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What Doug accomplished in the end, there are literally no words that I can attach to it other than to say that I owe my life to him because he literally saved my life.
By the time I was 10 years old, I had been raped by over 50 different men. My father and uncle were the main perpetrators, as well as their friends, acquaintances, and others. In addition to that, my father would routinely abuse me, and my brother, and my sister at the same time. There were several times where me, and my brother, and my sister would play doctor with each other outside of this. A school counselor notified the police and I was taken into the police station when I was 11 years old, placed in a group home during this time where I was repeatedly raped and assaulted by the gentleman who ran the group home. At the time, nobody actually believed me. I was a result of incest and the escape from everything else.
I was incarcerated until I was 18. When I got out of jail, no one bothered telling me that I had to register as a sex offender. No one even bothered telling me that I could have petitioned the court to de-register as a sex offender because I was 11 at the time of the offense. I was extremely depressed, not in a good place.
One night, I ended up getting pulled over and I got arrested for failure to register as a sex offender. This was a complete surprise to me. I didn’t even know I had to do any of this. At the time, I was like 20, 21. I ended up pleading to a felony under the stipulation that … The public defender that I had at the time, I told him I was like I don’t want to spend one more day in jail. I was already sentenced to 90 days of work release and then five years of ISP, and then I escape and become a fugitive for 13 years. I strongly considered taking my life many, many times because there was no way I was going to go through what I had gone through again.
While I was a fugitive, they decided to charge me with another failure to register charge. They decided to charge me with criminal impersonation and attempted influence of a public servant because I lied about my name. So, I was looking at some really, really serious stuff. I thought I was screwed.
I don’t remember Doug’s exact words, but he was like, “You got the worst possible judge on the worst day of his life.” Doug was able to get them to dismiss one of the failure to register charges, reduce the other one to the lowest possible charge. He got them to dismiss the escape charge and then drop the attempted influence of a public servant. Somehow he was able to negotiate a deal where I got two years of standard check in with your probation officer once a month to let him know you’re alive, and that’s it.
When there is literally no hope, somehow he finds a way to accomplish the impossible. Doug went so far above and beyond. Doug got me taken off the sex offender registry, so I don’t even have to register as a sex offender anymore. As a result of what Doug was able to accomplish, I was able to get married, I’m in school full time, I maintain a 4.0 GPA with honors. I’m actually planning on attending law school when I graduate.
When I think of Doug, I think of Tom Brady and The Patriots of Super Bowl 51. Even if all the odds are against him, Doug is going to somehow find a way to accomplish the impossible. I was blown away in every regard.