Jefferson Clitlick Freedom Poland:
Convicted Naturist Pedophile

As soon as I got Clitlick's identity and address I wrote him this letter:

TO: JEFFERSON FREEDOM, June 17, 1983 

Dear Jefferson Freedom,
      I have just received the Cross Your Heart Support Network leaflet that was reproduced for the discussion at Blacks Beach on June 10, 1983. I am interested in hearing your reasons for editing our materials. 
      "This humiliating cycle has led to the peddling of sexual violence and pedophilia (children used as sex objects)." 
      The above sentence was not xxxxx ed out, but whited out leaving the impression that you had reproduced our leaflet in full. This editing was an unauthorized misrepresentation of Ann Simonton's and the CYHSN political analysis. 
      You have intentionally deleted a challenging sentence about child molesting as a pattern in our society and I want to know why. Please let me hear from you immediately on this matter. Until that time do not reproduce Cross Your Hear Support Network materials or imply that there is any alliance with us as a group until we clear this up. 
                        Nikki Craft, Santa Cruz, California 

P.S. I do not like the fact that there was no return address on the envelope that you sent our leaflet in. You gave no address other than ours. There was no name, address or phone number for this group in San Diego. Please take more responsibility for the work you do. 

[Addendum: This letter written to Clitlick June 17, 1983 should provide documentation that, unlike what Baxandall claims, I was very much "into" the issue of child abuse and pedophilia even back then.]

Freedom wrote:
Dear Lee: Thanks for your letter of June 15. For sure many self-styled "swinger" *are* "unfree" -- like "socialism" and "democracy." nobody owns the term. Thanks for exhibiting the banner; and Nikki's amplification is quite correct, (Unfortunately, she has since excommunicated me.) I have always agreed that SFL belongs in "other" (or "allied") contacts, than the mainstream list. I *did* get upset, earlier, when SFL wasn't listed *at all*. Best Wishes, Jeff, June 1983.

Freedom returned the copied letter with this note written one it:
Dear Lee: Techter was just trying to help the nudist cause. If you don't want his support, you can simply say so. There's no need to demand "an apology". Sincerely, Jeff Poland, 5 July 1983.

Even before his arrest it was easy to see Jeff Poland was a pedophile and it was probably only a matter of time. . . 

For years no one knew where Jefferson Clitlick Freedom was. At the same time he was added to "San Diego's Ten Most Wanted" he was never considered for the American Sunbathing Associations's Caution List. 
      As Lee Baxandall and I traveled to different nude events his name would come up periodically. It was always light conversation. "Hey, you know where he is? or "Ya seen Jeff lately?" and people would laugh or ponder the bad situation he had gone and gotten himself in. At times there would be an admiration expressed at how long he had eluded the law. I would always perk my ears up, but no one ever gave a clue as to his whereabouts. 
      Finally in May 1988 when we were on the San Onofree beach someone said Clitlick was in Australia. I tried to find out where, but couldn't. After they had finished discussing him I made a sarcastic remark about the free beach movement giving a child molester sanctuary by not reporting him to the police. Baxandall looked put-off by my comment and no more was said. 
      Sometime the first week of May, 1988, as soon as I got back to Oshkosh from San Onofree, I called a cop to let him know the rumor I had heard about Clitlick being in Australia. The cop then informed me that only the month before he had been extradited from Australia to the U.S. to face for child molestations that took place on Black's Beach. 
      As it turned out, Clitlick Freedom had been sending Baxandall updates while he was "underground" under the alias "Tahanga". Looking back, I wonder how Baxandall didn't know these updates were from him, as Poland's style is quite recognizable and his handwriting very difficult to disguise. Perhaps all the releases were typed and disguised. 

Then, on May 12, 1988 this letter arrived to Baxandall from (the now) John Jefferson POLAND #88-136320 from C.D.F. in San Diego. It said:

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

Dear Mr. Baxandall:

1) "Tahanga" has been arrested on charges from 1980. His real name appears above. 

2) If you still wish to print the India article , you may invent any nom-de-plume for it. If you decide that you don't want to print it, please return. 

3) Thanks for your recent letter concerning Christian colleague, etc. 

4) In March, I revised NAPA; and re-typed it legibly on IBM Selectric. Probably I sea-mailed a copy to you. Now I don't have a copy myself! Nor does my partner in Sydney, who is thus unable to respond to orders for NAPA from nudists. So - when your copy of NAPA (Selectric edition) arrives, could you please re-mail it (after copying it if you wish) to: M. Boats, G.P.O. Box 3121, General Post Office, Sydney 2001, Australia? Then he will be able to make more copies to fill requests. Thank you. 

