Jailed federal prosecutor hangs himself

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that federal prosecutor J.D. Roy Atchison of Gulf Breeze, who was charged last month after allegedly flying to Detroit to have sex with a 5-year-old child, committed suicide today.

The newspaper cited authorities who said Atchison hanged himself this morning at the federal prison in Milan, Mich., where he was taken after previously trying to commit suicide at Sanilac County Jail.

They said the 53-year-old Atchison, who worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in Pensacola, had been housed in solitary confinement and was under close supervision, the newspaper reported.

Lawyer James Thomas of Detroit said he planned to ask a federal judge to dismiss the charges against Atchison, the Free Press reported.

Greg Miller, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Florida, issued the following statement in response to Atchison's suicide: "Our thoughts and prayers are with Roy’s family and friends. We hope that with the passage of time, they can find some measure of healing."

Thank you pogo101 and I do understand what you are saying. My problem is with all of these people that jump to conclusions eons before all the evidence is even presented. No one is qualifying their comments by saying, "if this alleged creep" did blah, blah, blah... They are not coming close to giving the guy the benefit of the doubt and what about his poor family. And now that he is dead???
I have to tell you. Coming from a family that has many members of it that have spent tens of thousands of dollars on their educations, spent years getting their degrees, worked for decades building their reputations and the thought that some small little group of boneheaded witch hunters can take a little snippet of alleged allegations and destroy their lives is appalling to me. I don't want to get specific but I have a cousin that was just vindicated and found innocent of all allegations made against him. He was one of the four marines falsely charged with murder in Haditha, Iraq he had to suffer being incarcerated and treated worse than our enemy is treated at Guantanamo just because a group of dimwits chose to listen to our enemy falsely accuse four of our brave solders of Murder. For over a year and half these for men were kept in prison by a bunch or hacks that were unwilling to stand up for the truth. They found it easier to stab those brave solders in the back and to further the trashing of my cousin and his fellow Marines reputations than they did to keep their mouths shut and wait until all the evidence had been presented.
Now understand. I am not one that believes in suing anyone but in this case I was ecstatic to hear that he was one of the solders suing the big mouth gossip and liar John Murtha for not standing up for those that are putting their lives on the line so that his sorry fat arse can sit in Washington and trash those brave solder's character and ruin their lives.
I can see why a man in this US Attorney's position might feel that his life is ruined and I can also see how a man in his position could garner quite a few enemies with the capability of framing him. I can't tell you how many times I find pornographic spam in my email. I can't tell you how many spyware bugs are removed from my computer on a daily basis and only God knows what those emails and spyware programs are putting on my computer. Heck, my children even get the garbage and if you open one Lord have mercy.

Nahhhh, the idiots on this and other forums that think they are immune from being set up and ruined had better think again. Ask yourselves how a man that is allegedly suicidal has found a way to hang himself in room that should be suicide proof while being "closely watched." It sounds to me like someone had it out him and what better way short of killing him can you destroy a person than to accuse them of sexually harming a child? Even prisoners hate child molesters. And another thing... How does one defend him/herself from such charges? Women and children never lie remember?

These cases are becoming more and more frequent. Throw out some circumstantial evidence and a couple of manufactured tidbits of "hard evidence" and walla, you have yourself a pervert. Just as Mark Thurman how easy it is to plant evidence. Ask Dan Rather how easy it is to fabricate "evidence." These sexoffender witch hunters will do anything to make themselves relevant and they don't give a rat's rear who they destroy in the process.

I think people on FR should be a little more critical than the average person. Most of us profess to be Christian, Conservative and believe ourselves to be above the normal fray (sp?) out there. I have liked FR because most of you are intelligent and thoughtful. It embarrasses me to watch so many freepers lose perspective when they hear such vial accusations as those brought against Achison. It makes me wonder what their agenda is? I personally believe in the rule of law, not the rule of lynch-mobs.

I once got an email offering this type of “opportunity” for a price, supposedly from the Netherlands. It was complete with photos. I almost threw up on my keyboard.

Well you'd better buy yourself another computer if you haven't already. If those "pictures" were ever seen on your monitor they are still on your hard-drive and if someone every takes your hard-drive and inspects it you my friend are guilty of the crime of downloading and viewing child pornography. A federal offense that once convicted you must spend the rest of your life registering as a sex offender. You think I'm joking. This witch hunt has become ridiculous. Those people that really do commit the crimes are released almost the same hour they are booked yet I know a guy who was arrested for taking a leak on a tree outside a party he was attending and because there were children a couple of houses away, when the cops busted him he was convicted and now has to register as a class two sex offender. He has had to sell two of his homes and his business because as a class two sex offender everyone in his neighborhood must be notified that he lives in the area.
This crap is getting out of hand I tell you.
Back to the computer issue... I have had to teach my children to not open any emails that come from senders they do not recognize and even then there are virus' out there that will pose as someone you know and send this crap to you. Does this fact dissuade these witch-hunters from taking you down? Not at all. Unless of course you are a sodomite or a woman: You will then belong to a special class of people that cannot commit such crimes. You never lie and you are above the law or scrutiny of those thought police that are unwilling to give you the benefit of the doubt. Just look at the rabidness on this thread. People become insane when they smell the blood of one of these ALLEGED child molesters.

Actually I don’t have that computer any more.

However, I would assume the record that I had gone well out of my way to report the incident to the authorities would make it difficult to prosecute me just because the images were still on my hard drive.

You are correct, however, that this can get out of hand.

This particular case does not fit the criteria of over-zealous witchhunters targeting an innocent man very well. If I fly off to Detroit from Florida, I presumably have a darn good reason. If the gentleman had presented an alternate explanation for his actions, I’d be glad to consider it. But it is much more likely that he was well aware of how guilty and totally caught he was and decided to take the easy way out.

If the gentleman had presented an alternate explanation for his actions, I’d be glad to consider it.

So would I but now that he is dead we will all have to suffer with the claims that this guy is automatically guilty. My heart goes out to his family.

As for a way he could possible be set up... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to find out when the next time one of us for example will be flying from one city to another. If this guy flies a lot which I suspect he did, it wouldn't be that difficult to frame him. Remember, he worked putting some pretty bad people away. Maybe this is just his comeuppances but that is not for us to judge without all the evidence.

JMHO

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I didn't say they were guilty, only that I don't feel bad for them. Do they honestly feel sorry for themselves? If they are good people (and I have no reason to think otherwise), they are rid of an awful, evil, insidious person whose presence polluted everything he touched.

I just read a previous news story about this man that details what he wanted to do to little children. How he brought things with him in his luggage to facilitate raping a child. It talks about how he wrote online about how "experienced" he was at doing this. I am unsure about posting urls (not sure if it is okay( so the details are: Pensacola News Journal Online, September, 18, 2007, under the title "Atchison indicted"

It is enough to make you physically ill.

His innocent family is better off without this disgusting, invasive sickness plaguing their house. If I didn't make that clear enough in my previous post, mea culpa.

Finally, it might have been nice if the statement had read something like this "We offer our thoughts and prayers to the family and also to childhood victims of abuse everywhere". If that had happened, I might not be so upset about the fact that the criminal and his family is usually given more attention than the irretrievably broken lives of the forgotten victims. But that rarely happens. The people most directly and dramatically affected are absent. That is a crying shame.

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