Robert’s story part 1

Robert’s Story, Part I 

When Taylor County Sheriff’s Department Detective Harlan Schwartz knocked on the door of Robert’s apartment early on the morning of September 20, 1999, Robert wasn’t concerned. He had a good job, he was back together with his childhood sweetheart, and his life seemed to be moving in exactly the right direction. He was confident that he hadn’t done anything that would get him into trouble with the law.
It may have been that confidence that led Robert to talk to Detective Schwartz on the spot, without consulting an attorney or even taking time to think the situation through or talk to a friend. Maybe not, though—by all accounts, Robert had always been open, friendly, and social. He might have made the same decision under any circumstances.
When the detective started asking about a girl he’d dated  months earlier, Robert thought he knew what was going on. A week or so earlier, his ex-girlfriend, J., had called him out of the blue. Back when he’d been dating J., her mother had loaned him some money, and she wanted it back. Robert hadn’t had the money on hand to pay her immediately, and he’d heard her raise her voice in anger in the background as he talked to J.
Now, a police detective was in his apartment, asking questions about his long-past relationship with her daughter.
Robert wasn’t shy about admitting to the sexual relationship. In fact, he says now that he embellished a bit. Like many teens and young adults, Robert didn’t fully understand the law regarding age of consent in his home state. J. had been 15 when they were together, but he’d only been 17—a minor himself. He was sure that meant that their sexual relationship had been 100% legal. He may have been gloating a bit while he was hanging himself, thinking that J.’s mother would be in for a surprise when she realized that he’d been underage the whole time.
Whatever he expected to come from that conversation, it wasn’t a felony sex crime conviction that would ultimately send him to prison for four years of an eight-year sentence, haunt him for years to come, and require him to register as a sex offender.  Even if he had known enough to expect criminal charges, he could never have imagined that in his mid-thirties, as a successful business man with a family, he would still be struggling to manage the fallout from that brief relationship.
Perhaps the saddest and most ironic thing about Robert’s story is that he had a rough childhood and adolescence. He wasn’t always a good kid. By the time he was fourteen, he’d had several encounters with local law enforcement.
But, when he met J. in the fall of 1998, that was all behind him. He was 17, working steadily, and just months from renting his first apartment. He hadn’t had a brush with the law in a couple of years, and he had started to forge his own path. On that day, he was just a typical teenaged boy, hanging out with friends when a pretty girl drove up with a friend and caught his attention. If anything set him apart at that point, it was that he was a bit more self-sufficient than most kids his age. He’d started working at 15, taking on short-term jobs at two fast food restaurants before moving into roofing and drywall work.
Robert says that he initially thought J. was 16–just one year younger than he was–because she’d driven up to the house. Under Wisconsin law, what happened next would have been a crime regardless, though a less serious one.
What followed is a familiar story for most of us, one that plays out among teenagers all over the country every single day. J. gave Robert her phone number, and a few days later, he called her. They dated, met each other’s friends, and got to know each other’s families. Like many romantic relationships among teenagers, though, this one didn’t last long.
While J. was still in school and living with her parents, Robert was working full time in construction. In the spring of 1999, he had an opportunity to work in the Elkhorn area, more than three hours from the town where J. lived and went to school. Unsurprisingly, the relatively new relationship couldn’t weather the separation. The two parted ways near the end of the school year, just six or seven months after they’d met.
It was the kind of relationship that both Robert and J. might both have relegated to a vague memory if just one small thing had gone differently: if J.’s mother hadn’t loaned Robert money, if he’d had the money to give her on the day J. called, if she’d filed a small claims suit instead of calling the police, if he’d politely declined to talk to the detective who knocked on his door. If any one of those things had played out differently, both Robert and J. would likely have carried on with their lives and rarely, if ever, looked back.
Reviews of his business are consistently excellent, and use terms like “passionate,” “knowledgeable,” “perfectionist,”  and “best quality.”
He owns a beautiful home, the building where his business operates, and investment property.
But, this success is clouded and expansion of his business limited because 20 years ago, Robert did something that hundreds of thousands of American teenagers do every year–engaged in a sexual relationship with his teenage girlfriend.
In many ways, Robert’s story is one of success and inspiration, especially for those who face similar problems and despair for the future. He built that successful business, many of the relationships in his life today, and his family after spending four years in prison. He established himself as a valuable member of the community despite his status as a registered sex offender.
But, there’s a dark shadow over all this success, and obstacles that sometimes seem never-ending. One of the houses Robert owns is off-limits to him: he’d need a special exemption from the city to move in. His business is poised for a growth spurt, but he’s not eligible for Small Business Administration (SBA) loans or many other types of funding because he has a felony conviction.
This website, and an upcoming book, will chronicle Robert’s journey from typical American teenager to convicted felon to successful businessman and beyond–to the day when we hope he and others in his situation will be free of the misleading label that attempts to define their lives.
But, Robert did owe J.’s mother money. He didn’t have it to give her when she called. She called the police. Robert answered their questions when they arrived. And, their short-lived teenage relationship took center stage in both of their lives. The prosecutor filed felony charges, and Robert is still living with the fallout more than 20 years after their break-up. He hasn’t seen or talked to J. since he went to prison in 2000, but he doesn’t blame her for his ordeal. It seems safe to assume that the experience took a significant toll on her, as well. 
Yes, J made lies against Robert and if he would have had the opportunity to cross examine that she would have changed her story of their relationship. If she doesn’t tell the truth, he hopes that, one day, he will get his opportunity to cross examine her as we all will see that no jury would ever believe her lies and the truth to her past and what really happened?

