Self-Convicted

By John Hawthorne

This book contains the story based upon true events in the earlier years of my life. I was a man who believed that the ultimate goal of life, is the pursuit of, and devotion to pleasure. I believed all men associated the ideas of power and sex, and is in constant competition with each other concerning the acquisition of women. Yet when these beliefs created struggles within myself, and my marriage, I sought to explore the darker side of human nature. It would cause me to cross paths with true corruption within the American Legal System, and set off a chain of events that would crush the hope and self worth of most human beings. Taken into a world where freedom doesnt exist, and violence has free reign, I sought to survive, and renew myself, and escape the terrible destiny I had placed upon myself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781477131923

John Hawthorne

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and now resides in Columbus, Ohio. Growing up in the Midwest, in America’s heartland I believed gave me the balance in life of enjoying the cultural arts that comes with the urban experience, while having that passionate love to enjoy the great outdoors of nature. I love to read, dance, and play music. I also love to go bike riding through the woods, and hike in the great state parks. I love spending time with my family enjoying all the wonderful things that was put on this earth for us to enjoy. I believe education is one of the most important things a person should acquire in his or her life. I became a writer because I wanted to share the wonderment I have about life.

Book preview

Self

Convicted

JOHN HAWTHORNE

Copyright © 2012 by John Hawthorne.

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4771-3191-6

Ebook 978-1-4771-3192-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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¹¹⁸⁴⁸⁵

Contents

Chapter One

Creation of A Sex Offender

Chapter Two

Catching a Case

Chapter Three

Self-Convicted

Chapter Four

Oh That Awful Number!

Chapter Five

That Old Country Prison

Chapter Six

A Prison of Gays

Chapter Seven

I can See the City

Chapter Eight

The Witch’s Prison

Chapter Nine

A Prison for Sex Offenders

Chapter Ten

A Prison of Tests

Chapter Eleven

The Grand Finale

Chapter Twelve

A Reunion of Love

Chapter Thirteen

Getting Off of Parole

Chapter Fourteen

Life is All Good

Chapter One

Creation of A Sex Offender

My name is John Hawthorne, and here I found myself sitting in a psychologist office excited, yet nervous waiting for a psychological evaluation to be done. I thought this is my opportunity to tell my story, it may make a difference. It was a hot day in August 2004. I’ve been in prison for seven years now.

The doctor walked in, and closed the door behind her. She sat down at her desk, opened my file, and began reading, with a puzzled look on her face. She was a white woman, a blonde with frizzy hair. Her style reminded me of the way some of the women looked, in the time of the flower children. Although she was dressed down in jeans, and a regular shirt, yet she presented herself in a very professional manner.

Mr. Hawthorne, good morning, my name is Dr. Mary Poloski. You are here today, because you have a Parole Board hearing coming up, and they have requested that a psychological assessment is done on you. This assessment will be partly used to determine whether you are a high risk, or low risk to society if released. I have read through your file, and I see you were convicted of kidnapping, abduction, gross sexual imposition, and stalking. You have several counts, involving seven victims who all were minors. Ironically, after reading the facts of the case, I do not understand why you have a five to life sentence. However I will not discuss legal matters with you, I want to focus on the facts in your case. It will help you to be honest with me. So why did you commit these crimes." It was now an opportunity to tell my story.

It was February 1995, a snowy, and cold winter in Cleveland as usual. I had just finish talking with Mrs. Sweets, my girlfriend’s mother. I told her things were crazy and noisy at home. My brothers were guys of the streets, and were bringing gangbangers around the house. These people smoked weed, drink, and partied all the time. I grew up in the hood, and I knew the ways of the streets, but I didn’t like it. Growing up in the hood you are presented with a fork in the road everyday. You saw the examples of working people, who were raising a family, and living a decent moral life. On the other hand you saw the drug dealers, gangbangers, prostitutes, and pimps. You see both examples daily. For many of us, both examples was represented in our households. My mother was a hardworking woman, who worked in a government hospital. She is a dietetic technician. She also went to church faithfully. Yet my father was a man of the streets, who used drugs, and chased women. Yet I was grateful to him for staying in the home, and raising my brothers and I.

