A BOOK ON U.S. APPLICABLE LAW
Deacon San Nguyen
CRIME OF CHILD MOLESTATION
As reported by Department of Justice, every one in seven teenagers is a victim of the crime of Child Molestation. Oklahoma Law, article 21, number 1123 defined Crime of Child Molestation is a felony. Any person commits child molestation, although agreed by child, shall be in jail from 3 to 25 years.
Practically, even though US Law prohibited people doing that, many men still committed that crime regardless whatever consequences would follow their acts. It was hard to explain the reason why this psychological trend happened.
When visiting prisoners in prison, I knew cases related with child molestation. Mr. Ban was a Math Teacher at a high school, had a wife and 4 children, about 50 years old, 10 years older than his wife. Ban was accused as a child molester: he had sex with a classmate of his son, a boy at 12 years old. When being asked why he did that, Ban said that he felt happy when his acts made the boy happy. He also told us that the sex life between him and his wife was alright. No big problem happened in his family ever. However, in his opinion, having sex with a young boy was the happiest time for him.
Tam was another child molester. He molested the son of his wife although he was totally incompetent. He could not have sex with his wife for a long time. Perhaps, he tried some other means to show that he was still a competent man and to satisfy himself. Deep down in their mind, both Ban and Tam knew that they would be in jail due to their sex acts with young boys but they did not care!
On the contrary, there was innocent man who was accused wrongly just because he was ignorant with his acts. Phu was in jail for 7 years because he was accused as a child molester. In his normal life, Phu was a devoted Catholic, had a wife and 5 children; the youngest one was 2 years old, the oldest was 12. All people who knew him, even his wife, confirmed that Phu was a good man, good father, and a good husband. Nobody believed that Phu did a bad thing to a little girl.
Phu’s wife was a baby-sitter. She had to take care of a child of her friend, a 4 years old girl. One day, Phu’s wife had to run some errand out of her house. She asked Phu to take a half-day sick leave and stay home, taking care of the little girl for her. When Phu’s wife was not at home, the girl needed to go to bathroom. Phu took the child to bathroom, and when she done with it, Phu cleaned her carefully. Things went on without any problem. The girl’s parents knew that and said nothing.
Later, Phu’s wife had an argument with the parents of the girl. She refused to take care of the girl anymore. The girl’s parents got mad and threatened to sue Phu due to his acts that made the girl’s hymen broken. In a bad mood, Phu challenged the parents to do that, because he believed that he did not do anything wrong. However, the Law has no similar opinion with his. A week later, police came to his house, handcuffed him and put him in jail for his act of child molestation. Phu’s wife paid some money to bail him out and hired a good lawyer to advocate for him. Phu was unlucky man. While his trial was still on going, his lawyer died. Having no more money to hire another lawyer, Phu’s wife asked a Public Defender to be at his side. The trial lasted for 3 years until the girl turned to 7. Phu’s lawyer lost the case. Phu was sentenced to 7 years in prison. People thought that Phu was sentenced because of two main reasons:
- The girl was so young when the incident happened, she could not remember exactly all details of the incident. However, when she turned 7, with the help of her parents and her lawyer, she described the scene so clearly and made the Jury believe that Phu touched her hymen and broke it intentionally.
- Phu’s public defender was not a lawyer who was professional in child molestation case.
To conclude this issue, I would like to say that we, refugees, needed to learn the US Law carefully and try to avoid all unnecessary actions that might take us to jail. With people who work as Nanny or Baby-Sitter, they need to go through a course and have license to sit with babies. If so, they will live happily in this country without any problem.
