Chatroom Romance Risk Number 37
From the Gothamist:
The father of a 14-year-old Connecticut girl filed a missing persons report with police after his daughter left the house Saturday morning and didn't come home that night. The unidentified girl wasn't answering her cellphone, but police were able to track her down using her the phone's signal, finally locating her Sunday afternoon in a room at the Belleclaire Hotel on the Upper West Side. Inside the room, police found condoms, a vibrator, and an 18-year-old Belgian man named Anthony Freson, who swears the girl told him she was 18 when they "met" in a Yahoo chat room in April.
This doesn't mean that an assistant district attorney can't exercise sound discretion in deciding whether this 18 year old is in need of room and board on the Rock. For the time being, Freson is being held in custody in lieu of $2,000 bail. It's not easy to get bailed out when you're a visitor from Belgium. Obviously, the judge was concerned that the defendant not flee back to his homeland and thwart our system.
But what makes this Lolita story special is her father's reaction to his beloved daughter's rendezvous.
Her father, a teacher, tells the Post, "She thinks he's the most wonderful person. She's angry with me right now because I stopped it. I was so worried. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I was calling [her cellphone] every five minutes... I want him to go to jail. She's my only child. She did something stupid."
While any father can appreciate the feelings one has toward a 14 year old daughter, it's impossible not to notice the disconnect between the portion of his statement that his daughter, his only child, did something stupid, so the boy should go to jail. He couldn't eat. He couldn't sleep. His daughter actively caused Freson to believe that was of the age of consent. Therefore, an 18 year old man should go to jail.
Does daddy not wonder what role he played, or might have played, in his li'l darling's assignation? If there's blame to be levied, might it not include a parent's oversight into his child's online encounters, not to mention trips to the Big Apple? I'm not suggesting that it's either easy or normal for a parent to watch his child every second of the day, but is it not similarly normal for teenagers to believe that they're in love and have sexual activity follow? Given the relative opportunity for daddy and our Belgium Lothario to keep a more accurate eye on Lolita's activities, it strikes me that daddy has little cause to point fingers.
And Anthony Freson sits in a jail cell because he can't pay the $2,000 bail. Love stinks.
Scott, your judgement that the father suffers from a "disconnect" is sound, but unsurprisingly, the issues surrounding the father & daughter go far deeper, here. And yes, of course, you are not unaware that you have only fleeting access to insight into their relationship with daddy's quote, mentioning jail time, & his inability to eat pizza pies until two in the morning.
Clearly, their relationship is all but broken, even if one only looks at the pertinent negatives, such as why the girl's mother is never mentioned (notable, considering that we are talking about a child).
It begins to get yet more sticky, when insights into the behavior of 14 girls engaging in risky sex with Eurotrash found while surfing the net. This girl, by definition, has received little, genuine affection from Daddy, & has turned to The Cloud to fulfill this fundamental need.
Of note, the fact that the dad is focused on not only his own emotional state, but his nascent, Maslow hierarchian needs (eating, sleeping, etc.), suggests a severe personality disorder, such as Borderline. A parent doesn't talk about such things in the face of their daughter's having been found after a terrifying absence, as they consider their own feelings as utterly secondary to their child's.
Okay, that's pretty creepy, enough as it is, but to anyone trained in such areas, this whole disaster raises the specter of sexual abuse & control, as well, namely incest.
Gone to far? Did I read in too much? Yes, I have, as I do not possibly have enough information to determine even drop of my concerns.
Except that this drop is more information than I have had with other, similar cases, where the outcomes were yet more disturbing than the one, here.
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Very interesting take. I noticed, too, how the father focused on his feelings. This case isn't about his daughter being victimized; that's for sure. It's about him. And he's going to use the criminal system to vindicate his narcissistic rage. No one - let alone a prosecutor - is going to stop him.
We may as well formally return to Rome's system of private prosecution. A system of public justice would put a stop to "daddy." Instead, this creep is going to ruin yet another teenager's life.