I never felt I fit in with my environment. I was a loner, but not by choice. The guys I lived around knew I wasn’t a street guy like they were. In other words I didn’t assimilate the hood into my persona the way they did. I was in essence a suburban kid, and spent most of my time in the suburbs. I never saw the logic in street hustling where I am standing on the block openly selling crack. Guys would try to convince me to sell drugs for them, and I would say Hell no, you see how hot that apartment complex is? Police patrol that place around the clock! I would see guys get busted for doing the most dumbest things, and I would say And that guy wanted me to work for him. I just wasn’t into what the hood had to offer on the illegal side of the tracks.

So things were chaotic around the house. My parents were threatening to divorce each other. So I told Mrs. Sweets all these things. Well John, if you want, you could come and stay with us, she said. We have a room on the first floor, we could convert it into a bedroom for you. It sounds like to much is going on over there, over here you can get some peace. I was 19 years old, an adult, so I consented to move in with my girlfriend’s family. Mrs. Sweets was a big black woman who put you in the mind of the stereotypical Big Mama image. As a matter of fact my girlfriend did call her mom Big Mama.

Stacy’s family was exactly opposite of my family. My family always had lots of people around. However her family never had anyone around. Her mother welcomed me into her home, looking at me, as another person to help out around the house. Stacy and I had been dating for five months, but I have known her for two years. We met in high school, in study hall, when this girl was playing with my ears. Your ears are so cute, she said. Who are you girl, I asked. I didn’t know her, but after that day we started talking on the phone. We were friends, and talked about everything. We would talk about family, school, God, among other things. After she graduated in 1993, we lost contact for about a year. In the summer of 1994 I ran into her downtown. We exchanged numbers, and began talking again.

Then she was emotionally crazy about a guy name Dishon. I was not at all feeling the description of this relationship. She was crazy about him, but he hardly called, or came by to see her. She would swear as long as this guy walk the earth he would be the man for her .I was amazed at her passion and dedication to a man who hardly ever came to see her. Stacy’s mother was very controlling and made it almost impossible for her children to have a normal social life. Stacy would tell me about how she would sneak out of the house to see Dishon and her mother would come over there to take her back home. As I talked more with Stacy on the phone I began to develop feelings for her. I began to try and convince her that this guy doesn’t care about her. He doesn’t come see you Stacy, and he hardly call you. At the end of the summer she found out he got married. I could see she was hurt and disappointed, besides being totally shocked. However after I consoled her, and she thought about it on her own, she got over it. She reasoned they couldn’t share a life together anyhow, she was a Christian, and he was a Muslim.

The fall came, and it always was one of her favorite times of the year. Fall is when everything slows down, and the days grow shorter, and I just want to be in the house relaxing, reading a book, or watching movies, she would say. It was October 1994, and we were sitting on the crouch, reading through a book. She leaned over, and looked into my eyes, and said John I will give you a chance. A chance at what, I asked. A chance at being my man, she said. That’s the chance I wanted, I said. Yes I know you did, she said. I feel so comfortable with you. You thought it would have been the moment for a kiss, but we hugged instead.

We were now boyfriend and girlfriend. We went on our dates, at skating rinks, museums, movies, and walks in the park. Although her mom was controlling she allowed her to go on dates with me. To receive my first kiss I chased her around her Dad’s car, caught her and kissed her. It was a magical moment she said. After you kissed me, I was locked into you. Stacy is a beautiful girl. She was my very own Nubian Princess. She had pretty brown skin, and a beautiful face. Her eyes were provocative, and created to seduce. Her body was perfect, shapely, and voluptuous. She was smart and funny. She was a loner, but not by choice.

