There are many days where I wish I would just drop dead of a massive heart attack or stroke.

Maybe, I could die in a huge car crash that ends me in a heartbeat.

I am 46 years old and there is no reason for me to feel that way. But, then again, there is enough to make me wish it to happen.

It’s not even about the struggle. Struggle is a part of life and I enjoy challenges.

Sadly, I find myself struggling in ways a 25-year-old man would. I feel that I never got off the ground because of what happened a dozen years ago that sent me tumbling backward and into oblivion.

All that I had earned and worked for through my early 30s was gone in a flash. I was no more.

My past was wiped from me. I held on to nothing and was rejected by my memories.

The people that helped create them would disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.

My life was in jeopardy and I had only a few people left to support me.

That’s what happens when you are accused of a being a sexual predator. It’s even worse when you didn’t do it and yet, everyone thinks you did.

Now, 12 years have passed and I am a free man with no record. I walked away unscathed and rightfully so. It never should have happened, but it did and now the events of late 2004 cast a shadow over me. This shadow forces me to look over my shoulder in fear.

I am not allowed to feel at home anywhere and building relationships are hard. One shoe has already dropped since my innocence was cemented. How many more will follow?

Maybe the shadow can drive a bus and run me over? I may have basically nothing, but I still have enough to keep me going for now.

For now.

Yet, how much can a man with no criminal record take in this country before it’s too much?

That’s what it’s like being accused of a crime in America.

And it’s a damned shame….

That Day

I remember the first thought I had when they booked me:

Everything I have ever done in my life meant to do good for others, now means nothing.

It was around 7 a.m. on a Wednesday morning when three cops came in to the classroom, surrounded me, took my backpack from me, and read me my rights.

While they handcuffed me.

Granted, it wasn’t my classroom. I came to school earlier than usual for a parent-teacher conference before classes were to begin.

I was in my third year teaching at this particular high school and was actually feeling like I might stay longer.

That changed when I was arrested for being an online predator.

I can only be grateful that school was not near starting and only a few people were on campus.

There was still, just one, big, problem:

I had no idea what the Hell they were talking about when they told me I was luring and exploiting under age (18 in my state) girls.

I was taken away, questioned for 2-3 hours, and eventually told I was a criminal.

So, after being stripped down and changed into prison garb, I was to sit and talk to the intake nurse to decide what my mindset was.

Why am I here?

I don’t understand what I did?

Why were the police not willing to listen to me?

Luring a minor? What is that?

Hugging someone is a ‘sex act?’

Then the realization of all I had done as a coach and teacher had become null and void.

All those days trying to make a difference, while trying to appear not to care if I was or not, were gone. They were dead. I was done and all I could think about as I faced a life – and sure death or serious abuse – in prison and my remaining years living in misery, ridicule, and suspicion, was one thing:

What’s going to happen to those kids now that I am being labeled a sexual predator?

It was the first time in my first 34 years of life where I wanted to die because I never should have been arrested.

I had never even been questioned by the cops for any juvenile high jinx. Frank Schneider was known as being a good kid who was gabby if anything. But, cops and me? Never.

Now, almost a dozen years later, I am still unrequited as are many other men like myself.

There are plenty of predatory monsters out there looking to hurt young people, but not all of us that have been accused were guilty.

I was one of the latter.

Yet, in a land that prides itself in giving people second chances, someone needs to explain to me how a man with no criminal record other than one arrest that should never have happened, is still running scared? Why did I lose a job because someone found out I had been arrested and for what I was accused of?

Why am I miserable knowing that in this country the guilty are guilty and the not guilty are also guilty?

It’s time that people listen: Yes, there are men and even some women out there, who have been falsely accused of a sex crime. Women and kids can also do horrible things and have the intent to lie about such acts being perpetuated against them without caring whose lives it ruins.

Did it ruin mine? Yes and no. I am never going to be the same, but maybe I can come out better than ever.

It depends on me and of course, you, America.

So I am here to explain to you. Leave us alone.

Go after the real predators and stop preying on those who fell victim to sick, vindictive people, or bumbling police investigations.

Your inability to get past “sex” is ruining lives.

I am trying not to be one of them.

Here is my story, but while you read this I want you to remember one thing. I did a lot of good things for a lot of people. After that arrest it was all undone. I was maybe the only person some of those kids trusted in. Kids I never harmed in any way and never knew outside the classroom. I believe I did well by them.

I hope it wasn’t undone.

