4-17-2009 Vermont:
The Chittenden County State's Attorney says he doesn't want lawmakers to tie the hands of prosecutors in cases where minors use cell phones to send sexually explicit images - often of themselves.
New legislation in Vermont would legalize the consensual exchange of graphic images between two people if they're between the ages of 13 and 18.
The practice is called ‘sexting'. It would still be illegal if it's not consensual, or for anyone outside of that age group.
Chittenden County State's attorney T.J. Donovan says he supports the intent of the bill, which is to avoid criminalizing teenagers, but he feels it's dangerous to create a blanket exemption for all people of a certain age.
(Donovan) "Every case is different and the prosecutors in this state who are the conscience of their communities know the facts of this case better than anybody and it's the prosecutorial discretion which has to remain intact and by making exceptions for a certain class of people you're taking away that discretion."
(eAdvocate Post)
(Host) Donovan says he'd rather see an emphasis put on educating teenagers about the dangers and the possible consequences of exchanging graphic or sexually explicit images of themselves.
(Donovan) "They will rue the day, whether it be 5 years or 10 years down the line where these images could come back and haunt them. I think kids need to be educated that there are some consequences for future employment opportunities and educational opportunities down the line and that's where I want to see the focus: on education and prevention."
(Host) Donovan says one punitive option for teenagers who engage in sexting might be court diversion or another form of alternative justice.
If the legislature approves the bill, Vermont would be one of the first states in the nation to offer such legal protections. ..News Source.. by Steve Zind
April 17, 2009
VT- State’s Attorney opposes decriminalization of sexting
April 12, 2009
VT- Legislature considers legalizing teen 'sexting'
4-12-2009 Vermont:
Bill would exempt teens from child-porn laws for consensual image exchange.
Vermont’s Legislature is considering a bill that, if approved, would make the state one of the first in the nation to grant legal protections to teenagers who send sexually explicit photos and videos to one another with their cell phones.
The law change is receiving widespread support from prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, women’s groups and others. Still, some advocates are questioning whether the proposal crosses the line between legalizing a common practice among teens experimenting with sexuality and protecting predators who target and exploit youngsters.
The practice of exchanging graphic images, a rising trend among high school and even some middle school students known as sexting, in many cases runs afoul of child-pornography laws because of the participants’ ages. Recent national news reports about the topic have shared stories of youngsters — senders and recipients — who were brought to adult courts on felony charges, have been convicted and called pedophiles, and whose names will be included on sex-offender registries for years.
In Vermont, too, at least one teenager, a former South Burlington High School student, is facing charges related to sexting.
(eAdvocate Post)
Almost concurrently, though, the state Senate earlier this month endorsed a proposal that carves out a sexting exception to child-pornography statutes. The exemption covers only the consensual exchange of graphic images between two people 13 to 18 years old; other conduct would remain a crime.
The bill now moves to the House, where the Judiciary Committee plans to begin taking testimony this week.
Lawmakers, enforcement authorities and advocates said the bill avoids condoning sexting but shields children from inappropriate criminal charges.
“This isn’t an issue of whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing — I think it’s wrong — but the question is, do we want kids to be prosecuted, called sex offenders, etc., etc., for consensual conduct? No,” said Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington.
The Judiciary Committee, which Sears chairs, unanimously endorsed the measure, S.125, a broad bill that includes several provisions relating to sex-crime laws, prison policies and other topics.
Time has come, advocates said, to align law, technology and teenagers’ use of it as they begin exploring their sexuality.
“They’re doing it,” Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said. “We don’t want to condone it. We need to educate. But there’s no public interest in labeling them as sex offenders for engaging in a perverted, albeit new, form of courtship.”
The prosecutor offered an example: If a 14-year-old girl “flashes” her 18-year-old boyfriend while the two are in the same room, but the couple refrain from sexual contact, no crime has occurred. Why, then, Donovan wondered, should either partner face child-porn charges if the girl snaps a nude picture of herself and sends it via cell phone to her boyfriend?
“The technology makes it the crime,” Donovan said. “The act here is sending the photo. There’s no sexual act performed.”
