My Story
By
Joshua Lee Curtis
In November 2002, I broke the law. I was 18 and I slept with a 13 year old girl I had been seeing. I met her through friends who were older than I was. She herself claimed to be 16 and I had no reason not to believe her. I had no idea that what I was doing would turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life. I was charged and convicted of carnal knowledge of a child between 13 and 15 years of age and served three years in prison. Carnal knowledge means I had consensual sex with a minor below the age of consent.
This act has turned out to be the prologue of my downfall and the beginning of a life sentence for a juvenile and immature mistake that happens continuously everyday between many, many young people. Since then, I have been stripped of my dignity, self-respect, pride, and my freedom. Since my release in 2005, I have walked with the shame and unprecedented embarrassment of the ever looming title of sex offender.
After prison, I fell in love and settled down with my future wife. January 29, 2006, we moved in together, two months after I came home. We rented a house in Colonial Heights which is the city of my original conviction. We were there for only two months. That is when detectives accused me of indecent exposure. I was pulled over, threatened with charges and my vehicle towed for no reason seeing as how I was not arrested. I had to walk home. Apparently, the title sex offender makes me an automatic creep that masturbates in front of children. All because of a mistake I made at age 18.
Putting the cart before the horse, I will tell you that the courts eventually admitted that it was not me and nol processed all the charges. But there is more sto ry before we get there, so please, keeping reading. Naturally, the accusations freaked me out and I felt as though I was being setup. The detective gave me a date the supposed offense had taken place. I was told the suspect drove by a school bus stop early in the morning and exposed himself. When I checked the date at home, it was a Saturday.
I decided right then I was not going back to prison for something I did not do. That decision was also a bad one and I played right into their game. Together, my wife and I ran. The next 27 months were filled with ups and downs for us and we learned the extent of our predicament. It wasn’t easy but we stayed right here in Virginia. I kept jobs and also worked for myself when I could and we always lived in a decent area.
On January 2, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. 6 pounds and 3 ounces melted my heart and changed my entire world as I held my baby girl for the first time. My tears that day were of joy and indescribable happiness but also fear and anxiety for I had just taken responsibility for a precious life…and I was a probation fugitive. Our life returned to the normal trials and tribulations of overly excited new parents with the added stress of an outlaw life that neither of us wanted.
A year passed and Baby Girl turned one. Our life was fairly normal and we were comfortable, still very much in love, and still ecstatic over our little princess. Work came and went for me but the bills got paid. My wife decided to go to nursing school and started in March of 2008. Things were going to get better after that with the extra income. Three months of straight A’s later, my newly discovered genius of a wife took Baby Girl to Wisconsin to visit her other grandparents for the first time. I dropped them off at the airport on June 10th, 2008. This is where I screwed up again. Not a major screw up, but big enough to destroy everything we had built together including our own relationship.
I got drunk with some rowdy friends and we raided an old abandoned farmhouse. When the heat came down, I took the full force of the blame. Not good for someone on the run. When my wife returned on her birthday which was also Father’s Day, she came home to an empty house to await phone calls from jail. With a single dumb move, I destroyed everything and deserted my two most favorite people in the world. But this would be my chance to clear the air, fix my life, and return to society as a legal man and give my family the life they deserved.
I had to serve 4 months for destruction of property, failure to register as a sex offender, driving on a suspended license, and a misdemeanor pot charge because I had a half quarter on me when I got busted. In December, 2008, I received a year for a show cause violation of probation. Because they were fake, the indecent exposure charges were Nol-prossed. Unfortunately, my wife left me by Valentine’s Day for another man and I thought life could not get any worse than that. Man, was I wrong.
My release date was set for September 23rd, 2009. On July 22nd, I was moved from Riverside Regional Jail to Sussex 1 State Prison, a level 5 penitentiary and the worst in Virginia. I was told there that I had been identified for Civil Commitment under Virginia’s Sexually Violent Predators Act. I was told that after being evaluated by a clinical psychologist designated by the Attorney General that I may be pursued as an “SVP” (sexually violent predator) and have to return to court and face a second judgment from the courts as to whether or not I should be “Indefinitely Committed” to a mental hospital because of my “uncontrollable sexual behavior”.
I am currently being held at Piedmont Regional Jail. Today’s date is November 2, 2009. Going on a month and a half, I have been held past my release date because I am being pursued by the Attorney General as a Sexually Violent Predator for having consensual sex with a minor when I was 18. Although I pled guilty to carnal knowledge in 2003 as a nonviolent offense and was released in 2005, the law was changed in 2006 making carnal knowledge (consensual sex) a violent offense. Now anyone convicted of carnal knowledge [statute states…without the use of force…] can be pursued as violent predators and involuntarily committed for an indefinite period in a mental hospital.
It costs $131,000 a year to house “the worst of the worst” sex offenders at this hospital. In the midst of Virginia’s economic crisis, they are fighting to fill the hospital and justify its existence at the cost of lives that have not only completed their determined prison sentence and are waiting past release dates like myself but also people that shouldn’t be classified as violent predators much less the worst of the worst.
I have made my share of mistakes and paid for them dearly. I am now 25 years old and still paying for a juvenile mistake that could happen to anyone. The firsthand account you have just read is 100% accurate. I understand the need for such a process and its intent on society. But despite the mistakes I have made I have not committed any crime that constitutes that I should be held beyond my release date and punished further. I have not done anything even remotely violent much less in a predatorial fashion, in fact it was not even considered violent when I pled guilty and for a good reason. “Violent” and “predator” do not fit in with an isolated consensual event.
So, I ask you now, the public…the very society being protected” from me…do you fear me? Have you ever made a mistake? When I am redeemed and allowed to return to society and move on with my life? My daughter adores her father and is suffering as much as I am. It is my understanding that good parents are in demand and I would like my chance.
My name is Joshua Curtis. I am 25 years old and a sex offender facing indefinite commitment and you now know the facts. The sad fact is that no one cares and I have no voice to speak for me. Why must I be sacrificed to further a political career? It’s not fair but yet it is happening even though the Supreme Court has ruled that detaining inmates past their release dates is unconstitutional. Some people may deserve this but not all, so where will this stop? And how many lives will be destroyed in the meantime?
Joshua L. Curtis
Nov. 2, 2009
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