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I'd like to say that for all of you who keep using rumors or 'creepy' feelings that you got from Bill when you were younger to somehow prove that he is a child molester, please stop. If you truly think that older men who date younger women equals a child molester, I hope that you also boycott all movies where an older actor has the young wife, or the boycott the music where the rockstar sleeps with 20-somethings, and boycott the businesses where the CEO has the young lady friend. If this behavior truly bothers you, then I just want to make sure you apply it evenly to everyone and that we're not in a situation where we're trying to mold the facts to fit the witch hunt.

Totally agree with this.

Disclosure I love Bill. This man was instrumental in getting NYC started in Blues back in 2000. When people ask me who the best teachers are in the scene, he always makes my list.

So I will echo that I'm not that surprised... in the people who are not surprised.

Bill has always had that "creepy" stigma... but it wasn't because he was being creepy to underage girls. It was because girls who were 18-25 were creeped out at him. That doesn't make him a pedophile.

I haven't read everything here yet and it'll take time to process everything written here, but I was brought up to speed from some people here and it sounds like a big part of this whole sentence has to do with the transporting child porn across the US border. It also sounds like it was pictures he had downloaded in batch and there were some.

If this guy really had a sickness for little girls, I would think that his whole porn collection would be filled with that stuff. I would think that the US legal system would say "this guy is clearly pervert and he should be locked up for the maximum" But the fact that he got the low end of the sentencing says he shouldn't be put in the same category as a lot of sick people out there.

People on here who weren't that surprised... (and honestly, that includes me) should check themselves before they make the jump from guy who downloads porn to pedophile. I know some who felt Bill was creepy was because he was hitting on them... in their 20s. And some who felt Bill was creepy was because as someone said earlier on this page, they felt "if you were over 30, you were invisible to him" again, all this means was his tastes were younger... but not criminal.

I know Bill would have been booked in a lot more cities and a lot more events in the past several years, but one big reason why he wasn't was because of people who labeled him "creepy." I know that after this sentence it'll probably be much harder for some to book him. Hasn't he been judged enough? I understand people's concerns, and yes, he should be watched in the future, but let's not make him into some legendary monster.

Probably because he's on the road all the time and doesn't get to be in relationships all that much due to his traveling? I really don't see anything wrong with him having porn (Although I'd rather not want to know about it... it's kind of like finding out your parents have sex) It was some of the photos he had in question that were the issue, and for all you know, he probably did some batch download of what he thought was "legal" porn and some questionable stuff was mixed in. A lot of internet sites come from European countries where those age restriction rules are more lax.

I had a huge long post that I accidentally deleted. Let me try again:

I don't think that Bill's conviction and his reputation are happening in a vacuum. I can't help but make a connection between the two. The swing scene gave Bill a nice open door to do whatever he wanted with women less than half his age, which to me emboldened him and in his mind partially legitimized the actions that led to his arrest. I don't think we MEANT to do this, I think we're just acting on our instincts to live and let live and be cool around people, and that's admirable. Most of the time I'm totally down with that.

But it can have blind spots, and I think one of those blind spots is that this scene is now a great place for older men to get with younger women, an opportunity they totally wouldn't have in many other scenes. And like fiddletree said, young people make decisions that, ten years later, they regret and wonder about. Isn't it a responsibility of our older dancers to act their age and not just fall in line with the poor decisions of the young?

I have had more than a few single friends, upon turning 30, make a declaration like, "Okay, I'm 30 now. I've gotta stop trying to date college girls and start looking for girls closer to my own age." And they do. And if at some dance event a semi drunk 19 year old comes onto them they do the right thing and politely and discreetly decline. They act in a manner appropriate for their age. Bill was 59. He wasn't acting like a responsible 59 year old, he was acting like he was still 25. I would like to see more people act responsibly for their age. I understand that sometimes age doesn't matter and a relationship works and has legs and that's great, but I would prefer it to be the exception rather than standard operating procedure. I would prefer the scene considers it rare than just another relationship.

And why do I care what so many other people do? Well for starters, that lack of responsibility has led to real child abuse in our scene before. I said earlier that with Bill our scene dodged a bullet. We are lucky that Bill was at least responsible enough to stay legal within our scene. But that's him just setting an arbitrary line while living out that fantasy at home on his computer. Mo Jones, who had a similar rep and a similar amount of status in his own scene, made a different choice, and I don't want to depend upon the individual boundaries of some future offender to protect kids. I think with a little more age scrutiny, Mo Jones could have been prevented. And I think that the only thing that prevented Bill from becoming the next Mo was Bill's own choice. I would like a little more safeguard than that.

