♪ ♪
The detective told me that there
were over 100 videos of our daughter Avaya
in my husband Jason's iCloud account.
He's recording up her shirt.
Jason was somebody she...
called Dad.
♪ ♪
My stomach just dropped.
I literally felt so betrayed.
She didn't feel safe anymore.
She went to stay with her biological dad,
who was battling substance use.
But she couldn't come home.
I was afraid I was going to lose her.
Jason's sentencing hearing is one that will always
really kind of stick with me.
♪ ♪
I was terrified that he would manipulate Ashley
into letting him come home.
♪ ♪
Jason was originally charged with 10 counts
of sexual exploitation of a minor, which is a felony,
and two counts of voyeurism for secretly filming Avaya.
♪ ♪
When Jason did what he did...
The neighborhood kids no longer wanted to come over.
♪ ♪
Or when I would see somebody in a public place
that I knew...
they saw me and turned around and walked out of the store.
All of those things, like,
brought back some really big insecurities within me.
We all try to present, like, a really great image,
but we all have underlying things
that we might not be dealing with.
And when they come out, there's a lot of shame that comes up.
It's really hard when something like this happens
and you're being judged by other people.
Ashley, this caused her to question everything
about herself.
She withdrew.
She didn't want to go to the grocery store.
She didn't want to function.
The second week he was in jail,
I had to go see him.
So I made my way down with the lawyer,
and we began conversations.
Before Jason was arrested, he was prescribed Prozac
to help with his depression,
and he would take Adderall for his ADD.
So he'd created this story in his head.
"I'm off all that medication.
"I feel so much better now.
"My head's so clear. I feel great.
You saved my life."
So I'm like, okay, so he's taking this medication
that made him have a nervous breakdown
or a psychotic break of some sort.
♪ ♪
And because of the medication,
when the choice came to whether he was going to escalate
whatever type of pornography he was looking at,
he was like, hey, why not?
♪ ♪
I mean, it's normal when something really bad
happens to try to believe any story or cover for them
or minimize it, because the truth around this story
is just devastating.
♪ ♪
And so I started letting him call.
My youngest child didn't understand.
Jason is her biological father.
She was so little.
She wasn't even eight years old.
And she just didn't understand why he was in time-out.
♪ ♪
That's how I explained it.
I said, Dad made a really bad choice.
And when you make a really bad choice, there's a consequence,
and his consequence is time-out for adults.
However...
Avaya and my son wouldn't speak to him.
♪ ♪
Olivia really wanted to hear from him really bad.
It was really sad watching her
trying to understand everything at first.
It was really, really sad...
because he doesn't deserve to have her.
♪ ♪
When Avaya quit coming home...
it dawned on me
that she didn't feel safe in her own room.
And for whatever reason, her biological dad, Matt,
and his uncertainty made her feel safer
than being around me in my home.
♪ ♪
I had put a mattress next to his bed on the floor.
For, like, three months straight, I slept there,
right next to my dad every single night.
♪ ♪
I felt bad for moving out, in a way.
I kind of felt like I just, like,
left my mom and my brother and Olivia.
But my mom had so many other things to worry about.
It was really frustrating for me,
and I just felt safe next to my dad.
We'd spent every day of her life with her,
and she couldn't stand to be around us.
I cried every single day.
♪ ♪
I missed her.
But I had to just be okay with it.
♪ ♪
It didn't seem like it was a very stable environment,
but it's what she needed at the time.
Once Jason was put in county jail,
he tried to communicate with Ashley and the kids,
and he did that through letters.
So these letters were sent within weeks
of him first being arrested and charged.
What did he say to you?
"If you give me a chance, Ash,
"I will fix my mistakes.
"I know that person was not the real me.
"I'll do anything to spend the rest of my life with you
"and showing you the man that I am
"and the man that I can be through my actions.
I hope you all can forgive me."
What he did is such a violation
and so deep and intense.
And I don't...
This letter doesn't represent that.
No.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, it's like he...
I don't know-- like, got a DUI or--
I mean, which is not--
I mean, I'm not saying that that's not terrible.
-Mm-hmm. - But it's--
it's almost like he
just got put in time-out for a minute.
Avaya's letter.
- Do you mind if I read it? - Yeah.
Oof.
"Avaya...
"hey, V. I miss you and my family so much.
"I'm so sorry for all the stupid things I have done
"to end up here in jail.
"I'm feeling a lot better now, and my mind is a lot clearer.
"You are a beautiful, strong, independent, smart, talented,
"and creative young woman.
"Make sure you never let anyone treat you like an object.
"I miss you so much, V.
Love, Dad."
