No ‘Smoothie’ re-entry for Beebe
A month after rape apologizer William Beebe left the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail after serving six months for a 1982 fraternity house sexual assault, he has settled in Chesterfield County just south of Richmond. Finding a place to live wasn’t hard: he moved in with the friends who have stood by him from his arrest in January 2006 through multiple hearings, his guilty plea, and subsequent sentencing. But finding employment– a required condition of his probation– has proved more troublesome.
The Hook has learned that the 42-year-old, who worked as a real estate agent and massage therapist in Las Vegas before his arrest in January 2006, was hired by the Richmond Smoothie King franchise in late September but was fired almost immediately.
“He worked here about a week,” says a manager at the store’s Three Chopt Road location, who declined any further comment about Beebe’s tenure or the store’s experience with him.
The owner of the Richmond franchise, which has two locations– the other in Carytown– says he’d never heard of Beebe or the case, despite the heavy press coverage, and it wasn’t until he received an email from an acquaintance with a link to a blog maintained by Beebe’s victim, Liz Seccuro, that he discovered his newest employee’s status as a convicted sex offender.
Seccuro declines comment on Beebe’s firing, but on her blog, lizseccuro.blogspot.com, she and Richmond Smoothie King owner Ryan Taylor exchange a series of comments in which she points out that wherever Beebe is employed is public information that will be posted on the Virginia Sex Offenders online registry. At presstime, Beebe’s status on that site was “unemployed.”
Taylor says he has had no direct contact by phone or email with Seccuro, who was a 17-year-old UVA first year at the time of the assault, and that concern for his female employees and patrons led him to terminate Beebe’s employment. He expresses frustration that his business has been connected to the case in any way.
Beebe did not return the Hook’s call, but his attorney, Rhonda Quagliana, says that readjusting to life after jail has been difficult for him, particularly in the wake of his mother’s late August death during the final weeks of his sentence. On August 24, Quagliana appeared in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Beebe’s behalf, asking Judge Edward Hogshire to grant her client a 10-day “furlough,” an unsupervised release, so that he could tend to his mother’s affairs in Florida. Worrell objected, claiming such a release would amount to “special treatment,” and Hogshire agreed, denying the furlough request.
Coping with his mother’s death and the loss of his food-service job are not the only post-release difficulties Beebe is facing. In addition to his own legal expenses, Virginia state law requires convicted offenders to reimburse the Commonwealth for court costs including their victim’s case-related travel expenses. In Beebe’s case, those fees have already topped $2,300– a figure that will likely increase.
Seccuro, who traveled from her home in Greenwich, Connecticut to Charlottesville on approximately five occasions, but is due reimbursement for only three of those visits, is also dealing with frustration over the expenses accrued during the course of the investigation and court case. While standard practice is for the Commonwealth to reimburse the victim and then pass the expense on to the perpetrator, Seccuro has not yet received full reimbursement. Worrell says the release of those funds is pending approval from the Virginia Supreme Court, a process he says will take four to six weeks.
Beebe’s future earning potential and ability to find an employer willing to accept his past remain in question, but he’ll have some help in the hunt. Larry Traylor, spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Corrections, says one role a probation officer plays is assisting in the job search.
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Aha. The odious Mrs. Seccuro raises her fame/sympathy-craving head again.
Please keep us apprised of the continued developments in Mr. Beebe’s career.
Looky Lou: Is that what you get from this article? Because what I just read is that a sex offender was serving up smoothies (an irony in itself as he drugged Ms. Seccuro’s drink before raping her) to the Richmond community. Do I want a newly released sex offender serving up natural beverages to my wife and kinds, let alone me? There’s nothing natural about that.
And may I point out that Ms. Seccuro did not write the article nor does she control the media. Why must we continue to comment on the survivor? Because I’m not feeling sorry for a rapist who, (sob) can’t pay his legal fees or find a job? It’s a small price to pay for raping someone.
PS. Hook: I can’t find this correspondence. Could you reference the specific entry rather that the entire blog?
I honestly don’t have a problem with the guy working at Smoothie King. Do you think he’s going to suddenly become overwhelmed by his urges and attack you as you order your frozen strawberry concoction? Get real. The guy has to work.
Not really the point. He was also a massage therapist. Do I think a rapist would suddenly become overwhelmed by his urges while he’s touching someone’s naked body? Uh, yes.
Do I think he’s going to attack me at Smoothie King? Obviously not, but his face is very recognizable in the community; if I were to walk in there, it would scare the daylights out of me. I’m a woman; “get real”, Rich.
What happened to the “have you been convicted of a felony?” question on the employment application? I’m not saying he shouldnt work, but serving the public is probably not the best career choice.