Hopefully, Jeff 

P.S. As my case is still being processed, I cannot discuss details. However, I would point out that I was an alcoholic in 1980, which affected my behavior. Since then, I have been relieved of my alcohol problem. And I have stayed out of trouble for the past eight years. Within a month or so, I may know what will happen to me now. I strongly desire to change.

---

Over the next several months Baxandall and "Tahanga" exchanged several letters. Baxandall sent him free copies of CwS and "Tahanga" offered Baxandall the services of one of his jail buddies who was quite artistically inclined. "Tahanga" sent Baxandall beach updates, which Baxandall used, and has since became one of the naturist movements more prolific writers about nude beach locations all over the world, not just for Baxandall, but he is widely published by other naturist/nudist publications. 

Here's part of the letter exchange:
Dear Mr. Baxandall,
Thanks for your polite letter of 9 June; and especially for sending the Napa back to M-Boats, so he can make more to fill requests -- CHINA now allows "body-building" magazines, which some consider sensual. . . . beach updates. Start by sending review copies of World Guide and other nudist books? Send press releases when there is a tie-in between nudism and sport/fitness? Arrange for a European nudist writer-photographer to cover the next all-Europe nude swim meet, for a Chinese mag?? . . . more beach updates. . . Mail censorship is reasonably loose at my jail. Nudist mags would pass thu okay. Indeed, some inmates receive soft porn mags (plus Penthouse, etc. -- Doggedly, Jeff, July 1, 1988

On July 9, 1988 he wrote again to Baxandall:
Dear Lee,
Thanks for the beautiful copies of CwS (7.4 and 8-1) reminds me there's more to life than being inside. Enclosed ad from French resort, Le Ran du Chabrier (sp); torn from French swinger contact mag. Loisir 200 circa1987. Nice landscape, but they need a new art director. Am continuing to compile my monthly "Tropical Aerogramme" columns for Bare In Mind; but won't be able to get them published soon: Betty (the editor for the now defunct nudist newspaper "Bare In Mind") is willing to print Tahanga's writings after I get out of jail/prison, but not before. So the columns will just stack up until then? Unless some other periodical wants them? Or unless Betty changes her mind? (A friend in San Diego is willing to type the columns, so editors needn't suffer reading manuscript in the literal sense.) Suggestions? - Maybe this problem will seem simpler when I find out how long I'm going to be locked up. After release I'll be taking Depo-Provera shots to minimize my sex drive. (In March, I tried to castrate myself, for the same reason; but failed.) And having therapy: - Hoping to do time in sex offender tank of county jail, where I am now safe. Any other location puts me at risk of attack, harassment, and/or homicide by "normal" inmates. - Of course my alleged activities, back in 1980, were entirely non-coercive, consensual, and non violent; but that cuts no ice. Society forgives people who kill children sooner than those who love them improperly. 

The July 9, 1988 letter from Poland to Baxandall continued: 
"I have a friend who is an artist. He can draw beautifully in pencil on white paper, with delicate shading, highlights, etc. (No medium other than pencil and paper is available in the jail, alas.) He can create a drawing based on a photo. Would you be interested in publishing such a drawing? If so, you could take an unpublished photo and make a xerox of it (or several) and send these to me. . . I can act as "agent" for now. As such, I would request that you reward him, if artwork is accepted for publication by giving him a CwS subscription (one year per published work) in exchange? Naturally Jeff" 

Poland never said what kind of sex offender his friend was who was drawing the nudes, and Baxandall never asked. He just began sending issues of his naturist magazine to the sex offender unit there in the San Diego Detention Facility and accepting the friend's work in exchange for copies of his naturist magazine. 

---

Here's Baxandall's reply to Clitlick:
John Jefferson Poland # 88-136320
Central Detention Facility SE
POB 2952
San Diego, CA 92112

Jeff, 

Glad you liked the issues. 
      The artwork is certainly professional and attractive. I return the sample with this letter. By the time I return this, I'll have thought of a photo from which the artist can work and I'll include a xerox thereof. Your suggestion of remuneration is certainly acceptable. 
      About continuing Tropical Aerogramme presently, I am unsure what to suggest. As you know, I've preferred to integrate your findings and interpretations with other materials available to on the same locations -- in short, I would not want to print your texts verbatim, although they can be credited as the source if you choose to send them up here on that basis. 

