Hollywood Arts, Here I Am

Chapter 4: Family Struggles, Making It On My Own, And A Court Date

I took a deep breath and blurted it out, like ripping a bandage off, "She recorded the assault of my sister, who was thirteen at the time, and sold it to pedophiles."

Lane's jaw dropped in horror, Jade's face contorted into a look of pure disgust.

"Oh my god." Lane mumbled.

"I know she still has the raw copy, she doesn't know shit about computers. I know that while she verbally assaulted me, sometimes, as punishment," I started to tear up and choke on a sob, "she would force me to watch it and tell me that if I screwed up any more, she would bring some random man to do the same thing to me."

"That must've been even more initiative for your grandparents to take you in." Lane confirmed.

"It was. And I can't thank them enough for bringing me into their home and showing me the love my parents never did." I sobbed.

Lane sighed and picked up the phone on the table in front of us, "So, do you want to report your mother as a producer and seller of child pornography?"

I didn't hesitate to take the phone out of his hand, tears streaming down my face, "Call them, I want closure."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another month has passed since the session with Lane.

My mother was arrested and the police did find the raw copy of my sister's assault. They arrested the pedophiles who were sold the video, and my mother was sentenced to 30 years in prison on that charge and had to be put on the registry, I was finally free from her.

Of course, I had to testify against her. I had to tell a jury about what my mother did and how I knew she did it. I shed actual, real tears. Even though the defense tried to get me to believe that I was a child and didn't remember it properly, I fought. The defense even tried to convince me that I filmed the video, I know I didn't do that.

The trial went like this:

"Ms. Naydeen, how long have you lived with your mother?" asked the prosecutor, Rafael Barba. (Any SVU fans?)

"I've lived with her for 13 years before I started staying with my grandparents, Edwina and George Randal." I answered.

"And your grandparents, they took you in?" he asked, getting me to tell my story to the jury.

"After I had opened up to them about my father and my sister's suicides, and when I opened up to them about other stuff."

"What other stuff?" Barba asked.

I looked at my mother, sitting with her attorney, I wanted to vomit as she stared at me.

"If I did something bad, like get a bad grade in a class, fail a test, whatever...my mother, the woman sitting over there," I pointed her out, "would drag me to her computer, sit me down in front of it, and force me to watch a video of my father sexually assaulting my sister."

I noticed some of the jurors eyes widened, others slowly covered their mouths with their hands.

"The worst part about it," I continued, "was that she would lean down next to me and whisper in my ear, 'if you do anything bad again, I will bring home some random man and I will make sure he does the same thing your dad did to your sister.'"

"That must've been terrifying." Barba commented.

"It very much was, it struck fear into me. So when I opened up about it to my grandparents, they took me home, made me pack everything I owned, and took me back to their house. Where I currently live now."

"No more questions, your honor." Barba said as he went back to his table and sat down.

The defense attorney stood up, "You live at your grandparents' house?"