the "Terpening machine and how the cult like terpening followers bought mike an additional 3-5 years in prison

December 15, 2012

The first known sexual assault by Michael Terpening took place some 16 years ago according to testimony in the recent trial of the convicted child molester. The then about 17 year old Terpening sexually assaulted a 12 year old female cousin. The police were called.

As the prosecutor put it, the "Terpening Machine then swung into action" as Michael's sisters Keri Terpening and Ryon Ann Keeler beat the 12 year old into what became more than a decade of silence. Her silence only ending when the now 28 year old testified  in tears to help brig an end to Terpening's reign of perverted terror on young, vulnerable victims. The cousin also testified to how she has since been abused by members of Michael's family, including Keri Terpening, since she was called by the People of the State of Michigan to testify in this matter.

Recently, Keri Terpening, in a continuing effort to save her child predator brother from conviction  took the now adult victim of her brother to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury recanting the allegations at the office of one of Terpening's lawyers.

Terpening's lawyer attempted to lay blame for the recant and its obvious intention to obstruct justice at the feet of Keri Terpening during this week's sentnecing. The judge pointedly dismissed the idea the defendant Terpening was uninvolved in Keri's actions.

A number of witnesses in the recent criminal trial spoke to the efforts of people close to Terpening to get them to change their testimony. The stunt  was repeated a number of times even resulting in one of the witnesses recanting on television and in a number of videos produced by a parental rights group who later stopped supporting Terpening. One witness described constant calls from Terpening, Terpening's mother, Kim Tungate, and Keri Terpening resulting in the witness contacting the state police to make the calls stop. They were asking the witness to change his story in an affidavit.

The efforts to obstruct justice were obvious, the only problem? Michael Terpening and his cult like Terpening Followers thought they could outsmart a system of justice that predates the the founding of the nation by nearly 150 years. They apparently thought they were the first to play games with our system of justice. As Barry County Prosecutor Tom Evans once quipped in a television interview, there may be turnip trucks in Hastings, but he'd not fallen off one. As we learned this week, neither the prosecutor nor the judge were found laying on the ground near any turnip trucks, either, in Hastings.

These were transparent efforts to discredit witnesses while putting them in fear of prosecution for perjury to scare them off the witness stand; and if  that didn't work the statements could be used to discredit them, something Terpening's lawyer tried. 

Adding to the stunning stupidity was Terpening repeatedly using this same tactic. Did Terpening really believe he would win the case with witness after witness appearing at his lawyer's office all to sign sworn statements recanting statements to police and on the witness stand at his preliminary hearings? It was a bizarre scheme and the scheme exposed Terpening as attempting to force his will on  justice just as he forced his will on young people; with the craven manipulation of a predator.

The sentencing guidelines called for 51 to 85 months in prison.  The court, by law, must find compelling reasons to exceed the sentencing guidelines. The court found those reasons in abundance, in part, thanks to the Terpening Follower movement and the perverse effort by Michael Terpening to obstruct justice by cravenly using other people, and even his own victims all the while demonstrating just how dangerous Michael Terpening can be while he is free in society to prey on others.

Terpening's manipulation of people around him contributed, in apart, to taking a minimum sentence of just over 4 years  and a maximum of 7 years to a minimum of 10 years and possibly as many as 15 years.

This writer has said it before, with Terpening Followers (and family) like this who needs prosecutors?