But the truth is I don't know what the practical solution might be other than to have magic powers that can change individual behavior and attitudes enough to change the culture of the scene. I'm just putting my analysis out there and I hope some people find it interesting and maybe change their thinking about age. There are some wonderful perks to the age blindness we have enjoyed, and I don't want to see those perks go away. But I think we can be smarter about it.

For the record, I feel the exact same thing about the other media Kimmie mentioned, movies and TV and so on. The fetishization of youth is to me a serious problem in our culture, with consequences far beyond the scope of this thread.

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I don't want to depend upon the individual boundaries of some future offender to protect kids. I think with a little more age scrutiny, Mo Jones could have been prevented. And I think that the only thing that prevented Bill from becoming the next Mo was Bill's own choice. I would like a little more safeguard than that.

Well, I can only speak for NYC, but I always felt that the community as a whole always did a good job watching out and policing within the scene, regarless of any alleged predators making a personal choice on his or her boundaries. Two great examples I can think of were Diane back around 2000 and Eve several years ago. Both started in the scene when in HS and were pretty much the only HS girls in our scene, but were embraced, protected and watched over by many of us.

It might be tougher in other cities where the average age is a lot younger or where local HS's get more involved in the community, or in a larger scene that feels more fragmented.

"Generally, where there's this much smoke, there's fire." So where's the smoke? Any stories or hearsay of him hitting on or flirting with anyone who could get him in trouble? So far, I've heard none. All I've heard is that he has a taste for younger women that borders on a fetish. If he had some other fetish, say for S&M, or feet, he could take it the extremes that some people do, if that's what he wanted. For his, one cannot. Is there even any rumor or gossip that he tried to during all his years of teaching Lindy Hop? (If any come along I'll happily change my opinion of him, even if they turn out to be false.) So it's possible he's sick, like Marcello says. It's also very possible he's not.

and Weownyou, stop saying "it's to protect children", it's to protect minors. There's a big diff, so stop being so shrill, I've already started to skip all your posts. (And BTW I see a huge stream of hypocrisy in society in general when it comes to crimes against The Children as compared to how much people care about The Children otherwise.)

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"I'd like to say that for all of you who keep using rumors or 'creepy' feelings that you got from Bill when you were younger to somehow prove that he is a child molester, please stop."

While I can appreciate your instinct to support your friend Bill and protect him from slander, this statement is unfair. I don't think anyone here offers the creepy vibes they got around Bill as proof that he is a child molester. To do so would be a huge jump to an irrational conclusion. Bill's behaviors, not the creeped-out feelings of young women, prove or disprove that he is a child molester. (And as we have learned, a polygraph disproved this. So there is no real argument to be had about that.)

I've never knowingly been in the same room as Bill, much less met him. But as a woman who has an accurate self-preservation radar of my own, let me suggest this: I'm guessing that Bill being accused and convicted of possessing child porn confirms to the young women who have felt uneasy around him that this feeling in their gut wasn't just a fluke, wasn't based on petty rumors, wasn't paranoia. There was good reason for their intuitive red flag. That is not the same as offering these gut feelings as evidence that he is a child molester, and to do so would be unfair, not to mention ridiculous.

If someone chooses to share that they felt uneasy around Bill, I think that's a totally valid part of this conversation, no matter how much you may dislike it.

Thank you.

I very rarely post on yehoodi because I don't like to, but I feel like I have a somewhat unique perspective here. I wasn't sure which thread to put this is in so I just put it here.

First of all I want to say that I've never been creeped out by Bill. I've known him since I was sixteen and he's never done or said anything inappropriate to or around me. I knew the rumors and the reputation, but thats all they were to me. I haven't seen anyone on here add fuel to the fire or come out of the woodworks to say anything damning. The fact the some people aren't suprised and/or felt a vibe is fine, not insulting and just their own truth. IMO.

The subject of protecting people is tough. I was very young when I started dancing and was treated like a little sister to everyone. It was incredibly annoying at times but, if nothing else, I felt safe. I'd like to pride myself on my own wit and methods of self preservation, but I know there were also people looking out for me. "Protecting" doesn't have to mean creating a barricade between "older men" and "younger women." It's as small (or big!) as just respecting the age difference for what it is and respecting that the minor is maybe too young to be doing the same things as you. Teenagers (old and young) can be very convincing when they want something and while it's not your job say "no", I feel it's the job of the community to create a safe environment. Sometimes that does mean batting an eye when the 30+ olds hit on the teens (or just legal adults) with intent. Sometimes that means not being the one to give minors booze. Sometimes that just means taking responsibility to drive someone home. If you want to be open to hanging out with people that much younger than you, you need to accept the responsibility that comes with that. This is a community of friends, not randoms. Just check yourself and those around you. There's nothing shrill, oppressing and police-like about that.

