Dear Judge, today you got taken for a ride

Dear judge, today a sociopath entered your court room and took you for a ride. He played you for a fool. He got one over on you. You got conned.

Don’t worry, you aren’t the first. You aren’t even the first judge. You aren’t even the first judge *this month.*

You see, this person has multiple active court cases in multiple states as of this very day. You were just another date on his calendar. And he’s been doing this for years, so he knows how to play the game. Dozens of court dates every year.

How does he do it? Well, he’s all over the country, all over the state. You didn’t research or put two and two together to see that this is the same guy who got out of the same charge with the same sob story…in another state.

Oh, he did have a nice story, right? He certainly didn’t look like a criminal or a bad guy, much less a sociopath. He was so sorry, he explained this was all a terrible misunderstanding. He said he never gets into any trouble. This has never happened before. This will never happen again. You dropped the charges because you just knew this was an innocent man having a bad day.

Yeah, that worked on the last judge too. You see, that convincing man who had a GOOD reason for committing a crime and avoiding his responsibilities is a serial con-artist with a long history of anti-social behavior. Many of us never enter a court other than for “normal” things like divorce. But him? He’s been in courts all over the nation for all kinds of reasons: assault, disorderly conduct, drunk driving, domestic violence, road rage, personal property damage, driving without a license, inciting a riot, workplace bullying, failure to pay child support, harassing a police officer, defaulting on bills, tax evasion, hit and run…gosh I’m sure there is more I’m not remembering. That is, if he gets to court. He can lie his way out of a domestic violence arrest or a speeding ticket with the most convincing stories and excuses that aren’t the least bit true.

And you thought you were the first!

Nope. He perfected his act long ago. He’s had so much practice you know. He doesn’t even have to think to come up with a lie because lying isn’t his second nature. It’s his only nature. And he’s clever. He can tell you he is the victim in such a logical way that you can’t refute him even if you do realize you are being played. He made a fool out of you when all you had to do was enforce the law. He lied to you and you didn’t bother to verify his statements because he seemed so calm and believable. Yeah, he was counting on that.

Thanks to you, a sociopathic predator is still on the streets, committing the same crime, endangering lives.