Here we present the typed copy of Jeffrey Balys' statement. Jeff's hand-written letter can be viewed as a .PDF file by clicking here. This file has been posted here on June 21, 2011 but was written at an earlier date. Mr. Jeffrey Balys wants you to know that the person who chatted with him had a 36-year old boyfriend, so there is no way he believed she was only 13. Jeff also asks you to consider why would punishment for his victimless crime be far more harsh, by several orders of magnitude, than sexual offenses that have actually been consummated by repeat offenders against actual victims?
I am a respectful decent 45 year old man and I have lived in Arizona for most of my life. Over the years here in Arizona I have owned and operated two businesses and before this all happened I worked as a project manager for trade shows traveling all over the world. I used to volunteer as a teacher for troubled youths teaching things like horse back riding. I worked with many troubled kids including a girl that was cutting herself as a result from being molested by her mother's boyfriend. While working with her and guiding her I was able to get her to stop cutting herself and become one of the volunteers helping other troubled youths. I had a good idea of what she was going through because I was molested as a young kid too.
Over the past year though I have been experiencing very rough times. I lost my house I owned and lived in for 25 years and my job I had for over 10 years. I was forced to move out of my house in Tempe and move to Cordes Lakes for living arrangements. Being at a severe low in my life and in a deep depression I spent a lot of time on the computer. I wanted a friend, someone to chat with when I needed. "Conveniently" I had met and started chatting with Detective Edgerton over 3 years ago. Because of my untreated severe ADHD I have a hard time getting anyone to chat with me for any length of time, but Detective Edgerton would always chat as long as it became of a sexual nature at one point or another. If we didn't discuss something sexual or me coming to meet her she would lose interest and not chat with me. The only thing I ever wanted was someone to chat with and she didn't act like any 13 year old I've ever come across. Over the 3 years of chatting with her it became a normal thing for her to talk about her 36 year old boyfriend and how they would perform oral sex on each other. From the time I lived in Tempe to the time I only lived 30 minutes away from her in Cordes Lakes she would continually try and talk me into meeting her in person, but I only wanted someone to chat with and wasn't interested in meeting her or anyone else. Also during all this time she asked me more times than I can count if I would send her some nude pics or movies of myself. She even went as far as begging me to send something, anything, as long as it was nude.
Detective Edgerton had stopped talking/chatting with me for a long time. By chance I had decided to write her and popped up on her screen. She said (later in her own words) she had not been doing internet crime, that she didn't have the time for them, and she had given up on trapping me. Once I popped up on her screen again she finally after 3-1/2 years got me to use my new web cam that was my first time using it. I was only giving in to her begging and pleading and doing what she asked, what she wanted me to do in order to keep chatting. I never wanted or intended to chat with a 13 year old girl nor did she even seem like any 13 year old I've ever met.
How is anyone supposed to know someone's true age on the internet where most people lie about who they really are? Why doesn't Yahoo protect us from things like this as other chat web sites do, why isn't there safeguards or warnings to tell us about things like this and what can happen? From my understanding, some of the other guys caught up in this were on adult web sites when they met her and she lured them to Yahoo. How can she be allowed to do that? Why does she lure everyone to Yahoo and she starts chats on adult web sites but then won't continue chatting with them there? Oh, and why are all my first chats missing from over 3 years ago and newer, and why are the chats missing from the guys' chats on the adult web sites where she lured them to Yahoo?
The only thing us men have done was get sucked into detective Edgerton's misguided, unfair trap, where her only intention was to get law abiding citizens to commit serious felonies. It's fair to state that if it weren't for Detective Edgerton's trap, none of these crimes would have been committed and none of us would be here. I believe none of us have been in any serious and none of us have ever touched a child inappropriately nor did any of us intend to. I am not a sex predator or child molester nor would I ever be one, yet I am sentenced to 5 years "Flat" time in prison, plus I have lifetime probation.
I will be 51 years old, labeled as a sex offender, I will have lost all my belongings, my place to live (mobile home), my car, having no place to live trying to find a job. Also I'll have to pay various fees and fines, about $450 per month for the duration of my probation which is my lifetime. There are numerous stipulations such as what time I can go to the store and never being able to go to the park or movies. I won't even be able to travel, which was my current employment. Now that I realize the full implications of what I was doing, I am truly ashamed of my actions and very grateful there wasn't a real 13 year old on the other end at the computer, but should I have to pay for that the rest of my life? Is this the crime that deserves a punishment of 1st degree murder or something of that magnitude? Is this really something that should ruin my life (literally the rest of my life) and the rest of the guys that are in here for falling into the same trap? The only thing I ever wanted was to have a friend to chat with online.
According to USA Today, 40% of our teens are sexting and chatting online, looking to meet older guys, so if that's what I was looking for I would assume it would be fairly easy to find an underage girl, but I didn't, I only wanted to chat. Even Detective Edgerton said in her own words that she knew I was never going to come meet with her. She said I didn't give the normal lines a sex predator would and she couldn't believe how honest I was, even shocked that my screen name was a real person and my actual address and phone number were correct and real.
Can our State/County really afford this? Totally ruining lives like mine, making me dependent on state assistance, unable to find employment and limiting me to this county, not being able to travel and look for work. Why is it a life sentence to chat about sex or send pics to a minor but it's not a crime to go meet them? How can one call what I did "luring a minor" when it was Detective Edgerton that contacted me and lured me?
Why is it in Yavapai County that sex offenders for this type of crime get 2 to 3 times more prison and probation time then anywhere else, even more than Maricopa County? I don't understand how in Yavapai County, where a 24 year old man has molested a 4-year old baby three times but only gets 85% of five years and only five years probation and it involved an actual real live victim? Oh, and he doesn't have to wear a GPS tracking device as I do, for life? How is it that a 25-year old man can have sex with a 14-year old girl giving her a permanent disease plus he's a repeat offender and only gets five years with an option to serve six with no probation? I have seen it over and over in here (Yavapai County Jail) where men with actual real victims, that have really harmed a child, and get less time/punishment than me. And I have never harmed a child in my life. I only want to be treated fairly, receiving the appropriate punishment for a victimless crime. Should my family and I be totally destroyed for life, not to mention the cost to our community, for an unconstitutional trap with no actual victim or anyone being harmed? Do we really want a society/community that hands out punishments like this for victimless crimes? Do people want to live in a community known for that, what kind of justice system is that?
The harshness and unjust punishments for unconstitutional traps and the cost that goes into these, is that what our county/community wants? My bet, and I'm positive most don't even know about it yet ... I only want a true and just punishment for my crime an not be pushed into the sentence I got because I was facing 84 years in prison, another unreal punishment.
Sincerely,
Jeff Balys
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