I hope…

The Crime Accused of That Never Occurred

Originally I was charged with attempting to lure a 17-year-old girl online for sex and passing pornography to two 16-year-olds.

The crazy thing was that the former was a legal-aged adult who floated in similar chat rooms and had friendly chats with me and others. The latter consisted of two high school girls who appeared to be passing porn to each other and tried to pass the buck.

Both were very sketchy accusations.

The luring “victim” was legal-aged and hitting on me and other men. We kept it above board and never once met. You knew something was wrong when I was being questioned and the only evidence of “luring” they had was a chat message saying “happy birthday” to her on whatever birthday it was.

Had I chatted with her? Sure, I chat with everyone. Was I chatting with someone who said they were an adult woman and was a legal-aged woman? Absolutely.

Later I found out that the birthday in question was her 18th, a mere 2-3 days before she was engaging with many of us in a chat room under a profile that indicated she was older than she was.

Did it matter? Not really, because nothing happened. I think her and I’s conversations centered around music and a movie or two, while others would chime in.

Basically G-rated stuff.

Not unless wishing someone a happy day of birth is a sex crime.

Of course, compounding the whole thing was that she had a friend that worked at a Barnes and Noble I frequented and would have coffee at while working on a book I hoped to publish.

The book idea? A futuristic thriller involving a serial killer traveling through an advanced Internet travel mode to kill young women. So Miss Barnes and Noble found out her little friend was chatting with people including me, the guy writing about “killing girls he meets on the Internet” and called the police to investigate me.

Yep. She sure did.

Compounding this was that about a year earlier, two high school girls were caught with a naked photo of a man with an erection. No face is shown, but the man was well endowed and showing all his glory.

From what I read, Girl A had the photo then sent it to Girl B. Two girls shared the photo with each other. Then what can be ascertained was Girl B got caught with it by dad, who flipped out, and instead of owning up, they decided to team up and blame someone from an adult chat room.

Unfortunately, they picked me.

Mind you, that in the “evidence” the police asked where the email was that contained the photo. They wanted to know where my email to them was. The response: They didn’t have it, because when they got it, they were so scared they deleted it.

Yep and they used that as a serious piece of “evidence.”

What made it worse?

Girl B’s daddy actually told police that I ran into him and his family at a Teriyaki Bowl restaurant and claimed that in a public place I began standing behind his daughter and stroking her body and legs. Right in front of him and his wife.

This was considered testimony to build a case.

Question: If someone came up to your 16-year-old daughter in public and started groping them right in front of you, would you just stand there and be “gee, go ahead, buddy,” or would you make a scene and kick someone’s behind?

We know the answer to that one.

Of course this particular story came after the arrest. The arrest had never come the previous year because the story was dubious to be kind. However, when Miss “legal-aged minor” was pulled into it by Miss Barnes and Noble they now had enough to investigate me.

Of course when the young woman was first questioned she even told police I had done nothing wrong or unbecoming. Then about a month later, following some oddities that occurred in my work place, she contacted police and her story changed.

I guess the investigating officer being best friends with my antagonist at my place of work didn’t have anything to do with it.

Or that my antagonist finding out that I was going to go to the union and the media to report him for some serious transgressions three days earlier had nothing to do with her calling the police.

Maybe the police went to her?

Either way, the case was flimsy and that’s why the police told me during my questioning that I was now, a pedophile. They told me I “used my writing” as a ruse to pick up young girls.

Never mind that I had written for a number of newspapers as early as my own, high school years, into college, and early adulthood. Who cared that I began writing again for the local newspaper on the side and received a number of plaudits.

Nah, I was a fraud.

So they asked me if I had ever had sex with a minor, and I told them, only when I was a minor basically and nope, not that I was aware of.

Then came the doozy.

I was asked if I had ever hugged a minor because hugging was a sex act.

Well, gee, I had hugged maybe a few of my former basketball players I coached, but that was about it.

So, now I was floored.

Was I a pedophile? Had I committed a crime?

I said yes. I had indeed hugged someone.

That answer without a lawyer present, despite my asking about how I could get one, would make the next 27 months of my life a living Hell as a I fought for my name.

Little did I know how little a fight it ended up becoming because there was nothing to fight in the first place.

But a grand jury found this “evidence” good enough to send me through the most unwanted thing a man could survive.

It is today’s scarlet letter.

They planted one on me for “hugging” and deleted photos while saying “happy birthday” to an adult woman.

Doubt any of this? It is all there in Public Records. I am sure anyone could see the “evidence” and laugh.

