Sex Offender Defends His Child Porn Collection by Claiming To Identify as Girl, 8
A 45-year-old convicted sex offender in Michigan attempted to get a break on child-pornography-related charges by claiming he identifies as an 8-year-old girl.
Joseph Gobrick was arrested in 2018 after police found a missing 17-year-old girl from Ohio in his Grand Rapids home.
During their investigation following the arrest, authorities also found a collection of child pornography on his computer depicting eight children, some 5 years old and younger, being sexually assaulted, according to WZZM-TV.
At his sentencing, Gobrick told the court that he has always identified as a young girl.
“I’ve always been an 8-year-old girl,’’ he said in court. “And even my drawings and fantasies, I am always an 8-year-old girl.’’
Even while he was awaiting trial, he talked about raping babies and drew pictures of abuse, Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Helmer said.
Based on his actions in jail, Helmer called Gobrick “a danger to the public.”
Gobrick, however, told the court he would never act on his desire to have sexual relations with children.
“I would no sooner have sex with a child than you would with a rattlesnake,’’ he said. “It’s just not safe.’’
He was found guilty on three charges of child sexually abusive commercial activity and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison, according to WZZM.
“Based on everything he’s said and done, including bragging about what he was drawing in his cell, he obviously doesn’t think child sexually abusive material is wrong,’’ Judge Paul Denenfeld said.
“This isn’t just virtual stuff; this is also real people being harmed,” the judge said.
During his trial in Kent County Circuit Court, Gobrick claimed the images were created using an image manipulating program and also protected under the First Amendment.
He even went as far to compare the criminalization of child pornography and his sentencing to the legality of concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
“Under the law, Auschwitz was legal,” he said. “What you’re doing here is wrong, just as Auschwitz was.”
This isn’t the first time Gobrick has faced charges of sexually explicit conduct. In 2001, he was convicted of sexual abuse in New York.
Gobrick’s case highlights a darker side to the left’s willingness to blindly accept an individual’s self-proclaimed “truth” over biological reality.
While it might seem easy for someone to assume Gobrick — who has clearly displayed perverted patterns of sexual attraction to minors — was grasping at straws to prove his innocence, proclaiming so would be inconsistent with what the left has so proudly preached.
The mantra “live your truth” might come from innocent intentions, but it also creates a slippery slope that can lead to more instances like Gobrick’s.
Thankfully, the judge saw through the baseless excuses and protected more children from being exploited by this man.
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