It's Messed Up

Why is our legal system so messed up?

Even when everyone knows a person is dangerous and guilty, a criminal can get by with little or no consequences because of a technicality. Crazy making.

There is so much a victim needs to endure in order for the legal system to even consider prosecuting. The victim has virtually no say on whether or not a case goes to a plea agreement. And I cannot relate to the slick lawyers that financially prosper from putting sexual deviants and harmful people back in society.

The only way to help the prosecutors is to contact our representatives. Contact yours today and let them know how you feel about this issue. Here's a link to your Washington state representatives by district:

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/statewide.aspx

If you live in another state, it's easy to find them there as well with a quick Google search.

It seems so hard to make changes. There is a clear difference in parties. The majority of one side strongly believes in rehabilitation and treatment for sexual predators and the other side just wants prison time. I want prison time with hardcore monitoring once the time has been served.

I often wonder why someone who embezzles money serves prison time, yet someone who alters another human life gets probation. Someone who harms an animal serves prison time, yet someone who harms the life of a child serves days in a county jail. It is so messed up.

Never Know

I will never probably know when Patrick started to groom our family. When did he start to fixate on my child? It still really creeps me out that Patrick believed he romantically loved our minor child.

Why our child? From all accounts our child didn't fall into the easy-target category. Our children had parents that were very committed to them. We were around all the time. Our child was shy, somewhat quiet, and very innocent-looking and acting. The only thing that I can think of that made us vulnerable was being overwhelmed with life. We sincerely trusted Patrick and respected his parents. We were trying to be a part of a community that cared for each other in a way we believed was biblical.

If that's what put us at risk, I cannot adequately express to you how much that simple fact has messed me up. It was our faith and beliefs that made us vulnerable. That is hard to reconcile.

Patrick's Profile

Patrick doesn't exactly fit the "profile of a pedophile" information I shared on the previous post. I will point out how his behavior in hindsight really did have some of the red flags. I have to remind myself regularly everything is easier to see in hindsight. I understand that a good pedophile goes undetected because they groom the entire family and are usually patient. Knowing that doesn't ease the pain and the guilt I feel. I was sensitive to this issue and even I was fooled. THAT IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO GET.

With that said, it would seem we are all so vulnerable. Our children especially.

The church we were attending was almost exclusively all homeschooling families. It promoted the inter-generational interaction which homeschooling promotes, so the fact that Patrick interacted well with children made perfect sense. The fact that being a mentor and an example is expected of the young adults, so the tutoring and interaction with our one child seemed ideal. Patrick came from a family that did things as a whole family as much as possible. That is also how the church liked to plan most church gatherings.


The fact that Patrick was at our home regularly during this time period made sense as well. We had moved. We were overwhelmed with a newborn, 5 other children, and all that needed to be done in this new home which needed a lot of attention. Our church promoted (as all should) knowing the needs and helping those in need in the congregation. Patrick had time and was happy to help. He called regularly. He helped Eric set up our computer (Patrick is a whiz on the computer). During this time, Patrick learned our password to our computer by watching Eric over his shoulder (unbeknownst to us.) He brought us kindling wood because we were heating strictly with a wood stove. He was tutoring one of our children. He was leaving seemingly innocent notes to another child that said things like, "Smile Jesus Loves You." He was either bringing candy to all the children or sometimes only to one of them. At Christmas time, Patrick knew our family was financially struggling, so he hid presents under our tree for all the children. He rallied his family to gift us money to buy a Christmas tree.

Can you see how the Christian community and values are a playground for a pedophile? If this type of behavior was from a non-Christian, I like to believe I would have been suspicious. Instead, I saw the behavior as selfless, which our church strongly believed was central to living out the gospel of Christ.

Where Patrick doesn't fit the profile is that Patrick stated in his evaluation that he himself was not molested. It is more common for boys who are molested as children to grow up and have pedophilia behavior. This leaves me to wonder if the behavior was learned. Or was Patrick just born evil?

Recap

CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR THE UP-TO-DATE RECAP


I believe this would be a good time for a review:

*January 2007 we discovered that one of our children had been sexually violated by our pastors adult son, Patrick D. Rojas (22yrs old at the time of the crime)

*We reported the crime

*August 2007 Patrick D. Rojas had his day in court. A plea agreement enabled this predator to have minimal consequences. Justice was not served!

*The pastor of the church we were attending, Peninsula Household of Faith Community Church in Port Orchard,WA., Eddie Rojas and his wife, Kathy and an adult son, Jairus had previous knowledge of Patrick's pedophile behavior but kept it a secret.

*The elders of the church, Jim Cameron and Dave Barrueto, knew in detail the crimes committed against our child and did not report any of the information to the sheriffs detective. Jim actually implied in his statement to the sheriff that Patrick's actions were innocent and "just the wrong age and wrong place." It was not until a plea agreement was in place and the sentencing had occurred that these two men shared that they had known all through the legal process the details of Patrick's crimes.

*As of August 2007, Eddie and Kathy Rojas along with 10 of their children went into hiding to avoid the state interviewing their minor daughters about the alleged sexual crimes against them by their brother Patrick D. Rojas.

