Socially Demonized

Someone pulled out my brain. Someone stopped my heart.

I thought everything in my life was going pretty darn good. Then the other shoe dropped. The monkey flung poo in my direction. The bottom fell out of the bag.

When they say no good deed goes unpunished, they mean that. People are heartless and evil. Never trust someone you meet online, even if you think it's somebody you want to help.

I was floored. Devastated.
My 24 year old son was getting arrested for "Patronizing a minor for commercial sexual activity - with intent to engage with minor"

This is the boy who tried to save everyone. He was always the one who would befriend those with no friends, drag home kids that needed a good meal or a night away from an unhappy home life. 

The story I was told by his friends is that he was trying to help a girl get away from the mother who was attempting to sell her online.
I don't know if that's true but I could see him doing something stupid for the right reasons. Problem is, the woman turned her phone over to police who then started talking about money, etc.
Can anyone say "Sting Operation"?

I don't know what he was thinking. Obviously,  I failed in my attempt as a parent to get through to him that you can't trust people.

Now he sits in jail awaiting his bond hearing. I have no idea what they have as evidence. No idea if he has a lawyer. No idea if I will be able to afford to pay for bail or even if he will get bail.

He got $150,000 bond, CASH ONLY. No leaving the county (no worries there, judge, nobody can make that kind of bail), no contact with anyone under the age of 18 (duh), he can live with someone with their written permission (well, even if we could make bail, he knows nobody in that county).

Here is what I wrote after being able to visit him for the first time and finding out that he had just filled out the application for a court appointed attorney and that he had been denied said attorney the very next day:

The wheels of justice turn slow.
Especially for the accused when the prosecuting attorney wants to make a name for herself.
Did you know that you are NOT automatically appointed an attorney when you ask for one?
No - you have to go through the process of filling out an application.
What happens if you don't fill it out correctly??
They ask for your income. Well, by golly, if you put what you were making BEFORE being arrested, you make too much to get a court appointed attorney. 
They ask if you have a job waiting on you. If you say yes, because for some reason you don't understand that you may not be getting out any time soon and your employer isn't going to hold your job, then you get denied a court appointed attorney.
So then, to remedy this, you have to write a letter to the judge letting him know that you messed up and that your situation has changed. No income (why would they even think you had one when you are sitting in jail?), no potential income, no job, and no job waiting on you.
To top that off, you have had no attorney for 5 days, your family can't afford $10,000 UP FRONT to hire one (and that's the lowest I've found), you've had little to no interaction with the outside world (so how the hell, even if you could afford it, are you supposed to hire an attorney?), nobody will answer the questions your family has because, well, you are an adult, and it's the weekend so you know that judge won't be back until Monday.
Plus....it's the holidays, your first hearing is scheduled for early January, and you still have to wait on legal representation.
Legal representation. The ONLY person that can get in to see you, help you with these confusing legal matters, advise you on what to do or say, and let you know that you matter to someone on the outside and, against all popular and media opinion, you are NOT a piece of shit. You are a human being that did a stupid thing and fell into a spider web laid carefully by the prosecution.

The visitation process was an eye-opener for both me and his brother. First of all, visitation is from 1-4pm Tuesday and Thursday only. An inmate gets one (1, uno) single 20 minute visit per Tuesday or Thursday.
You don't get to see your loved one in person. Oh, no.....it's via video phone. The handset is there for you to talk to them but they aren't behind a glass window. You have no idea where they are.
He is only allowed 2 visitors at a time so if you have a big family all wanting to visit in that 20 minutes, you better time each person. And if someone goes by to visit before you get there, well tough shit for you. He's already had his visitation for the day.

I used to believe that our justice system was good and fair. Everything that has been happening so far has destroyed that belief.
From the first damaging media article that came out BEFORE he was even arrested, to the fact that lawyers want so much money up front, the court system drags its heels when you need legal representation,  bond is set sky high to keep you in jail, the investigation continues to steamroll while you have nobody there to even explain an application, the only way to get a message to him is via voicemail that you have no way of knowing that he got or by snail mail, and during this time, the media (tv stations on social media)  has already convinced the public that you are a monster.

God forbid a Mother should try to defend her son on social media. You are condemned as "just a mother protecting her young". Is that so bad? The other woman is being lauded for taking her phone to the police to "protect her young", while nobody knows any of the extenuating circumstances that led to that. They accept it without question that the man in this picture is the bad guy. Poof. Monster. Evil.
Well, honey, women can be evil too.
Why didn't she just tell my son to leave her alone and block his number off her phone?
He lived over 200 miles away, had a job he went to daily and sometimes worked weekends, paid his bills on time, and wouldn't have had time to be a stalker.
He would have left her alone if she had told him to. What was her motivation for getting the law involved?
Now.....who is really in the wrong here?
Yes, he was extremely stupid for saying the things he did, but should he spend years paying for his stupidity? He never hurt her or even met with her during this time. Everything was on text only.  Could it be some type of role play they had done before? What were their conversations like up to the point of her turning her phone over?
I'm so ready to have a defense attorney try to get these questions answered.

I have since found an attorney. Things are moving forward at a snails pace but at least they are moving.
I've done a lot of thinking, a lot of reading, and a lot of soul searching over this period of time. While this case is just beginning, I'm learning that God's time is not my time and all truth will be revealed and all wounds healed in His time.
His initial hearing has now been moved to February. I'm praying for the best outcome possible.