Support our son's Legal Defense Fund

We need your help. Here's some background explaining why.

Our beautiful, empathic son found his calling working with special needs high school students. To acquire full teaching certification, he enrolled in college and recently began his student teaching placement in the final stretch towards graduating in this spring. We are so proud of his hard work and accomplishments! Life is expensive, and to make ends meet, he's been working part-time at a local department store on top of studying and working his assistant teaching job.

And now, the bizarre twist of events that leads us to asking for your help.

Two weeks ago, after a full day of teaching, he got on a bus and headed to the store for his usual shift. This time, he and some other coworkers were met at the door by police officers, charged with "grand theft in excess of $10,000," read his rights, and brought to the station for questioning. He was immediately dismissed from his position.

Needless to say, this was a terrifying and shocking experience. Those of you who know this trusting, tenderhearted, and honest young man know that he wouldn’t steal a paperclip. Unbeknownst to him, he’d been used by a crime ring that exploits this retailer's price matching policy to purchase valuable items at a fraction of the listed price and then resell them. It’s easy to find stories online about how widespread this is. He recalled for police how on multiple occasions he checked with supervisors before completing such transactions and was told each time to go ahead with the sale. Everyone who worked there seemed to know about these transactions and never gave him any indication anything was amiss. Police seized his phone as evidence. A month later, they still have it. Of course, they will find no evidence there or in his bank account that he'd been in personal contact with these resellers or benefitted from their crimes in any way.

Despite the fear that he might lose everything he’s worked so hard for, and despite anxiety about how he’s going to pay his living expenses, he hasn’t missed a day of his student teaching. With the help of a friend, he found a reputable defense attorney who feels optimistic he can get the charges dropped before the May court date. Joanna and I are doing our best to help him with his living expenses, but we unfortunately are not able to cover the lawyer’s retainer fee of $5000 and are therefore asking our family and friends to help in whatever way you can. Our son is desperate to put this nightmare behind him and is willing to take out a loan, but we want to do whatever we can to avoid him being saddled with yet another financial burden.