JAMES EFFLER- NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS MEMBER
November 9th 2014 by Anonymous
From Opportunist to Sex Offender
You may have heard “alcoholics/addicts lie- it’s what they do.” Those who truly embrace recovery stop; James Effler was not one of them.
You may have heard “they manipulate people and they manipulate situations.” Those who embrace recovery stop; James Effler was not in that category, either.
Fact #1: His name was not even James. Along the line that some lie for no reason other than they can, he falsified information when applying for a state identification card. His real name is Jimmie Carson Effler, Jr.
I met Effler in November, 1999. I had gone to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting to meet an acquaintance. When the acquaintance did not show up, I was standing outside the building smoking a cigarette before going home. A car stopped on the street and drove away after Effler got out of the car and walked in my direction. This stranger began nagging me to take him home with me, and when I refused, he came up with his first pointless lie. He said he was looking forward to his birthday the next day, and a gift he expected to receive. I later learned his birthday was in March, not November.
Effler began popping up in my face wherever I went. While he said he was an NA member, he rarely attended actual meetings, preferring to stand outside where he could ask people for money, cigarettes, rides, a place to stay, and attending meetings that offered free food. The latter included members’ “clean date” parties, holiday parties, and even a memorial service for a member who had died.
In addition to those of us he suckered into “helping” him, he loved churches. He made the rounds in at least three different states asking ministers and priests for rent money, food money, food, and had no qualms about asking them to give him their collection plates. He said “Ill even say the Sinner’s Prayer if they give me money!”
My initial appeal was I ‘had what he wanted, and was willing to go to any lengths to get it.” Specifically, he’d heard through NA gossip that I had a good job, and to him that meant a source of financial support. I tolerated frequent verbal abuse, two physical attacks, financial problems, and my family temporarily breaking up. Yet “Steppers” continued to tell me he was “doing the best he could,” and that I should continue to help him.
When my family walked away from this mess, Effler went out and committed a crime. I didn’t learn the facts of the crime for more than three years. The reason: as he knew I had no way of knowing what was going on in Texas, he thought a few more lies would mean I’d continue to give him financial support. Asking me to send him money, he wrote a nine-page letter describing the details of the crime- how a sex offender and a prostitute who lived in his building had set him up, and he had not done anything wrong. The facts of the case: he had approached and raped a 31-year-old woman, and was sentenced to three years in the Texas state penitentiary.
As soon as he was released, he showed up on my doorstep. He’d ignored the restraining order I obtained when he was in Texas, and he ignored the second one also. Upon moving into a homeless shelter, he discovered a nearby Alcoholics Anonymous group. He had no trouble manipulating members, even oldtimers, for money.
Early one morning, a disturbing newsflash came on the radio. It said he had been arrested after taking a small child away from her babysitter and into the restroom of a public library. While it was believed he had sexually assaulted the child, he was not convicted of sexual abuse; he was convicted of first-degree kidnapping, and sentenced to life without parole.
One part of the news broadcast was especially troubling: the social worker at the homeless shelter exclaimed “I’m horrified- I can’t believe James would do something like this… after all, he works!!” An educated professional couldn’t grasp an individual having to do occasional day-labor jobs does not mean the individual is a responsible, decent person.
Ultimately, Jimmie Carson Effler Jr.- a/k/a James- got what he wanted: a free ride for the rest of his life. Knowing Effler as I did, I’m sure he has no regrets about exchanging his freedom for having a roof over his head, hot meals, recreation, and everything else that comes at the expense of we taxpayers. From living off churches in Louisiana, California, and Texas, to living off taxpayers in the state of Iowa, it was a short journey with a lot of wreckage to everyone in between.
Here is an article below about this sick NA Member. Just one of many that can be sitting next to you in an NA or AA Meeting.
Homeless Offender caught with 20-month-old girl in library restroom
The man has a prior conviction in Texas for assaulting a woman.