This guy can’t win at this point. I think some of you would be happy if he joined a colony of lepers. What a sad commentary on the state of forgiveness in today’s society. I’m sorry for what happened to the victim, but at this point, Beebe is the more sympathetic character to me.
Isn’t it about time you moved on to a new story? The Hook can’t seem to make up its mind whether to keep flogging this confessed-convicted-time-served rapist, carry water for the media-hound victim, or continue to play the public prude card. Maybe you should check in over at cvillain, where they are debating Gray Rape: Casual Hookups, Mixed Signals, Alcohol and Drugs (http://cvillain.com/?p=377).
Sympathetic? No. But let man at least shift careers from massage therapy to Smoothie vendor without tattooing an R on his forehead.
I think that continued attacks on Beebe will cause him to be perceived as the victim. At some point one has to acknowledge that Beebe served his time in jail, maybe it’s time for everyone to move on with their lives now.
(an irony in itself as he drugged Ms. Seccuro’s drink before raping her)
Proof of this please, as I understand the case he was not at the party and returned home late, finding Seccuro already in that condition. Am I missing something?
Securro has certainly lost any sympathy she may have had from me initially in this case. She definitely has ridden this one for all it’s worth.
I’m not taking sides, and I don’t know the specifics of this case, but I think Mr. Beebe is sorry for what he did. He was only being honest and in turn, basically fucked himself for the rest of his life. Let bygones be bygones.
I mean, things could be worse.
For one, we have a cheating, lying, dishonest fool running our country.
WMD baby!
Wheres good old honest Colin when we need him?
The basic ideal of justice in America is, if convicted, the convict serves time or whatever punishment is meted out to him. Once he has served his punishment as mandated by the government, that’s that.
I don’t buy into this vindictive concept some people foster that a person who has served his punishment should somehow be punished forr the rest of his life. Why? because a handful of people say so?
If people could set aside their emotions for a second, set aside their natural human tendency to take a slelectiveset of facts and cling to it as Truth, then they would realize this guy came forward with am admission of a crime and went through the judicial system. for better or ill, there was an outcome and he was punsihed in accordance with what the government deemed appropriate. None of us, not one, has any right to advocate continual punishment for someone.
As for Liz Securro, she comes across as an unspeakably brittle and damaged ego who has allowed this tragedy to become the defining moment of her life. What happened to her was horrible. I have duaghters and I suspect if anything like that happpened to them, I may be fully capable of eliminating the perpetrator.
But to let this even define your life? To blog about it incessantly and to obsess on every conceviable detail, no matter how banal? That seems so tragically sad.
The irony here may be in the observation that Beebe may be moving on to a healthier and more complete life than the woman who suffered at his hands a quarter-century ago. But there is a greater irony: the victim’s inability to become whole appears to be of her own choosing.
Her victimhood is like a cut on the roof of her mouth that just might heal if whe would stop running her tongue over it.
I honestly wonder if it’s not so much whether she can move beyond this, but that she simply does not want to. The attention seems to have taken hold like a drug.
Beautifully stated CC
Thank you, jeeps.
Having been a journalist and liflong news addict, I have followed the peculiarities of this long and winding story with passing interest, but have reached a stage where I can no longer say with certainty for whom I feel the greater pity.
I am confident in my belief that The Hook remains about as obsesssed with this strange and sad story as the victim seems to be with her attacker, stemming from a situation that occurred more than half their lives ago.
I can speak for no one but myself and i tell you this: at the end of my life I want to look back with no regrets at things left undone. And by whatever philosophy you wish to call it, dwelling compulsively on a situation that, in human terms, is far receding in the past, means that I am unable (or unwilling?) to live my life for what it is today.
My firstborn child died at birth 11 years ago. Part of me died with her. But the part that lives on chooses to embrace what I’ve got and tries to make the best use of it every day. And unlike some people who are the focus of our little discusssion, this will be my one and only mention of a life altering experience. I sure as hell will not blog about it.
There are other things to do and every passing moment is a chance to turn your life around.
My best,
CC
You are exactly right about liz seccuro. I don’t know beebe but i know liz. she is an opportunist personified. before this guy emailed her she never told anyone her attack. now she’s putting herself out there as an expert in the field of helping victims recover. but trust me its more about her than it is for those she intends to help. even her supposed good intentions are driven by selfish motives. as for healing, please. true healing comes when victims are able to forgive. she is far from that point since she obviously is absolutely obsessed with creating obstacles at every point in which this guy tries to make ammends and move on with his life. she needs to forvive and let go so she be free herself from her own suffering.