To use religious terminology - repentance makes up for the sin. In other words, the explicit reflection on your past and determination to do better is indeed a transformational thing.
The thing is, "repentance" is not a given and I would say that most people do not go through the introspection and evolution process, so there's no reason to assume that mere passage of time has transformed one into a different person than he who has transgressed.
In your case, the thing that would make me not worry about your "apparent integrity being called into question" is the fact that you yourself are calling yourself out for having done badly. That would be quite different than someone who's done the equivalent amount of aging but didn't recognize and evolve from their past.
Of course there are some things where mere recognition is not sufficient. For example where the misdeed can be correct or otherwise accounted for, they ought to be. EG if one has the opportunity to go back and undo/apologize/repay/whatever but they don't, then their repentance is itself in question (if you don't go back to fix the thing, are you really beating yourself up for having done it, etc?) At most extreme cases, it can mean confessing to a crime and throwing yourself at the mercy of the court or whatever.
- They have empathy for the person they harmed and recognise that they should change their actions to avoid doing such harm again.
- After being caught, they regret how their own freedoms are now jeopardised by their past actions. So they regret their actions, but mostly (or only) because of how it affects them (now) and not how other people may have been harmed.
The problem with latter is that they are sometimes irredeemable, they may pay back their victims, but they see it kind of like losing a bet, they got caught this time so need to pay up and the lesson they internally learn is to not get caught.
And I think it's always reasonable to keep an eye out for the extent to which patterns are still repeating. Some of us become better people over time, and some of us just get better at covering up.
I can forgive but it also is wise to keep distance relative to the severity of the aberration.
If I was locked up again and had the choice who to hang with, it would be murderers all the way.
I'm still in contact with many of them on a day-to-day basis.
That depends on what the job is, isn’t it? If it would give them more access to children that would be cause for concern.
Same way about bank robbery. Previous bank robbery would give me a much bigger pause if we work on bank security or adjecent fields for example.
As they say, it takes a thief to catch a thief. Who would be able to protect the bank better than a former bank robber?
1. False conviction rate is unacceptably high
2. It’s financially similarly burdensome to do life imprisonment as death penalty
3. Presence of death penalty doesn’t seem to impact homicide rates
I am all for putting some people in prison and never letting them out (because of high chance of recidivism).
Should people be able to choose it over a life sentence?
IMHO nitrogen would significantly bring that cost down
Should people be able to choose it? In general I'm all for assisted suicide, but I worry that it could be done coercively.
If lasting penalties are right for sex offenses against minors, why are they wrong for everything else?
Bank robbery? Well, I dunno. Armed robbery? Did anyone get hurt? Maybe that's not ok, no matter how much time has passed.
But yeah... drugs, whatever. Super petty crimes where there wasn't any violence or physical threats involved? Yeah, maybe no big deal if enough time has passed with the person leaving that kind of life behind.
But even then, it's hard to say. In this article, it seems like the faker didn't do anything that bad before stealing this other guy's identity. Like, the kind of stuff where, 20 years later, we'd probably just shrug and be like "yeah that guy's got some stories". But he ruined another man's life, causing a situation that led him to become committed to a mental hospital merely for claiming that someone else had stolen his identity. (Sure, the judge in the case almost certainly acted improperly, but that's not really the point.) I don't think that's something you just sweep under the rug, even in another 20 years.
I think that most people do not.
Teenagers get calmer when they get older, so I can accept ignoring minor misdeeds that can be attributed to not thinking, but not anything more serious.
You seem to think that people do change, and maybe some do, but I think that's a rarity. Anyway that's the crux of your message: Do people change or not?
He knew the guy was going to trial and his comfortable life was more valuable to him than honesty or this other man's existence.
In the article's situation it was causing ongoing harm to another person so this is still pretty bad though
But note that, according to the article, lying to the police was viewed as a minor crime. The major one was giving his bank a false name. The bank isn't even, notionally, an arm of the state.
In any case, I guess-- it's complicated. We have this guy who was seemingly a different person for nearly 35 years, but then reverted to do something terrible (and similar to things he had done in the past) when it all threatened to come crashing down. And the other guy who was someone different for 19 years.
