RuneVillage - Removed as gold status because owner is a sex offender

[Carl]

It still doesn't explain the fairly ridiculous attempts to 'know' that child sex offenders never change by intuition alone. It really is just a poor excuse of an argument.

 

Research. You will find that most people never change. There's countless articles out there.

[Bxpprod]

Though it is regrettable that Jagex's public approach may have tarnished RuneVillage's reputation, it also forced the person in question to leave, which is a good thing. After all, RV could not have stayed on as a part of the Fansite Support Programme in the light of this revelation about the owner, because a fansite for a children's game (largely) run by a convicted paedophile is so suspicious that the website automatically fails the only criteria for Bronze -

 

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um

[Crocefisso]

EDIT: Welcome to the intenret, Ginger_Warrior. Where we have to go by what we know, regardless of whether or not we're professionals. We can all perceived things differently. I know what I'm saying when it comes to people never changing. They can mask it, but never change.

No no, the Internet isn't an excuse for crap debating, it's just part and parcel of it. You know nothing about this person... I mean literally nothing. We don't even know it was related to child porn, we suspect it might be. That's the level of competence you're all showing here--you saw "sex offender" and went "hang him the filthy perv". It's cringeworthy that this has been labelled under 'discussion', it's just two sides shouting about something they can't possibly know to be true.

Aside from all of his legal history thanks to the many items posted by Killer, you're right we know nothing of him as a person.

 

But, as far as I'm concerned, the fact that he may or may not help old ladies cross the road doesn't mean that distributing child porn (yes, we know he did this) is any more acceptable or appropriate when he is running a fan-site for a game frequented by many children. You can make excuses all you like, but the law is pretty clear on what is/isn't child porn, and even if it was a "teenage girl", a 15/16 year old having an explicit picture of his similarly aged girlfriend is very different to a man in his 40s distributing such images. Similarly, the hyperbolic situation you're commenting on applies to only a few of us. My reaction, for example, was not "sex offender - hang him the filthy perv", but rather something more along the lines of, "I see that this man was a distributor of child pornography, Jagex was right to cut ties with his site for the time being".

 

I think many people saw this and thought, "Surely such a person wouldn't be involved with RuneScape?", and started to defend his actions, which whether or not he's a "nice" man, are inexcusable.

[Sir_Squab]

It has occurred to me that all of the stuff I want to reply to has to do with the fact on how easy it can be to be accidentally labelled a sex offender. Has anyone considered the fact that the child pornography he was making was of like 16 and 17 year old girls at the time of this law-change thing? Which, for the record, doesn't make him a pedophile in my books. As long as the girls are willing, which at the age of 16 and 17 you can find girls who are.

 

So many people seem to hate those labelled sexual offenders on general principles, which is ignorant of the fact of how easy it can be to acquire that label more or less innocently. A guy on the first page pointed out his 18 year old friend is technically a sex offender because he had sex with a 16 year old girl (who I am to understand was his girlfriend) and her parents just hated him. Given all the dumb [cabbage] I've heard about it, if I heard a guy was sexual offender my first reaction is to find out what the hell happened and if he actual seems like a guy who should be shot/castrated or not.

 

Now. Don't get me wrong. If a guy is an actual pedophile or rapist or something, I condone them getting shot/castrated or something. But the label tells you nothing.

 

Moving on.... I think Jagex could have done it more quietly. However, I don't think they want to; this sends out a positive message to potential investors who will likely know very little of the story except the Jagex post. Which is all Jagex really cares about.

 

Oh, another thing about sex offenders: just being ACCUSED of being a sex offender [bleep]s up your life because of the media [cabbage]storm in generates. You know, I wouldn't be opposed to a law that makes it illegal for the media to report on alledged sex offenders so long as the cops keep very close tabs on this guy. VERY close.

 

And as a business, it's good business in the gaming industry to not associate with child pornographers. I quite agree with their decision. You can say a lot of their busines practices and policy changes as of late, but they've always had a pretty hard line when it comes to protecting kids and I'm glad they stick to it. :thumbup:

 

Except he's not a child pornographer.

 

True, but that's more of a failing of english. He clearly engaged in the storing and transfering of child pornography, though no he didn't produce any child porn.

 

I will call him a pedophile instead.

 

llort, you're right, he didn't produce it. I won't call him that anymore.