By TOM ALEX
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Police said a registered sex offender who lived at a Des Moines homeless shelter kidnapped a toddler Tuesday at the downtown library and sexually assaulted her in a locked men’s room while employees worked to open the door.
James Carson Effler Jr., 32, grabbed the 20-month-old girl about 11 a.m. as she played on the floor near her baby sitter, who was using a library computer, investigators said.
Library employees helped the baby sitter search for the girl before they heard a child’s cry. Employees then called police and removed the handle on the restroom’s door to gain access and reach the girl; they held Effler until officers got there, Capt. Kelly Willis said.
“Most of the police work was done by the library staff before we even arrived,” Willis said.
No one else was hurt. The child was taken to a hospital for evaluation, and her parents were contacted. The extent of her injuries was not made public.
The incident illustrates the difficulty lawmakers face in trying to attack child molestation by such measures as requiring offenders to register with the state or limiting where they may live.
Effler was convicted in Texas in 2003 for sexually assaulting a 31-year-old woman.
Javier Sambrano, public information officer for the El Paso, Texas, police department, said the conviction against Effler stemmed from a May 2002 incident in which he knocked on the door at the home of a 31-year-old woman and asked to use the telephone. Once Effler gained entry, he sexually assaulted the woman.
“They did not know each other, he was not someone she knew, but in the area where the victim lived, many of the neighbors often would ask to use the phone,” Sambrano said.
He was sentenced to three years in prison and later paroled. Officials have not determined how long he has lived in Iowa.
Effler is listed on the Iowa Sex Offender Registry, but because the conviction involved an adult victim, he was not covered by a new state law that bans child molesters from living within 2,000 feet of a school or child care center.
Effler, who police say lives at Churches United Shelter, 205 15th St., reported his address to registry officials as 201 1/2 Fifth St. in West Des Moines.
He is charged with first-degree kidnapping, second-degree sexual assault and failure to comply with rules of the registry, because he was not living at the address listed. The kidnapping charge is the most serious of the three; it carries a life prison term.
The baby sitter noticed the child missing about 11 a.m., police said. She told officers the girl had been playing at her feet while she surfed the Internet at a table not far from the men’s restroom on the main level of the library, 100 Locust St.
The baby sitter and library employees immediately began a search for the child, and then someone heard a child scream in the restroom and saw an adult’s shadow on the other side of the frosted glass.
Library workers tried to force their way into the restroom, then called for a maintenance worker with a screwdriver.
Willis said that employees William Stokes and Pam Deitrick removed the handle and opened the door, and that they then pulled the child out of the restroom and shut Effler inside.
“They are heroes,” Willis said. “They grabbed the baby and shut the door on him.”
Library Director Kay Runge referred all questions about the investigation to the police.
Police have been called to the main library 51 times this year for a host of minor problems.
Tuesday’s incident “was an awful thing, horrendous,” Acting City Manager Rick Clark said. “We are really thankful the library staff was there and attentive and took the initiative to do something about this.”
Effler was jailed in May for public urination and arrested less than a month later for drunken driving. He spent 30 days in jail, according to court records.
Records also show Effler was charged with shoplifting in Windsor Heights on Aug. 29. He was ordered to pay a $50 fine.
Doug Epperson, a psychology professor at Iowa State University who helped Minnesota officials develop guidelines to evaluate sex offenders before they are released from prison, said child abductions by strangers are rare.
“Typically, with a victim that young, it’s a related perpetrator or a perpetrator who is connected in some way with the parents, or it could be a friend of the family,” he said. “Normally a stranger would not have access to a victim that young.”
The March abduction and murder of 10-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids — the man accused in her death, Roger Paul Bentley, 38, was a friend of the family — sparked Iowa lawmakers to pass a handful of laws to crack down on sex criminals.
Police Sgt. Barry Arnold said 20 to 30 of the Churches United shelter’s 125 or so residents have been warned that they must move under the residency restriction law. Effler was not one of them.
Register staff writer Abby Simons contributed to this article.
https://www.wackbag.com/threads/homeless-man-molests-toddler-in-library.33400/