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Kidnapping charges? While he may have believed she was 18 while chatting online, obviously he knew she was younger during their IRL rendezvous.
In any event, the fact he's conceivably facing a life sentence is absurd and disgusting.
And clearly the father's stress regarding his de-virginized daughter is empathetic, it has no logical relationship to the "defendants" legal culpability.
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Given the overdone charges and the fact that the defendant is a visitor from Belgian, it's surprising his bail was set at only $2k. Sounds like the judge is exercising some sound discretion even though the DA isn't. But given the defendant's circumstances, $2k might be, at least temporarily, as hard to come up with as $2 mill.
If the age of consent there is 16 rather than 18, it'd be plausible that the defendant could have believed a 14 year old was 16. But the fact is, at least according to both their stories, she told him she was 18. Even so, it's not obvious he would know when she showed up that she was lying about her age. This should be a defense, although it isn't.
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it's impossible not to notice the disconnect between the portion of his statement that his daughter, his only child, did something stupid, so the boy should go to jail.
He's angry that someone took advantage of his young daughter's stupidity. Looks like one of many possible reactions that fall well within the range of normal.
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So it's true, you are the father?
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Thus, send another teenager to jail - where it's likely he will be gang-raped? When wanting to send a young man into a dungeon to be raped is "well within the range of normal," society is sick.
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When wanting to send a young man into a dungeon to be raped is "well within the range of normal," society is sick.
The father, faced with a crisis of his 14 year-old daughter disappearing under these circumstances, has an emotional response as old as the hills.
Parents protect their young. It's Darwinian.
May you and I never be faced with a reporter sticking a microphone under our noses under such circumstances, asking us how we feel.
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It's not that the father's reaction is wrong. As I said, any father can understand. But his daughter wasn't snatched, raped and beaten, so you need to maintain some perspective. The girl went of her own volition, lied to Freston about her age, and the father not only wants to blame only the boy, but wants the boy to go to jail. That's where this gets crazy. And the worst part is, the father may get his wish.
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The girl went of her own volition
That all depends on what people consider consent for a minor.
...the father not only wants to blame only the boy...
Not accurate. He admits his daughter did something "stupid."
..., but wants the boy to go to jail.
He may not envision jail. He may envision something far worse.
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A responsible parent would have had this response:
1. Thank [entity of choice] you are safe;
2. Your a$$ is grass.
Instead, daddy is focused on:
1. *His* feelings;
2. Ruining another teenager's life.
So, yes, daddy is sick. Plus, do you really think that this was the 14-year-old girl's first time acting out?
"The Last Psychiatrist" had the most brilliant thing I've heard about parenting: "[Parents] secretly read their kid's email and MySpace accounts, but have never once read the kid's math book. (If you do your kid's math homework with them every night, I swear to you that you won't need to worry about MySpace.)"
Daddy's little girl just didn't decide at 14 to entice another teenager into meeting her at a hotel for sex. There are major problems here - and daddy is the most damaged of everyone involved.
At the meta level, that's the most problematic. Daddy is the most damaged piece of goods here. Yet the criminal justice system will let him control the proceedings. No one will put any breaks on his narcissistic rage.
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What? No charges under the Mann Act? Where are the feds when we need them?
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No Mann Act for Belgians or governors. Judges in Buffalo, on the other hand, are fair game.
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This is just spectacularly unfair. What's happening here ? Retaliation because Belgium didn't send troops to bloody Iraq ? No wonder US justice is widely known to be more of a travesty ! Even Burma or Iran justice are fairer than that. I hope the Belgian ambassador in the US is moving Hell upside down.
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The story written above is inaccurate. About 40% is true, what's with the other 60%?
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Per your curious reaction: You comment as Anon that a story is inaccurate. Whether it is or not is up to the Gothamist, as it's their reporting, but regardless, do you see any issue with an anonymous commenter making a bald claim that something is inaccurate?
This is why the internets are always good for a laugh.
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