An Oregon man was sentenced last week to 25 years in prison for sexually abusing his stepson to get revenge on the boy's mother. William Gerald Collins, 44, told police he wanted to force his ex-wife's only son into becoming gay so she wouldn't have any grandchildren. He said he wanted to get back at her for asking for a divorce and kicking him out of their house.
Washington County Presiding Judge Thomas W. Kohl noted that in his 11 years on the bench, he had never had a case in which a person was victimized solely to hurt someone else. As a result, Kohl ordered consecutive sentences on several charges after Collins pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree sodomy and eight counts of first-degree sexual abuse, both Measure 11 crimes with mandatory minimum terms. The least amount of prison time Collins could have received was eight years, four months.
Collins cried as the judge handed down the lengthy sentence, ordered him to register as a sex offender for life and recommended that he not be allowed to be around children or go where they congregate after he is released from prison. "I know what I did was wrong," Collins said. "I'm in a learning process right now. I'm trying to acknowledge the pain I caused." Collins added that he hoped and prayed his victim would be able to forgive him someday.
Eric Butterfield, Collins' public defender, argued that 25 years was twice as much time as routinely handed down in sex-abuse cases with one victim. He debated what he called the "supposed motivation" and told Kohl to take Collins' "outrageous statements" to police "with a grain of salt." However, Collins did not deny the revenge angle when given the chance.
"This was not a pedophile who can't control his actions," said Andrew Erwin, Washington County deputy district attorney. "This was an evil, calculated plan by the defendant to not only destroy one life but two." Erwin said the abuse started in 1995 when the victim was 11 and happened "dozens of times" over the next two years.
According to the Oregonian article by Holly Danks, the abuse happened when the boy stayed with Collins and when Collins was allowed back into the family's home because he had no place else to go. It stopped when Collins moved from the area. Erwin said the victim did not disclose the abuse until November 2006, when his mother got a letter from Collins' former girlfriend in Reno. When the Nevada woman broke up with Collins, he threatened to rape her 14-year-old daughter, so she decided to tell what he had confessed to her about the molestation, Erwin said.
The Washington County victim wrote in a letter to the judge: "I never wanted my Mom to know this happened because I didn't want to hurt her." The victim and his mother were not in court, telling Erwin they never wanted to see Collins again. "Knowing now he did this to hurt my mom, I'm worried he will hurt my family again," the victim wrote. "I think he should be kept in jail forever."
The victim's mother wrote that she thought "all the anger" her son had back then was because of the divorce and she felt guilty because she hadn't recognized signs of abuse. "To think Will did this to hurt me, being that evil and vindictive, using a child, taking away his youth and innocence, he deserves to spend his life behind bars," she wrote.
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