If he had stolen an identity from someone dead we'd probably all just kinda shrug.
I'm all for forgiving people, but the guy was actively committing the crime against the other chap!
Remove all entitlements, money and credentials from a middle-class person and throw them on the street and see how quickly that goes down.
You contradicted yourself here.
(I’m not agreeing, just pointing out that there is no contradiction.)
Socially, we probably should adopt something similar. Depending on the crime (non-violent, low cost to society, one time), we should all pretty much pretend it didn’t happen after about 5 - 10 years.
But then I read how thoroughly he fucked over the guy whose name he stole in 2019, or 30 years after he started using the name. So some people may not be the same 20 years later. But some of them sure the hell are.
After asking how I was going to manage on the streets, homeless (it was -30*C at the time), he did come to his senses somewhat and get me a couple of week's grace which let me find somewhere else to stay.
10 years in jail awaiting charges certainly means you waved off a speedy trial. Yet still, I believe you are leaving out a significant detail or two.
How is that even possible? What kind of system allows such a nonsense to occur?
https://www.cookcountysheriff.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02...
And this article also states that you were charged with soliciting a girl for sex and possessing child pornography:
https://www.shawlocal.com/2019/09/04/inmate-sues-because-he-...
"Bocock was arrested and jailed June 10, 2013, after he went to a Dunkin’ Donuts in Plainfield to meet with a 12-year-old girl for sex, according to court records."
And this article too:
https://patch.com/illinois/plainfield/brit-charged-child-sex...
"In exchange for the money, Bocock wanted a girl for sex, officials said, and preferred one between the ages of 7 and 11. [...] After Bocock was taken into custody, police searched his North Tripp Avenue home and found 'numerous' images of child pornography, a prosecutor said at a prior court hearing."
Also this one:
https://web.archive.org/web/20141106115016/http://patch.com/...
"Bocock allegedly responded to a Craigslist advertisement posted by a Plainfield resident trying to get money for his car payment. But in exchange for the money, Bocock wanted a girl for sex, officials said.
"The Plainfield resident went to the police and an investigator pretending to be the cash-strapped Craigslist poster continued the online conversation with Bocock, officials said. The investigator reportedly offered Bocock his 12-year-old niece for the car payment money, and a rendezvous was set up for Monday afternoon at a Dunkin' Donuts on Route 59."
And that you are currently on the Illinois child sex offender registry for this:
https://isp.illinois.gov/Sor/Details/X23A0424
What do you have to say about that?
If the charges were dropped; does it really matter what they have to say?
As to your original question: I had a friend get arrested for picking up their wife's (narcotic) medications the day after she died. He didn't do it with any malicious intent, just habit. The cop didn't care.
It took 4 years to get his day in court and the charges were dropped.
There are many reasons to do things, that a cop will happily make look like whatever they want in order to get an arrest.
Obviously you don't owe anyone here an explanation. But you're the one who seem to want us to believe that you were innocent enough that throwing you out of the flat was completely unjust persecution; if that's what you want, then it's reasonable to expect you to account for how such a charge came to be filed against you.
Criminal prosecution is (rightfully) hard; from a Baysean probability perspective, given no other evidence than what has been presented in this thread so far, which is more likely -- that the charges were dropped because they were a complete fantasy from the beginning, or because there were legal technicalities that would have made a conviction difficult?
(That said, maybe I'm just naive, but I'd give "Man genuinely asks a random stranger on Craigslist to help you arrange sex with a minor" a fairly low Baysean "prior"... I'd definitely be looking for evidence of a set-up if I were the police.)
Maybe you should check who you are replying to. I was originally answering your question about how things could take that long. I have no idea about OP, but I also provided an example of how cops will misconstrue things to simply get an arrest. In my own personal life, my parents had a cop search my car because they thought I was dealing drugs. The cop found a small ripped piece of paper (from who knows what), and claimed it was from rolling papers. So, I trust a cop saying "this is why X" about as far as you can throw toilet paper up their tree.
