Friday , March 29 2024
Anonymous tip leads to disturbing discovery - how did the media miss this?

Is Hubby On Strike Also A Convicted Sex Offender?

I wrote a story about the husband who went on strike because he was upset about his children sharing the marital bed. It seems he doesn’t want to share the bed with his three-month-old daughter and two-year-old son. His wife thinks he should suck it up and deal. Perhaps he should have.

James Wilson of Redford, Michigan has gained a lot of media attention using his website to air his bedroom problem in a public forum. Now, due to a hot tip in the comments of that post, it would seem that James has brought a little too much attention to his case, including his registration as a convicted sex offender.

I must post a disclaimer: The information I am posting came directly from various websites that provided corroborating evidence that the same person who owns, www.husbandonstrike.com and the person listed in this sex offender registry are one in the same. Oddly, www.husbandonstrike.com is no longer available – and this would have to be a recent development as this story hit the web on March 29, 2006.

Update This information is accurate and Mr. Wilson has admitted to his past criminal record — an incident that occurred over ten years ago — in an interview with Julie Hinds of the Detroit Free Press.

From Godaddy.com

Registrant:
World Wide Information Network
Redford, Michigan 48239
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com )
Domain Name: HUSBANDONSTRIKE.COM
Created on: 03-Mar-06
Expires on: 04-Mar-07
Last Updated on: 03-Mar-06
Administrative Contact:
Wilson, James [email protected]
World Wide Information Network
Redford, Michigan 48239
United States

I am reluctant to give Mr. Wilson’s address and phone number from the domain registry website, so I have removed that information. But a quick search using whois.com and godaddy.com will give you all the information you need to match up the addresses and names. The picture on the sex offender website is also remarkably similar. You will need to put in the first and last name to get search results.

Does this mean that they are the same person? My guess is yes.

Next I investigated his crime. A person has to be convicted of a pretty serious crime if they are required to register as a sex offender. According to the Michigan criminal code his offense is defined as something falling into the following description:

§750.520c. Second Degree CSC:
A person is guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the second degree if the person engages in sexual contact with another person and if any of the following circumstances exists:
That other person is under 13 years of age.
That other person is at least 13 but less than 16 years of age and any of the following:
The actor is a member of the same household as the victim.
The actor is related by blood or affinity to the fourth degree to the victim.
The actor is in a position of authority over the victim and the actor used this authority to coerce the victim to submit.
Sexual contact occurs under circumstances involving the commission of any other felony.
The actor is aided or abetted by 1 or more other persons and either of the following circumstances exists:
The actor knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally incapable, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless.
The actor uses force or coercion to accomplish the sexual contact. Force or coercion includes but is not limited to any of the circumstances listed in sections.

CJI2d 20.2 Criminal Sexual Conduct in the Second Degree
The defendant is charged with the crime of second degree criminal sexual conduct. To prove this charge, the prosecutor must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
First, that the defendant intentionally [touched ‘s/made touch (his/her)] [genital area/groin/inner thigh/buttock/(or) breast] or the clothing covering that area.
Second, that this was done for sexual purposes or could reasonably be construed as having been done for sexual purposes. Other Instructions supplement CJ12nd 20.2.

I am no legal expert, but none of those charges sound like the kind of things I want to be accused of committing – and not just accused, but convicted.

My real question is, why hasn’t the mainstream media picked up on this, or is it not relevant? To me it’s relevant, as I have a hard time sympathizing with a person’s case about not getting enough sexual intimacy with his spouse, when he apparently has had issues with sexual misconduct.

UpdateAt least one media outlet picked up on this and interviewed Mr. Wilson.

Mainstream media has gotten a little lazy of late. Doing a little background checking on those they foist into the media spotlight is a simple process. A great example of this was the case of the missing family in Oregon. The same parents who were lost in a snowstorm for weeks and miraculously found alive, were also wanted in Arizona on drug charges.

Seriously, has mainstream media lost its touch with these “heartwarming” stories by picking a bunch of n’er do wells to lavish attention on. I don’t like having my heartstrings pulled, only to later find out with a little bit of fact-checking that these “15 minutes of fame” benefactors were not the sympathetic figures they were portrayed to be.

And they call bloggers sloppy hacks.

Update: Mainstream media can be sloppy and quick to slap a story up without doing any real fact checking, but it didn’t take long for local reporters to investigate the tip left on Mr. Wilson’s website – which he verified has been taken down.

This opens up a broader question. Should he be judged today for crimes he committed more than ten years ago? A crime he admitted to and seems genuinely sorry for (and probably embarrassed about). On my way home to follow up on this story (I decided to pay the ten dollars to verify the data from the Michigan criminal history lookup site) I wondered if it was even the right thing to do.

How many of us have ugly secrets we’d just as soon forget about in our past?

And then I had to ask myself, is it even the media’s responsibility to expose his checkered past, or does foisting oneself in the spotlight also waive their right to privacy?

Or maybe I was just greedy for the scoop?

In any case, Mr. Wilson seems to have turned his life around and has as he says “changed his life, becoming a born-again Christian.” He claims he started his strike last week to help other husbands, but clearly got more than he bargained for.

He may have to wait a little while longer for those romantic nights.

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