This is the face of the new witch hunter–Jim Plowman, the Loudon County VA Commonwealth’s attorney, who tried to prosecute an educator for possession of child porn when the educator was just trying to do his job.
Rumors had been flying at Freedom High School in South Riding, Virginia that students were distributing nude pictures of each other on their cell phones. It’s a phenomenon, known as “sexting,” that’s become increasingly worrisome to educators across the country, and Ting-Yi Oei, a 60-year-old assistant principal at the school, was tasked with checking it out.
The investigation was inconclusive, but led to a stunning aftermath: Oei himself was charged with possession of child pornography and related crimes — charges that threatened to brand him a sex offender and land him in prison for up to seven years. Transferred from his school and isolated from colleagues, Oei spent $150,000 and a year of his life defending himself in a Kafkaesque legal nightmare triggered by a determined county prosecutor and nurtured by a growing hysteria over technology-enabled child porn at America’s schools.
Unsurprisingly, Plowman defends the prosecution.
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Given Mr. Oei’s earlier law suit against Fairfax County school officials for discrimination, one wonders if this fact stimulated the over-the-top arrest of Mr. Oei, by the County Prosecutor, for (false) claims of child pornography, which were later dismissed. Perhaps, the Fairfax County Prosecutor, and others, believed Mr. Oei was just too “uppity” for someone who is “short, Asian and Quaker.”
One keeps hoping that such “Salem witch-hunting” mentality has had a stake driven through its heart, but, without fail, these miscarriages of justice keep surfacing and reminding us of the blind insensitivity that, too often, prevails in the minds of public officials who should know better. Hopefully, our country has reached, yet, another stage in its evolution, with the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushering-in greater tolerance and the need to pause before rushing to so-called moral crusades that may result in irreversible personal damage.
My heart goes out to Mr. Ting-Yi Oei and his family for the terrible and needless suffering they have endured.
In my earlier message, I made an error in identifying the County as “Fairfax.” The correct county is Loudoun. Thank you.
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