 

And I mean protecting them from true harm, outside harm. Not protecting them from legit content in the game. I don't think they really need to worry about protecting them from gambling or naughty language.

 

1) I don't think bad words are a big deal.

2) If you gamble in RS you'll grow to hate gambling. Probably a good thing.

3) Yeah, I don't care much for the drinking, but I don't think it's that dentrimental either.

 

Where in the nine hells did you come up with such an absurd conclusion?

 

Afaik, he didn't have any child pornography? He sent some pictures of teens to someone else. I'm sure quite a few people own "child pornography" if we define naked pictures of teenage girls as such...

 

Also, Pedophilia= sexual interest in prepubescent children.

 

Fixed.

[Bxpprod]

It still doesn't explain the fairly ridiculous attempts to 'know' that child sex offenders never change by intuition alone. It really is just a poor excuse of an argument.

 

Research. You will find that most people never change. There's countless articles out there.

 

You have made the assertions. The onus is on you to provide evidence.

 

As an aside, you have made an absolute statement. People don't change.

You will never find an article that supports that.

Maybe 'more often than not they don't', but nowhere, will you find one that says 'never' whilst retaining a shred of credibility.

[Kaida23]

Afaik, he didn't have any child pornography? He sent some pictures of teens to someone else. I'm sure quite a few people own "child pornography" if we define naked pictures of teenage girls as such...

Actually, that's exactly what child pornography is defined as: sexual images of minors.

[Carl]

I've met drug addicts, been to rehabilitation centres for alcohol and drug addictions...Most of them are great people who just made some bad decisions in life. You don't "decide" at one point you're interested in children.

 

I can agree with you, addicts can be good people who made bad decisions.

 

So how do you go from one man sharing a teen porno (to which half of the men on TIF would probably be classed as pedos) to a sudden and depraved sexual craving for children?

 

At the age of 35 he was accused of having sex with a child.

[hide]one comment that i'd certainly like to dispute is one of you referred to "Forced sex with a defenseless, innocent child." No way. I've never, and would never, force *anything* on anyone-- man, woman or child. yes, i was accused of it once. but the charges were either dismised or 'nolle pros', meaning it was not prosecuted. other charges against me were dropped entirely. all of those charges went to trial, but after the prosecution's witnesses testified, a recess was called and i was offered a deal. if i would plead quilty to an "unspecified" misdemeanor charge of sexual battery, everything else would be dropped and i would be given a year of unsupervised probation (meaning i did not have to report to a probation officer). i took the offer. an "unspecified" offense is one that does not specify who or what the actual offense was. this was in 1984. in that case, i was basically in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong person. [/hide]

At the age of 46, he was found guilty of sharing 10-12 images that involved teenagers, with at least 1 other person.

(Going by the age mentioned in the article)

 

That's two cases in 11 years where children were involved, or at least one where they were allegedly involved. I never said there was a depraved sexual craving, just the fact that these people don't change.

[Heisenberg]

I support Jagexs decision. People who visit Runevillage deserve to know.

[RU_Insane]

 

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. If you're on the sex offenders' register, you have been punished under a court of law. If we start doubting the validity of the decision made by the courts, we have to give up any sort of notion of law or punishment for anything. That's too much doubt placed upon a process that has been honed for centuries to eliminate false positives, to the point that it churns out a fair amount of false negatives and only punishes when there is a definitive line of evidence that proves the defendant committed the crime. Make no mistake, if you're on the sex offender's register, it's a reasonable assumption to make that you're on there for a very good reason.

 

Secondly, we have a free press. You can't go into some kind of denial that you can be rendered immune to the thoughts and opinions of the people around you. Consider the inverse, would you think it would be progress if the government was free to arrest and take people away, convict them behind closed doors without public scrutiny, and enforce a total media silence on the treatment or the reason of the treatment of the person?

 

My point is, while there is always progress to be made to eliminate miscarriages of justice, that does not mean that we should start giving up our rights to free speech and exist in a state of judicial anarchy.

 

Free press indeed: freedom of speech protects one against goverments.. However a press should never be free to post ANYTHING private of a person. And punishment is a private being.

 

I never said anything about not believing punishment, I rather say the opposite: leave punishment to the goverment. Especially if the offender wishes to stay low profile let him stay low profile. We are no longer in the middle ages where you have to stand at the market square and let people throw tomatos at you. Keep punishment by the goverment, and if you disagree change the law - don't punish as civilian.

 

Also let the past be the past.

