The purpose of this blog is to document the time that was spent while I was incarcerated in the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC). I have left much of this anonymous to protect the other inmates that I spent time with as well as to protect the staff and corrections officers that were present during my time. I understand that by sharing much of this information, it is possible to identify who I am as well as a number of the individuals mentioned here. Please understand that the views and opinions that are expressed here are strictly my own and not that of anyone else.
The content of this site is written from my perspective as I experienced it, while I was in prison. This journal was written in a notebook which was sent to me by my wife during my first week in El Dorado, KS (RDU). I used a state-provided pencil to write each post which was then transcribed and expanded upon in this format after my release. I at no time had access to the internet to record these posts as I was incarcerated. The dates of the posts do align with the dates when I was recording these entries into my journal from prison.
Below I offer a brief explanation of the time that led up to my arrest, my sentencing and my first entry into my journal.
On an early morning in October of 2022 our house was raided by a special team of detectives and officers from a task force in Overland Park, KS. It was a frightening time for myself and for my family, especially the kids. This was the moment when I knew that the psychological, mental and emotional path that I had traveled down over the past few months had caught up with me. Without going into graphic details, I was found with illegal and illicit content on a smartphone through an app called “Kik.” Needless to say, I had normalized in my mind that the content I had received on my phone was acceptable. I allowed myself to feel that although I found much of the content abhorrent and disturbing, that I would simply not judge what others were sending to me or sharing amongst groups on this horrible app.
I won’t delve too deep into the details, but suffice it to say, I was dealing with a lot in my own head. I was still working part-time from home coming out of the full lockdown from COVID-19. Stress was a major factor at the time. Our kids were finally going back to school in-person after more than a year being remote. My wife was dealing with her own mental-health issues and my employer at the time, was causing me to second guess my value as a human on a regular basis. I felt very alone. I never had a close relationship with friends or family where I felt comfortable sharing my burdens with them, especially when I felt like everyone else had it just as bad or maybe worse than myself. As it turns out, my “fix” for how I was feeling was to seek out connections online. Kik offered a unique area where I could have a casual conversation with complete strangers, while offering anonymity, but it also provided plenty pornographic content which was appealing to me as a dopamine fix. Much like over indulging on food, gambling, drugs or alcohol I was using porn to make myself feel. I was solving for a sense of feeling wanted by others and getting the hit of dopamine to pick up my overall mood.
That day of the raid on our home it was like a switch flipped in my head and “asking for help” with everything going on in my life was suddenly the easiest thing in the world. My wife and I sat in the driveway and I unloaded everything. And I mean, EVERYTHING. Through it all we made the decision that what I needed was support and not shame or ridicule. This is not to say that she was in anyway okay with, or overly understanding of what I had done. We immediately sought a lawyer and a referral for mental health. From this day forward the world as we had known it changed forever.
After securing a good lawyer who had plenty of experience in this very area of practice, we began treatment with a clinical psychologist. Both my wife and I found that we benefited almost immediately from our visits both together in joint sessions and separate. We also looked to make sure our children were able to get any counseling they may need given the harsh nature of the crime I was likely to be charged with. Through therapy, I was able to unpack many of the elements and factors that led to my committing this crime. More than that however, I was able to uncover my long-standing issues with anxiety and how this impacted my daily life and the feelings that I was struggling to communicate with those closest to me. My therapist was and still is a tremendous resource and I was able to adopt some very good methods to calming my anxiety. (I will use these tools often when I am eventually incarcerated)
Fast-forward to August 2023. I had still not been charged with anything. (Seems odd to me that you raid someone’s house and then wait nearly a year to do anything about it, but maybe that’s just the way the “justice system” works??) In that period of time, we very easily could have sold our home, moved halfway around the world, avoided being extradited and made a new life for ourselves. But we didn’t. We stayed. We were, and still are very determined to face the consequences of my actions. The amount of anxiety leading up to this moment is hard to explain, but I literally could not breath sometimes. I used all the tools and resources I could but nothing can prepare you for the feeling of your life being changed forever at any moment. Most days were spent working at my desk near a front window of our home. I would see a patrol car drive by on our street on occasion and it would give me a panic attack. It’s mid-August, I am working out in the backyard one morning, trying to get our stubborn lawnmower to start when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn to see a deputy and his partner standing there. I know exactly why they are there, I’ve gone over it millions of times in my head and here it was, I’m being arrested, finally. Life, as it had always been was now over.
The intake process and jail in Johnson County is less than impressive. But, like most of this blog, and the thoughts I have related to the “system,” it’s my opinion having been through it but I don’t necessarily have any fixes or answers to the problems. But, maybe I do… It took nearly 8 hours from the time I was arrested at our family home to the point when I finally was able to post bond and get out of that hell-hole. My wife had trouble posting the bond with my lawyer because the police-report from nearly a year ago had her inexplicably listed as a domestic violence victim even though there was nothing like that at all in my charges. With the help of our lawyer, she was finally able to get that stricken from the record and was able to post my bond.
Leaving the jail was the easy part. From there I was taken to a bond-release facility in New Century, KS to have an ankle-monitor placed on my left ankle. I was to be on house arrest and restricted to no longer having a smartphone. I was allowed to continue working my job online from home, and allowed to be in the home with my children. Continuing to work online did require a motion from my lawyer and for the judge to agree. There was a question as to whether or not I should be allowed access to the internet while in the home. This was acceptable to the judge given my low-level of risk.
Over the next 4 months I was stuck in our home, working and doing whatever I could to feel normal. There was a tremendous amount of stress leading up to my plea agreement. I was originally facing five level five felonies. My plea options were to have two counts dropped and to seek probation at the time of sentencing, or to have three counts dropped and to serve a total of 24 months in prison. At the time the second option seemed insane. Why would I ever just agree to spend two years in prison instead of seeking probation where I would be able to stay home and continue to earn money to support my family? I would able to more or less move forward with my life, albeit as a sex offender on the registry. I spent the better part of the next couple weeks seeking everyone’s advice, but at every turn, everyone expected that probation was almost a certainty. Even my attorney felt like that was the most likely outcome. Worst case, he felt that I may need to spend a period of 60 days at the “work-release” facility in Johnson County. With that, I entered my guilty plea and the agreement to argue for probation at sentencing was entered.
The day of sentencing, December 12th, 2023 was a day I will never forget. I woke up after hardly sleeping. I had been hosting a weekly breakfast with a couple neighbors who were incredibly supportive and they came over that morning. After, I walked around the house pacing and trying to calm myself down. I ended up doing a bit of work and then sat down to meditate for a bit. We left for the courthouse about 45 minutes early so that we could meet with our attorney as well as our therapist and the clinical psychologist who performed my psych-evaluation. (My attorney recommended having the psych-evaluator speak on my behalf during my sentencing hearing. This along with the more than twelve character letters that I had accepted from friends, family and coworkers was delivered in the courtroom for the district attorney (DA) and the judge to consider.) Sadly, as you can probably guess, and because of the existence of this blog, things did not go our way. Not even a little bit. I felt ambushed. My wife nearly collapsed and thankfully was sitting next to our therapist who was there to hold her and sit with her.
This is where my journal begins.