Yeah, while I have no love for prosecutors at all these days since they try to convict innocent people just to get political points, and I don't have much love for pedos either...

Though, it's true that everyone always forgets that there is always a family involved that doesn't deserve the pain and suffering that go along with being mashed up in the (un)justice system, and especially don't deserve the loss of an uccused and untried parent.

Sad in too many ways to count.

"They will know we are [prosecutors] by our love, by our love, yes they'll know we are [prosecutors] by our love."

Dude was fucked up. This settles it. Poor guy.

what i find most disturbing is the set up of the sting he got caught in. there are actually parents who solicit their 5 year olds online for creepy strangers to molest? that's beyond sick.

I thought the world seemed a little brighter today.

the real trajedy here is if they didn't get the chance to lean on him for the names/identifying details of the other pimps he's dealt with in raping other children. there have been others, remember he's "done it plenty." those choildren need to be found and rescued, if possible, and the those perps...

"Love the sinner but hate the sin." - Ghandi

If he did not kill himself, some other convict would have done it for him. He beat them to the punch.

One reason to be sad for the kids is the likelihood that they were perpetrated upon themselves. It is a rare, rare child molester who will perp on strange kids without practicing on his own.

I think it is very likely that as awful as all this is, they will be better off without him. Having a dead father to mourn is not nearly as bad as having a live father who is molesting you.

No one ever gets caught the first time.

@ 3 "Poor guy" are you fucking kidding me? More like good riddance.

If only there was a nationally known treatment program for individuals so inclined as this prosecutor... for now I am okay with jail or self-prescribed death penalties.

And yes, it sucks for his family, but I think it suck a bit more for any one he abused...

Wow. I cannot believe nobody is addressing the real issue here. Namely - how does one commit suicide when one is on a "suicide watch"?

Here's a guess as to how : if this guy's "done it plenty of times" comment had turned out to be indeed true, how anxious do you think the DoJ was about having this turn into a long-running, media-frenzied case? Anxious enough to allow for an "unfortunate" 15 minute bathroom break for whoever was watching him, perhaps?

And now we get these vomitous "good man" statements that they're already spouting.

Money says within a year one has to search long and hard to find evidence that the case ever existed in the first place. And that, my friends, is every bit as sick and twisted as anything this guy ever did.

Usually, I think suicide is tragic and the ultimate selfish act.

Not so in this case.

[larry craig apologist mode] Hey, all he did was buy a doll for a little girl. This bust was totally bogus, dude. [/larry craig apologist mode]

yeah, it's a bummer they didn't find the rest of the victims and perp's. Its really irritating when the lawyer pulls that "Unfortunately, he is going to be judged by his most recent charges and what we have read in the media, and not by the goodness, hard work or by the love of his family" crap.
If the guy had not killed himself, the lawyer would no doubt have suggested he cop a plea, but now that he's dead these are only charges. This is what gives lawyers a bad name.
Mendacity.

Funny how the political party affiliation of this "federal prosecutor" -- in the most politicized DoJ ever, in which we've been daily hearing news reports that in vetting attorneys for hire, they'd asked directly about party membership (in violation of Federal law) -- is never mentioned. Anyone care to bet against me that he was not only a Repuke, but an activist? I'm giving odds here! Anyone? Bueller?
(And anyone who wants to castigate me for "politicizing" this, pls note I wasn't the one who made the DoJ hire only Rethugs; direct your ire appropriately. Wasn't me who made sure that "GOP" now means "Gross Old Pedophiles.")

I saw this live on comedy central wednesday night.

Will the human race ever stop the tragic,cruel, heartless,diabolical destruction of one another just to fill some perverse whim. When will we practice self control again and self-respect. Have we no dignity left. When one human soul willfully destroys another it undoubtably destroys all of us. Have we no good people left? Hurting someone else willnot fill are unmet needs it only makes them worse.

@4: Yes, actually. Quite often apparently, parents offer up their (very young) children via chat rooms and that for "training".

I took many many psychology and law courses when I was in high school and college, and this one always came up. The feds are almost always online, but there are more chat rooms than cops, I think.

The REALLY fucked up thing is that I don't think the kids always get permanently removed from the home, even when their parents are caught soliciting them, because of our judiciary's right-wing love for not breaking up families, pretty much regardless of the situation. It becomes that Michael Vick thing of "Well, they didn't know better. They took our parenting class now, so they;re A-OK!"

samrtalek -- He was a registered Republican voter in Florida, but no active political life ... not even a contribution to any campaign, local, state or federal.

And he wasn't one of the 93 celebrated (and politically appointed) US Attorneys ... just one of thousands of Asst. USA's (a career civil service job).

One interesting twist, the guy apparently had a Myspace page that seems to imply that he was into ageplay. Is it possible that he didn't think he was really meeting a 5-year old but an adult playing a 5-year old girl?

http://wizbangblue.com/2007/09/19/john-david-roy-atchisons-page-on-myspace.php

No heart.

@20. Do you want to bet your retirement plan on that possibility? I'm pretty confident that they had an open/shut case. Otherwise, why kill yourself?

@6: I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the cops DID lean on him for information. Who knows what he told them, but he was certainly in custody for quite some time.

@20: According to the arrest report and indictment the meeting was arranged through online chat conversations Atchison had with an undercover agent posing as the child's mother. From the reading I've done on infantilism, the Adult Baby role-play is played out Daddy-Baby Girl, and not Daddy-Parent.

You're correct that Atchison's arrangement with the sting operative doesn't fit into the "Daddy's Girl" fetish outlined on Atchison's MySpace page. It appears that Atchison had a penchant for real children -- and perhaps turned to "Adult children" in role play situations as substitute or surrogate. In the case of his trip to Detroit, it's my opinion that he thought he was meeting up with a real child.

This may well have been his first attempt to connect with a real child, although he apparently bragged about his 'experience' with children in the online chats.

@19: I've yet to see any solid evidence that Atchison was a registered Republican -the 'seed' of that rumor being anecdotal evidence -- an anonymous blog commenter who says they've seen the voter registration records for Gulf Breeze, Florida that lists Atchison as a Republican. The same "report" also listed an incorrect age for Atchison -- off by two years - link. A birth year of 1950 would make Atchison 49 or 50 -- the arrest report lists his age as 53.

I checked that county to see if the I could obtain the voter registration records online, and could not -- so how this person was supposedly able to look it up hours after Atchison's arrest is a mystery - or a lie.

The fact that the birth year doesn't match certainly makes this 'proof' less than solid. However, Atchison was first hired as an Asst. US Attorney under the Reagan administration, and I think that fact supports but of course doesn't prove, the likelihood of Atchison being a Republican in the late 1980s.

Sad,

The whole thing is sad more so when you consider that there's about a 99% chance that something similar happened to him when he was a child. The cycle just goes on. Sad. But I would want to question his parents and/or siblings to find out if he wasn't the only one in his family being abused as well.

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And anyone who doesn't feel absolutely skeeved by his attempted crimes has no brain.