 

Punishment is always left up to the government. You are conflating the public element of humiliation with the notion of legal punishment. The government is the only entity with the authority to reintegrate and deter offenders of the law. Once the government publicly releases information about that offender, in the name of public protection, the press is free to report it. The press must assume that the information given is true since the judicial process is designed to wean out false positives as opposed to false negatives regards conviction, meaning a person's legal status as an offender is likely to be closer to fact then falsehood. It's also divulged by a trusted authority, so the press has little reason to not report it, especially if the matter is one of a public nature.

 

Punishment is not a private matter since it's done in the public interest. When one offends, he is committing an offense against society. The public thus has the right to be informed of the danger an offender represents to it. We can only assume that danger is justified, because the judicial process is designed to give as accurate a conviction as possible. Like Will_H said, we cannot give up freedom of speech in favor of protecting individual security because that conviction just may happen to be false. We are meant to think that public danger is accurate, not false. Hence why the judicial process is so rigorous to determine if one truly broke the law.

So you feel someone should his full life be followed by something he did earlier?

 

YOu create monsters this way.. YOU are the worst kind of humans I ever met, actually craeting a place where others can't live who share other opinions. This is very similar to how homophilia was forced down only a century ago: whether it is good or wrong is besides the topic: what is wrong however is that punishment should be the end. There should be 0 problems AFTER the punishment has been taken, people have to live again. If you don't let people do that they'll only get together, thrown away from society and will commit even worse crimes.

 

 

If I ever went to the US I would rather kill myself than getting into court: those things aren't even morally correct and I believe a crime against humanity. Look what happend to "DSK" now? In the end prosecution stopped, but his political carreer was destroyed, something many US people would love I guess. I doubt it was a complete fair process, but he was a foreigner so it was only normal.

 

You have no real argument, so you resort to ad hominem attacks in a feeble attempt to undermine the veracity of my argument. No, I'm not arguing that he should live his life that way, I'm simply saying that's unfortunately how people will perceive him. I have no objections to him moving on, especially since I argued earlier than I think he is innocent. It doesn't matter now, but had you seen my earlier posts here, you wouldn't have defaulted to such an immature retort. If we had a judicial process where the potentially innocent's punishment is silenced in favor of protecting his image, we wouldn't have a fair judicial system, because that person could also potentially be guilty, and hence people would deserve to know he is dangerous.

 

I don't know how it is where you live, but in Canada, each person has the right to a fair trial. This doesn't mean such matters should always be kept private in the person's interest, because it's possible he is dangerous to society. Likewise, it doesn't mean we should convict him on the possibility that he's an offender. However, we don't have all the facts, so we can't determine if he really did sexually exploit children. What we do know is that he was convicted of the 1995 charges, and he admits he made a mistake. Is he regretful? Yes. Is he ready to move on? Yes. The question to ask is, is he prepared to deal with the consequences? Yes, and he's dealing with them now.

 

No one is saying he should live as if he's guilty. I'm saying that because he was convicted, nothing can stop people from (rightly) perceiving him as a danger to society, although he may have not committed the offense! But it's a better system than keeping such info private, and thus actually fueling danger, because children and parents don't know who's a predator, and who isn't. Do you want a society where people don't know who and who isn't a predator? I don't think you do, given your response.

 

Hence, this system is the best alternative to what you have proposed. The judicial process has worked exactly the way it was meant to work. Evidence was given from both sides at the trial. The evidence was fairly examined by an impartial jury and the sentence meted out by a competent and unbiased judge who considered all the facts of the case. The people directly involved also have more details about the evidence then we do. Keeping that in mind, I don't see how you can say it was unfair because he was possibly innocent. The process doesn't work from that perspective. It works by considering the facts under a presumption of innocence before fair conviction (current system), not a speculation of innocence under unfair disavowal from public scrutiny (your flawed system).

 

I'll also note that under your system, if he were punished without public notice, people would start asking questions as to where he is. What would the government say in response to that? Are you seriously proposing an opaque and closed government as opposed to a transparent and open government?

If the man is released, and he is an offender, but no one notifies the public, wouldn't that be more dangerous than warning the public of the potential danger? Do you see the flaw with the system you're proposing?

