PA- Greensburg Kids Get Phones Back After 'Sexting' Sentence

3-26-2009 Pennsylvania:

Juvenile Judge Gives Boys, Girls Community Service

GREENSBURG, Pa. -- Criminal cases against Greensburg Salem High School students who were caught "sexting" have been resolved in juvenile court.

All six students -- three boys and three girls -- were sentenced to curfews and community service, and they each got their cell phones back.

Charges of sexual abuse of children and criminal use of a communication device were filed after the girls text-messaged the boys and sent their naked photos to the boys' phones.

School administrators called Greensburg police when they learned about the photos.

The students' names aren't being released because of their ages.

WTAE Channel 4's Jennifer Miele reported that Mayor Karl Eisaman and the Greensburg Police Department received dozens of e-mails from local people who think the students should have been punished by their parents, and not by a judge.

"These are good kids that made mistakes ... What they did was wrong, but they are not sex offenders," one of the boys' mothers said in an e-mail to Channel 4 Action News.

"I think it's actually really foolish for both the school district and the prosecuting attorneys to make an issue of this thing," defense attorney Dante Bertani said. "I mean, it's girls sending pictures of themselves to their boyfriends."

Still, Bertani said there's no doubt that naked pictures of children are child pornography. ..News Source.. by WTAE TV4.com