The System Fails Us...Part XXII

Yes, we were indeed still living in a backwards, corrupt, disorganized country run by under qualified self interested illiterates with a legal system as archaic and irrelevant as a horse and carriage on modern day I-95!

My girl was a smart and savvy cookie and despite her broken Spanish which consisted of a vocabulary of no more than fifty words, her impressive depth of knowledge of the laws protecting her rights as a minor would rival that of any lawyer. The lawmakers in all their infinite wisdom (and under-the-table bribe-taking) had decided in your typical communist, (overprotect the poor, mistreated, overburdened worker) fashion that not even a full confession could put a guilty under-aged felon in prison.

Despite her complete admission to the crime and subsequent submission of the accomplices´ names, phone numbers, addresses and details about the actual crime planning, the nanny swaggered out of the police station with a coke and a smile- a free bird.

She was just a few months shy of eighteen and was well aware that her government believed in "rehabilitation" for people like her. Shrewdly, she took advantage of the timing so that her age, domestic employment and imprisoned boyfriend all coincided perfectly to hence, create the "perfect crime."

I tried earnestly and in vain to challenge the system and even turned over all the evidence I had found in my own home including phone records of the calls this academic made from my personal home land line. At the very least, I wanted somebody held responsible for this fright that would wreak havoc in several people’s lives for months to come. The actual armed robbers were well into their twenties and they were the ones that broke in and put the fear of God into everybody, not to mention the PTSD that would ensue disturbing many nights of peaceful sleep.

Yet, once again, this brilliant system failed to protect me, "the aristocrat" (as if I were nobility worth millions,) but victim no less. The righteous judges that heard the case had resolved to dismiss all of the information she had confided during her voluntary confession because of her “tender” age.

You got it! The leads that she provided were thrown out and the entire matter died, right along with my sense of justice. I was enraged and wanted blood and vowed to hunt her down and take the law into my own hands. After all, it had failed us miserably. To add insult to injury, the so-called statute stipulated that even if she had been fired based upon the proof of theft or child abuse, for example, I still had to pay her severance and liquidation.

This was too much for me to swallow and when her mother called me to "collect" her daughter’s remaining paycheck, I just about sent her to h-ll. I told her that when her delinquent kid returns my jewelry, (that she had previously confessed to the investigators was being strutted around town in by her sister,) I would pay her last salary owed. Once again, the "apple falls right next to the tree" and her mother, totally disinterested and unapologetic unabashedly reiterated her working daughter’s "rights" to her remaining fifty dollars. Knowing that this simple gesture could get my residency revoked, get me arrested or hunted down by her other scholarly acquaintances, I chose to slam down the phone and take my chances.

To be continued...