 

Like I said earlier, the government has the duty to report dangers in the interest of public safety. In this case, the government was simply doing its job. Further, the press has the liberty to report things that are true, especially if they concern the public. And again, even if the offender is innocent in actuality (which we have no way of knowing, although I've argued that I think he is), the press doesn't have any reason to doubt the veracity of the info the government has released, because the government is a trusted authority. So, out of the public interest, the gov. has released this information, and from there, the press has the liberty to report and speculate on it. Tough luck if he's innocent. It's better than letting a guilty person go free, which is what the system is designed to prevent. It's not a perfect system, but it's far more preferable to what you have proposed.

[Carl]

It still doesn't explain the fairly ridiculous attempts to 'know' that child sex offenders never change by intuition alone. It really is just a poor excuse of an argument.

 

Research. You will find that most people never change. There's countless articles out there.

 

You have made the assertions. The onus is on you to provide evidence.

 

As an aside, you have made an absolute statement. People don't change.

You will never find an article that supports that.

Maybe 'more often than not they don't', but nowhere, will you find one that says 'never' whilst retaining a shred of credibility.

 

I don't need to provide evidence, because this is nothing more than a discussion which will have no effect on anything. I think if you're really trying to say that these people can definitely be rehabilitated, go browse and tell me what you find.

[Bxpprod]

I don't need to provide evidence, because this is nothing more than a discussion which will have no effect on anything.

 

Shifting the burden. Argumentative fallacy.

 

You have made a claim. It is on you to support it with evidence.

 

I think if you're really trying to say that these people can definitely be rehabilitated, go browse and tell me what you find.

 

Straw-man. Argumentative fallacy.

Nowhere did I say "These people definitely can be rehabilitated". I challenged your assertion that they never can be.

[Deathknell]

Squab, if you engage in dice or flower games on RS and keep getting scammed, I doubt you'd want to gamble with anything real. :rolleyes:

[Bxpprod]

Squab, if you engage in dice or flower games on RS and keep getting scammed, I doubt you'd want to gamble with anything real. :rolleyes:

 

You have entirely missed the point I was making in the first place.

[RU_Insane]

It still doesn't explain the fairly ridiculous attempts to 'know' that child sex offenders never change by intuition alone. It really is just a poor excuse of an argument.

 

Research. You will find that most people never change. There's countless articles out there.

 

You have made the assertions. The onus is on you to provide evidence.

 

As an aside, you have made an absolute statement. People don't change.

You will never find an article that supports that.

Maybe 'more often than not they don't', but nowhere, will you find one that says 'never' whilst retaining a shred of credibility.

 

I don't need to provide evidence, because this is nothing more than a discussion which will have no effect on anything. I think if you're really trying to say that these people can definitely be rehabilitated, go browse and tell me what you find.

 

So your excuse for your assertion is that it's the evidence is there somewhere, but you won't supply the evidence yourself? Okay, that makes it a little hard to believe your claim, since you haven't even provided a logical example in your argument's favor. Someone in this thread has mentioned that one of her friends or family members successfully overcame her drug addiction. This is evidence in support of the assertion that people can be rehabilitated. I think this is a reasonable assertion, even without the evidence, because it has happened. It's much harder to prove that no one can be rehabilitated (positing an absolute) as opposed to saying some can overcome addiction.

[Deathknell]

Squab, if you engage in dice or flower games on RS and keep getting scammed, I doubt you'd want to gamble with anything real. :rolleyes:

 

You have entirely missed the point I was making in the first place.

 

But my original reply to your point was that gambling in RS does show the consequeces of the gambling while the alcohol part doesn't.

 

Geek, don't try too hard with ll0rt, he just tries to be a highly disagreeable person.

[Bxpprod]

Squab, if you engage in dice or flower games on RS and keep getting scammed, I doubt you'd want to gamble with anything real. :rolleyes:

 

You have entirely missed the point I was making in the first place.

 

But my original reply to your point was that gambling in RS does show the consequeces of the gambling while the alcohol part doesn't.

 

Geek, don't try too hard with ll0rt, he just tries to be a highly disagreeable person.

 

And you still haven't picked up on the point I was making (lets ignore the ad hominem remarks for now, shall we). The point was, that engaging in gambling while young on a game where it is seen as acceptable (and in some circles encouraged) could lead to it being mimicked in real life. While you see consequence, you don't see the full facts about it. Gambling in a casino, on a poker(slot)machine has vastly different odds than the 60x2 crap being touted on RS, and there is a very real potential for kids to walk in not knowing the difference. Let alone the fact that RS money is a) quite easy to make back (unlike money in reality) and b) the consequences are much more dire. You may think losing your hard earned 100k is a major consequence, but given how easy it is to make back, it is very small. The money you're losing in real life, is much, much harder to make back, and has real world consequences, and not only for yourself.

