Comic Con Promoter Hires Convicted Child Sex Offender To Photograph Kids At Hanover Mall Event, Calls Customers “Ungrateful” Witch Burners When They Don’t Like This

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This is convicted sex offender and former Virginia “assistant” pastor Daniel Silverman:

In 2009 he plead no contest to an allegation of sexual assault on a 12 year old girl, and claimed he was not going to bring it to trial because he was such a great that he simply could not force the 12 year old victim to take the stand in court. Instead he’d take one for the team, go to prison, and forever be known as a sex offender. I swear to God that’s his story:

A former assistant pastor of a Vinton church was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl. Daniel Silverman, who had earlier pleaded no contest, maintained his innocence to the end — saying he would just as soon be branded a sex offender and go to prison than subject the girl to the emotional trauma of having to testify against him and face cross-examination.

“I would rather plead no contest than put her through that,” Silverman told Roanoke County Circuit Court Judge James Swanson. 

But the problem is that he readily admitted to many people that he did it: 

Commonwealth’s Attorney Randy Leach disputed the innocence claim, noting that Silverman confessed to a police officer and a social services worker after the offense last summer. Silverman, 43, was the assistant pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Vinton at the time.

Then he claimed shortly afterwards that the girl was lying:

After first admitting the abuse, Silverman has said the girl fabricated the allegations against him out of anger.

A shrink determined that was a lie:

A psychological evaluation found he is in denial.

Even the Judge was like…..da fuq?

Midway through Silverman’s sentencing hearing, Swanson began to voice concerns about his repeated claims of innocence.

“It is not the business of this court to convict innocent people,” Swanson said. “And if there is an issue to your innocence, I’m very uncomfortable with this process.”

The judge recessed court to allow Silverman to discuss his plea of no contest with his attorney, Luke Jennings. After the break, Silverman said he wanted to go through with his plea. With Silverman choosing not to dispute the charge, his guilt was established, Swanson said. The judge sentenced Silverman to seven years in prison, suspended after he serves 18 months, and ordered him to register with the state as a sex offender and spend five years on probation after his release.

Jennings had asked for leniency, arguing that his client’s acts were not as egregious as those usually associated with a charge of aggravated sexual battery. “We’re talking about one touch to the breast that lasted for just a moment … with no pattern of abuse,” Jennings said.

Oh yea, it’s just a little tittie grabbing of a 12 year old. Come on, it’s not like he they went all the way. Is it even against the law to go to second base with a 12 year old who isn’t capable of consenting?

Yea, that really happened.

Anyway, Daniel Silverman has been out of prison for a while now, and has opened his own business called “Sci-Fi Photo Guys”:

They get hired by Cosplay conventions to take pictures of kids and grown adults who still dress up as children’s characters. Ya got that? A registered sex offender opened up a business where he gets paid to be around children and take their pictures. He could’ve gone into any business he wanted to when he got out of jail. He chose this one. But it’s OK because it was just a little tittie grab. No biggie, right?

We’d link his Facebook page and website but they currently are not up. Here’s why:

Yup, he’s coming Hanover, MA to take pictures of kids in the Hanover Mall. What could possibly go wrong?

Not a risk to reoffend? Newsflash – anyone who’s ever diddled a kid is a risk to reoffend. That’s like saying a junkbox in recovery isn’t likely to relapse. Normal people don’t diddle kids. It’s inexplainable, and I truly believe it’s a mental disorder. But to say you can just snap out of it and suddenly decide that it’s not your thing anymore is utterly ridiculous.

Either way, as Mark pointed out, they should’ve at the very least made an announcement that a sex offender would be taking pictures and let consumers make their own decisions. But of course they wouldn’t do that because they know that no one would show up, and it’s really just all about the money.

The Boston Southcoast Comic Con & Collectibles Extravaganza appears that it is being put on by Hudson, MA resident Gary Sohmers, the CEO of Image Meet and Greet Events:

This is what we’re dealing with:

Oh yea, definitely NOT creepy.

Gary took to his personal Facebook page to announce “from the front lines” that he is being “attacked” by an “agitator” who has simply brought to people’s attention that a registered sex offender will be taking pictures of their children at a mall:

Darcy Dillon, who appears to be some sort of extra from the Capitol in The Hunger Games, seems to be upset that people are making the decision not to bring their children to this event based on the fact that they were not informed by the convention that a sex offender would be taking pics of their kids. Because the real victim here is the sex offender and the convention that hired him.

For sure.

But wait, it gets better. Whoever runs the Comic Con’s Facebook page used their extensive training in media relations to post one of the most ill advised posts in the history of modern business:

Oh for fuck’s sake.