September 20, 1999
Being questioned by the police is rarely a straightforward affair, and Detective Schwartz’s initial interrogation was no exception. He casually questioned Robert about the couple’s sexual interactions. He raised specific questions about an incident involving oral sex in a car. Robert admitted to everything, not expecting legal fallout. He was still under the impression that consensual sex between minors was legal. But, the detective had a couple of surprises in store for him. First, he waited until after Robert had admitted to sexual interactions with J. to add that she’d claimed at least one of those encounters was forced. Even then, Robert wasn’t concerned. The blow job Schwartz asked about had taken place in an SUV. Robert and J. had been sharing the backseat, while a friend of his drove and a friend of J.’s rode shotgun. Once again, Robert was confident that the truth would set him free. He didn’t know why J. might have claimed that encounter had happened by force. He wasn’t even sure whether she’d really made that claim. But, he knew it would be a simple matter to demonstrate that it wasn’t true. He was right about that much. The precise details vary slightly, but in the investigation that followed, Robert, the driver, and the other female passenger told very similar stories—stories in which the two girls initiate the act after joking about it and counting down. In fact, the other girl said that she felt somewhat pressured by J., who she said had a way of “having things her way.” But then, the interrogation took a strange turn. Schwartz began questioning Robert about a citation he’d received the year before, on a trip to Illinois. At Christmastime in 1998, Robert, and his cousin had traveled to visit relatives, and J. had accompanied them. 17 years old and traveling out of state for the first time, with only his 18-year-old cousin and 15-year-old girlfriend, Robert didn’t know what to expect. So, he took a gun belonging to his uncle Terry from a drawer in his parents’ house and was tucked it in the door frame of the van. Two decades later, asked why he felt like he needed a gun on that trip, Robert turns up his hands. “I don’t know. I’d never been on a trip like that before. You hear things about Rockford, Chicago…” He shakes his head. Presumably, Rockford and Chicago don’t seem so daunting today, after four years in prison. But to the 17-year-old embarking on his first road trip, feeling responsible for his girlfriend, Illinois seemed like alien territory. It was better to be prepared.Of course, he had no occasion to use the gun. The weapon itself stayed tucked in the door frame and the clip in the glove compartment. It wouldn’t have been readily accessible or usable if they had needed it. It would have languished there quietly and caused no one any trouble, had the group not gotten lost. In a snowstorm near the Wisconsin border, they flagged down a passing police car to ask for directions. Faced with a van filled with teenagers and a fishy story—it was late at night and they couldn’t provide the relative’s address—deputies asked for permission to search the van. In another example of the naivete that would later have him confessing to a crime he didn’t know existed, Robert agreed. The Sheriff’s-department also contacted J.’s mother to make sure that her parents knew where she was and that she’d had permission to make the trip with Robert and his cousin.They confirmed that she did. During the search, the gun was discovered and confiscated. Robert was issued a citation, and he was advised that the owner of the gun would have to pick it up. Robert provided his uncle’s name and a family member’s telephone number and state, but a clerical error apparently prevented the department from reaching his family. The number he provided was in the Wisconsin area code 715, but the person taking his information wrote down 815 instead—the area code for northern Illinois. Also other errors. It would be nearly a year before Robert would see that report and realize that the number was wrong, and that the department had never reached his family. At some point after the trip, Robert’s father and his uncle Terry had discovered that the gun was missing from the drawer and made a police report. The police took a report, Robert did tell Terry about the rock county citation, terry even called into the sheriff’s department and reported that Pauls kids had returned the gun, knowing that the gun was in Rock County. Nobody thought to mention the missing gun to Robert, who was no longer living with his parents at that point. The report would likely have languished forever had J. or her mother not mentioned the Illinois trip and the citation to the police nearly a year later. But, one of them did. The Taylor County Sheriff’s Department looked into the incident and discovered that the gun confiscated by the Rock County deputy matched the serial number of uncle Terry’s missing gun. Detective Schwartz had all of this information when he talked to Robert on the morning of September 20, but Robert didn’t know the gun had been reported missing. He didn’t even know that the Rock County Sheriff’s Department had never made contact with Terry or his family, or that the gun was still gathering dust in their evidence locker. That’s when Robert started to sweat a bit, but he wasn’t worried about the gun charge. He fully expected that could be cleared up when he talked to his family. If they’d reported the gun stolen, it was because they’d discovered it missing and didn’t know what had happened to it. But, he knew that in combination, without knowing him or the other parties involved or the circumstances, the story was starting to sound bad. An hour earlier, all had been right with his world. Now, it seemed that he was being questioned about two crimes, both in what felt like the distant past, and neither what the detective seemed to believe they’d been. 
“There Must be More to the Story” 
When Robert and others in his situation explain why they’re on the sex offender registry, many respond with suspicion. The idea that a young man could be forced to register for life because he had sex with his girlfriend when they were teenagers is difficult for many people to accept—perhaps especially those who are realizing for the first time that they themselves committed felonies in high school, or who are suddenly filled with fear for their own teenage children. In the most important sense, there is not more to the story: Robert spent four years in prison after being convicted of 2nd Degree Sexual Assault of a child, and the “child” in question was his 15-year-old girlfriend. He was 17 years old at the time of the offense. However, in another sense, there is more to the story. Robert didn’t get arrested for the teen sex charge, thrown in jail, tried for a felony, and sentenced to prison without some intervening and complicating events. In this website we’ll tell the story in detail.

