Granados Column: Joshua Curtis goes down the rabbit hole

At 26 years old, Joshua Curtis faces a precarious future. Where most people his age would be trying to build a family, develop a career or both, Curtis is waiting in Piedmont Regional Jail to find out if he will face indefinite civil commitment by the state of Virginia.

The state has labeled Joshua with possibly the most taboo title possible -- sex offender. And while his offense -- having consensual sex with a 13 year old when he was 18 -- was a non-violent (though disgusting) crime, changes in law have led to Joshua being labeled as a violent sex offender for that crime.

That label as violent is what could allow Virginia authorities to lock Curtis up for the foreseeable future, despite the fact that he has already served the sentence for his crime.

Curtis' tale is a dramatic one, and while he does not deny his responsibility for the trouble he has caused, his story does perhaps illustrate that Virginia's sex offender law is dysfunctional. After his tale is fully told in this newspaper, you can decide for yourself.

Curtis claims that in 2002 when he slept with the 13-year-old, she had told him that she was 16. When he was arrested, he was charged with carnal knowledge of a child between 13 and 15 years of age. For that crime, he spent the next three years of his life in prison.

Upon release, Curtis fell in love and began a life with the woman who would eventually become his wife and bear his child.

This woman, Christie Curtis, says that she has never felt uncomfortable around Joshua, despite the sex offender label.

"He's so loving. He's a great father. He is amazing," she said. "I have never had any second thoughts at all."

After prison, Joshua and Christie settled down in the Virginia city of Colonial Heights, the scene of his original offense.

After living there for two months, city detectives accused him of indecent exposure. They said he had gone to a school bus stop early one morning and exposed himself to children there.

"Apparently, the title 'sex offender' makes me an automatic creep that masturbates in front of children," Joshua stated in a written account. "All because of a mistake I made at age 18."

When he found out the date of the alleged incident, Joshua realized it was a Saturday, he said, clearly a day when school is not in session. He felt as if he were being set up.

Much later, charges would be nolle prossed, which means the charges were essentially dropped, though they could be brought back. Regardless, the damage had been done.

"I decided right then that I was not going back to prison for something I did not do," Joshua said. "That decision was also a bad one and I played right into their game."

Joshua and Christie went on the run. For 27 months, they tried to stay under the radar while supporting themselves.

Time passed and things were going well. On Jan. 2, 2007, Joshua and Christie had a baby girl. They were managing to stay afloat financially, and in 2008, Christie started nursing school. But their good fortune ran out in June 2008 when Christie went to Wisconsin to visit family.

While she was gone, Joshua said he and some friends got drunk, "raided an old abandoned farmhouse," and got busted.

Joshua served four months for destruction of property, failure to register as a sex offender, driving on a suspended license and a misdemeanor marijuana charge. In Dec. 2008, he received a year for violating probation, and it was around this time that the indecent exposure charges were nolle prossed. Joshua's release date was supposed to be Sept. 23, 2009.

But that's not how things turned out. On July 22, Joshua said, he was moved to a state prison.

"I was told there that I had been identified for civil commitment under Virginia's Sexually Violent Predators Act," he said.

That meant that he would have to return to court and face the possibility of being committed to a mental hospital because of his supposedly "uncontrollable sexual behavior." This despite the fact that his only actual sexual offense had been non-violent consensual sex with a 13-year-old when he was 18. Clearly that was a serious crime -- one that deserved prison time -- but whatever else one can say, the offense cannot be considered violent using the conventional understanding of the word.

Now Joshua sits in Piedmont Regional Jail, months after he was supposed to have finished his sentence, waiting to find out if he will lose his freedom -- perhaps permanently.

Stay tuned next week to hear more about this story.

Alex Granados is the editorial page editor and reader representative for the News & Messenger.