But she did learn that during the initial investigation Bruce spontaneously confessed to police officers, court officials and child welfare investigators that decades earlier, at age 16, he had sexually assaulted a 4-year-old girl. According to police reports, Bruce said he performed a sex act on the child while babysitting her on a joint family vacation in the Poconos. (Colorado police did not open a case because the incident had taken place outside their jurisdiction.)
“There was no victim in that situation except myself,” Bruce told me. “That alleged victim did not suffer and had no recollection of it. But I beat myself up for decades thinking that I was fucked up, right? The silver lining being I finally told everybody. And everybody said: ‘Dude, you were young and stupid and pubescent. … Don’t beat yourself up about that.’”
It is true that a lot of adolescents do terrible things because adolescence is a difficult time. And true that the vast majority will grow up into decent adults. But this is a full grown man claiming that the abuse harmed him, the abuser, and not the child he abused. It is evidence that he absolutely remains a danger, on top of all the other evidence that he is, in fact, a danger. He can and will rationalise anything away to protect his own fucked up psyche.
I hope the publicity helps the kid. What he’s been forced to endure is monstrous.