> rom a Baysean probability perspective, given no other evidence than what has been presented in this thread so far, which is more likely -- that the charges were dropped because they were a complete fantasy from the beginning, or because there were legal technicalities that would have made a conviction difficult?
In my experience, there is a far greater probability that they are completely fabricated nonsense.
Looks like we both need to look at who we're replying to more closely -- this is my first post in the thread. ;-)
> In my own personal life, my parents had a cop search my car because they thought I was dealing drugs. The cop found a small ripped piece of paper (from who knows what), and claimed it was from rolling papers.
Right, so in this case, the question of "How would you account for the fact that police claimed a bit of paper was rolling paper for marijuana" is answered in part by the first sentence: The cop went in believing that drugs were almost certainly present (because a child's own parents reported them), and so was going to find something no matter what.
"How would you account for the fact that it this police detective claims to have had a conversation in which John Doe agreed to meet at place X to pay for sex with a 12-year-old" is less easy to construct.
lol
> The cop went in believing that drugs were almost certainly present (because a child's own parents reported them), and so was going to find something no matter what.
Perhaps could be reworded:
The cop went in believing that a pedophile were almost certainly present (because a child's parents reported them), and so was going to find something no matter what.
For all we know, the parents were abusing the child and the child wanted to tell someone they trusted. The parent(s) found out and made some shit up.
I don't know man. People do some weird shit. I once climbed up the side of an apartment building to beat my friends taking the stairs, just to surprise them. I'm sure an onlooker might think I was going to rob someone.
It's like that old bias thing:
A man takes an old lady's purse, is he a criminal?
I left out a crucial detail, the old lady handed her son the purse.
The articles I linked above state that it was a sting operation. The perpetrator thought he was paying $500 to the uncle of a 12-year-old girl (who was apparently still slightly too old for his liking) so that he could rape her, but really this was a scenario set up by the police to gather evidence, with the goal of preventing future harm to an actual child.
"When one looks at the evidence in this case, no reasonable person could conclude that the defendant did not send e-mails, text messages, and have the phone conversations regarding having sex with a 12-year-old girl."
But who knows, maybe he'll return to the thread and explain what he thought he was doing when arrested in that police sting and what all those emails, texts and phone calls he exchanged with undercover investigators were about, if not that.
That's a mistake for the prosecution to contend with in correctly making their case before the court, but it doesn't stop everyone else from casting their own judgement.
I can't think of any other plausible explanation of why he was arrested with $500 in his hand at a specific place that had been prearranged over email, phone calls and texts, other than to commit the rape of a 12-year-old girl, for that price, that had been discussed with the undercover officers - can you?
Maybe he had an ex that wanted to make life hell for him. Create a new e-mail account using the guys name, use that to create a Craigslist account, do the whole bit. Come back "to pick something up", plant some child porn on his computer; or maybe the "child porn" on the computer wasn't really that childish (either just normal porn, or maybe porn alleging to be 17-year-olds or something). Arrange with the "uncle" (whom you know are the cops) to meet at a place you know he frequents regularly: maybe he just carries $500 with him as a habit; maybe he always stops at the Dunkin Donuts after visiting the payday check casher -- an ex would know that kind of thing. Or maybe come up with some other excuse to get him there with the requisite cash. Or, play then Craigslist game the other way, and arrange for him to be there with the cash -- maybe he thought he was buying a used car, or maybe he actually thought he was buying a used instrument from Craigslist, being sold by a 12-year-old girl!
There absolutely are vindictive people like that in the world; and my guess is there are a lot more vindictive people like that than complete idiots who would ask a complete stranger on Craigslist, out of the blue, to arrange sex with someone under 11. (And then come on Hacker News decades years later to protest his innocence?) "I was framed" certainly seems implausible, but slightly less implausible than the accusation.
EDIT: From the link above:
> Wistocki observed a vehicle approach the parking lot, and an individual exited the vehicle. The individual walked over to Detective Anthony Cimilluca (who was portraying Kelsey's uncle Greco). The individual introduced himself as Joshua Smith, and Cimilluca introduced himself as Greco. Inside the Dunkin' Donuts, Smith gave Cimilluca $500 and asked to meet Kelsey. Cimilluca told Smith that she was waiting outside in a van. The pair exited Dunkin' Donuts and Smith was arrested. Upon his arrest, Smith was identified as the defendant.