I have a hard time with the fact that in this letter,
he's writing that she's beautiful...
and has, like, the capacity
to talk about anyone treating her like an object,
because that's exactly what he did.
In all of the letters,
there's a tone of...
"I'll be better.
"When I get out, I'll be, like, the husband
"that you want me to be or the father that I should have been.
I'm going to make this up to you."
♪ ♪
I didn't want to read them. I told my mom.
I was like, throw them away. Burn them.
Like, I don't give a shit.
That's sick.
Why are you writing me after you know
you literally just destroyed me?
Give me my space.
But he couldn't because those letters and those apologies
were to make him feel better.
He's really manipulative.
He's one of those kinds of people
that will literally say anything
to make you believe him.
I wanted to believe it.
I wanted to believe he's been sick,
and he's going to get better, because I wanted my life back,
give the kids their life back.
♪ ♪
After Jason gets arrested, Jason spent 30 days in jail.
So he spends 30 days in jail
but then is released on pretrial
so he can prepare with his lawyer.
When Jason was released,
he went and lived with his grandfather.
And there were stipulations, obviously,
for him being out of jail-- no Internet and no smartphone.
♪ ♪
When he got out, it terrified me--
terrified me for my own family
but for Ashley and for the kids.
He's out there.
Is he going to manipulate the situation
and work his way back in?
♪ ♪
After we found out Jason was getting released,
it was just kind of a stressful time.
I know how the whole law works.
It's not like you can just
immediately put someone in jail forever.
They have to go through a trial and all those things.
But what's going to happen with Ashley?
I mean, she was upset.
But she was also, like, trying to help him.
♪ ♪
I spend the next month of my life
between Jason's grandpa's house
and at my house with my children.
I went right back into wifey mode.
I took him all the clothes that he needed,
and I'd cook him dinner,
and we were studying the Bible together.
It felt happy and good.
And I wanted to...
go back to the way life was.
I was like, what the hell are you doing?
She said, please just let me figure this out
and work through it, and don't say anything to me right now.
And I just said, okay.
Vaya was stressed out about that whole thing.
She didn't want to see him.
She didn't want to have to run into him.
I just was worried about her
and how, you know, she was going to feel.
I didn't know how to feel about that.
I understood, like, where she was coming from.
Like, I wanted that life back, too, like,
but she's still going to leave him.
Like, that was, like, my thought in my head.
Like, she's still going to leave him.
Like, he's not going to come back in our life.
He's not going to be my dad.
There was always this underlying question I had.
And I asked him, why did you have so many photos?
And his response was, well, they were just a collection.
I never looked at them.
My brain was so fucked up that I just collected these photos.
♪ ♪
It is really hard to confront something
when we know our whole reality
is going to fall apart, consciously,
but also subconsciously.
So I asked him, you know,
why did you record Avaya?
And he said, well, I was trying to catch her smoking
or catch her being inappropriate with boys,
and I wanted to have evidence to show you.
I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
You were just, like, trying to catch her
being a shitty teenager.
I mean, it's still weird as shit, but I was like, okay.
He was recording her all the time
and just happened to get her
in these compromised positions a couple of times.
Like, that's what made sense to me,
because there was no way that he was...
looking at our daughter in a sexual manner
because that doesn't even compute.
She was trying to process it all
and not really realizing,
I don't think, the magnitude of what he's done
or the impact it was putting on Avaya, you know,
that she was talking to him,
'cause we were like, what is happening?
What is she doing?
He told me that his lawyer had handed him
the evidence investigation,
but I realized that he'd been distracting me,
like, when I'd ask for it.
He would say, you don't need to look at it.
Like, you know everything.
You see all the police documents.
You don't need to look at the discovery paperwork.
And then I remember, one day finally looked at him,
and I was like, fucking stop.
Like, I realized he did not want me to see the report.
♪ ♪
And when I read the report...
you know, like, I'd see these words--
"undress," "breasts."
And I was like, what the fuck is this?
♪ ♪
Every single video of Avaya
was her in those compromising positions.
♪ ♪
Everything that, like, he said he was doing at that time
was a lie.
♪ ♪
The fact that he would say he was going out in the backyard
using his stargazing app...
♪ ♪
When really he was walking over to Avaya's window...
and he was in the dark
and taking videos of her.
♪ ♪
It's an anger feeling.
It's a pitiful, sorry feeling for him
that he's sick like that, you know?
You knowingly and willingly
chose to take photos and videos
of your own child.
He knew what he was doing
every time he did it.
♪ ♪
And when I asked him why he lied to me,
he told me, I didn't lie to you.