 

Now, if you had bothered to read Geek's post, which clearly you did not, you'd have seen he was not responding to a post made by me, but my Newb. So I suggest you get your facts correct before you start shooting off such remarks.

[The_Avatar]

The guys tries to rationalize selling child porn, not even admitting it was wrong to do so in the first place, and has a laundry list of other sexual harassment charges. Most people will never get sexual harassment charges accidentally pinned on them, and this guy just expects everyone to believe that he just KEEPS ending up at the wrong place in the wrong time? Sorry, but this guy should have never been allowed to make a fansite for a children's game. I could somewhat understand defending him if he had cleaned up his act (you'd still be wrong to defend him in this case but it's at least a little more understandable), but when he just happens to "get accused of something he didn't do" every five years something is wrong. He should have known exactly what was going to happen when he pulled this stunt in the first place, and the fact that it was able to go on for eight years is pretty sickening.

 

Basically he deserves anything that happens to him from this point on.

[Deathknell]

No, I didn't so now I look like an ass. Thanks. <_<

 

Still, I don't think it's Runescape's job to either to condemn or glorify gambling nor enforce what people do with their money. Truth be told, I don't think government should decide what people do with their money. Though when it becomles a business to provide gambling it becomes more complicated.

 

So my point is, gambling is a pretty complicated issue and too much so for Jagex to have to take part in. It's not their job to warn kids about gambling.

 

I do think they should protect them from predators of any sort and think they've done a decent ob of doing so.

 

Monkey, I don't care he made a fansite, but I agree that any moral gaming company wouldn't have ties to a site run by someone like this.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

The guys tries to rationalize selling child porn, not even admitting it was wrong to do so in the first place, and has a laundry list of other sexual harassment charges. Most people will never get sexual harassment charges accidentally pinned on them, and this guy just expects everyone to believe that he just KEEPS ending up at the wrong place in the wrong time? Sorry, but this guy should have never been allowed to make a fansite for a children's game. I could somewhat understand defending him if he had cleaned up his act (you'd still be wrong to defend him in this case but it's at least a little more understandable), but when he just happens to "get accused of something he didn't do" every five years something is wrong. He should have known exactly what was going to happen when he pulled this stunt in the first place, and the fact that it was able to go on for eight years is pretty sickening.

 

Basically he deserves anything that happens to him from this point on.

 

Well damn. How much must a man suffer before he's paid his debt to society?

 

Listen. I'm not interested in hearing whether or not he should be punished any further than what the law already has. I'm not concerned with whether or not him creating the fansite in the first place was a violation of some probation order or plea deal, which it doesn't seem like it was.

 

I'm more concerned with how that fansite will be able to rebuild itself after having its image thrown to the wolves like this. It wasn't doing so hot before, and now it's got this steaming pile of crap to deal with.

 

Check it out. Being labeled a sex offender sticks. Regardless of what you do, or how you behave from there on out, that's the kind of mud that sticks with you. And yes, he was guilty of distributing child pornography. Some years ago. What'd he do since then? Tried to make a clean start for his life and himself, and to put most of this behind him. It's only some legal voodoo that got him caught back up in this mess (as he was tried twice and released/plea-bargained out of higher charges).

 

I've gotta admit, it's hard to watch some of these arguments. They're more or less interested in punishing the man instead of reflecting, taking a real-life lesson out of this, and moving on. Why should I care what he does or doesn't deserve? He's no longer a part of that community. The community wants to distance themselves away from him as far as possible, and they want to make a new start.

 

The only real problem is that some folks just can't let it go. Jagex's trumpeting of this matter didn't help things at all. I'm kind of with Omali on this, but I'd fire anyone in the PR department that breathes. If this is how they do PR and damage control, they could use a good Spring cleaning.

 

He knows what he did was wrong. He knows he's got a lifetime of apologizing to do, much of it unnecessary now, to people he'll never meet in person.

 

Punishing the man any further is both pointless and vindictive.

 

Aside: Yes, people can change. He was trying to, but the law changed before he could change with it. I don't condone what he did, but I sure don't condone folks around here wanting blood.

