Victim Impact Statement - W.P.

ATTACHMENT #3 Victim Impact Statement from W.P. June 28, 2022 In re: James T. Highhouse Your Honor: What he did to me makes me distrusting of everything and everyone and it makes me angry. I blame myself although I know I’m not responsible for his actions. I blame the BOP for allowing this to go on for so long - it went on for SO long. I feel dirty and I feel like this is horrible and he took advantage of my vulnerability – he used God to get close to me and for his own benefit. I feel used – I was at the lowest point in my life and I was looking for hope and comfort and for somebody/the Church to make me believe that I was going to be ok and that God “had me” and Highhouse turned that around for his own benefit – he made promises and what he did was disrespect me. I believe that I am the first victim but I was terrified to tell anybody at Dublin – I had no one to tell – everyone up to the Warden was dirty – there was NO ONE to tell. Inmates there at Dublin had to do terrible things like strip for the staff – the place was awful and scary. I went in with 25 years, crushed, shattered, and broken and he treated me like a piece of dirt. Because I left Dublin, no one ever knew that I was victimized and I really feel like I have been left behind. I have PTSD, depression and anxiety – the Chaplain in my current place told me it was my fault that I was even in his office. He took my ability to sleep at night and he took my ability to trust in the Church. I would never go back to Church. I’m constantly on alert. He played on my vulnerability and took advantage of me – I have nightmares. I am stronger now and I want my voice to be heard in Court – he can never have another ounce of me. He made everything that I thought I could trust gross, ugly, and dirty. I am so grateful to just a couple of people within BOP that I can trust – otherwise I was completely ALONE during this period in my life. Ms. Hernandez, my counselor is the only person here at BOP that I feel understands my pain. I have been raped before and so this triggered something in me. I was totally damaged and broken and that took me nearly 20 years to process and now it’s all back with what happened to me at Dublin. My security was taken – this process has been REALLY really rough. To me the BOP is an epic fail in terms of the way they handle PREA - the system is flawed and broken. My daughter is so worried about me and she can tell that this has set me so far back. My daughter is so worried that I will turn to drugs. This system is not designed to help anyone, to heal me – I have 14 more years in here and no ONE in here will help me cope with all that has happened to me because of what Highhouse has done to me. Recommendation for sentencing: How do you put a price on this? How do you put a timeline on his punishment? What he should suffer and the time he should do doesn’t have a timeframe because it will take me the rest of my life to deal with this. He ultimately tried to destroy something that was already nearly broken to begin with. My damage is seen and unseen. I am hurting every day. I can’t put a time on this – there is no way to do that for you. He just needs to go away so that he can’t hurt any other women.