Everyone,
This poster
markbernal is posing as me. In the sense that his/her username is my actual name - Mark Bernal.
The reason why this poster is doing this is to expose me and my past. Normally I would run and feel horrible, but my mental health is too important to me to let someone like this person run me down.
The fact of the matter is that I am a registered sex offender. However, I am NOT a sex offender. I did not do what I was accused of in 2005, and fought the case for just over 4 years before I ran out of money to continue paying my attorneys. I was set up by 17 year old girl who accused me of child pornography and I fought it for a long time. When I did run out of money and could not longer pay my attorneys, they struck a deal with the state attorney for me to go to prison for 1 year and register as a sex offender for a period of ten years in Illinois.
I went to state prison in January of 2009 and got out May of 2010. I served an extra six months so that I would not have to do probabtion for a year afterwards.
I continued to register in Illinois while living in Chicago, got married, started a business and was successful. When Covid hit in 2020, my wife and I came to Nebraska to get away from the Chicago as she has health issues that made her more susceptible to the dangers of Covid. Long story short, we ended up moving to Nebraska permanent in 2021 and sold our place in Chicago.
With my registration being done in 2020 in Chicago, I was under the impression that I had to do nothing further with moving to Nebraska permanently. Unknowing to me, Nebraska has a law that says I had to register here, regardless of what the circumstances were in another state. I was unaware of that, didn’t do my research, and completely at fault for being ignorant of that.
The reason I know all this now is because I was arrested here in Nebraska in 2022 for “failure to register”. I went to jail for a few days and was released under federal supervision pending my court case. This went on for a year and I took a plea to do time in prison for failure to register.
When I was sentenced, my attorneys were expecting the judge to give me the higher end of the time frame proposed by the prosecution - which was 18 months. The judge, however, heard my story and the many people who stood up in support of my character and sentenced me to 5 months in prison. This was in the early fall of last year. The judge allowed me to turn myself in to prison in November and I then was released in March of this past year. I served a total of 4 months and I am currently on 2 years probabtion until 2026.
That’s the story. That’s my story. But that’s not all of it.
In the nearly 20 years that this has been going on, I’ve faced countless instances of bullying and persecution. It lead to heavy drinking. It led to attempted suicides. And not because of guilt, because I am innocent. But because of people like this individual trying to call me out now here on VT and their crusade to ruin me.
The fact is that I’ve always felt the need to run. I’ve always been afraid of people forming their opinions and judgement before getting to know me. I’ve shifted away from confrontation because I didn’t want to cause a scene.
No longer. I’m not running anymore. My mental health is too valuable to me now and my life and wife are too important to me to let someone like this individual posing as me, try to ruin my life.
My life is difficult as it is, and will only remain difficult. My story is not for everyone. Nor do I expect everyone to get behind me because of my story. I’ve never wanted to make anyone uncomfortable, and that includes here. My posts have always been thoughtful, supportive, non-confrontational, and not demeaning at all. Which I believe is a testament to who I truly am as a person.
I am incapable of what I was accused of in 2005 and I have psychiatric evaluations and reports to prove that. I have a psychosexual evaluation that was a part of my statement of evidence that was presented to my sentencing judge last year to show that I’m incapable of what I was sentenced for originally.
However, with me not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable, I will happily step out of VT and not come back. I love volleyball and many people on here, but I do not want anyone to have issue with me being here. Just say the word.
I’m also happy to answer any questions that anyone may have in private. There are two people here on VT who have met me in person. I hope they both know that seeing what they saw of me in person does not align with my status as a sex offender and the typical perception of one.
Lastly, this goes to the person under the username “markbernal”: I’ve contacted my attorney and probabtion officer about you. And if you are who I think you are (I have no plans to “out” you), they not only have documentation from your posts here, but also your harassment of me on Reddit last fall before I went away. I took screenshots. They have them. They are investigating the matter.
I’m not afraid of you and I’m not going to let you bully me anymore. I’m tired of running. You want to talk to me and confront me? Be a man and call me. I know you have my number.
My apologies to everyone for all of this. It’s not necessary to have to do this, but I wanted to clear the air and not have this continue in the route it was going.
Again, I am happy to answer any questions in private. Apologies for any typos or grammatical errors. I was driving with my wife when she saw this and showed it to me. I pulled over immediately to make this post.