 

I did want to point out, though:

 

We also have a dedicated team of Community Safety moderators working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure Jagex remains industry leading in its Community Safety efforts.

 

...If this is the case, then why was it 18 months later that it came to light? Consider that 12 or more months ago, not many of us even knew what happened.

[The_Avatar]

[spoiler=tons of text]

The guys tries to rationalize selling child porn, not even admitting it was wrong to do so in the first place, and has a laundry list of other sexual harassment charges. Most people will never get sexual harassment charges accidentally pinned on them, and this guy just expects everyone to believe that he just KEEPS ending up at the wrong place in the wrong time? Sorry, but this guy should have never been allowed to make a fansite for a children's game. I could somewhat understand defending him if he had cleaned up his act (you'd still be wrong to defend him in this case but it's at least a little more understandable), but when he just happens to "get accused of something he didn't do" every five years something is wrong. He should have known exactly what was going to happen when he pulled this stunt in the first place, and the fact that it was able to go on for eight years is pretty sickening.

 

Basically he deserves anything that happens to him from this point on.

 

Well damn. How much must a man suffer before he's paid his debt to society?

 

Listen. I'm not interested in hearing whether or not he should be punished any further than what the law already has. I'm not concerned with whether or not him creating the fansite in the first place was a violation of some probation order or plea deal, which it doesn't seem like it was.

 

I'm more concerned with how that fansite will be able to rebuild itself after having its image thrown to the wolves like this. It wasn't doing so hot before, and now it's got this steaming pile of crap to deal with.

 

Check it out. Being labeled a sex offender sticks. Regardless of what you do, or how you behave from there on out, that's the kind of mud that sticks with you. And yes, he was guilty of distributing child pornography. Some years ago. What'd he do since then? Tried to make a clean start for his life and himself, and to put most of this behind him. It's only some legal voodoo that got him caught back up in this mess (as he was tried twice and released/plea-bargained out of higher charges).

 

I've gotta admit, it's hard to watch some of these arguments. They're more or less interested in punishing the man instead of reflecting, taking a real-life lesson out of this, and moving on. Why should I care what he does or doesn't deserve? He's no longer a part of that community. The community wants to distance themselves away from him as far as possible, and they want to make a new start.

 

The only real problem is that some folks just can't let it go. Jagex's trumpeting of this matter didn't help things at all. I'm kind of with Omali on this, but I'd fire anyone in the PR department that breathes. If this is how they do PR and damage control, they could use a good Spring cleaning.

 

He knows what he did was wrong. He knows he's got a lifetime of apologizing to do, much of it unnecessary now, to people he'll never meet in person.

 

Punishing the man any further is both pointless and vindictive.

 

Aside: Yes, people can change. He was trying to, but the law changed before he could change with it. I don't condone what he did, but I sure don't condone folks around here wanting blood.

 

I did want to point out, though:

 

We also have a dedicated team of Community Safety moderators working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure Jagex remains industry leading in its Community Safety efforts.

 

...If this is the case, then why was it 18 months later that it came to light? Consider that 12 or more months ago, not many of us even knew what happened.

 

The fact of the matter is when you commit a crime as heinous as selling child porn, you lose some of your rights, and with good reason. You'll notice at no point he apologizes for the things he's done, instead he comes off as if he begrudgingly accepts that he can't have his way. There are several instances unaccounted for by his "well I just forgot to register" excuse where he was accused of sexual harassment. The bottom line is, you don't make a fansite for children when you're a registered sex offender, who's first offense was selling child porn. Common sense dictates that that sort of thing isn't going to work out for you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

[Bxpprod]

The guys tries to rationalize selling child porn, not even admitting it was wrong to do so in the first place, and has a laundry list of other sexual harassment charges. Most people will never get sexual harassment charges accidentally pinned on them, and this guy just expects everyone to believe that he just KEEPS ending up at the wrong place in the wrong time?

 

Read the first post. Only 1 related to any form of sexual battery, and that was an unspecified downgrade post plea bargain. The other 2 charges (distribution of CP and failure to register) he did not claim to be about the wrong place at the wrong time. There is no suggestion that there is a "laundry list of sexual harrasment charges" unless you have more information that we don't, and if so, please feel free to post it up.

 

Sorry, but this guy should have never been allowed to make a fansite for a children's game.

 

Why not?

 

I could somewhat understand defending him if he had cleaned up his act (you'd still be wrong to defend him in this case but it's at least a little more understandable), but when he just happens to "get accused of something he didn't do" every five years something is wrong.