NaturalIy
Lee Baxandall 
July I4, 1988 
                  Encl: Drawing; xerox

April 18, 1989 

Bare In Mind
P.O. Box 368
Perris, California 92370

Dear Betty, 
      I have informed Tom Kelley [Kelley, now a convicted pedophile, was at the time the editor for Lee Baxandall's Naturist page in Bare In Mind.] by phone today that I am aware you are publishing a column by Jefferson Clitlick (aka Jefferson Freedom and John Poland), submitted to you from prison where, as far as I know, Clitlick is currently serving a sentence for child molestation. 
      I am also in possession of a letter where Clitlick states that you are aware of the charges against him and that you print his column with full knowledge of that under his alias of Tahanga, the name that he adopted when he fled the country to Australia while on the San Diego "Most Wanted" list in order to avoid prosecution for the molestation of two girls on Blacks Beach. Clitlick's column, copyrighted even, provides addresses for contacts in Singapore and Malaysia, and any other contacts he might want to pass on. 
      How many other pedophiles does Bare In Mind knowingly publish columns for? What will you do: try to quietly drop his column now that you know that others are wise to what you are doing? It's too late. 
      And what a March issue of Bare In Mind. On page two you have a letter from Robbert Broekstra who has been investigated by U.S. Customs for his connection with Tim Wilcox (aka Phil Pedo) because of the "Teen Pen-Pal Club" that he runs out of Gouda, Holland. Wilcox was recruiting nudist children to send nude photographs of themselves to Holland and then correspond with people who claimed to be children. 
      Wilcox was recruiting nudist girls to send nude photographs to Broekstra. Numerous children from Rawhide, Sequoians and other nudist camps have corresponded with alleged children writing to them that ended up getting letters about oral sex etc.. One child Wilcox recruited received a letter offering the child air fare should she ever want to leave home she could join this couple and be loved and supported by them. 
      Tim Wilcox, by the way, a photographer who has published many photographs in Bare In Mind just pled guilty in Oakland to molesting a nudist child at Sequoians Family Nudist Camp and will be sentenced this month, on April 21 for felony "sexual battery". 
      You run several pages on Bill and Fran Flesher, those grand representatives of F-A-M-I-L-Y nudism and naturism (and all their children are in law enforcement and everyone in their family is a fine upstanding citizens in the community) and their new motel, The Treehouse Too. When the Fleshers say that their brand of nudism is a "healthy family activity" we know they will not find their most effective critics to be well-meaning religious zealots, but among those of us who know the truth about the "family nudism" their children experienced while growing up. 
      In your March, 1989 issue you run an ad for a man allegedly named Wendell Passoa requesting nude photos of teen girls. Passoa claimed to be a member of National Capital Naturists. Have you verified that he really is a member and that he is in fact 21 years old? Should ads like that be accepted by Bare In Mind at all? You, of course decide, but it does make you complicitous. You are acting as an intermediary for men to obtain nude photographs of teen girls. Is that something that you really want to do? 
      Your photos by Leif Heilberg and your full-page coverage about those two renowned Florida swingers Fred Bischoff and Tom Chittenden just adds icing to the cake. 
      You also have a mention of The Model Shoot Newsletter right next to it. Have you seen a copy of this cheesecake Playboy-style trash complete with a bunch of Health and Efficiency type porn models with breast implants and rear ends jacked up like theyÔre in heat? If not, you should request copies of whatever you advertise in your publication just to make sure it represents what you think nudism/naturism should be. If it doesn't, you should reject their advertising and writings instead of assisting them in finding their women and children, lest you be judged by the company you keep. 

Sincerely,
Nikki Craft

P.S. This letter is written for publication. Hopefully you will run it; if not, it will be dealt with in the Iconoclast and elsewhere. Do I need to tell you how bad all this is going to look when it is brought into public scrutiny outside the nudist movement? I can believe that nudists and naturists just see this as plain everyday behavior, but I guarantee that the rest of the world doesn't; and censoring and taking part in the "big cover-up" will not help. 

cc: Bern Loibl
Tom Kelley

I never heard from Bare In Mind, but shortly afterwards I got this (undated) letter from Clitlick: 

To the ICONoclast editor: 
      Your newsletter [Summer 1989] identifies me [Jefferson "Clitlick" Poland] as "a committed pedophile." That was true some years ago. Today I am a recovering [his emphasis] pedophile, undergoing psychotherapy and "chemical castration" (Depo-Provera). 
      My crime occurred in 1980 or earlier. The police found out about it in 1983, long after the relationship had been terminated. During 1983-1988 I was a fugitive overseas, where I learned about adult nudist possibilities in Asia - a field generally neglected by nudist journalism. I submitted columns under a pseudonym, [Tahanga] and my identity was unknown to the editor of Bare In Mind. I was arrested in 1988, served a jail sentence, and am now on probation for five years, with psychotherapy and Depo-Provera included among the conditions of probation. 
      I regret what I did nine years ago. I am trying to change my orientation; and certainly I have changed my behavior. I now avoid children; and will in the future avoid being alone with them. 
      How long, in your opinion, should I be disbarred from writing about adult aspects of nudism and textilism? For life? 

