The One Where Chandler Is Wrongly Accused…
The real story that inspired the fanfic.
By: Jana~
*****
--One week before Halloween, 2001, my husband, Richard was fired from his job at Vons (a division of Safeway), where he worked as a truck driver for almost seven years. Why?
When my mom died, in March of that year, I didn't just lose my mom and my best friend, I lost my caretaker, and my husband took time off to fill that role. I am disabled, since 1995, when a car jumped the curb and struck me head on, while going 45MPH.
Taking time off to care for a spouse is technically covered under the Family Medical Leave Act, but his immediate supervisor was fired, and replaced with a man who, for whatever reason, disliked my husband. He claimed there was no paperwork or information on file about me being disabled, or needing a caretaker, and retro activated every absence my husband had since the beginning of the year, called it excessive, and fired him.
He was a member of the union, and paid his union dues faithfully every quarter… did they fight for him and get him his job back? No, they did not.
We were set to contact a lawyer and fight this unfair firing, when three days after he was fired, there was a knock at the door.
At least five uniformed officers and three plain-clothed agents stood at my door, accusing my husband of the most horrific of crimes… a crime against children. They said, back in 1999, that he downloaded 65 specific images, and that they needed to enter my home, they needed to look at every computer in our home, and that they had 'an intent to investigate'. For all I knew, this meant I had no choice but to let them in and show them what they wanted to see.
They took my children aside, asked them if they had ever been touched inappropriately, by my husband or anyone. Had they seen pornography, on the computer or anywhere in the house? When my then 12 year old daughter made a casual comment about Chandler from 'Friends' having porn on his computer, they freaked out and started asking who Chandler was, scaring my daughter.
She clarified that it was a fictional character, and they calmed down some, but the questions continued, and were relentless.
They showed me images that I did not want to see, asking me if I ever saw any of those images on our computer. They forced a paper under my nose, while showing me these pictures, and told me to sign it. That later came back to bite me in the ass. They hooked up forensics equipment to every computer we own, searching for anything they could use against Richard.
After finding nothing, they then informed us that they needed to take our computer, to search it with better, more advanced equipment. When my husband refused, they said they would be back with a court order to remove it, and if they had to do that, and didn't have Richard's cooperation, they would also cart him off to jail. I freaked. Our kids freaked. We caved.
They took three computers total, the one we owned in 1999, when the crime supposedly happened, my mom's computer that was in the garage, and our new computer, that we bought three months after the alleged crime. In January 2002, they returned two of our computers, and a bunch of burned CDs and floppy discs that they did not have permission to take. Which computer did they keep? The one that had supposedly been used to commit the alleged crime back in 1999? Nope! The new one. They never found those 65 specific images that started the investigation.
They held me and my then two year old son prisoner in a small room, the only way to leave was through a door that had one of those key-push locks on it. The ones where you have to punch in a number combination or the door won't open. I had no supplies with me to change his diaper, or feed him, since we weren't expecting to be there for four hours.
The scene in this fanfic about Chandler's interrogation… "They showed me picture after picture after picture after picture. Does she look under 18? Does she? Does she? Does she look like she might be? Do you think anyone might think she is under 18? Over and over."
This actually happened, almost verbatim.
They were trying to get Richard to 'confess', and say he did what they were accusing him of. They called him a pedophile. They threatened to bring in our children, and subject them to the same line of questions, and their friends. They threatened to bring me in, trying to guilt him by saying, 'in her condition, being disabled, wouldn't you want to protect her from that?'
He signed the paper, taking full responsibility for the contents of the computer, to save his family from the agents' mistreatment. They also coerced him into signing a paper, saying they had read him his rights, even though they didn't until almost the end of the questioning.
When we were finally allowed to leave, I went home and immediately called the public defender's office. I explained everything, and asked his opinion on what we could and/or should do. He said we couldn't do anything until he was officially charged, and that if the feds didn't want to push the case forward, the state still could.
The feds ended up dumping the case, but the state picked it up. It was dropped to a misdemeanor charge of knowing possession of images containing persons known to be under the age of 18.
We went through three public defenders before we ended up with Scott, a computer expert and dang fine attorney. After fighting for a little over a year to get the supposed evidence from the DA, Scott was finally able to tell us that what it all came down to was three questionable images, located in the web archive. They had been supposedly viewed online, but they were not downloaded onto the actual computer.
They were of naked females, that looked like adults who were not very well-endowed, standing in a simple pose. Basically, the DA had no case. The images didn't look to be children, they weren't on the computer, but rather, in the web archive (which shows he wasn't trying to knowingly possess the images), and even the agents and officers in the case refused to testify, claiming they had too little knowledge of events and evidence to be a credible witness.
The motion talked about in this story actually happened. The judge said that while he believed us to be telling the truth, and sympathized with our situation, because I signed that dang paper that was shoved under my nose while I was being shown disturbing images, and being told that I had to sign it, the evidence was still admissible.
It was seven months after the motion, of 'be back in four weeks', before the official plea was offered, bringing the total to one year and ten months from the day the feds knocked on our door, a year and a half from when the charges were officially filed.
My husband was unemployed the entire time, because when he would apply for a job, the pending charges would show up in the background check and no one would hire him. He went into a depression, that he is still struggling to come out of, and it made him bitter about life. My children are distrustful of police and government officials. I came close to having a nervous breakdown twice, which lent to why I stopped writing for a time.
We learned that the agent in charge of all this, the one who bullied me and my family at our home, held my husband, son, and I prisoner during my husband's interrogation; the one that lied to us repeatedly about everything, from when we would get our computer back, to what our rights were, is at the hospital now, ill and dying.
We still don't have our computer back. They only need to keep the hard drive, returning the rest to us, but so far, they haven't. My husband is finally working again, though the money isn't quite as good as what he was getting at Vons. Still, it's enough to live on, and what with the strikes going on right now, it's probably better that he isn't employed by a union company anymore.
After a little more than two years, we're finally getting back on track.
Moral of the story? When Federal agents show up at your door, and they don't have a search warrant, simply reply with, "We don't want any of your crazy here!" and shut the door.
Thanks for reading, and MTLBYAKY