I spoke to about 10 attorneys from other places on the map and asked them about this case and how far it would have gone within their jurisdictions.

One said they believed I would have been questioned at worse and the rest said the case would have never seen the light of day.

It did and my life has been dark ever since.

What a Waste

Status hearings.

That’s what my life was for 27 months: status hearings.

For those who don’t know what a status hearing is, it is basically a 5-minute meeting at court every month or two and you get an update on what’s going on. It does not include any types of questioning, discovery, or anything of an intensive nature.

For 27 months I made the trip to court to be told that the prosecution was essentially buying time.

They were also hoping she would become the slam-dunk.

She was the girl they found that told police I had had sex with seven different times at various locations.

We had sex at her house, in her backyard, and a small hotel with the same personnel.

Yet, no one could recall ever seeing me, my car, anything.

No one.

One time? Sure that could explain the lack of any corroborating evidence. Seven times? Are you serious? Nothing seems quite questionable.

They even submitted a hotel, registration card that had an “odd name” and figured it had to be me using an alias.

Crazy how I looked up the person whose name was on that card and found out that one did, in fact, live in Tucson. I called it, they answered, and I hung up.

The person existed, but the card was evidence against me.

Seriously.

But she refused to testify. She became the prosecution’s problem. So what did they do?

Some of us on our team believed that the police may have coerced her into making the stories up. She apparently was a nice young gal – 17 at the time and said she was having this “affair” the previous year – that had a sexual past including abuse. She would have been a perfect target according to the “experts.”

However, you can’t target anyone you didn’t know.

They continued to encourage the public to “come forward” with anything that could help them in their investigation against me.

So what happened?

Everyone and their mother was now being sexually hit up by me. Even the homely girl who worked at the local gym walked in and told police I wanted to have sex with her.

Some do-gooder told them how he was sure he saw me being romantic outside of a coffee shop with a “young girl.” Funny thing? That night in question I was on a date with a woman two years younger than me.

I was despondent. It went from doing nothing to now I was on the level of an eventual Jerry Sandusky. My lawyer said that it was actually going to help us and I didn’t understand why.

Then later I realized how so: Thou protests too much.

They were so concerned with making sure they didn’t botch up the original arrest that they had to get something on me. The problem was that all their some things added up to nothing.

Why? Because there was nothing to get and for two years my life was ruined while I attended status hearings.

Status hearings.

See, the authorities will pound you with stuff like this hoping that the accused buckles and takes a plea. They get a “win” and the police and district attorneys can pump themselves up.
Little did they know that I am a fighter and was lucky enough to have the right people backing me.

Also, the blessing came when the original prosecutor up and quit his job for some other vocation. We ended up with a guy with a tremendous record of wins and he was considered a much “tougher” prosecutor than the first one.

But, he was also very by the book.

The day came about nine months in when the plea deal was offered and I told my lawyer, who encouraged me not to take it, to tell them to go “fuck themselves.”

At first I wouldn’t realize that at that moment I had hit rock bottom. I was being offered a plea. Only real criminals get offered pleas. I hadn’t done anything and now this?

Little did I know that that proclamation of wanting to fight, had turned the tide immediately in our favor.

They had nothing, they knew it, and now that they understood I was willing to go all the way, they still had nothing.

The school personnel who had their own axe to grind against me were now nowhere to be seen or heard from.

Their cute little stories that they shared of me walking into the “girls’ locker room” to make me look like a pervert? They never owned it when it mattered, because, gee, they left the part out that I had just got done coaching a girls’ basketball game and was clearing out the gym as everyone had left.

Yeah…that is the kind of people I worked for. Oh, that, and “he attends girls’ volleyball games without anyone inviting him.”

Better go round up the thousands of teachers who do the same to support their athletes, huh?

Of course they also left out that the same administration rehired the girls’ golf coach into the same position despite having been accused of having sexual relations with two girls at the school. The investigation was done in-house and they let him off Scott free.

I guess being buddies with the principal and Athletic Director had a lot to do with that?

Then said golf coach bolted months later having taken off with one of the girls he was suspected of having sex with. They were now in a relationship only a few months after she graduated.

But I got arrested for saying, ‘Happy Birthday.’

All those people who thought just talking to police was enough learned that they had to take their shit to trial.

I was ready to fight and they weren’t.

The new prosecutor let the time dwindle and hung on with the hope that someone would stick to their tale. No one did.

I am not some intimidating, bully. I am not someone who resorts to violence and have never even been thought of in that way by police or pedestrian.

