MUSKEGON COUNTY — Evan Emory, the Fruitport man now known nationwide for his controversial YouTube post featuring Ravenna first-graders, says he isn’t a "sick criminal," just a misunderstood performer who unintentionally crossed the line.
“I feel horrible that it was interpreted that way,” Emory said of the infamous video featuring about two dozen 6- and 7-year-old children giggling and making funny expressions as he sings a lewd, sexual song he edited over an actual kid-themed ditty he performed in front of them.
“I don’t feel like a criminal even after all this,” said the baby-faced Ravenna High School graduate. “I feel like a jackass.”
Emory has been formally charged with a felony for making the YouTube video, shot on Jan. 12 in a classroom at Ravenna's Beechnau Elementary. The charge, manufacturing child abusive material — which is essentially, under law, making child porn — carries a possible maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. If convicted, he would also have to register as a sex-offender.
Emory, 21, an aspiring musician and comedian who has no prior criminal record, sat down with a Chronicle reporter Friday and answered the question on the minds of many: What were you thinking?
Emory, losing his composure and wiping away tears, said he was simply trying to create a funny YouTube video, mainly geared toward his friends. Since the criminal charges were filed, the case has been covered on Internet sites and media across the U.S. and as far away as Europe and Australia.
“I wrote the ‘naughty’ song when I was 16. The feedback I got from my friends was that it was hilarious. Just the song itself. It would be a song that I would play at places and it was funny,” Emory said, sharing a few lines with a Chronicle reporter.
“I started taking pride in it. I wanted to make (a video) that was funny and that fit. I thought about it, like, how I would make a video for this song in some inappropriate place? I chose an inappropriate place where it would appear that’s where it was played because that would make it funnier.”
Turns out, it wasn’t so funny after all, he admits.
A nightmare come true
Emory said authorities on Tuesday came knocking on his door searching for children’s “panties” and “souvenirs” only a pedophile would have in his possession.
“They were looking for horrible, horrible things, like...” Emory stops, takes a deep breath and begins to cry. “Like, children's underwear.”
The usually lighthearted, joke-cracking Emory stifled back more tears when he described the scene at his home, 5735 E. Summit, on Tuesday.
“They were looking for souvenirs and a list of children's names and videos of children undressing and stuff. They asked if I had downloaded child pornography on my computer,” Emory said.
Emory’s attorney, Terry Nolan, who attended Friday’s interview with Emory’s parents and uncle, said authorities found “nothing” of the sort.
“They obviously never found any of this stuff,” Nolan said.
“I was cooperative with everything,” Emory added.
Emory says that, when he realized the video was being considered as something criminal, he asked police at his house “if I could go online and remove the video.”
“I didn’t want it on there if they thought it was about that,” Emory said. “I was in shock when I realized what (police) were at my house to do. It scared the s**t out of me.”
It happened so fast that it took a while for the enormity of it all to set in, Emory said.
Before he had any inkling that authorities would intervene, Emory said he heard from an employee at Muskegon Community College that Beechnau parents were upset.
“I heard the parents were mad while I was at MCC playing a gig at the college,” Emory said. “I felt like after I heard (that parents were mad) that it was sinking in. It hurt to hear that, and I never intended it. I just had no idea.”
When police described the reaction from Beechnau parents, Emory said he felt like the “angry parents were coming with pitchforks to lynch me or something.”
Deceiving the school, children and parents
Emory doesn’t hold back when asked how he crafted the video which, he admits, took some deception on his part.
School officials have said that Emory told them he wanted to shoot the video to help build his portfolio to get into a college so he could become a teacher.
A friend, whose name Emory declined to reveal, videotaped Emory’s actual performance he gave to the first-graders and then videotaped Emory singing the sexual lyrics when the classroom was empty.
“All the inappropriate stuff was shot after school. The teacher had bowling practice, and he told us we could use the room. That’s where I got the shots, and then I took an hour and a half of footage of different things and edited at my house,” he said.
Emory said he “didn’t really even think about” blurring the children's faces out of the video.
“If I would have done it all over, I would have gotten permission to do this and I would have done it in a different way that doesn’t make me into a criminal,” he said.
Emory said he is aware how many people “want me dead” over the whole thing.
“I s**t on my community. I have people who have known me since I was 4 in my community that want me dead. I sang at my graduation commencement. You can literally fit the entire town in the gymnasium. I never wanted this to happen. I’m sorry to everybody,” he said.
The aftermath
There are a lot of things Emory regrets since the YouTube posting heard ‘round the world. But singing that day in front of the Beechnau students is not one of them.
“I had a blast that day. I had so much fun, and the teachers had so much fun that they told me to come back and do it again,” Emory said. I had one teacher ask (before the edited video was posted) if I could give her daughter guitar lessons.”
Ravenna school officials, who had no knowledge of Emory's editing plans, have said they are furious and feel "betrayed" that Emory would take advantage of the school district, students and parents.
When asked what he has to say to the parents now, Emory replied: “I feel horrible that it was interpreted that way and (they) saw it that way. I know that (the children) loved it.
“If parents are upset still and those people who trusted me, I’m sorry to all of them,” Emory said.
In the meantime, Emory takes comfort in knowing he has supporters who feel what he intended to do was harmless.
A Facebook page, "Free Evan Emory," had more than 1,200 followers as of Friday afternoon.
“I got out of jail and found the people who do care about me were picketing and protesting. I had like eight people who were really close to me in the courtroom. I know that people had made an Internet sensation out of sticking up for me,” Emory said.
“I’m most sorry my family and friends and the people who love me had to see me in shackles, accused of being a felon and a sick criminal.”
Nolan said he can understand why the Beechnau parents are angry.
But he said the serious charge issued by the Muskegon County Prosecutor’s Office is ludicrous.
“I mean, really? Do they want to put him in prison and put him on the sex-offender list? Is that really what they want?” Nolan said. “Is this really worthy of going to prison and getting on a sexual-offender list?”
Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague has called the video “disturbing” and said the charge was justifiable because “he walked into a classroom and took advantage and victimized every single child in that classroom.”
Tague said late Friday that Emory is clearly missing the point.
“If you insinuate that you want to have sex with young children in Muskegon County and put that in the Internet, you’ve got a problem with the law,” Tague said.
“As prosecutor of Muskegon County, I feel I have a strong obligation to vigorously defend all the children in our county. To insinuate on a tape that you want to perform perverted acts on children is clearly within the scope of the law with which Mr. Emory is charged.”
Michigan law “provides penalty” for those who actually manufacture child sexually abusive material “but also has a provision for those who make it appear that the children were actually abused,” Tague had said.
Nolan said he hopes that when the children who appeared in Emory’s YouTube video are 21, that their parents understand “they’re going to make mistakes” too.
“I hope that those kids get understanding and compassion and forgiveness for mistakes that young people make, and I hope they get a lot more than they’re giving him right now for error in judgment,” Nolan said.
“I didn’t ever intend to hurt or endanger anyone,” Emory added, covering his face, wiping away more tears. “Can we be done now?”
