My friend thought the FBI raid was the bad part

I'm running this for my friend F to help preserve her daughters' anonymity. She messaged me the day the raid happened, and I've done what I could to help her through this horrific mess. I've known her and her husband for 20+ years and just couldn't comprehend the idea that the guy I knew was capable of these things.

And then it got worse.

I'll share F's words here.

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On April 26, 2021, the FBI raided our home. I was so dumbfounded I never even asked to see the search warrant. He was interviewed. I was interviewed, separately. It took me almost three hours to fully grasp that they were really there for my husband, and they were looking at him for child pornography. Even my children were interviewed. And in the end, my husband was arrested for two counts of possession and one count of distribution of child pornography. I was grateful I wasn’t present when they actually placed my husband under arrest. I don’t think I could’ve handled seeing that. My own interview had been bad enough.

His charges, I was informed, were federal. And the children’s interviews had raised some red flags. I was on information overload and couldn’t bring myself to ask just what those were. I wasn’t even sure I’d be told if I did ask. I hadn’t been allowed into the forensic interviews with my daughters.

I thought all this was bad enough. Our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was three months away. Our marriage could have been better, but I thought things were at least good. Suddenly I was left holding the bag—alone, me and my part-time job. The call with my husband’s court-appointed attorney left me reeling. He was looking at serious time, even with a plea deal, and the FBI had seized a bunch of electronics from our home, and who knew what they would find on all that stuff… I was going to be alone for a long time. I had three daughters still at home to raise, now by myself. At the time, we had enough money from his unemployment income that finding a full-time position wasn’t an immediate need, but it would be soon. I didn’t know a whole lot about unemployment, but I was pretty sure he couldn’t collect it in jail. I was going to need full-time work. It took me almost five months to find, land, and start that full-time job. Still, it was an income cut: we’d gone from two working adults to one.

And then, a month after my husband’s arrest, things started to come out. Stuff that rocked me to my very core. Things I had no idea were happening under my roof, largely because they weren’t happening if I was around. And if I was around, they weren’t happening as overtly, and I was stopping them, according to my girls. A call to the victim specialist at the FBI confirmed what I was hearing. My husband was grooming my girls.

There was no going back now. I reached out to a few people and got the name of a good divorce attorney.

Good divorce attorneys are not cheap. I’m 14 months into my divorce process, and hopefully it’ll be over in the next few months. Unfortunately, my husband doesn’t want this, so he is dragging his feet any time we ask him to do anything. And I have $2000 in current legal bills that have now gone overdue because I just don’t have that kind of money laying around. There will probably be more expenses. My job covers our day-to-day living costs, but there’s no room for serious extras. I’ve been making payments, but the billing office is cranky. I’d appreciate any help I can get.

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The girls are safe now and in counseling, as is F. The husband has pleaded guilty and is facing over 15 years in federal prison.

Funds raised here will go toward legal expenses F is incurring for the divorce. Nothing will be spent on her husband's legal bills; he's being represented by a federal public defender.