Somewhat harder to explain why you introduced yourself as "Smith", and gave $500 to a guy you thought was named "Greco".
I’d be curious to hear the Duncan Donuts recording. I think that would be the deciding factor for me.
For all we know it was anime and the cop said it was child porn because he had never seen anime in his life.
Appellate court: decisions look legit based on evidence; at trial, please prove evidence
Plaintive: how about we just don’t have a trial…
Defendant: ffs
Something smells fishy. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve been on the wrong side of cops’ biases too many times to think they are automatically in the right; making virtually any other possibility just as likely. For example, for all we know, the defendant is actually an alien and they simply wanted to run experiments on him for a few years. Oh, wait, he actually is an alien. lol.
Anyway, I got nothing and doxing them on here without any actual evidence of wrongdoing, but insisting that circumstantial evidence is proof without even a trial is super fucked up.
I’m not a lawyer but I’ve worked with plenty of them to prove some technical shit or another for a case, even the FBI. So I’ve seen some crazy and unlikely cases in my life. This sounds suspiciously like they couldn’t pass the bar of “without a doubt” and simply gave up.
Oh, and why is a trial important? So we get to hear his side of the story. You’ve only heard one side, and he would be wise (and well within his rights) to never share his side.
Would you want this guy living in your house, in close proximity to your children, after finding out these charges and the circumstances of his arrest?
I can see why. The justice system failed to let him have a chance to defend himself, and left him to deal with random people who think one side of a story is the whole story.
> asking him what he has to say about that.
Frankly, it's none of your business. Call your congressman and complain about the justice system and ensuring people get a chance in court when it is obvious the state is going to lose.
> Would you want this guy living in your house, in close proximity to your children, after finding out these charges and the circumstances of his arrest?
These days, I live in a country that respects people's privacy. So, I probably wouldn't even know. But also, in this country, pedophilia is usually dealt with by lynching before the cops even show up.
EDIT: I assume this'll be the same person. The name is not exactly common. And one of the lists was 99% British people.
(Never met him and I know nothing about him other than his name. (It ends in "cock", so it stuck in my mind. I was 23 back then.) I have nothing to contribute one way or the other regarding the accusations.)
He is a creepy pedo who tried to meetup with a 12 year old to have sex and is a registered sex offender.
"Bocock allegedly responded to a Craigslist advertisement posted by a Plainfield resident trying to get money for his car payment. But in exchange for the money, Bocock wanted a girl for sex, officials said.
The Plainfield resident went to the police and an investigator pretending to be the cash-strapped Craigslist poster continued the online conversation with Bocock, officials said. The investigator reportedly offered Bocock his 12-year-old niece for the car payment money, and a rendezvous was set up for Monday afternoon at a Dunkin' Donuts on Route 59.
After Bocock was taken into custody, police searched his North Tripp Avenue home and found "numerous" images of child pornography, Casson said."
Anyway, I can’t believe I’m arguing over basic human rights ingrained in the constitution. Well, I guess all rights go out the window “for the children” so I’m not surprised. Just disgusted.
No one is spending 10 years in prison "before a trial and then all charges got dropped".
OP is a straight up pedo creeper on top of being a liar and you are defending them lol
"Bro" according to the Illinois website, an "attempt" to commit any of these crimes (aka, arrested for them) puts you on this list.
> No one is spending 10 years in prison "before a trial and then all charges got dropped".
People spend quite a while in jail, simply waiting for court.[1]
> OP is a straight up pedo creeper on top of being a liar and you are defending them lol
1. Everyone deserves to be treated fairly, it doesn't matter what they did over 10 years ago when literally every molecule in their body has been replaced several times over since then.
2. While this entire thread is a dox and personal attack on some random internet person, which is very clearly against the rules (@dang?), I'm not going to idly stand by because people can't think critically.
[1]: https://cause.vmhost.psu.edu/usproc/sites/default/files/usre...
