Snow White has moved back in with a bunch of guys, but this time around, it's under a bridge.
Miami's Julia Tuttle Causeway, to be specific.
As reported by the Miami Herald's Fred Grimm, Ms. White is none too happy:
(...)In a peculiar nod to gender equity, the Florida Department of Corrections informed her last week that she too had only one residency option in Miami-Dade County -- the Tuttle. ''They just give me a blanket and a pillow and sent me . . . here?'' she asked, talking over the incessant thump-thump-thump of the freeway traffic overhead. ``I just broke down.''
A community backward enough to create a subterranean de-facto prison camp of male sex offenders thrusts a single woman into the mix -- just to see what happens.
It's an ironic setting for Voncel Johnson. The 43-year-old woman, who grew up in poverty and neglect in the Brownsville section of Miami, told me she was sexually molested at age 6 and gang-raped at 16. ''I have a hard time trusting men,'' she said.
In 2004, Johnson pleaded guilty to a charge of lewd and lascivious exhibition (without physical contact) with a minor. She claimed Monday the charge was unfounded but at the time a plea offer with one year probation and no prison time seemed prudent. Except she twice failed to meet sex-offender registration requirements. Her probation was revoked. She did 10 months at Broward Correctional Institute.
(...)
She repeated a common refrain -- sometimes delusional -- among the bridge outcasts. ``I never would have done that plea deal if I'd known they'd send me here. I could've fought those charges.''
For those branded with sex offender status, when struggling with residency restrictions in attempt to find housing, it's a small world after all.
