Question Regarding Someone who Exposed Himself to my Kids

[Bootsamillion]

Originally Posted by SnazzyB

So, many years ago, I used to attend a weekly Bible Study at a married couple's house. We were all encouraged to bring our kids, if we wanted to. I did, on a couple of occasions. My boys didn't really like going, and seeing as I was living with my parents at the time, I had built in babysitters, so the boys didn't need to go.

Years later, my oldest son, who's a young adult at this point, tells me how one time, at these people's house, the husband of the home invited my boys and another boy about the same age as my kids out to the back yard to "see the hobo". So he takes the boys out to the back yard, in the dark, and exposes himself to the boys, and asks them "Do you see the hobo?" My oldest was the only one who actually saw what the man was doing. Maybe because of the lack of much light, or the boys were actually looking for a hobo...I don't know. Anyway, the only one who saw that this man was exposing himself was my oldest son. When he saw what was going on, he told his brother and the other boy "Come on, let's go back inside." And the other boys followed him inside. I was furious about this.

When I found out about it, I exposed him on Facebook. Nothing really came of it, except that a young lady I went to church with messaged me to tell me that one time, the same guy had asked her teenage boyfriend (they later married) if he wanted to see some pictures he had drawn. (This was at church.) The pictures WERE hand drawn, and X-rated.

ANOTHER time, going back to the Bible Study, I had been the first to arrive, and he proceeded to tell me how he had just kicked his teenage stepson out of the house for talking back to him. His wife was back in Germany, visiting family...but he and the stepson had stayed back here. I was kind of shocked, and at the time, I didn't know anything about him exposing himself. But I remembered thinking "Why would you kick your 15 yr. old teenager out...with your wife out of the country, unable to stop you" and thinking that what he had done was terrible.

Looking back on that, I have to wonder if he was abusing his stepson, or had made some kind of move on him, and they fought or something.

Sooo, I bring this up because I came across his name on the Nextdoor app, where he had posted a news article about people stealing church mail. Then I looked him up on Facebook...living his life, married to the same woman, and now he's a grandpa (I forgot to mention, he and his wife had a daughter), And it brought up all kinds of ugly emotions in me. I FEEL like he doesn't have the right to a decent life. If I saw him person, I don't know what I'd do. I think I'd be sick to my stomach. I'm tempted to 'expose' him again on Facebook...but I don't think my kids (or some other mutual friends) would appreciate me dredging up the past like that...and I'm not sure my motives are any kind of pure in this.

So...I'm curious...if y'all knew what I knew, would you do anything? Would you say anything, knowing all this stuff was a long time ago? SHOULD I do something? I probably won't do anything at all...but SHOULD I?

Remember, I blasted him once.

I know it's tempting for sure, but you could also be opening yourself up to a great big lawsuit by exposing him no Facebook. I believe it's called defamation of character. You could be sued, especially if there will be no witnesses in a court of law (most won't do it out of fear and shame) so you could always get his email address or home address or even a phone number and have a one on one conversation and tell him you know what he did to several people. He will deny it though. I would at least confront the guy, but don't blast his character in public as that can get you in trouble.

[pathrunner]

I agree. It is so tempting, to confront the person. I've thought about doing that myself, via a letter or something. The bottom line is though, I don't want to open a can of worms or leave myself open to some kind of retaliation. So many people are unpredictable nowadays. It's important to choose one's battles more than ever. On the other hand, I would definitely feel like confronting this particular perv. (1) because of what he did to her son and (2) what he has likely been doing all along and may still be doing.