I did not scare these people, the truth did.

To wit? I had coached 10 girls’ basketball teams and three girls’ tennis teams over 10 years and never did my name come up in any allegations of impropriety. No rumor. No innuendo. Nothing.

So, I don’t make moves on the girls right next to me, but I was hitting on random youths who deleted the email.

Before this had all happened I had been a fond supporter of our local law enforcement. I thought they were there to protect everyone.

So why did they conveniently leave out the entirety of a chat room conversation where I told some people I was working on a book, told them what it was about and asked for some input? Why did they take a conversation with one of the porn-passing girls and cut out the entire first half where I was asking people “If a guy was asking someone these types of questions, what would be some typical responses?” I asked because I was still relatively new to chatting and the like. I took copious notes (that had long been deleted once the book was done) and used them in my book.

Heck one excerpt from the book was almost word-for-word taken from one of the chat conversations:

“I am older, do you like older guys?”
“Sure.”
“Would you ever want to meet one?”

The problem here? That the entirety of the initial conversation included, very specifically discussing the book and the different scenarios I was placing the killer in. That exchange was one of a few dozen I shared with people, in a chat room, I assumed were adults. A few of which included the porn-passer girls.

So, why was all that left out? Why didn’t the cops bring that up? Why would they conceal the whole story?

I later found out why and it changed my perception of today’s police force.

Yet, when they were presented with some of this, the case just disappeared.

About 18 months later it ended and when it did, I was more depressed than I had ever been.

I lost every friend I ever had, but one – my first girlfriend from high school – had been listed a pariah in the public and lost everything I had.

I had lost my past. I had lost all that I had done to make a difference in a puff of lies and bullshit.

All because I wanted to make a difference.

I had lost 27 months of my life to status hearings.

When you go through something like that and it results in it just ending without any closure, it is a very empty feeling.

I have had all this happen to me to go through status hearings?

The local newspapers never wrote a story of all my charges being dropped. They spent all their times obsessing over the negative details that even in one story at one status hearing, I had had two charges dropped and the story spent the first 15 paragraphs rehashing all the accusations to feed the flames.

The last sentence was an “Oh by the way…these charges were dropped.”

Then when it officially ended they offered nothing.

So my life had been ruined and I didn’t get a chance to either fight in a trial where I could have my side. As for the media, who had the nerve to spread the word about my undoing, they didn’t have the decency or professionalism to close the book. Even today people could snoop me and only find the two or three remaining articles out there that talk about the arrest.

But they’ll never find the dismissals unless they know to look or know where to find it.

I even called the local paper in question and asked them to at least provide a clarification in the stories that remained online. Provide an update. Knowing the profession as well as I do, I know for a fact this can be done.

They chose not to.

For a dozen years I have no doubt there are hundreds of people back in my state who still believe I did it or think I ended up in prison.

On the contrary, I still do not have a criminal record at the age of 46. Never had one before or since.

Yet, to many I am a pedophile when in reality I am a man that never got a fair shake.

So in 2007, when it was all over, I wanted to die.

Free isn’t Free

What do you do with your life when you’ve lost it for what amounts to no reason?

Well I couldn’t teach anymore. I had been a decent basketball and tennis coach. I couldn’t do that anymore. Fundamentally and legally I could, but the PC nature of the corrupt educational system would not allow me back in, that I was sure of.

And, damn, I was a pretty solid teacher too.

I decided to go back to what I was born to do: I wrote again.

After 12 years out of the journalism business I picked up and rebooted an old career.

When I left my state to begin a new chapter, I left my past behind. I had no connections to who I once was. I couldn’t call old friends and laugh about our own partying days.

I couldn’t even go visit old schools I worked at. Heck, at one where I enjoyed maybe my greatest teaching and coaching success, I was accosted by a father of one of my favorite students at that school. He threatened to beat me up because “that’s what I do to pedophiles.”

He killed himself six years later.

So with only my mother and grandparents behind me I left for a new beginning.

I was miserable, alone, and scared of what would happen to me.

I wouldn’t say I was suicidal because that would give to much gratification to my detractors and the traitors in my life.

But if I had died, I would have been OK with it.

I was dying of a broken heart.

In 2000, I had raised a baby that I was told was mine. I raised him from birth for the first five months. When I found out the lie and that he wasn’t mine, he and the mother were sent away. I loved him more than anything to this day and the moment destroyed me.

Because of this I poured myself into my teaching and coaching.

I was a devastated man who loved my child more than life itself and gave it my all only…

To lose him.