You came up with this story
that I was recording Avaya doing everything,
and I just didn't tell you.
I just let you believe what you thought.
That was when my rose-colored glasses came off,
and I was like, what the fuck am I doing?
And, like, instantly, I thought of my children.
And I thought of Avaya.
Like, how did I do that to her?
♪ ♪
Thinking about it now and knowing what I know now,
that was just a really desperate attempt
to not lose my life.
♪ ♪
So many people, and often people
who struggle with some childhood trauma, like Ashley,
live in relationships where they have a sense
that something's wrong,
but they don't address it until they're pushed to a limit
in which they need to address it.
So the fact that she didn't address it for a while
makes so much sense, given how she's adapted
to survive in her life.
It was time to quit pressing pause on our lives.
It was time to be there for the children.
♪ ♪
It was time for us to have whatever influence we could
on the court system.
And it was time for me to fight for Avaya,
and it was time for me to fight
for all those little girls in those photos.
♪ ♪
There was a year process in between when
Jason was released from his first 30 days in jail
to his hearing.
In that year, we went through three prosecutors.
♪ ♪
There's a lot of wheels and deals going on.
And so we heard Jason was going to plead guilty
so we don't have to go to trial.
Sam Sutton, who's the prosecuting attorney,
was fairly confident this would eventually lead
to a hands-on offense.
Not every person that consumes CSAM
leads to a hands-on offense,
but the prosecutors felt very certain
that it was trending in that direction
leading up to sentencing day.
♪ ♪
Today we are at the courthouse building.
This is where Jason was sentenced.
On that day of sentencing,
it was the first time I'd ever met Sam Sutton,
the state prosecutor.
And he came in, guns a-blazing.
He was like, we're going to do this.
We're going to do this.
It looks like there was a level of escalation on Jason's part,
going from photos to filming Avaya,
and so we're going to go for this prison sentence,
because he's a danger.
But before our time in front of the judge,
Sam Sutton went and spoke with Jason's attorney,
and that's when he found out that there was a deal made.
♪ ♪
He was originally charged
with ten counts
of sexual exploitation of a minor
and two counts of voyeurism.
But one of the prosecutors had struck up a deal
to have Jason plead guilty
to two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor
and one count of voyeurism.
And that was a surprise.
Although I could tell them my opinion on it
and what I think should happen,
ultimately, that choice was going to go in whatever
was in the best interest of the state.
And I felt like we were being silenced,
like we weren't being listened to.
I had told Sam Sutton, our prosecutor,
that we wanted to speak.
I wanted to speak my piece
because I knew that we had that right.
♪ ♪
♪ All alone ♪
I wasn't sure if Avaya was even going to come to court.
I didn't know if it was even appropriate
for her to come to court to be in the same room
with her perpetrator,
aka her father who raised her.
♪ ♪
Get off! Oh, oh!
But I let her decide.
That morning, she looked at me and said, I'm fucking going.
I was like, am I allowed to say, like,
my piece, like, what he did to me?
My mom was like, yeah, of course, you totally can,
100%.
I was so scared.
But I was ready.
I wasn't going to let anyone stop her.
I looked Jason directly in the eyes.
I was so scared. I was so scared.
But I remember, like, walking up to that booth,
knowing that I literally had to do it.
I had to speak up there.
♪ All alone ♪
♪ ♪
When I was walking to the stand,
I remember seeing him whimpering and crying, like--
almost, like, shaking in his own body, freaking out.
♪ ♪
I don't want him to see my shape.
I don't want him to see my body.
I don't want him to even be able
to see any inch of my skin.
She did not want Jason to have
anything to even think about.
♪ ♪
When I was talking, I was looking directly at the judge.
I wanted her to know that I was talking to her.
I wanted her to believe me.
Like, you guys may think that he's this,
like, cool football dad.
This is his only first charge, whatever.
No, he's a piece of shit, dude.
♪ ♪
I wanted him to hear the hurt in my voice.
I wanted him to feel that pain.
That was me, like, saying, like, you know what?
Bye, dude.
Like, that was the last you'll ever hear my voice.
That is the last you'll ever hear from me.
She got up there and faced Judge Mettler
like Avaya was a giant
and the rest of us were peons looking up at her.
I knew he was just faking.
Like, that was just a big, fake cry.
It was just a big lie,
is what that cry was.
He said what he felt...
would get him a lighter sentence.
It was utter bullshit.
She was doing what was allowed
based on the plea deals that were made.
And he was only given a year at a county jail,
not even at a prison.
I was pissed.
I was shocked.
♪ ♪
First-time offenders, whatever.