Curiously,
John Jefferson Poland 

---

My response to him was this: 

September 27, 1889 

Dear John, 
Thanks for your letter. I will respond to it soon. Will you, in the meantime, send me the articles relative to your case. Also send me some of your current ideas on pedophilia. 
      Can you also tell me what you did that you now regret and what caused you to regret it so deeply and when that happened. 
            Sincerely, Nikki Craft (I got no reply to my letter.)

It was after I wrote that letter that I had the occasion to talk to Baxandall on the phone.
      During that conversation he asked me, in an irritated tone of voice, what I thought Jeff had to do in order to be redeemed enough to be able to write for the naturist press again. 
      I know he needed Clitlick's beach updates to make his own work easier; and in this case a conviction apparently wasn't enough. It was such a long time ago (because he had for so long evaded prosecution) and Poland was, after all, a long time friend and free beach advocate. Baxandall was in genuine quandary about what to do about Clitlick. 
      I replied: Well, if he wants to write for the naturist press make him tell how he used the naturist/nudist movement to get kids. And make him name the names of men he worked with and tell who are the pedophiles. If he wants to write for the naturist press make him write about those things - -not beach updates.
      I am sure Poland was on the hot seat writing the article that Baxandall then requested after our conversation. But it was surely no "expose" as Baxandall claims. Instead of forcing Clitlick to name the names of the men he worked with to get access to children at Black's Beach and other places, Baxandall allowed Poland to weave a bunch of sympathy-getting hype without any editorial confrontation of a convicted child molester. Now that's what I call coddling a child molester. Yes it is. 
      One cop, who has known Clitlick and is familiar with the case and with those involved, called the now John Poland a "caught-again-Christian." I too wasn't very taken in by his stated remorse. He even claimed that he unsuccessfully tried to castrate himself. Gosh, after being so proficient at eluding prosecution for all those years one would think he would have been a more competent-type person. So, Jefferson Poland unsuccessfully tried to castrate himself and couldn't quite manage it? Awww. Perhaps someone should offer him some assistance. --Nikki Craft 

Here's Baxandall's addendum printed in Nude & Natural 10.1 after Jeff Poland's article.

Editor's note: We've published Poland's remarks as provided. Each reader studying the stated motives and explanations will reach an independent judgment. 
     "Recovering Pedophile" Poland was a prominent advocate of sexual freedom before his flight to elude arrest. It goes without saying that neglect of the children's best interests was the tragic blind spot of the parents no less than of the abuser. 
     While nudism and a swinging circle here set the social stage, the negligence is everywhere possible. Indeed, contrary to some opinion, the negligence documented here is rare in nudist or naturist contexts. 
     This description of behavior (honest so far as we know the circumstances) could serve all concerned adults and family-oriented organizations to spot some elements of the pedophile behavior, early in the process. 
     At the same time, each case is unique--that of Poland certainly is. Accusations based on a 'profile' alone should be strictly avoided!

In a Dallas Morning News article (March 29, 1992) Baxandall stated:
"I think that people who are not violent, who are not predatory, but have a problem with their stunted emotional development, they may find some alleviation and some maturing process through being quiet participants where they can see more nudity." He added, "And if it starts out as a sexual thing but they don't act on those sexual feelings - they don't invade anyone through having those feelings - then there's probably no harm done and the person may be healed or partially healed."

It's hard to believe that Lee Baxandall is talking about pedophiles when he said this. He's saying if pedophiles who like to look at kids are attracted to naturism for sexual reasons, it's fine. In fact, it can be a healing experience for the pedophile. But what kind of experience can it be for those who have to watch the pedophile watching a child? How healing can that be for the child and the child's parents? 
     But then Jefferson Freedom did much more than look, didn't he? 
     It's obvious that in Lee Baxandall's book many allowances can apparently be made when it comes to pedophiles. After all the relationship was "consentual", and as Baxandall has said, the parents and nudist swing parties are to a large degree to blame. Beside, Poland, an old friend to Baxandall and free beaches, is a good writer and knows a lot about nude beach updates. 
     Even after a conviction for sexual molestation, Lee Baxandall wants to know when Jefferson Clitlick can be let back into the movement and be given sanction with one of the largest naturist magazines in the United States? But who really benefits from welcoming pedophiles and convicted child molesters into the naturist movement, anyway? The magazine publishers, the nudist/naturist photographers (i.e. the business interests in the movement), and mostly the pedophile himself. Is it really worth the risk? Only to Lee Baxandall and Jefferson Poland. --Nikki Craft 

Addendum: Several years ago, another woman and I wrote to Jeff Poland after we ran across his ad for nude beach information in a national "hardcore" swinger/sex magazine. We sent him a supportive letter and pretended we were a girl in high school wanting to know about nude beaches. He wrote back a friendly letter and offered us a discounted subscription to his guide to nude beaches.

BACK TO NUDIST/NATURIST HALL OF SHAME