*Patrick D. Rojas is a convicted level 2 sex offender living in Port Orchard, Washington with his brother Jairus. Patrick has a total of 6 minor victims that we know of (age ranging from 18mo. -11yrs old), he has admitted to sexual acts with dogs, peeping in on women and children in bathrooms, pornography, consensual incest with another adult sibling. He is a danger to all adolescent children and a sexual predator of convenience.

*In 2008, a felony warrant, was finally issued for Francis Edward Rojas, AKA Eddie Rojas.
The warrant is for witness tampering and is a nation wide warrant. I am asking for everyone that reads this to forward the information to all their contacts in hope of Eddie being located.

*If you see Eddie or know where he is you are to call your local police and inform them of his whereabouts and that there is a warrant for him in Washington State. The local police will handle it from there.

*The Rojas's have family in Rolla, Missouri and have solid contacts in Israel.

RECIDIVISM:
Pedophiles have a high rate of recidivism (the frequency of additional sexual crimes committed after being caught. .) Some treatments are effective in lowering recidivism. The typical child sex offender molests an average of 117 children, most of who do not report the offense. [Source: National Institute of Mental Health, 1988]*Source: I HALL, MD, RYAN C. W.; AND RICHARD C. W. HALL, MD, PA.. "AProfile of Pedophilia: Definition, Characteristics of Offenders, Recidivism, Treatment Outcomes, and Forensic Issues". MAYO CLIN PROC 82:457-471,2007. MAYO FOUNDATION FOR MEDICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH.

Define Pedophile

This link is very informative. Know what we are dealing with!
*What Is A Pedophile

Portions taken from: What is Pedophilia and why are child pedophiles such an epidemic? by Dr. Herbert Wagemaker

We know that pedophilia runs in families. Boys who are molested often molest boys when they grow up. Do they molest because they were molested or because they have a genetic sexual orientation toward children?

I feel that there is a strong genetic predisposition in pedophilia. I believe that pedophilia runs in families and seems to be a variant of OCD, which has strong genetic predispositions. In other words, pedophilia seems to be an illness that is caused by abnormal brain chemistry with strong genetic connections.

One of the important questions we must ask is, "How safe are our children when registered sex offenders are living in our neighborhoods?" Most pedophiles are multiple offenders and are involved with a number of kids. The answer to this question revolves around the treatment of pedophilia. How effective is it?

Web MD web site (http://www.webmd.com/ ) states, "Sadly, there is no cure for pedophilia." This is true. There is no cure, but there is treatment.

Another article to take a look at:Profile of a Pedophile

This Has Always Bothered Me

If you remember. In numerous posts I have referred to letters of character reference that a variety of family members, church members, and some church leaders in our community wrote on behalf of Patrick. These were written to say what a great guy Patrick was and what an asset to our community he was and that it would be a waste for him to serve real time in prison for just a moment of poor judgment. These letters boasted that Patrick was repentant. The people who wrote the letters claimed to have already seen a change for the better in Patrick.

There was an Eagle Scout who claimed to be an excellent judge of character. He eloquently stated his personal relationship with Patrick. He wrote a very persuasive letter to the judge requesting that leniency be extended to Patrick. There was also a leader from the Heritage Homeschool Organization that wrote a letter on behalf of Patrick using the organization's letterhead and signing with his official title. I could go on and on.

None of these people ever contacted us to verify information they were selectively given by the Rojas family and the leaders of PHF. Nor did they bother to contact the prosecutor or detective involved in our case. One thing that I still don't understand to this day is that, for some reason, Patrick and his lawyer requested that the contents of the letters be sealed. We were able to read each individual letter in the prosecutors office, but haven't been able to attain actual copies because they aren't in the public file.

People would argue that these individuals made a simple judgment error in writing these letters. Fine. But that doesn't take away the consequences of their errors. After the deceit of the Rojas family was revealed and after Patrick was shown to be deviant and dangerous, only one individual felt compelled to write a retraction and send it to the courts. Out of 30+ letters, only one wrote a retraction. Everyone else is still on record in support of Patrick David Rojas, a convicted level-two sex offender who admitted to having sexual interaction with animals and a baby, who admitted to peeping in on mothers and daughters in bathrooms, and who admitted to other dangerous, deviant behavior.

This has always bothered me!

People Wake Up

Day in and day out we hear more and more stories about sex offenders and pedophiles. The story of the day is about the 5yr old little girl that vanished while scottering outside unsupervised.

Wait it gets worse the mother of the 5yr old was "friends" with known sex offenders that were not suppose to be around children. You can look this up and get more information and details but what I want to highlight on my blog is this: the mother states on a radio interview that this particular sex offender was only around her daughter 15% of the time and the other 85% of the time the mother was with the sex offender without her daughter. Now I have no idea if this particular individual has anything to do with the disappearance of the little girl but what I am sure of is that this man was grooming this mother during 85% of the time he was with her to gain trust to be able to be trusted to be around the daughter the other 15% of the time.

Why do people want to risk sexual abuse of a child? Shame on you if you put a "relationship" above the safety of your child.

My heart grieves for that little 5yr old girl!