I would not allow any kid I was responsible for to fail.

I would be the teacher they needed: tough, demanding, empathetic, yet aloof. I wasn’t their friend. I wasn’t their buddy. I didn’t care about being cool.

All that mattered was to do right by them and not let them down.

It was my way of giving something to someone I had lost.

Then I eventually lost both coaching and teaching because I had been falsely accused of being a pedophile.

The reasons why it happened I won’t even get into. I worked for some really bad folks in that school district and I have my ideas on what led to the arrest. But that doesn’t even matter now.

I have alluded to some of it, but trust me, there is a lot more there.

My heart was broken because all I had done was give an actual shit for the welfare of so many and so many had turned their back on me.

Friends I gave myself for were nowhere to be found, undeserving of the friendship I had provided them in our youth.

The kids I taught probably thought I was only doing what I did to score a young girl.

Not true.

I worked like I did because I cared.

Now, all alone in 2008, I was dying as a free man.

Because there was nothing to live for.

Well, then came a cat that got buried alive.

Staying Alive By a Thread

A few years ago my mother confessed that when I left she truly believed she would never see me again. She believed I would either kill myself or die from the toll the stress had taken on me.

Then one day, while living in the Northwest, I made a little friend.

A little black cat my neighbor had found as a stray kitten.

He loved her so much that when he moved he decided that the best way to take care of her was by burying her alive in a hole under the house he was vacating.

Five days after he left, me and my neighbor, who had heard this incessant meowing, realized who it was coming from, and discovered her buried alive in a hole that was stuffed shut so she couldn’t get out.

Five days.

Well, she wasn’t pleased when she came out, but eventually as winter closed in and she would only sit on the porch of her former home, I tried to entice her to come to my place. I wanted to help her stay warm and feed her while helping her find a home.

She was the most lovely, playful, little thing and now she had become this bitter, angry, kitten.

I could relate.

Eventually, she found her way into my apartment for some brief visits before finally adopting me.

I didn’t think it would be more than temporary, but it sure did.

Almost eight years later, we are still a team.

What I didn’t realize then until I was faced with more bullshit that arose from my arrest, was that a part of me wanted to keep her in order to stay alive.

As she gravitated toward me and became this loving, overly dependent, deeply loyal cat, I realized that if I hadn’t found her and had someone to depend on me, I would be dead by now.

Her need for me created a need to take care of her and to give myself something to hold on to.

I had lost my whole past, most of my family, and my ability to form relationships became a tough sell, even to people who would never know my past.

Who knew when it would come calling and then I would lose it all again.

I have told some people since I started over and those people haven’t turned their backs on me.

The irony is they met me after my arrest and trusted me. The people who knew me forever and knew damn sure I wouldn’t be some criminal are the ones who turned away.

Fancy that?

So with my cat, I had a purpose to live. Even though my life is still full of sadness from all that I have lost and the fear that I could face my past again, I have something to look forward to every day. That’s something.

It’s not that I lack social skills or that I am an unattractive person.

But it’s so hard to attach to anybody when you realize that the only skeleton in your closet is akin to a Halloween costume: something that is make believe and never really existed.

What America doesn’t realize is that I am not alone. There are men who have lost families, gone homeless, and had many of the same indignities thrown their way for being innocent.

Four years after leaving my state I was resigned because an employer discovered a news article about my arrest and other information that hadn’t been shared in the interview process. Never mind that they had my social security number and all the information you need to background check someone.

The story they gave about how they found out was complete bullshit. It was an internal job and I know it. Some disgruntled co-worker background checked me and viola. Even today I could easily be discovered for my half-past.

Considering that only a few stories still exist online about my days as an accused criminal while none have ever been written about my innocence.

For anyone who would read this and still feel dubious, let me explain something to you.

It’s not like I was charged with one crime. I was pinned with seven charges involving four potential victims. I am not rich and remain a struggling man. I had a good lawyer who was also a very spiritual and pious man, and the truth on my side.

The fact is that it’s a lot easier to “get away with something” when you face one or two charges.

But seven and four alleged victims? Very rarely would anyone guilty come out of that unscathed.

I walked away from 27 months, four alleged victims, seven charges, after a long battle of….

Status hearings.

I suffer from PTSD and I am sure some forms of depression.

I am driven to stay alive to be here for my cat and to prove my detractors and enemies wrong. I want to be as successful as possible for myself so I don’t have to suffer, but also to piss off all the miserable people who rejoiced or ran from my struggles.

