I have a disability (autism) and, sadly, have been going through court proceedings for the better part of three years now. I have had to take all this time off from going to college because the school officials don’t want me going back as long as my case/cases are open.
I originally had just one misdemeanor charge filed against me by one person. As time went on, however, more and more people came forward as victims, and as such, more and more charges were pressed. My own father has even pressed charges against me, and doesn’t defend me to the judge or the prosecutor. Instead, he makes me out to be this villain that I’m not. I’m just disabled.
All of the charges, I’m told, are class-A misdemeanor charges. These are the lowest-tiered crimes/charges on the books. Some have been dropped, but only because the police made false statements on the arrest warrants – or at least the statements weren’t 100% accurate. My bond is set at about ,000 by the judge, although the bail commissioner has protested that it doesn’t need to be that high.
The prosecutor is being absolutely merciless and doesn’t see that I am truly autistic and cannot understand all the legal processes that are going on all around me. I have a (female) lawyer who I am paying for, but I cannot continue to keep paying for her.
Since all of this started, I have lost my job and cannot find a new one. I go to court roughly twice a week to appear before the judge and prosecutor with my lawyer. I also have to go to see four different psycho-therapists at four different mental health agencies and take psychiatric medications that is extremely expensive (0 for a 30 day prescription for one and 0 for a 30 day prescription for another). I don’t have to pay for the therapy, as since it is court ordered and so the court pays the costs and fees of the services.
Since I don’t have a job anymore, I’ve had to cash two annuities (that I was supposed to save for when I retire) in order to pay for court costs. The annuities were for ,000 each, but since I touched them early, I had to pay early withdrawl penalty fees as well as state and federal taxes. When all that was said and done, I got 00 out of one and ,200 out of another. Almost all of this money has gone to pay for my lawyer and the costs of going to court, such as validating my parking and paying the bail commissioner to reduce my bond.
I want to see some kind of ending in sight, but I’m doubtful that anything like that will happen soon. I don’t have any support from family or friends, and it seems like everyone is against me with such a passion that it frightens me. I feel that I’ve been bankrupted by the courts because the prosecutors won’t drop the charges and dismiss the cases. My lawyer has even stated that it’s not legal for the courts to prosecute a disabled person, such as me, but the prosecutor doesn’t really know what autism is and feels that it’s more of a personality disorder rather than a disability.
I’m running out of money and don’t know what to do.
For those of you who want to know, my charges are these:
1st degree trespassing (because I went over someone’s house)
Harassment (because I sent letters to people in the mail)
Intimidation (because of the letters)
Impersonation (One of the people who I sent a letter to was my cousin, who happened to be friends with a lot of the other people who received letters, and he told the courts that I was NOT related to him)
Creating a public disturbance (this came out of going over someone’s house)