Last night four of the most difficult years of my life came to an end. In these years I went through such fear and horror, there where days I could pull myself up only by running around in the backfields on my parents farm yelling and screaming until I had no breath left.

During this time period, there where unimaginable stresses that would fall on me and probably take years off my life. It also was a period of character development, where I was forced to think about who I was, and change my identity to conform with values developing within me.

My feelings about this time period are still painful and bitter, as are the lessons learned about our country’s notions of freedom and justice. Many of my mistakes during this time period still sting me to this day, but I hope over the next few months I will be able to explore them here on a series of articles on the fodder collection.

Here is what happened to me very briefly.

It was my sophomore year in college during the spring semester at the University at Albany. I took a class known as Caribbean and Latin Studies with Professor James Wessman. One of the ways students could earn extra participation credit was to participate in an online discussion board known as WebCT. I always enjoyed this as it was an easy way to discuss the issues of the day and get extra credit for free.

About three weeks into the class on Friday, February 13, 2004, I was participating in the class and made some rather crass and probably inappropriate remarks alluding – in a mocking kind of way – to a tragic incident regarding a seriously mentally ill student at Columbia High School in East Greenbush where a student brought a gun into his high school in threatened his teachers.

The next evening the University at Albany police showed up at my parents farm. I was arrested for aggravated harassment for posting words that this professor found offensive – in part because I was so defensive of my right to free speech in the police station. I gave a statement in support of right to speak freely. I spent a night in jail, until I was bailed out the next morning by parents on $15,000 bail.

I spent the next year fighting the matter in court and at the college. I was told by the court and the university that I was crazy for fighting for my right to speak freely, and that I had to be mentally ill – despite the fact I proved them much to the contrary. I gave a impassioned argument for free speech at the college hearing on my behalf, only to be declared a person non-gratia from the college, with a two year disciplinary suspension and a ban from on-campus housing through graduation. I worked with my lawyer to write an appeal to this declaration, only to lose again.

I lost out on the University at Albany fight. I also would lose repeatedly at court, with one pretrial motion after another being thrown out. After a year of fighting this my lawyer quit for an out of state job, so I was given three choices two days before trial: plea to a reduced charge of the violation of harassment, plea to the original misdemeanor charge and appeal the denial of my motions, or pay more money to take to trial with a lawyer unfamiliar with the case.

I chose the second option to plea to the misdemeanor aggravated harassment and was ultimately sentenced to three years of probation in Albany County from January 13, 2005 to January 13, 2008. I filed the initial papers for the appeal but didn’t have money or the stomach to proceed. In retrospect, I should have either taken the harassment violation or taken the matter to trial. My parents would have been much happier, and I would haven’t had gone through the hell of being on probation for three years.

The first option would have meant little more then a $200-$500 fine, and no criminal record. Yet, to plea to the violation would mean the end of the process with no appeal. The third option, of taking it to trial would have been expensive, and meant that I would have to prolong closure. I knew I would likely lose at trial in an era of fear where few people are willing to stand up for free speech. I’m not sure I would have won at trial and to have lost again and had to wait through appeal would have been difficult.

I paid off the misdemeanor surcharge and went back to work for the next year doing a variety of temporary administrative assistant jobs. I was determined to put my life back together. I took a night class at the College at Saint Rose, and applied and got into SUNY Plattsburgh and SUNY Oswego without any questions. I checked out both campuses and decided I liked Plattsburgh better.

I went back to Plattsburgh in 2005 and got involved in every community and political organization I could fit in my schedule. I worked very hard to get good grades. Amazingly it was not until late in 2005 that I would hear back from the probation office. We agreed to review my conditions over the phone, and I ended up going monthly to the probation office in Clinton County to review my compliance.

I came back to Albany 2006 to make more money for my final year in college. The probation office lost me for a month and a half, then I started reporting every two weeks to South Pearl Street probation office. I got to meet many of the poor working class people so unfortunate to get caught up in this system. It was often difficult having to lie to them as I frequently violated a variety of probation terms – simply because they where so strict that they where impossible to follow. The one requiring permission to leave the county was the most frequently violated.

I went back to school in September 2006. Before I could attend school again, they required that I receive a psychological evaluation to prove that I did not need treatment nor did I pose any threat to anybody. It was rather silly, as there was never any serious question whether or not I actually threatened anybody, but it kept the court and my probation office. The results took about six weeks, but concluded that I had “diverse interests”, “normal”, and that I was rather “embarrassed” about the whole ordeal. During this period, I was required to report to the probation office every two weeks on Thursday night in Albany.

It worked out quite well for me, as it gave me an opportunity to be involved in a variety of political campaigns down in Albany for both Eliot Spitzer’s bid for Governor and Kirsten Gillibrand for Congress. Yet, it also meant I missed a significant amount of time in my final semester in Plattsburgh. Eventually, my probation reporting was moved up to Plattsburgh, but I still frequently traveled down to Albany to do campaign work and to make money at my job in Albany.

I returned back to Albany in the Spring of 2007, and was an Undergraduate Intern for the Assembly. I worked hard at my new position, but I still had to report biweekly to the probation office on South Pearl Street. It was an annoyance, but I always brought lots of interesting reading material to keep me busy. I often had to wait a have hour to be seen, but the questioning was routine, and I showed off my pay stub. I graduated from Plattsburgh State in May 2007 with a BA in Political Science and a 3.75 GPA.

During September 2007 I was moved to the mailing reporting for probation, where I had to send in a monthly affidavit stating I was in compliance with my probation conditions. I continued to be very involved in a variety of community activities, and eventually was hired by the NYS Assembly as a Researcher. I moved out on to my own in an apartment in December 2007. I never heard again from the probation office, although I sent every probation affidavit monthly. Then yesterday, it all came to an end. The long night mere that started with a sentence taken out of context came to end, as quick as it all started.

It’s all over.

The previous five hundred or so words only capture a little bit of the emotion of an event that took a great deal of time in my life. I hope to talk more about the specifics in the next few months as a go through my records and upload some of the documents I have been carefully collecting for the day that I would be free to talk about this, after every word I wrote was not being monitored, and after I had probation officer that I had to report to.

There is not much left over now besides a few scars, painful memories, and a criminal record. After reading this story about my life, maybe now when you re-read my blog and my writings you will understand better where I come from and some of the pain and trouble I have embraced in my life. This new sense of context should make my every word make much more sense.

It’s a new day in my life. My rights to legally purchase firearms has been restored. I can legally go to any county or any place in this country and beyond, without getting special permission from a government agent. Nobody can be legally snooping around my life or monitoring my communications for offensive language. I am free again to make my own choices, and to live the free life as I see fit.

No more staring at calender to find out when January 13, 2008 will come. And no I don’t recommend you commit a crime either, much less plea to one when your offered a violation. It is over! I am free!