I don't know what made me a different commodity than many of the other young girls in the scene now. I'm just glad I had the experience that I had and didn't find myself in an unsavory situation.

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If someone chooses to share that they felt uneasy around Bill, I think that's a totally valid part of this conversation, no matter how much you may dislike it.

While I agree that it is perfectly fine to express your opinion (that's what this forum is for), I would still be very careful in my tone while doing so. I only say so because a few of the creepy comments seems like an after thought... As in "now that I think about it... yeah...".

Point is, no one (myself included) really new the extent of Bill's addiction. If we did, we would have said something. The last thing we wanted was for this addition to put him in federal prison. The reason Hannah was able to protect herself when she was young was because when she felt someone was creepy, she said "you're creepy" to the guy. It's not only self-protection, but it also gives the other party acknowledgment of their problem.

So saying "yeah he was a little creepy" almost seem too little too late at this point. Just my 2 pennies.

There's a big difference between porn and child-porn; —child porn is a sick and cruel way to exploit kids for money or god knows what else.. while regular (legal age) porn is just entertainment.

I think we are all against child pornography. I don't think that any of Bill's defenders are pro-child porn. I'm certainly not. I think we have all felt the same emotions that many of you are experiencing.

I was lucky enough to have heard about this directly from Bill and had the opportunity to ask the questions I wanted to ask. There were things I needed to know before feeling comfortable with coming to his defense in such a public manner.

One thing I would like to make very clear is that I am not defending Bill's actions and certainly am not standing by him because of his status. I couldn't care less about his dance ability, rock star-ness, or any of that as many people on the boards are stating about his defenders. We stand by him as a friend, as someone we have gotten to know very well, and as a person we believe in. We will stand by him while he goes through this and will help him get whatever help he needs. We do that because we believe in him as a person and are able to see that there is more to this person than this illness/mistake/situation (whatever you want to call it). None of us condone what he has done but we are willing to help him through this because of what he brings to our lives outside of dancing.

SHOCK Are you freaking kidding me?!?!?!?! Is it getting to the point where you just can't trust anybody these days. I hate to be the mom that wraps her kids in bubble paper, but when it gets to the point where you can't feel safe about your kids taking dance lessons it makes me reconsider.

If anything that just meant Bill was a snob at times.

*DOH! Nanda beat me to it.

And I struggle when I keep hearing that Bill is 'sick' and 'ill' because of this incident. He got caught with something and got convicted. By that account every criminal in the US prison system must be sick.

Pornography is a billion dollar industry... and that's not because of sick people. it's because of normal people, people you live next door to... neighbors... or dance partners.

OK, Bill got caught with porn... and supposedly some of it was child porn (although I haven't been able to read all 7 pages here inbetween SoFlex dances, have we determined that these were photos of people who could have been 18... or undeniably younger?) If it's really as bad as some people are saying (even though I'm pretty sure they haven't seen the evidence) then that's really sick in itself and I for one would still like to talk to the man I've known for 10 years to find out why or what happened. In this day with bittorrent and illegal downloads, it's very possible to download disgusting crap without meaning to. Think of all those people who've downloaded 1 gig or more of music from a friend, there's probably still stuff you haven't listened to on your hard drive.

The language I heard about this situation is that Bill was aware of the photos, but hadn't deleted it yet - which sounds like it was just stuff on his hard drive that he may not even look at, but still takes up space - all of us have that. And Marcelo 300+ photos is a lot, but again, in this day and age with digital photos, anyone can take 300 photos of anything. A pornographic video shoot has a still photographer taking multiple shots that could number in the hundreds from just one act. If Bill had 300+ photos of 300 different underage girls, I'd be more concerned. Hell, if he had 30 VIDEOS of underage girls, I'd take the key they used to lock him up and throw it in the river... (ok actually a lot less than 30, but you get my point hopefully)

Now I'm not saying this JUST to defend him. But I do feel that he's going to pay for this crime and IMO he's already had to fight this reputation that he has... one that will now NEVER be completely erased because of this black mark. It's not like he's going to be teaching anytime soon, I just hope that when he's done serving his time that he's allowed to be invited into this scene and be allowed to be given a chance to redeem himself... and that doesn't mean without caution, but let's not judge his future pre-maturely because of this incident.

I realize it seems that was meant specifically to you, but I just want to nip in the bud these 'feelings' people have about Bill because they see him dancing with younger women. There are many people who I feel are forming their opinions partly on that logic

It's like "oh he dances with younger women and he has pornographic pictures of younger women... damn it makes so much sense now."

And Hannah, who's Nanda? :-P