The only reasons now why I remain alive is a cat and retribution.

Do I want to die some days? Yes. Not as much for what happened, but more so for the unnecessary struggles it has wrought.

I lost everything and that include a past that had a lot of successes I cannot share.
All I have is myself and that may be all I have from here on out.

But if I could make any difference when it comes to things such as this, I would like this country to wake up….

The Ugly Truth

I do have some culpability here and I would be absolutely insane not to take my share of responsibility. You don’t get arrested and have your life ruined without your part to play in it.

My crime? Was ignorance. Plain and simple.

I didn’t realize that people were “catfish” back then. I didn’t realize that people could so easily pretend to be someone else.

Sure, I knew that sex with illegal-aged people was a crime, but that was not my intent when I went online. I read about sports, music, movies, and politics. Yes, I discovered a world where people chatted and had fun. I even met women I would ultimately have some type of relationship with.

There is no harm in that, but I just didn’t realize how easy it was to talk to the wrong person.

Today, I am so glad that we have ways to better document and save our conversations and posts.

I own everything I say and leave it in full display. I may post or write “controversial” things, but I do not act inappropriately. Even when younger people have engaged me in some form I make sure it is always above board and only in place for public consumption – i.e. Twitter or Facebook groups.

I am not afraid to admit that my circumstances made me uber-cautious without sacrificing the person I am and try to be.

Yes, there are pedophiles out there ready to hurt your children. I am fully aware of that and believe once arrested they should never leave a prison. Do I believe a college kid with a high school girlfriend should be labeled a monster? No, but that is a whole other topic.

But there are also many, many of us who have fallen victim to false accusations brought on by people who know that the law and society will make excuses for these heinous acts of malice.

These types of crimes are increasing. Ask any defense attorney. The numbers the law tells you reflect a slight bump upwards.

Don’t buy it. The last thing this country needs is the true numbers coming out only to cast even more doubt on the true victims and there are plenty who deserve our trust and support.

These vile people who have the nerve to victimize themselves in the name of vengeance are just as foul as a sexual predator. Both require a victim and only the latter’s prey receives pity.

The other?

Is me.

Lying about someone raping or molesting you is not only a first degree act, but it borders on sociopathic behavior.

I for one can’t understand how a society can rush to defend such people at first and excuse them later even if the proof lies with the accused.

We need to do something to even the scales. This society can’t be allowed to continue to persecute people who never even faced prosecution. Most, like me, never even see a trial.

The guilty never want to let it go that far. A plea is their best bet.

For the innocent? The fight is all we have.

But when will we hold anyone accountable for the lies of such crimes? How can it be allowed to be so easy to destroy a life?

All the evidence was right there. Why arrest someone and put their lives through a ringer if you aren’t willing to do your due diligence as a law enforcement official?

Arrest the pedophiles and sex offenders, but also cuff those who use these crimes to create a false narrative to destroy innocent men as well.

Those you hear so much about when they first get arrested and then see them fade into nothing?

Most of the time, they were exonerated but the local media and legal system don’t think that to be sexy news or worthy of the public finding out someone screwed up.

So while we are deserving of an apology or at the least, our true freedom, America continues to condemn the guilty and the accused alike.

It’s not fair to us and it’s not fair to you because I would never pray that want happened to me ever befell anyone else.

Because some of you may not be lucky enough to find a cat buried alive…
And end up dead yourselves…

Sometimes I feel like I am being buried alive, but then I remind myself that there is still one fight left to win:

The battle for my final name….

I want to stamp this life a success in the face of true adversity. I also want to do right by my attorney, the judge and the prosecutor to show them they all fought for and freed a man worth letting back into this world.

I offer more now than I would have in a prison or as a registered sex offender. Still, some days, I feel as those who know label me as one.

I did it right and have always done it right.

Now let me live in peace, please?

—

Currently, Mr. Schneider still finds time to write and survive in the Midwest. He hasn’t taught again and helped out once with a basketball team for a few weeks. But his life is currently about working and living a quiet, secluded life, away from the world outside of work. He no longer enters any type of chat rooms and only has online discussions that can be 100 percent documented and saved. What he didn’t know then, he sure knows now, and works hard to protect himself and others by making sure everything he says is there for anyone to see. He had no secrets then so why start now? He and his cat live a quiet life, full of reading and movies. He survives but hopes to one day start living again. He hopes this can help some people to realize how the effects of sexual crimes can destroy the lives of so many, including the victims of the crimes and those who never committed them…