First, Robert not only talked about but exaggerated his sexual relationship with J. when he initially talked to Detective Schwartz, because he was angry with J.’s mother and didn’t understand the law. Second, Robert was charged with theft of the gun he took to Illinois the Christmas he and J. were dating. Those charges were not as easy to clear up as Robert had anticipated, because his uncle Terry had committed suicide shortly before Detective Schwartz’s visit, leaving another relative with no knowledge of the situation to stand in for the “victim” as administrator of his estate.

Third, Robert accepted some questionable legal advice in connection with his Deferred Prosecution Agreement. Under the terms of the original agreement, Robert would have pled guilty to the gun theft charge, and prosecution of the sex charge would have been deferred. If he had successfully completed probation, the sex charge would have been dismissed. If he had violated probation, a judgment of conviction would have been entered, but to a misdemeanor charge. Given that Robert had confessed to sexual contact with J. and that was all that was required for a conviction, this initial offer was a good deal. However, at the last minute, the prosecution insisted on a significant change: rather than dismissing the sex charge if Robert successfully completed probation and entering a misdemeanor conviction if he did not, the court would enter a misdemeanor conviction if he successfully completed probation and a felony if he violated the terms of his probation. Despite the critical change, Robert says his attorney advised him to sign the revised agreement in the courtroom, without time for meaningful consultation. He did, ensuring that no matter what happened next, he would be convicted of a sex crime.

