked us to be seated. The sentencing itself was far different from what I had imagined, and what I had imagined was inspired by my childhood television experience watching Perry Mason. I was impressed that the judge was so thoughtful. He explained everything in detail while I kept waiting for him to growl and come out with some number of years for Ken to be incarcerated and then slam down the gavel. There were “levels” added, which I figured were bad points for Ken. For example, there were two additional levels for material including prepubescent minors, five for distribution of child pornography to juveniles, four for images depicting violence against minors, and so on. And there were three levels subtracted for the defendant’s accepting responsibility for his offenses, and that was the grand total of good points. The total offense level was thirty-seven and the criminal history was category one. This yielded a guideline range of 210 to 262 months. The judge sentenced Ken to 240 months on the trafficking offense and 120 months for possession. The judge noted that because it is impossible to traffic in child pornography without possessing it, the sentences were to be served concurrently. Bottom line: Ken was sentenced to 360 months, which was the maximum within the guideline range. When you added and subtracted all the pieces, he would be in jail for 240 months—20 years. That seemed like a good long time to me. Mariah would be safe.
I was eager to call Mariah and report that Ken had received the maximum sentence. I was disappointed once again to have to leave her a message, knowing that my call would not be returned. My sense of relief and satisfaction that justice had been served were shared by the island community. Once again my friends and family stepped up to join me in what could otherwise have been a very lonely feeling of strange triumph. I wished that Mariah would share that space with me, but maybe it was better that she didn’t.
When I went to the post office I was surprised to have something in my box from Mariah. She had sent some tickets to her graduation and a note that read simply: “If anyone wants to come.”
CHAPTER 13
A Mother Is Born
In the spirit of “seeing is believing,” and once again flanked by Simon and Bif, I gladly but somewhat skeptically took a seat among the hundreds of family members packed into a white tent that welcomed the proud parents of the pending graduates of Evergreen Academy. It was a steamy hot morning, the kind that finds everyone wiping a brow with the back of a hand. Nothing smells quite like dew evaporating from canvas. The aroma, as distinct as bacon, thickened the air in the same way. Graduation programs fanned perspiring necks and faces through the welcome address. Simon loosened his tie.
A small sea of white squares askew on heads and draping gowns in the front of the seating area shifted impatiently in metal folding chairs while a few nervous whispers escaped from under caps. I wasn’t sure under which of the sixty squares Mariah sat. They all looked alike from my perspective. And that was a good perspective in light of what I knew was so very different.
The awards part of the ceremony was long. There seemed to be endless lists of highest achieving students, Good Samaritans, and exceptional athletes, each called up one at a time. Each recipient of each scholarship made his or her way to the podium and shook hands with a right hand and grabbed a plaque and an envelope with the left while posing for posterity in a bright flash before exiting the stage and making way for the next smiling representative of wholesomeness. Have you ever watched a parade because you had to, one in which you were not genuinely interested? Float after float, marching bands, clowns on tricycles, majorettes, horses, the mayor’s wife in a convertible … it was easy for me to drift away from the scene. Capped and gowned teenagers floated ghostlike across the platform, much like the sheep I was almost counting.
As the scholars and jocks cycled from and to their individual seats, so did the events littering my relationship with Mariah walk through my memory, where they’d gained their own pageantry. But I suppose that’s what sentiment is, and what better time to allow myself a little human sentimentality. The only person in my entire life other than myself for whom I had taken responsibility had reached one of life’s benchmarks. Mariah was graduating from high school! So much of what Mariah had achieved was not tangible or measurable to the human eye, so this diploma was a big deal. The fact that she was graduating from this fine school was equivalent to walking on the moon for a kid with a normal background. She had certainly come a long way. I had come a long way. We had come a long, frustrating way. Had it really been three years since she’d arrived at my place—bag, baggage, and cat—for a short stay while her uncle got his act together? Wow. I wondered where we would go from here.
It was certainly her choice to stay within the nest or to take flight. It was her prerogative to call the place on Isle au Haut home or to leave it behind in search of whatever it is young people need. Because her eighteenth birthday had landed in the week of final exams, I hadn’t seen her since she had been out from under my legal care. In our few conversations that consisted mostly of polite small talk, I spoke in terms that I believed gave her no choice other than to remain under my care and guardianship. Even if not legally bound to do so, I wanted to continue toward the goal of “us.” Outwardly I wore my heart on my sleeve. I spoke nonchalantly and only in terms of “us” and “we” when discussing future options and plans. But I was secretly worried that she might not want my family, my friends, my house, or me.
While milling around the campus that morning before the ceremony, I met random parents of kids I had never met. Protocol dictated the same exchange over and over. “Who’s your son or daughter? What does he or she have planned for the immediate future?” “Mariah” and “Ethan Allen,” I bubbled naturally, happily, and yes, proudly. I’m not sure the words would have been as carefree if they had been spoken in Mariah’s presence.
Beyond “Congratulations,” I wondered what else I would say to Mariah after the ceremony. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as Bif studied something on her phone and Simon gazed into space. What words of wisdom would I impart? What would a “real” mother say? I probably had another two hours or so to figure it out, I thought as I looked at the program and realized that Evergreen was still in the awards phase of the agenda. We still had to hear from the student speakers and to endure the commencement address before diplomas were dealt. I admired Mariah’s name as it appeared in the list of graduates. Pretty official, I thought with a sigh. Suddenly my attention was torn from the program. What did I just hear? Bif reached out and tapped my knee rapidly and Simon applauded as Mariah made her way through the row of classmates and up the steps to the stage, where she was receiving an award. I clapped enthusiastically. When I turned to Bif with a look of question, she shrugged and laughed. “I was doing e-mail,” she whispered apologetically. I turned to face Simon as he raised his eyebrows and shoulders simultaneously, indicating that he didn’t know what Mariah was being recognized for either.
I didn’t blink for fear of squeezing the tear that had pooled along my lower lid and sending it onto my cheek for all to see. I swallowed the tightness that gripped my throat. It didn’t matter what Mariah had received an award for. She had been recognized. I sat taller in my chair and paid close attention to what remained of the commencement exercises. I was impressed with the students who took the podium to speak. The valedictorian asked his classmates to
turn to one another and say “Good-bye,” as that was something that hadn’t been taught in the four years of private school education. Sure, they had had lots of practice with “See you later, See you after class, See you at the game, See you after break … ,” but they had never had to say “Good-bye” to one another. And now it was time. I choked up again as I wondered how Mariah was handling that closing. She had some experience with hearing it. I wondered if she believed that she would never hear it from me.
The commencement speaker was actually a duo of father and son. They sucked. I thought that Evergreen Academy could have done better by this graduating class. This was such a big day! I suppose it wasn’t so much what they said but more what they didn’t say that I felt so profoundly lacking. This class needed to know how important their education was. They needed to be told that education could never be wasted—no matter what they chose to do with it. They needed to know that education is the one thing they had achieved that could never be taken away. I imagined that Mariah didn’t care, so I decided to cut the speaking team some slack. Really, I thought, all this class wants to hear is “Congratulations!” I was worried because I knew some awkwardness was imminent as Mariah and I forged ahead.
After the last diploma was passed, the final applause had subsided, and the crowd dispersed from under the tent and sprawled out into the brilliant sunshine, Bif and Simon left for their homes. I found Mariah hugging friends and teachers and crying a few happy tears. She quickly handed me her diploma and award, and asked if I could carry them to the car for her. “What is the award for?” I asked.
Lifesaving Lessons Page 21