 

The most recent charge, related to failure to register, which was the result of retroactive law change. That isn't a matter of still needing to clean up his act, that's something that would be easy to get trapped by.

 

He should have known exactly what was going to happen when he pulled this stunt in the first place, and the fact that it was able to go on for eight years is pretty sickening.

 

This stunt? WHAT?

[Deathknell]

When you are involved in child pornography, that is gonna stay with you. Forever. And it should. IMO. :ugeek:

 

But the last thing does seem to be an legal lapse. Those things happen. I don't have issue with that.

 

I do feel bad for the forums though. Especially Henner. She's worked her butt off for years over there.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

The fact of the matter is when you commit a crime as heinous as selling child porn, you lose some of your rights, and with good reason. You'll notice at no point he apologizes for the things he's done, instead he comes off as if he begrudgingly accepts that he can't have his way. There are several instances unaccounted for by his "well I just forgot to register" excuse where he was accused of sexual harassment. The bottom line is, you don't make a fansite for children when you're a registered sex offender, who's first offense was selling child porn. Common sense dictates that that sort of thing isn't going to work out for you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

Conflating the issue doesn't make your point any better. Yes, you lose some of your rights if you're convicted of a crime. However, the whole point of convicting the person in the first place is to give them a chance to rehabilitate (or the restoration of someone to a useful place in society). If he's denied the chance to pay his debt to society and conform to social norms, then the system has utterly failed.

 

 

He didn't have to register as a sex offender until the laws changed, and I'm not sure where you're from, but in the United States, we don't all get a memo saying that such-and-such law has now changed. I'm sure in his mind, he felt that the matter was legally taken care of, and he wanted to move on with his life.

 

 

I should point out though, that we know nothing of what really transpired outside of what he's shared. There's no point in knowing, either. He's gone. He's not coming back. RV is not associated with this man any further. It's time for RV to move on, and those of us with pitchforks and torches, to set them aside.

[Kimberly]

You'll notice at no point he apologizes for the things he's done, instead he comes off as if he begrudgingly accepts that he can't have his way.

 

Considering that man's livelihood was likely demolished with the re-emergence of his dirty laundry, if he seems upset I'd say that's pretty damn understandable.

[RU_Insane]

In regards to the issue, we know he distributed child pornography in 1995, and he distributed it to someone else. Specifically, this pornography depicted teenagers, as he claims. We don't know the specific details about the content apart from that it depicted teenagers in a sexual manner. From this, even if he has a sexual interest in minors, there's no evidence we know of to suggest that he actively attempted to contact them. It may be a passive sexual interest which he enjoyed to fantasize about, as disturbing as that thought may be to some. We can't tell for sure from 1984-2005 if he came into sexual contact with minors because he was not monitored for this activity; he was registered as an offender in 2005.

 

The earliest accusation of such contact we know of was in 1984, of which he claims innocence. Despite this, it's likely such unwanted contact would be reported and investigated, and so presumably if this has happened in that time period, the authorities would have this information, and it would have been used in his 1984 trial (which is the only case where someone accused him of forced sexual contact with a minor). The courts are likely still holding onto these documents. If we do enough digging, we can find the details. The 1995 case is different in that while he may have an express interest in teenagers/older children, he did not engage in contact with them; he simply distributed photography, which he says is a mistake he regrets and wishes to move on from it.

 

That said, I can understand why someone would object to someone with a sexual interest in minors to running a site that attracts them. So I can understand why Jagex would sever the relationship with him, because people would object out of fear that he'd act on those inclinations. If however, Jagex simply did so in order to preserve their reputation (which is likely), and not out of any concrete evidence that he was actively pursuing minors, how can you claim he's a potential predator, in light that he says he regrets the mistake he was terminated for?

 

There's no trend available for us to refer to that supports the claim he'll certainly act on those sexual interests. That he set up a fan-site that attracts an underage player-base, and that he was convicted of distributing child pornography, is not a fair assessment into what he's capable of doing. It's enough to establish that he has a passive sexual interest in a certain age range of children. It's not enough to establish that he will probably act on that inclination. We presently have more evidence from his own words that he doesn't wish to pursue minors, than evidence that he's willing to (we don't have the documents from the 1984 case, so that's why I say this).

