Maine Man First In U.S. To Be Committed Under Adam Walsh Law
Posted By: Caroline Cornish 2/13/2009
WATERBORO (NEWS CENTER) -- A man from Maine with a long history of molesting boys has become the first person in the country locked up under the Adam Walsh Law. 47-year old Jeffrey Shields will now remain in federal custody indefinitely as a sex offender.
Shields was committed to the feds on Thursday, and it came as a relief to one of his victims, who still lives here in Maine. Mike Schmader was 13-years old and a student at the Hyde School in Bath when he was sexually assaulted by Jeffrey Shields. He said Shields took his life that day, and he's been waiting for 20 years to hear that Shields would be put behind bars for good.
He said he was playing drums with some friends on a Saturday night in 1989, when Shields walked into the school. All the kids thought he was a janitor. But when Schmader went to use the bathroom, Shields followed him in and attacked him.
Shields served just 3 years of his 10 year sentence for assaulting Schmader, and was later convicted of molesting other boys as well as possessing child pornography.
Schmader said, "He's pretty much screwed up my whole life because he's basically taken away my whole life. People look at a child molestor, sex offender differently than they do a murderer, but I look at it like he murdered me. He took my life away."
Schmader is a happily married father of three now. But he's been addicted to drugs and homeless in the years after he was molested.
Schmader said he only wishes someone told him about the hearing to commit Shields ahead of time because he would have liked to have been there.
Shields attorney plans to appeal the court's decision, saying the Adam Walsh law is unconstitutional.
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