The boy I know

While our ‘hail mary’ is still in play – in the end zone and trying to get that second toe down – for those sports fans among you all…. it is not a guarantee for release.

Hopeful, but not a guarantee. Yes, Michelle, I am praying.

So it is now my time to write the judge. Many of you have sent in your character reference letters, thank you.  They are all extremely appreciated. If you haven’t yet turned it in but wanted to please get it to me this week.

Here we go….

August 14, 2018

Judge Gregory Gonzales

Clark County circuit

 

Your Honor,

My name is Kathleen Hambrick. We live at 1195 Hood St NE, Salem, OR 97301. Jace Hambrick is my son.

My son, as an only child for many years until I adopted brothers from Colombia, was sucked into our youth’s culture, a fantasy world of video games.  At a young age he learned his shapes and colors, through the talking animal characters on the computer screen. Later he took a strong interest in video games, and then online group computer games. If you were to ask him he would tell you he would like to design them for a living, and in fact has already taken classes and designed a number of components toward that goal.

My son is very immature. Always has been. So when my son saw the ad for “gamer gurl” he thought he had died and gone to heaven.  Not because she laughingly professed twice to being ’13’, but because he saw the picture of the pretty 20 something police officer who alleged she loved playing video games! He kept talking to MAKE SURE she was not 13, not BECAUSE she said she was 13. After two hours of receiving chats with mixed metaphors, perfect grammer on some lines and inconsistent slang on others, and her use of explicit directions right after proclaiming ‘she couldn’t drive’, he knew she was not a child. He didn’t know she was a man.

You said you do not believe a word my son said on the stand.  Yet you were able to believe that Officer Givens checked the craigslist ‘terms of use’ and age requirement of ’18 and over’ box hundreds of times in this sting alone,  without once noticing them?

You believed the Cop when he said ‘casual encounters’ is used to meet someone for ‘coffee’, or a ‘walk’?

You condemned my son for his confusion as to why a ’13 year old’ sent a picture of a woman in her 20’s, but didn’t question why the officer posted on an adults only webpage – which is blatantly in violation of the US Attorney Generals sting requirements?

You implied my son was lying, while listening to a sworn police officer, Robert Givens, perjure himself?

And still, here we are at sentencing, after you have been made aware, by an excerpt from ICAC’s own training manual, that a proactive sting in an adult webpage, without the express permission of that web site, constitutes computer fraud through the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

Yes, my son is naive. He was confused by the mixed signals of adult and ‘pretend child’ conversation. Yet I ask you, where does he say he is looking for a child? Where does it say he wants a child? Where does it say he would accept a child for sex? It’s not there. Nowhere in the entire two hours conversation does Jace make a comment about wanting to have sex with a child. Nowhere does he say ‘I believe you are 13’. Yet you have no doubt of his guilt?

I was told you are a reasonable, lenient judge. But I have not seen this. Perhaps you disapprove of sex outside of marriage? Or find our next generation’s bluntness ‘crass’? Or maybe you’ve just seen too many children hurt and try to err on the side of safety? Whatever it is that makes you so adamant that my son is lying, and that he deserves to be imprisoned with hardened criminals,  I cannot fathom. It is beyond my comprehension.

I am not supposed to say these things. I am not supposed to upset or anger you before you sentence my son. That’s how you ‘play the game’ at these hearings. But I am not playing. My son does not deserve to go to prison. I have, and will continue, to fight these police ICAC proactive stings which circumvent laws and steal taxpayer money, by manipulating a natural social bias of child abuse.

Please sir, fill your jails with murderers, rapists, drug dealers, embezzlers, and repeat offenders. My son is none of these. Let my son go.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Hambrick