Because he had a clean record, doesn't take away the fact
that he took pictures of my granddaughter.
And how many other thousands of pictures he had on his phone--
hopefully, because of all this and we keep doing this,
they're going to find a way to, you know,
make someone pay the price.
My job is to investigate
crimes against children that happen over the Internet.
And so, seeing that kind of sentence for an offender,
it's a blow to me as an investigator.
It's also a blow to me as a father.
That's the consequence that someone gets
for viewing this type of material?
That's all you're going to give them?
Yeah, that's terrible.
Yeah, it was like a slap on the wrist.
I wanted him to do prison time.
Prison is where he belongs.
♪ ♪
I was so angry.
This was really the way it was going to be.
And I just had to deal with it.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
The lack of education amongst our decision makers
in terms of CSAM is...
is what's hurting us.
There's that disconnect
with understanding it's not pornography.
It's not just pictures.
Those kids behind there, they're real.
I mean, he's not the only one.
There's a lot of things like this happening
all over the place.
For the year 2023, over 45 million CSAM cases
have been reported across the country.
I don't think we can really pin down
why people choose to consume
child sexual abuse material.
The common perception of someone involved in CSAM
is probably a single male
living in Mom and Dad's basement,
but it can be a teacher,
a CEO, a police officer.
There's no one...
type of offender.
It does seem like the law
is on the side of the perpetrator,
because not only do they have really short sentences,
but then they get out,
and they're in a system that basically protects
their rights at the expense of other people's rights.
I was scared...
because I realized that it's only
a matter of time until Jason's released...
And right back into
my life.
♪ ♪
Two or three months after Jason was sentenced,
Avaya started coming home more, coming to dinners, stopping by.
I remember my mom called me, and she's like, your brother,
he wants his sister, he wants his sister,
and that's all he keeps asking for.
You need to come. I was like, okay.
So I came upstairs, and I just looked at him,
and I was like, dude.
And he just started screaming.
And I was like, come here, and I just gave him a big hug.
And we all just sat there and just sobbed for, like, hours.
She stayed one night, stayed two,
and then slowly moved back in.
And I remember being in Utah at that time.
And I just remember seeing Ashley, being like, she's home,
and that meaning so much to her.
But he only ended up serving ten months
of that year for good behavior.
So in the months to follow,
Jason's released.
After everything had happened,
Jason was still in the same neighborhood as us.
I'd seen him drive, like, past me, like, three times.
Every time I'd see him drive past me, I would have to,
like, pull over because I would be,
like, hyperventilating, like, shaking.
Like, I would literally, like, stop and be, like,
freaking out.
Avaya should not have to even consider
that she may at some point run into him.
She is being victimized over and over and over again.
It's really scary that Jason only served
a short period of time and he's out.
And he has so much more freedom than we would like,
because these types of crimes take a long time
to heal and change.
And he needs a lot of help before, you know,
he should be set free.
Ashley, you know, was going to church a lot.
She joined this group, kind of like a recovery group.
When he got out, he started going to her church.
And then he started going to that same group--
not at the same time, but he was still a part of it.
She continued going,
and there was a session that she sat in on.
And they read a letter that he sent from jail
to all his brothers and sisters,
and they read it out loud in front of her
and were, like, celebrating him.
And it really makes me wonder
if they knew exactly what he did.
He, like, took that sanctuary away from her.
He never went with them to church before he got arrested.
So the fact that he did it after and, you know,
started saying, like, he's found God and the Gospel
and he's a better man, it just seemed like bullshit to me.
He can put on a good show.
If he thinks that God's going to save him, good for him.
But...
He's got a long ways to go if he's going to do that.
Here's the thing.
People like Jason--
we can't just lock up and throw away the key
or do whatever the hell we think we need to do
with pedophiles,
because until the perpetrators really want that change
or want to figure out what it is
that makes them want to look at child sexual abuse material
or abuse a child, they're not going to get better.
Ashley is in a situation
where she faces the next phase of this, which is divorce.
And what was so eye-opening to me was that
criminal court and family court are two separate things.
In this instance,
Jason did all these illegal things.
He caused the destruction of the family.
He caused the whole life to be disrupted.
And yet he still under the law
is entitled to a certain percentage of their assets.
Half of everything--
my pension, half my retirement,
half the value of Avaya's car that I bought her.
And he believes that he's entitled to it.
There's a risk that she's going to lose the house
and have to sell it to pay him out his portion of the equity.
In addition to that, he was granted
supervised visits with our youngest daughter.
It's clear that he's a risk to his daughter.
But even though a parent has done something to one child,
the court systems don't automatically assume
that that necessarily creates a risk to another child.