Yeah, if they have waived their right to a speedy trial, dude
> In a past life of criminality ... [details of crimes]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38227253
> I basically extorted all the stores in the UK ...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36134955
> It was illegal to [do what I did]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36133528
> That job put me in contact with a criminal gang who went on to supply with me dozens of GBs of stolen hard drives that I used to create what was probably the largest warez FTP in the world and a dump site for most of the top pirate groups like Razor 1911.
> Funnily I would rip off the criminals.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38889058
> I'd also just got my hands on a stolen $4000 0.5X CD writer
> Attempted possession of an illegal item/substance is absolutely a crime.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37397501
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37949502
> I'm an illegal immigrant
makes sense why you hide your real name and them kicking you out is totally justified.
Would you want to hear the crazy stories of a two decades ago child murderer too?
I didn't think so.
I've been reading a translation of Water Margin; here's a bit from the story of Wu Song:
Actually, first, here's Wu Song's dictionary entry in the Hanyu Da Cidian:
> 《水浒传》中人物。勇猛刚烈，曾在景阳冈徒手打死猛虎。后参加梁山农民起义军，到处诛除强暴，是人民群众所喜爱的英雄形象之一。
[A character in Water Margin. Brave, fierce, strong, and violent, he once beat a man-eating tiger to death with his bare hands in Jingyang Pass. Afterward he joined the peasant uprising in Liangshan, with brutal killing [and rape?] everywhere, he is one of the heroic figures that the common people love.]
OK, now, the excerpt from Water Margin:
------
[Wu Song has been framed for theft by a conspiracy of three men, beaten, and exiled. He has just returned to the home of the highest-ranking conspirator (General Zhang), beheaded all three of them at the self-congratulatory party they were holding, and left a note claiming responsibility in blood on the wall.]
From all this killing the pavilion was swimming in blood, bodies could be seen lying everywhere in the flickering light of the candles. Wu Song said to himself: "It had to be all or nothing; kill a hundred, you can only die for it once." Sword at the ready, he went downstairs.
"What's all the hullabaloo upstairs?" the General's wife was inquiring as Wu Song rushed in. At this monstrous sight she shrieked: "Who are you?"
But Wu Song's sword was already flying. It caught her square in the forehead and she fell with a shriek right there in front of the pavilion. Wu Song held her down but when he tried to cut off her head the sword wouldn't cut. Baffled, he saw by the light of the moon that the blade was completely blunted. "So that's why I couldn't get her head off," he thought.
He slipped out of the back door to get his halberd again and threw away the blunt sword. Then he turned and went back to the tower. A lamp could be seen approaching. It turned out to be the singing girl, Yulan, the one he'd had the trouble with before. She was accompanied by two children. When the light of her lamp fell on the General's wife where she lay dead on the floor, Yulan screamed: "Merciful Heaven!"
Wu Song raised his halberd and ran her through the heart. He also killed the children, a single thrust to each. He went to the central hall, bolted the main door, and returned. He found two or three more young girls and stabbed them to death too. "Now at last," he said, "my heart is eased. Now it's time to stop."
------
This is the heroic figure that the common people love. The story is not short on villains, but Wu Song is not one of them.
Wu Song befriends a husband and wife who operate a series of inns, where they drug and butcher travelers who rub them the wrong way in order to serve their meat to the other guests. They aren't villains either.
I am glad you are trying to put skin in the game. But your examples are all non-sentimental. Let's pick a different one. If that guy used to touch children in public swimming pools (not rape) decades ago, would you let him babysit your child? Or what if that guy just used to flash himself to children?
I agree that people change. And I am willing to take the risk of working / hanging out with someone who has dealt drugs or stolen cars or even robbed banks. That's bec no one was hurt (at least intentionally) during these activities. But what if he intentionally hurt someone? Would you feel comfortable with that person roaming in the streets where their next target could be you or your family?
Absolutes do not work and details matter. Maybe you just do not find the crimes you mentioned particularly disturbing. Now imagine that the coworker has comitted some crime that you personally are terrified of or disgusted by. Would you still just go get a beer and hang out? Would you trust the person around people you love or care about? Would you trust the person around potentially vulnerable people at your workplace?