Defending Ting-Yi Oei

The prosecution didn't want to show the picture to the judge even? LOL. What does that tell you about the prosecutor and his case? It's apparent either Plowman knew he made a mistake prosecuting Mr. Oei and was too arrogant to admit it and drop charges ... or he had an agenda to conduct a show trial in order to try to score brownie points with the citizens of the county and demonstrate how tough he is on sex crimes. The only thing he accomplished was to make himself look incompetent and corrupt and in the process he put an innocent man through a 1-year nightmare.

I'm very happy to know this absurdity is over. I hope Ting-Yi and his family can return to life as normal as quickly as possible.

Kudos to the Loudoun Independent and to Amy Burns for carefully following this case. Every school employee must be terrified about the sequence of events. How can student misconduct be disciplined in an electronic era where photos are shared? The prosecutor has stained the exemplary record of Mr. Oei and surely brought significant financial hardship to him and his family.

This is a letter that I wrote to prosecutor Jim Plowman today regarding his handling of the Oei case.

Dear Sir,I have just finished reading today almost a dozen articles on the Ting-Yi Oei case and I must say that I find your conclusions and actions reprehensible in this matter. With the enormous stigma that our society attaches to all matters that deal with pedophilia and child pornography I would think that you would have been much more thoughtful in your dealings with this case. Instead of relying on your own opinions would it have been too much trouble to seek the counsel of others regarding the law here. Obviously the trial judge did not agree with any of your conclusions, highlighted by the fact that he threw out the misdemeanor as well as the felony charges. It is clear to me and probably others that if you had simply researched the law even a little more carefully that you may have come to the same conclusion and would have spared Mr. Ting-Yi Oei an enormous amount of grief, the ruin of his career and the debt incurred while fighting these false accusations.Just as with the case of Mike Nifong the Duke lacrosse players it seems that there was a rush to blame someone whether they were guilty or not. My hope would be that you would suffer a similar fate to Mr. Nifong in the fallout of this matter but sadly the indemnity laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia will most likely prevent that.I am strongly in favor of protecting our children from predators even if that means protecting them from each other. But I am also just as strongly in favor of protecting the public from predatory prosecutors that are only interested in making sure that someone, anyone is committed of a crime regardless of the damage that it does to that person or the legal system of this country.Though I would doubt that you can, put yourself in Mr. Ting-Yi Oei shoes for a moment and look at the world through his eyes now. Perhaps you would see the wreckage that your ambition has caused, my guess though is that all you will see is justification for your own actions and the blame for all of this placed squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Ting-Yi Oei.What we need in this country is respect for the legal system and all that it can do the strengthen our union. Actions such as yours not only confirm the suspicions of the people who rail against the system, but also cause doubts to rise in those of us who have always believed in the law. I would like to say that you were after justice in this case, but nothing in the record points me to that conclusion. My only hope is that Mr. Ting-Yi Oei will recover fully from your assault on him and be able to continue his life. You have done no one a favor with your actions here, not yourself, the victims, or the man you decided to prosecute. If there is a failure here it is yours and in your actions you have failed the system as well.

everyone should let jim plowman know we're disgusted with him disrupting mr. oei's life!

Jim Plowman, Commonwealth's Attorney 20 E. Market Street Mailstop #34 Leesburg, VA 20176 Phone: 703-777-0242 e-mail: oca@loudoun.gov

I need to commend this lawyer for his plain speaking about the terrible performance of this plowman character.This was deliberately set up for publicity purposes and to attempt to advance the "persecutor's" career and, for NO other reason.It is absolutely unethical and immoral that Mr Oei has no legal recourse against this charqacter assassinater.

I wonder, seeing that the lawyer is so adamant about hor Mr Oei was deliberately wronged by the out of control "persecurot" and that this has cost him so much, other than greed, is there anything whatsoever barring the lawyer from giving Mr Oei a REAL financial break here?

In any event, this out of control and irresponsible character assassinater MUST be removed by the more intelligent and responsible people of Loudon county.

If not, they are showing their own selves to be easily led by someone with an ulterior motive and agenda which is NOT to correctly serve the people.

Good luck with that.

Mr. Plowman,

Shame on you!!! While every student's rights need protection, what about the countless teachers and administrators who have put themselves in the position of protecting the rights of most students in schools where learning has become secondary to fear of lawyers like yourself!!!

As a school leader for more than 30 years and a citizen who has stood for protecting our country and the rights of others (a Peace Corp Volunteer, a Fulbright Teacher) you have the political personal goal to assassinate this type of person for your own personal gain. Again, shame on you!!!

Did you see the movie The Changling??? Do you want the reputation of an LA Police Force of the past? Do you want the reputation of working toward personal gain or helping to improve the quality of education. Will we someday find that you are like so many of the other evangelists?? What do you fear? Is it something within yourself? Should someone be looking at your cell phone? Shame on you??? 

Mr. Oei needs a resounding apology from you and your office!!!

Mr. Oei needs to write a book about his experience and you certainly will be the antagonist in this non-fiction book. It should be a best seller and he could make $$$$$$$.

Shame on you Mr. Plowman!

I just read about this atrocious incident from Wired Magazine's website. I'm highly disappointed in the way Mr. Oei was treated and approached by Jim Plowman. This is clearly an example of a person of higher authority using their power in a irresponsible manner, specifically lacking in a thorough investigation of what laws may have been broken.

Let this be an example of the support for Mr. Oei from all over the nation (I, myself, am from San Diego, CA.).

Do not support Jim Plowman for re-election!

The mother that started all this horrible trouble should be ashamed of herself. I would not want to work with students today--mostly because of the parents. I hope Mr. Oei gets his life back to normal.