The law requires high standards
to stop contact between a parent and a child.
And that goes back to kind of our constitutional law
that tends to treat children as though they're property.
And in this instance,
where there weren't actual sexual acts going on--
and I hate to say "just voyeurism,"
because it's still terrible--
but that doesn't necessarily for a judge mean
that he's going to be a risk to his children in the future.
Ultimately, Jason's going to want
to have unsupervised visits with his biological daughter.
Not only does Jason want that,
but the state of Utah also wants that for Jason.
♪ ♪
The reunification laws in Utah
basically tell courts that they have to create a plan
to allow a parent to transition off of supervised visits
to unsupervised visits.
So, after three months of treatment,
he's "cured" enough
that he's safe to be around these children again.
And is it going to be another three months
of sex offender treatment
and suddenly he gets unsupervised visits
with his daughter?
♪ ♪
I mean, when you think about the fact
that Olivia is at the age of the girls
that he saved photos of...
and he gets to see her,
and there's a chance that he'll be granted
sleepover privileges--
how is that acceptable?
I know he's the father, but the crime that he committed
was against children, so he shouldn't be around children.
It seems pretty straightforward to me.
From my perspective, like, this case should be easy.
Ashley should get custody. She should get the house.
There should be no visitation, period.
And the fact it becomes all about protecting his rights
and what he's entitled to,
it's hard to watch Ashley going through it,
because you want it to just end for her.
I've realized through this whole thing
that I have to put protections in place to protect my child.
And by doing that, I have to have really tough conversations
with a ten-year-old.
I've told her...
if something feels weird, then it's probably weird.
She comes to me and asks me if what she's wearing
is appropriate to be around him.
♪ ♪
Ashley called me up just bawling about that one day.
She's only ten years old.
If your kid came up and said, am I dressed appropriately...
To see my father?
Holy shit.
Because although she doesn't really understand...
like, what's happened,
she knows that there is...
a guard that she has to have up with him...
to keep herself safe, because I can't.
There's nothing in place for me to do that.
And that's what scares me about our criminal justice system.
There has to be a different system.
There has to be a better way.
♪ ♪
After the podcast, we got so many emails
just from people relating to Ashley's story,
victims of sexual violence, abuse.
It's been really incredible to watch.
So many people have told me the same things
are happening to them.
Their husbands have been arrested for the same thing.
And they're going through the same thing
that I'm going through.
How are you?
I knew that he had re-offended...
but I had no idea about him getting supervised visits.
Wow.
Yeah, I was telling Andrea today that
Jason was approved for a smartphone.
And he's still
in his court-appointed, like, sex offender treatment.
You and I both are...
like, essentially fighting that same fight right now.
♪ ♪
This view is incredible.
Yeah.
Thank you for bringing me here.
We live in a very beautiful place.
Sometimes the beauty masks what really is going on.
So...
don't let it fool you.
It's so important that we start talking
about these things.
Many people listening might have a "perfect life"
but an underlying feeling that something's off.
And so we need to start paying attention
because these types of crimes are happening
right under our nose and in every demographic
and every neighborhood.
Since this podcast came out,
I had so many people, like, reaching out to me.
We connected. We understood each other.
Like, we knew that feeling.
It was really cool, and it was really empowering
to know that, like, something that, like, I did or my mom did
could empower someone so much to even talk about it
or even bring it to the surface.
Our goal was,
if we can make one person feel less alone
and they are able to grow and to heal, we did our jobs.
♪ ♪
I'm doing, like, part-time working,
and I'm doing part-time school.
And I've made so many new friends.
I got a puppy.
It's really, really cool to see myself change and grow.
The podcast allowed her to
have a voice that she needed.
All of a sudden, like, it wasn't scary
to do things that we used to do,
like, be around, like, other men.
♪ ♪
Now I don't even worry about it.
Like, I'm like, if I see him, I see him.
But there's not something that you could even do
to make this feeling ever go away in your life, ever.
Their family is still recovering.
But when you hear how Jason is doing--
he's found God.
He's good.
He gets a fresh start.
We don't get a fucking fresh start.
They don't have the privilege or the opportunity
to pretend like it didn't happen.
This is their reality day in and day out.
♪ ♪
He's not there
when Avaya is having a panic attack
or when our youngest daughter
is having the worst temper tantrum of her life.
He doesn't have to see
the consequences of his actions.
Justice won't ever come from Jason
for these kids and I.
Justice for us will be my kids succeeding
and being amazing
on their new path that they're on
and knowing that they did it without him.
♪ ♪
That's our justice.
♪ ♪