did terpening admit guilt at sentencing? 

December 16, 2012

Michael Terpening 2003 Arrest

Most defendants either admit their guilt and at least feign some remorse at sentencing, others will strongly protest their innocence. Still others say nothing, especially if they are looking to appeal.

As the Sinatra song goes, though, Michael Terpening is going to do it his way.  Terpening, in begging, or really demanding, the judge let him enter a program that would have seen him out in about a year. The court had just nixed that idea. Terpening claimed he'd been working with a therapist on issues of impulse control and inappropriate behaviors, among other issues. He wanted the court to know "You'll never see me in court, again."

Okay, so was that an admission something bad happened? If these things never happened why would this man need a therapist for these issues? The sideways admission of guilt.

As we've seen from the Terpening Follower movement he led, Terpening misses the point. Sentencing is about punishment, rehabilitation and protecting the public from a man who thinks himself entitled to teenage foster children and others not only from the sexual acts themselves but the stunning, sustained, and vicious campaign waged against anyone who dared stand to Michael Aaron Terpening.

And Michael, just curious about this impulse control thing you are talking about? Is it really about impulse control when you tell social workers you want boys who are sexually abused as foster kids, you know kids you are quoted as saying, "the worst of the worse"? How about the campaign against your victims over more than a year. Is this  an impulse control issue? When victims and witnesses are approached repeatedly and daily being cajoled to recant under oath in your lawyer's office is the inappropriate behavior you are referring to in your sentencing statement?

To the judge, jury and every rational human being who's seen any piece of what you've done it is clear you act with vicious, calculated and predatory intention. You have an objective and you relentlessly, viciously pursue that objective. When this writer first appeared online  to ask your Terpening Followers to stop putting your victim's names on the web I was awash in a sea of Terpening hate to the tune of more than 700 comments on one video on Youtube. In the trial we learned this was nothing compared to what the "Terpening Machine" did to the witnesses and victims in this case in your quest to stop the trial.

This is not about impulse control or inappropriate behaviors. This was Michael Terpening lying under oath in front of a jury. This was Michael Terpening's wife lying to a jury in Michael Terpening's defense literally placing her role as a mother in legal jeopardy in the upcoming Family Court trial  which may separate eight siblings from one another all to save you, Michael.

I'd be interested to know what kind of therapy a man needs to understand his penis does not belong in the buttocks ten year old boys? Is there a therapy to help you with that issue of oral sex with kids court committed to your facility? What course of treatment will helps Michael Terpening, a leader in child welfare, not masturbate in front of teenage boys? Is there a plan to keep you from propositing kids doing community service at EARTH Services?

Former Terpening Follower Jen told me how EARTH services started out as EAR, Educated Animal Recovery, later becoming Educated Animal Recovery and Teen Haven. A simple search of the state corporation paperwork tells us it was EARTH from day one, some two years before you got licensed by the Department of Human Services. Can I just say that is one one hell of of an impulse horizon, Michael.

The court heard your family was willing to pay for therapy at no cost to anyone but them. Okay, but for about fifteen years these people stood around doing nothing. When you molested your 12 year old cousin your sisters Ryon Ann Keeler and Keri Terpening beat her on a school bus. The 17 year old foster daughter of Delia Terpening, well the Terpening Machine took care of her, too. How about the foster children who made allegations going back nearly a decade. How about the young men from the KPEP program for whom you cannot be criminally charged  but were accused of using to satisfy your sexual appetite while they were assigned to do community service at your facility?

I am curious, where was your mother, Kim Tungate when all this went on? She was quick to appear on videos. How about your dad, Joe Terpening who even worked for you at the House Next Door? Of course you surrounded yourself with the likes of your aunt Jamie Moore Bell and her violent convicted felon husband Jerry Bell along with people who just had no idea what was going on. The truth is your family has been with you all along as virtual conspirators in your abuse of others.

Thank God for the employee who believed the first accuser in this case. He believed the young man but when he passed the information on your staff they could not bring themselves to report the abuse until the next day, instead sending the kid to school leaving him in fear of God only knows what awaited him at the end of the day. Frankly, those people who failed to report your abuse should have been arrested and charged, as well. Not reporting alleged abuse is also a crime in Michigan, and as we see, with good reason.

There is no therapy for vicious, violent criminals. I do not celebrate your sentence, but in your  weird sideways admissions while demanding to be let out it made clear to this observer you not only do not get it, Michael, but society must be protected from you. Society must be protected not only for your sexual misdeeds but for the abuse you would heap on anyone who dares to think himself your equal. This is a free society that does not tolerate people like you and your family raping people of their freedom when they dare get in the way of your quest cover up your crimes.

This departure from the sentencing guidelines is required to put massive distance between the inappropriate power you exercise in the lives of people close to you as much as it is to punish what you've done. One can only pray your 25 year old wife with 5 adopted and 3 biological children will have divorced you and gotten away from you. The job she has ahead of her if she gets to continue to be a mother following the family court trial next month is massive and life long and God knows the last thing your wife or those children need in their lives is a predator.

At one point in your sentencing statement you said, "I don't know what more I could do" as you pleaded for the court to give you a break. The outburst from one of your victims at that moment said it all, Michael Aaron Terpening, "You could try saying your sorry."

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