“To my neighbors:

I understand that a notice has gone out alerting you to the presence of a sex offender in the neighborhood.  Since I am that sex offender and since I know that those words can be very scary, I’d like to provide you with some information, information about me and my life.  I do this not to excuse or even explain.  Instead, I do it to try, as best I can in a page or two, to put those scary words into some sort of context.

Almost 40 years ago, in the fall of 1969, I left Torrington, the town where I was born, to begin my freshman year at a private boarding school run by the Jesuits in Lenox,  Massachusetts.  Now, as the notice has advised, I am returning to make my home, once again, in Northwestern Connecticut.

What happened, almost all would surely ask, in the course of those many years that turned me from a precocious, if somewhat overweight and clumsy, adolescent to someone who is considered so damaged that neighbors are warned, jobs are withheld and, for the rest of my life, I am required to post my picture and register details of who I am, what I did and where I live on a State run website? 

Well, in the course of that many years, a lot happens.

Back when I lived in Torrington, I can tell you that mine was a respected family. My father was an automobile dealer successful at selling an automobile which is no longer produced, the Oldsmobile.  It was also a loving family.  Not picture perfect like the Cleavers, but as good and as loving as most real families I know.

As a child, I went to one of the many Catholic grammar schools in town.  After moving to Lenox and graduating as salutatorian from that Jesuit boarding school, I was accepted at Cornell University.  There, my further success at academics landed me at Fordham University’s School of Law in New York City.

New York City.  I moved to the City the year Studio 54 opened.  For those who don’t know, it is, perhaps, one of the most famous nightclubs of all time.  It was a place where taboos were broken and sensuality ruled.  It was also a place I frequented, a fitting introduction to the New York which seduced me and a fitting metaphor for what I became. 

Within two years after I moved to New York, I broke up with my girlfriend, who I had met as a freshman at Cornell, and came out of the closet.  Or at least I came out to myself and those friends closest to me.

I also worked.  Being a lawyer, I worked quite a bit.  Twenty years of that effort was spent at one law firm in midtown Manhattan where I practiced corporate law and where I eventually became a partner.

More significantly, I found time for two wonderful lovers.  The first remained with me for almost ten years, the second for over seven.  As testament to their honor and decency, both supported me from my indictment through my trial and beyond.

As evidence of how I betrayed that decency, I never stopped playing around, I never fully settled down.  In fact, given my lifestyle for the 25 years prior to my arrest, I should probably be dead or, at least, infected.

Whether a blessing from God or not, I’m neither.  But, for sure, none would consider what my life became a blessing.  Lost in the pursuit of the pleasures and diversions which in New York City are so easily and readily available, I became unwilling to say “enough.”

Up to my early to mid 40s, I pretty much attracted whomever I wanted.  In New York, that’s not so hard to do.  Still, even then, I would sometimes get impatient and wanted what I wanted right away.  At those times, I would take advantage of another of New York’s offerings and would simply go out and buy it.

You get the picture?  A selfish life is bound to become one that is also care-less, in every sense of the word.  And, at least twice during that selfish, care-less life, there was a young male prostitute, too young.  The most recent one, with my phone number in his pocket, all it took for my fate to be sealed was a cop with a right to arrest him giving that cop the right to go through that pocket. 

There’s a lot more to the story, some of it, I think, interesting enough that I’ve written a book about it.  But, with a life clearly out of balance, none of it excuses.

Perhaps you can understand how I feel like I’ve learned some new lessons from all that has happened to me in the last 4 years.  Unfortunately, those lessons are not so easy to explain.  There’s either not enough time or not the right words or it’s just not the right place in so many ways.   That’s one of the reasons I’ve written the book.

What I can say here is that I believe those new lessons are the opposite of the old lessons.  Or, at least, as close to the opposite as I’ll be able to achieve in an imperfect life.  That, I know, is something I will now have to demonstrate every day for the rest of my life.  But I also believe that for those with an open heart, I need be no more fearful of their judgment than they need be fearful of me.”