Don’t worry parents, it’s not a big deal because the guy running the Comic Con page says that the registered sex offender is a “good person and I know it.” Lots of good people sexually assault 12 year olds. He’s never diddled a kid at another Comic Con, so obviously you have nothing to worry about. Plus, he’s the victim here:

“No one appears to want to understand that bad things happen to some people in life, and sometimes an adult will take the bad so that someone else does not get the bad in life, sacrificing himself to save a child from the pain of a trumped up charge”

This can’t be real life. On what planet would ANY innocent person choose not to plead not guilty to a crime they didn’t commit, ESPECIALLY if it’s a sex crime against a child. That is like the number one crime you should deny if you didn’t really do it. There’s no coming back from that charge. It’s one thing when a sex offender, who a shrink determined was “in denial,” comes up with a crazy reason like this to not fight the charges. It’s a completely different thing when an organization like Southcoast Comic Con decides to believe this reasoning.

“I ask that you please do not fall for the propaganda rhetoric of a single agitator stirring up social media and never ask the questions “why does this Doctor Who cosplayer, Mark Brunco, feel it is his mission to destroy David Silverman’s life by slandering him and our show” … Was Mr. Brunco involved ?… No ? … does Mr. Brunco have info the police or courts don’t have ? … I don’t think so ? … Mr. Brunco appears to have some kind of personal vendetta against Mr. Silverman or my show … but if you are considering attending, please be assured that the State of Virginia, The Police and my organization have complete faith that you have nothing to fear from Mr. Silverman … if you still choose to fear based on one man’s attack on another man, then let he who is without sin throw stones.”

Wait…..what?? The dude is quoting the Bible to defend a sex offender now. From the company’s business page!! They’re calling the whistle blower an “agitator,” who obviously has a “personal agenda” and is spreading “propaganda” because he’s concerned that a registered sex offender will be photographing children.

Does the whistle blower have any information the cops and courts do not? You mean, besides the fact that he chose not to plead not guilty to sexually assaulting a child? Nope. That’s about it. Flimsy evidence at best apparently!!

This Facebook post went over like a job fair in Brockton:

You’d think after backlash like this from potential customers that they would delete and retreat. Instead they double, triple, and quadrupled down, and started going at it with anyone who had anything negative to say about this upstanding individual being around their kids:

Oh yea, comparing your customers to to 1620 Salem villagers burning innocent women to death is definitely a smart move. They teach that in business school on day 1.

After more and more people expressed their problem with this, the Comic Con folks decided to bust out the caps lock to let people know just how stupid they were:

Why are we judging him if the court already has? Ummm….we’re basing our judgement off of the judgement of that court. That and the fact that the sex offender never once denied his crimes in a court of law when he had the chance to.

Calling your customers “bullies” for taking up issue with the fact that you attempted to hide from the public this information about one of your contracted employees is definitely going to smooth things over. Definitely.

Yea guys, you didn’t read “all of the police and court documents,” so you’re basing your opinion of this sex offender off the fact that the didn’t deny that he was a sex offender when he had the chance and he willingly went to prison because he didn’t fight the allegation that he was a child tittie grabber. Only Gary Sohmers knows the real story. Hey Gary, perhaps you’d like to share these “documents” that prove that the man is in fact innocent. You got em or nah?

Here’s the best part – he called anyone who was upset that the Comic Con attempted to hide these facts or got cold feet over the fact that their children would be around a sex offender, are “not worthy” of coming to his event:

Ya got that? All you parents of small children who would rather this company just choose a photographer who WAS NOT a registered sex offender, which there are no shortage of out there, are ungrateful and not worthy of attending future Comic Cons.

Perfectly normal.

Gary just couldn’t help himself though, and he just kept making it worse, and worse, and worse……

Victim blaming!! Even better!!

He wasn’t the only one standing up for the sex offender though. For some reason this idiot Ryan Caswell decided to challenge the whistle blower, claiming that the sex offender was not actually a sex offender:

Bro, do you even Google? It’s the first thing that comes up:

Sex offender. Renewed registration in June. There is no doubt. This is an open and shut case. But by all means, keep defending him. This is the kind of guy you wanna go all “free my boi” for.

Mark Brunco then produced the email correspondence with Gary Sohmers, proving that he had made him aware of the sexual assault conviction (not allegation) of one of his contracted employees, and Gary was still choosing to NOT let the public know about it:

Who would’ve ever thought that this guy right here:

Would see nothing wrong with hiring a guy who sexually assaulted a 12 year old girl to work at many of his conventions for the sole purpose of taking pictures of small children? That guy seems perfectly normal himself.

I’d say that Gary Sohmers must not have any children to allow something like this, but you don’t need to have kids to understand how fucked up and insane this is. There’s probably a million photographers he could hire, including local ones. But he INSISTS on bringing in his sex offender buddy from Virginia. Smart move.

Anyway, this is the kind of story that a billion people would’ve sent us on Facebook if they hadn’t taken down our page with 112,000 followers for absolutely no reason. Instead only one person who follows the Turtleboy Fallout Shelter sent it to us. This is the kind of story that the public needs to know about, and we’re the only media outlet willing to let people know. This is what we do – we expose people like this so that parents can feel safe. But according to online mobs and Facebook, this is “bullying,” and cannot be allowed. This is why what Facebook is doing is dangerous. Facebook is no better than Gary Sohmers. They are actively trying to prevent us from getting information like this out there to people. But we will never, ever, ever let them win. Ever.