Amanda and Shane's Story: To whom it concerns, my name is Amanda. I am 26 yrs old. I am married to Shane, who is 30 years old. We have 4 children together, ages 9, 3, 1 and 2 months. I am writing to you on behalf of my husband, Shane, to inform you why--in my opinion-- Shane should not be classified as a sex offender.

I would like to explain to you our situation and how this charge has been invading our lives in unnecessary ways. It was 1997 and I was 15yrs old, just starting my freshman year in high school. In 9th grade, I met Shane. We hung out as friends for a while, then we started dating after I asked him out.

We dated for a year. During that year, after hanging out almost 24/7, we began to have stronger feelings for each other. We both fell in love with each other and decided that we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives.

I got pregnant with our 1st child. During my pregnancy, my "father" (so called), whom I’ve never lived with, or even had much association with, decided to turn to the state to press charges against Shane. I adamantly believe there was never any sexual assault to speak of. I did not consider myself a "victim". We always consensually and freely had sex.

Considering the law, the state decided--since I was underage--that they were going to charge Shane with a 2nd degree sexual assault Felony BC 948.02(2). Shane went to jail before our 1st child was born. He missed the birth of our 1st child!

Shane got out of jail after our son was born, and he went to live at his parents house. His probation officer tried to tell us that we could not be together and that Shane could not see his child. They eventually put Shane into a halfway house, while there he revoked himself and went back to jail.

At his review hearing, the judge released him from jail after hearing testimony from myself, my mother, and Shane’s family. When he was released, we were still together. Finally, we were able to afford to hire a lawyer. We asked the lawyer to get the charges dropped form his record, but the lawyer was only able to get the charge amended to 4th degree sexual assault Misd. A 940.225(3m).

Shane and I finally got married. We had our 2nd child, then our 3rd child, then our 4th child. We never imagined that this sexual assault charge was going to keep popping up again, and again, and again, causing so many problems to us. They actually made Shane go to sex offender treatment classes; these mentally and emotionally affect him to this day.

Now what? Here we are, almost 11 years later, and we are still affected by our choice when we were young. We made the decision to be together for the rest of our lives, and start a family together. We are still together (married) have our 4 kids. Shane is a very caring, loving, and dependable father.

Since the beginning of all of this, Shane has not been able to get or keep a very good job, due to his record. People stereotype him. He also cannot attend or take on any school functions/responsibilities with our child: softball coach, boy scouts etc. This affects our child. We have to say "NO, the law don’t allow your father to do this."

All we want to do is move on with lives. We want to have the family that we intended on creating from the start. If it was against the law to be happy and have a family together with someone you love, then I could see why we would have to go through this, and suffer. BUT it’s not! We want to have a normal family, a normal life.

Please take my words into consideration. I would really appreciate any help that anyone can give us such as advice on where to turn to.