| "Did you hear about Jonathan Lerner?!?": What really happened, in my own words.Dear Friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and anyone else who cares: As I'm sure the vast majority of you know, there have been a lot of things being said about me lately and a lot of stories floating around. Almost 4 months ago, something happened to me that has, apparently, been a very popular topic of conversation ever since. This doesn't bother or surprise me, we all know that people love to talk, and so I decided just to let people talk amongst themselves and to leave it alone. I guess I just figured that the people who really knew me and who were genuinely concerned would contact me personally before listening to rumors and adhering to such hearsay. It recently dawned on me, however, that even the most loyal of friends and concerned of colleagues hesitate to bring up such topics for fear that it may be a "touchy subject" or that I might get offended or something else along these lines, and so they feel that they have no choice but to go ahead and ask other people about what happened. This, again, is completely understandable. After coming to this realization, it became clear to me that until I personally did something or other to speak out, the rumors and stories were going to continue to grow and to be passed on from person to person. With this in mind, I spoke to an old, wise friend of mine and we agreed that while I do not wish to discuss my situation in much detail on any public domain such as the internet, it would indeed be a good idea to make some kind of public address, to let people know the gist of what happened and that I am indeed doing just fine! I have a tendency to get fairly long winded, so to get right down to the point: unless you've heard it directly from my mouth, 92% of what you've heard or read about me within the past 4 months is completely and totally inaccurate and false. This VERY MUCH includes the article written in the Indiana Daily Student on February 14th, 2008. That article made a lot of very bold accusations, containing an excessive number of FALSE information and inaccurate facts, thus making the article guilty of both slander and defamation of character. Legal action may very well be taken. A brief summary of what ACTUALLY happened as opposed to what you all may have read and/or been told: While moving back up to Indiana for my sophomore year, I grabbed a plastic bin from our attic to help me load stuff up. Little did I know, at the bottom of this bin was one of my Dad's old prescription pads. Once I did realize this, I made the mistake of telling an EX-friend of mine who I didn't realize was very in to drugs and shit like that. From the second I mentioned it to him, all he did was beg and pester me to give him a prescription. I didn't want to do it because not only did I know it was wrong, but I didn't want to get in trouble. Eventually, though, I went ahead and gave him one. I admit that was TRAGICALLY stupid of me, but I did this for 2 reasons: 1) because I wanted him to leave me the hell alone and 2)because he ASSURED me that nothing would happen, and even if it did, he said he'd never give out my name to anyone. Some liar, huh? And some moron I was for believing him. In the end, he ended up giving the cops my name, I got in trouble, had to spend some time at the police station, got a lawyer and went home. Again, NOTHING like what that stupid article implied.
I know that a lot of you probably have a ton of questions, but I really don't think I want to discuss this any further for all to see. Please, please, please know that I appreciate it when people talk to me directly about this situation and I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have! Feel free to contact me via e-mail, cell phone, facebook or any other way--I'd be more than willing to talk about it and to clear up anything that may still be unclear to you. Thanks for reading. |