So now I am living in the Sweets home. Her parents were religious fanatics, Christians who believed going to a denominational assembly was wrong. They cut themselves off from the community of believers, and their relatives. They created a hermitic type lifestyle for themselves. Stacy wasn’t allowed to pursue her own interests, that would have given her a normal teen life. When I met her, she was in despair about her family life, and she became suicidal. She told me it was things I shared with her about God that helped her get through that dark period of her life. At first living with them was great. I had my own room, and privacy.

Stacy had a second floor suite, that had her own living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. It was very private. You had to go outside in the backyard, and through another door, to go upstairs to her. Stacy and I would spend most of our evening after work up there. The irony was, as strict as her parents were, they allowed us to be up there, as much as we wanted. I found out later they didn’t care, they wanted us to stay with them, even if we got married. However we weren’t having any sex. We would engage in lots of hot, passionate foreplay, but never go to the next level. Stacy was a Christian in heart, and didn’t believe in sex before marriage. I was a horny young man whose sexual desire was as a raging sea. Stacy held her ground. In her bedroom she had lots of romance novels. I could see where her inspiration to yearn for true love came from.

Living with the Sweets became interesting. Mr. Sweets loved to talk about God and the Bible. He was a black man that had side burns that made him look like a man from the 70’s. I was a student in a Bible School that taught metaphysics. Metaphysics is learning about things that are operating beyond the physical realm that is appreciated by our five senses. Once he knew this, he wanted to debate with me about the authenticity of what I learned. I was able to answer all his questions. He disagreed with many of the doctrinal points that I believed. Yet I could tell, he enjoyed the battle of wit, and intellect. Stacy’s parents noticed with me in the house, their daughter was a lot happier. However they didn’t like the fact she was beginning to believe the things I was saying about God. Mrs. Sweets had at first said to me John you are an angel sent to our home. But now she said you are of Satan, and you belong to a cult. The main point of contention was I believed man cannot earn salvation, it was a gift. They believed man could earn salvation by good works. I had no problem with what they believed. A man has a right to believe whatever he wants to. However they did have a problem with what I believed. So a rift grew in the household based upon religious differences. Stacy and her parents began to grow at odds with each other.

Two months went by, it was now April 1995. Mrs. Sweets tried measures to break us up. She would say John is not the kind of man you need to be with. He doesn’t make a lot of money. He’s not a handyman. You need an older man. He’s not a Christian. Yet my relationship with her father wasn’t bad. He would say, John you are a nice guy, and Stacy is very happy with you. He would tell me this privately, but never publicly to his family. He feared being in disagreement with his wife. He always tried to present an image that he and his wife is a united front. However they were different as night and day. Mrs. Sweets was very controlling, even of her husband. All he did was work and come home. If he wanted to do something different, apart from the everyday routine, she would throw tantrums to get her way. She would even threaten to kill herself if she didn’t get her way. Once she said I am going down to Lake Erie and drive the car into the water. Mr. Sweets, Stacy, her younger sister Mary, and myself would wait to see if she come back. Other times she would go into the closet and drown herself with a bottle of liquor. After a while I began to see this as a form of mind control.

At this time Stacy began to unveil to me some the family’s secrets. She started telling me how before I came her father would come into the bathroom upstairs, grab her from behind, and press his penis into her buttocks. When we stayed in the house before this one, we would hear girls in the house behind us being sexually abused, she said. We would hear their cries, and he was aroused by them. I had to try and stay away from him, he would try to touch on me constantly. My mother would strip us down naked, tie us up and whip us. We are teenage girls, full breasted, and shapely, and he would watch. When my parents came to the Lord, we were little girls. We separated from his family, because the men molest the girls in their family. It was a normal thing for those men. I saw the sexual deviance was in him as well".

I didn’t know how I would process this information. It was the first time in my life I ever heard something like this. I knew it was a terrible experience on her part, and a grave moral wrong on his part. Deep in myself,