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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJudge is way over the line IMO: This 19-Year-Old Will Spend the Next 25 Years as a Registered Sex
Offender. I hope the parents are successful.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/19-year-spend-25-years-registered-sex-offender/story?id=32783206
Zach was arrested last winter after having sex with a girl he met on the dating app Hot or Not, who claimed she was 17. But she admitted to police that was a lie. She was really 14.
If he had known she was so young, Zach said, he never would have met her.
I wouldn't even have gone to her house, like I literally wouldn't have gone to her house at all, he said.
As a convicted sex offender, the terms of Zachs probation are incredibly strict. For the next five years, he is forbidden from owning a smart phone or using the Internet. He is not allowed to talk to anyone under age 17, other than immediate family. He is banned from going to any establishment that serves alcohol and he has to be home before 8 p.m. every night.
They make me out to be a monster, Zach said. I can't even look at life regularly.
His parents say his punishment is cruel and unusual, and they are waging a very public fight, even setting up a Facebook page, hoping to rally support for their son.
Bay Boy
(1,689 posts)but I doubt if they will succeed. He will forever be thought of as a sexual predator and vilified by his neighbors.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)But then, we know our "justice" system is broken.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,215 posts)anymore? I know my mother read the sexual riot act to my brothers.
Fla Dem
(23,754 posts)because the girl lied about her age, and even testified on the kid's behalf, he should not be labeled a sex offender. OMG, I am as fervent a supporter of protecting women of all ages from abuse and exploitation, but this is just wrong for this kid to be labeled a sex offender for the next 25 years.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)have innocently done. The punishment does not fit what happened.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)"But the judge condemned what he called a culture of meet, hook-up, have sex, sayonara, totally inappropriate behavior, according to court documents."
What do those comments have to do with statutory rape? What do they have to do with whether or not a minor was exploited?
The judge was lamenting hook-up culture--in other words, consensual sex, regardless of the age of the participants.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)davidn3600
(6,342 posts)And it's causing these registries to become diluted and now the real serious predators are being lost in the clutter.