He’s Generous, an Amazing Poet (and a Pedophile)

I had been telling my ex-mother-in-law that her eldest son needed help dating back to 2002. She knew he was suicidal and homicidal. Because she lived overseas for a large portion of the year, it was a family effort to find him resources but even that narrative was controlled by my ex-mother-in-law. I agreed to go to a doctor with him to obtain antidepressants at his mother’s insistence but, she prohibited me from mentioning that he was suicidal or homicidal. I agreed to take him to a therapist which I did but, I was prohibited by my ex-mother-in-law from telling the therapist what was happening behind the scenes. By summer of 2002, my ex-husband and I agreed to wash our hands of the situation: we left him in the care of his parents.

We didn’t have much to do with Jason Robert Porter after that summer aside from family gatherings where everyone came together and pretended to be normal. For my ex-mother-in-law, image was everything. Pretending to be normal was everything.

For Father’ Day 2006, my ex-husband and I agreed to attend a celebration at Jason’s Paso Robles home which turned out to be the last time we’d agree to be around Jason as he beat an entire litter of puppies and exploded into a terrifying rage. My ex-husband and I vowed that we were done with Jason, we were done pretending and we agreed that our daughter would never be around this sick man. We held to that until we separated in 2009 and it became his goal and driving force to hurt me.

He immediately began taking my little girls around Jason Porter. I appealed to the San Luis Obispo Superior Court (family court), I appealed to our child custody evaluator, Noelia de la Torre and I appealed to minor’s counsel, Edward Somogyi. I begged, I pleaded and I submitted evidence to prove how dangerous Jason was - I told them about the time he made out with a 14-year old girl at a wedding. He was 30+ and it was her first kiss. I even provided contact information for them to speak to a witness, a relative of the girl who would verify the story. No one called her.

Then my ex-mother-in-law inserted herself into our family court case. She met with the evaluator to paint a rosy picture and she submitted court documents stating how wonderful Jason Porter was and excusing his past behavior while chalking it up to “depression.” She went to great lengths to override my request to keep my children away from Jason and to paint a picture for the court of Jason as a respected contractor, husband and family man.

In 2016, he was arrested and my nightmares became a painful reality - he was everything I believed him to be and more. So much more.

For five years, his trial has dragged on and we, with many other local families have lived the nightmare that is Jason Robert Porter. Yesterday, he was convicted - his fate was sealed by the brave, 11-year old girl who testified against him.

GUILTY on 52 counts and held without bail. His sentencing will take place at the end of June and he faces over 300-years in prison.

And my ex-mother-in-law…I have no words. None appropriate to share here.

What I will share is her own words, written days after identifying a child-relative in Jason’s library of child sex abuse images and acknowledging that he has “an addiction to child pornography.” This was submitted in one of Jason’s motions - it is public record.

Let’s overlook the he sexually abused many children, in a home that he shared with his mother (a mandated reporter) and focus on his baptism, his poetry and maybe we can just slap a bracelet on him and let him build houses for minimum wage? This is not denial - this is pure evil.

“This was an over five-year matter. People were waiting for five years for justice to be served and today, justice was served. I think relief in the victims’ hearts is something we’ve been looking for and that happened today," the attorney for some of the victims, Gregory Gillett, said. "This is closure and we’re happy with closure from that extent. I know the mothers of these victims are extraordinarily happy with the result and again, it’s been a trying five years but they’ll definitely move forward, they’ll be strong and they’ll take what they’ve learned from this and they’ll grow to be strong, strong young women."