 

That being said, I agree with his stepping down, if only for the fact this stigma is attached to him. He made a stupid mistake, and now he's facing the consequences. Tough luck for him. If he isn't a sexual predator, too bad. If he is, serves him right.

 

The guys tries to rationalize selling child porn

 

We don't know if a transaction took place. We just know it was distribution. He knew what he was doing was illegal. He assumed it was socially tolerable because the laws concerning child pornography had recently been introduced at the time, according to him. I think that's a terrible excuse for his actions, to be honest. But it sounds to me that he didn't intend to break the law, because he thought what he was doing would be tolerated. If he knew it wasn't tolerated, and he did it anyway, I'd say he intended to break the law. That's the mistake he regrets: thinking his actions were excusable despite knowing he was doing something illegal. So I agree that his justification of the issue is inexcusable.

 

not even admitting it was wrong to do so in the first place

 

In fact, he admitted he knew it was illegal. He just thought it was tolerable (not wrong, not right) on a social basis.

 

, and has a laundry list of other sexual harassment charges.

 

Laundry list? We only have one case where he was accused of sexual conduct with a minor, not simply sexual harassment, in 1984. Note he said the charges against him were dropped when he pleaded to an unspecified charge in exchange for one year of supervised release. He pleaded to and was convicted on one charge of sexual battery.

 

Most people will never get sexual harassment charges accidentally pinned on them

 

He never said he was accidentally charged. The person was sure it was him. However, he says he's innocent of a lesser, unspecified charge, even though he pleaded to it. I'll note again, that an innocent person will likely plead to a lesser charge in favor of weaker punishment. This is not proof of his innocence. It's just a feature that has something in common with people who are exonerated of the charges after they were found guilty.

 

 

and this guy just expects everyone to believe that he just KEEPS ending up at the wrong place in the wrong time?

 

Yes, and he provided reasons for that. We don't have evidence beyond what he claims, and the newspaper article Red linked to.

 

Sorry, but this guy should have never been allowed to make a fansite for a children's game.

 

Why not? He was perfectly in his rights to do so as he created the site in 2002. He was registered as a sex offender in 2005.

 

I could somewhat understand defending him if he had cleaned up his act

 

Clean up what act? He says he's innocent of the 1984 charges. He says he regrets what he's done in the 1995 case, and wants to move on from that. It seems clear he cleaned up his act long ago. I'll also note he probably would have registered as a sex offender had he known the law had changed. That he was charged for 'attempting to failing to register' is not a sign of him failing to become a better person.

 

(you'd still be wrong to defend him in this case but it's at least a little more understandable)

 

Why would I be wrong to defend a man who cleaned up his act from unwarranted public scrutiny? I, for one, think his excuses regards the 1995 case are stupid. The 1984 case is understandable from his perspective, because he pleaded to a lesser charge, which suggests his possible innocence. I won't say it's anything beyond possible, because we don't possess all the facts regards that case. He moved to Tennessee in 2000 and checked the laws at that time to see if he required S.O. registration. That means he was prepared to register as an offender had he decided to move. It didn't require him to register yet, so he moved there. It's thus understandable that he didn't bother to check the laws again, under the assumption that such laws are averse to alteration. I'm not defending his actions, but I can see why he didn't check.

 

but when he just happens to "get accused of something he didn't do" every five years something is wrong. He should have known exactly what was going to happen when he pulled this stunt in the first place, and the fact that it was able to go on for eight years is pretty sickening.

 

"The first place" he "pulled his stunt" is in 1995, as he maintains in 1984, he was innocent. He obviously foresaw the consequences quickly, because he wanted to move on. Again, he was well within his rights to create the fan-site at that time. The fact that he operated the site for nine years until his resignation, as I explained in detail in a previous post, is a testament to the fact that he likely hasn't engaged in sexual contact with children. Had he exploited the opportunity to do so, he would have been punished, and prevented from using the internet from the time he was a sex-offender. Simple as that. That the site continued for nine years is not a failure of law. I suspect he was well-behaved in the time he operated the site as a sex-offender.

 

Basically he deserves anything that happens to him from this point on.

 

I disagree. The most he should have come to expect is having his fan-site support terminated, the stigma attached with what he has done, knowing that people know he's a sex offender. He clearly regrets his mistake, so why should anything beyond this happen to him? Justice has long ago been served. No one else, with the exception of Jagex, has the authority now to dole out punishment, especially extrajudicial vigilante-style justice.