Prison Time in Genetic Sexual Attraction Case

Updating this earlier case, a mother experiencing Genetic Sexual Attraction with her son has been sentenced to prison. Kerana Todorov reports for napavalleyregister.com...

Mistie Atkinson, 32, pleaded no contest Tuesday in Napa Superior Court to incest and other charges related to her teenage Napa son.

"Incest" should not be a crime. She wasn't even a guardian. What is a crime and what should have been the charge was statutory rape. He was under the age of consent in California. In other states with 16 as the age of consent, this shouldn't be a crime.

The woman convicted of incest with her 16-year-old biological son was sentenced Wednesday in Napa County Superior Court to more than four years in state prison.

Mistie Rebecca Atkinson, 32, of Lake County, received four years, eight months in state prison under a plea agreement reached in May. Atkinson pleaded no contest to incest, oral copulation, lewd contact with a minor and distribution of lewd material to a minor.

 I'm wondering how the boy is doing. Some his age would be very traumatized by this. Others, not so much. Still, age of consent laws are there and the line is drawn.

In a hand-written letter to the court, Atkinson pleaded for leniency, saying she never intended to become intimate with her biological son.

“I don’t feel like I should have the charge of incest because there is something called genetic attraction that is a very powerful (phenomenon) that happens to 50 (percent) of people becoming reunited with a long-lost relative,” she wrote in her letter to the judge.

Genetic Sexual Attraction should not excuse statutory rape. However, like I've written before, if she has never done anything like this before then there is little reason to believe she will prey on others.

In February, Ukiah police met with the boy’s grandmother and other relatives who alleged Atkinson was having an incestuous relationship with the son. The boy, who was described as “out of control” by police, was staying with a relative in Ukiah until he could be placed in a group home, according to court documents.

The father had sent the boy to Ukiah partly in an effort to separate him from his biological mother, authorities reported in Atkinson’s probation report.

The grandmother alleged the boy was sneaking out of his relative’s house to meet with Atkinson in spite of a restraining order barring the woman from contacting the boy, authorities said in the court filing.

If you do the math, she probably didn't have the best adolescence either. Sad. I hope all involved get their problems worked out, and if, as with an infamous schoolteacher, this boy ends up deciding as a man he wants to be with her, I hope the law will not interfere.