Fourth, Robert’s  4th out of 5 P.O.s (parole officer) filed revocation two months before successfully completing two years of his agreement for rules signed with prior 3rd P.O. where his prior P.O. had been relaxed. His probation officer had determined that it was not necessary to enforce several of the written rules and had advised him of the changes. Later, she would confirm this in the courtroom. He completed the sex offender program and she signed documents of lowering Robert’s high risk rules with a reclassification checklist. His agent let Robert’s roommate’s 17 year old girlfriend move in with him after talking to her parents and had no place to go and let her younger sister and friends stay overnights. 

Fifth, Robert’s attorney advised him to waive a revocation hearing, said that this whole revocation was a big misunderstanding and since there was a hearing date set to revoke the differed prosecution, which essentially admitting to violating his probation. This decision is mysterious because there appears to have been a strong legal argument that Robert had not, in fact, knowingly violated the terms of his probation—his previous probation officer confirmed that she had relaxed the rules. Waiving revocation made entry of conviction on the felony sex crime a near certainty.

Sixth, Robert hit walls and is unable to pursue all of his possible post-conviction options, such as an appeal. You’ll see he spent over $24,000 on appeals, where his lawyer prematurely filed a motion in the Supreme Court and had to start all over in the appeals again, the appeals that wasn’t going to give him the relief he needed which was the way Genarlow did for cruel-harsh and unusual punishment. 

And because he’s not “in custody” in prison or on parole/ supervision, that it’s very difficult to be able to appeal his case.

The story isn’t as simple as, “This teenage boy had a sexual relationship with his teenage girlfriend, got arrested, got convicted of a felony, went to prison for four years, and is now on the sex offender registry for life.” It’s not that simple because the road to conviction wasn’t short and straight, because the legislation and the gun charge allowed the prosecution to structure an unusual deal, and because he sealed his own fate when he waived the probation revocation hearing. And in the illegal agreement is states “If the defendant engages in behavior which subjects him to revocation proceedings, the state would make a motion to revoke the deferred prosecution agreement and enter judgment based upon the defendant guilty plea to second-degree sexual assault of a child. The state would be permitted to do this even if probation wasn’t ultimately revoked.” Another point of unfairness.

But, in the way that matters most, the story is that simple. The consensual sexual contact 17-year-old Robert had with his 15-year-old girlfriend was a felony, and a registry offense. He was guilty…just like millions of other high school students have been. He admitted it. Then he got arrested, got convicted of a felony, went to prison for four years, than 4 years of parole and is still listed on the Wisconsin sex offender registry, with “2nd Degree Sexual Assault of a Child” under his name.

“THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IS BROKEN “

I would be Exonerated already, legislations even changed the law stating it wasn’t meant to be used against teens, but because I completed my prison sentence and Parole in 2010, I can’t appeal my case like all the others who are still in custody.

"Most People don’t know me as I build by business from scratch after being wrongfully prosecuted as a 17 year old 1998.  I was released from prison in 2006 after getting a grant home from the Parole Board.”

In the early 1990’s many laws that went through legislation used the word “anyone” who does this is guilty to this crime and punishment. 

That word was taken as it didn’t matter who or how old you are. So prosecutors were able to wrongly prosecute teens like a 15 year old who admits consensual contact with another 15 year old was “anyone” and was “anyone” who has consensual contact with someone under 16 and was guilty of Second Degree Sexual Assault to a Child!! A Felony charge, Punishable to 20 years in prison with Lifetime on The Nation wide Sex Offender Registry! A crime that was written to protect teens from adults having consensual relationships with teens. 

Some courts did this to many teens stating that they had to take an “illegal plea agreement”. That they were “anyone” and if they went to jury trial they would lose and be found guilty.

The first teen who hit National news in 2005. Genarlow Wilson  went to jury and even though the jury didn’t agree, but he was anyone and they had to and he was sentenced to 10 years.

His case is the case that sparked the Romeo and Juliet bills. When those bills passed in his state in 2006, it didn’t pass retroactive either. But he was still in custody and won his appeal for cruel harsh and unusual punishment and was exonerated!

These bills are going through states so slowly that Wisconsin finally passed the Romeo and Juliet bills in 2018 and still fail to pass retroactive. Which stops the teens who were sentenced over twenty years ago and successfully completed their sentence, not be able to appeal their case and be exonerated due to the legislation law that says if your not “in custody” anymore and completed their sentence that they can’t appeal their case.