(2 of 3)
Age-related concerns
The leaders of two advocacy organizations, the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence in Montpelier and the Women’s Rape Crisis Center in Burlington, said last week they agreed with the rationale behind the bill but questioned the wisdom of the five-year age gap.
“With sex crimes there’s often a power differential between the perpetrator and the victim,” said Cathleen Wilson, executive director of the Burlington center. “There’s a canyon, a huge power differential” between a 13-year-old and an 18-year-old, she said.
Karen Tronsgard-Scott, director of the Vermont Network, shared her counterpart’s concerns but noted the legislation remains under consideration, and lawmakers could alter the proposal. She supports S.125 generally, she said, because the current law needs changing.
“The reality is kids in middle school and high school are sexting each other, and that’s what the Legislature is looking at,” she said. “A young person could get into significant trouble and get charged with a serious crime.”
Sears said his committee chose the age range to coincide with students in late middle school through high school — groups that often interact and form relationships. The law would continue to punish sexting committed through force, coercion or other pressures, and prohibitions against voyeurism still would apply, Sears said.
Also, passing along images to others would remain a crime.
The gap in ages creates a “fine line between someone who’s out there being a sex offender and just high-schoolers being high-schoolers,” said Lt. Art Cyr, director of the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations. He agreed that garden-variety sexting should be exempt from child-pornography laws but worried the age range could make legal explicit interactions between a university freshman and an eighth-grader.
“When you’ve got a college student who now could have some kind of contact with a 13-year-old middle-school student, to me that’s a crime,” Cyr said.
Sears said he is open to changes the House might make regarding the age range. One idea he floated in an interview last week was to keep the ages the same but add a requirement that the participants be no more than three years apart.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bill Lippert, declined comment on the substance of the bill last week, saying he had yet to spend significant time reviewing the measure. He said testimony would begin this week on the comprehensive legislation, including the sexting provisions.
Lippert, a Hinesburg Democrat, also declined to say whether he would attempt to pass the law this year.
Authorities would continue to investigate if an incident comes to their attention even if the law passes, Cyr said.
“It all hinges on consent,” he said. “We’re still going to have to look into them and take each one on its own.”
(3 of 3)
Education first
The Vermont criminal case involves Isaac Owusu, 18, of Morrisville, who pleaded not guilty to allegations he forced two teenage girls to send him explicit photos and videos. Owusu, who also has denied sexual-assault charges involving two other girls, faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors claim Owusu, a senior at South Burlington High School, directed the girls via instant-messaging computer programs to perform sex acts on themselves, photograph or videotape the acts, and send the recordings to him.
The defense counters the girls participated willingly.
Owusu’s court-appointed attorney, Leroy Yoder, declined comment about the case but said he supports changing sexting-related laws. The current system, where young people can face severe repercussions for sexting, is well-intentioned but flawed as technology has outpaced the law, Yoder said.
“You can understand they’re trying to protect children, but at the same time they’re harming the very people they say they’re trying to protect,” he said.
Yoder and Donovan, the prosecutor, agreed the age range the new law covers should overlap with high-schoolers.
“It seems ridiculous to hold someone criminally responsible for an otherwise mundane act, essentially adolescent exploring but using technology,” Yoder said. “You’re not going to stop young people from being sexual. The best thing you can do is educate them to the dangers.”
Those dangers, experts said, include losing control of graphic sexual images the moment a teenager presses the “send” button. Once in cyberspace, images and videos are likely to remain in the public domain for years, showing up, say, when a college admissions counselor or potential boss runs a person’s name through Google.
“We don’t want to normalize it so much that it falls off our radar as parents and educators,” said Wilson, of the rape crisis center.
The solution, advocates said, shouldn’t be punishing teens but instead raising their awareness of the ramifications. ..News Source.. by Adam Silverman
April 11, 2009
CO- Colorado teens won't face trial for cell phone sex photos
4-11-2009 Colorado:
Case raises question of how best to manage teens who use their camera-equipped cell phones for "sexting"
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — A teenage couple from Air Academy High School faced the threat of being prosecuted as sex offenders after they were caught exchanging cell phone images they recorded while engaging in consensual sex.
Instead, authorities pursuing the Feb. 24 complaint announced Thursday the pair should be counseled, not incarcerated.
"We don't think it's appropriate to pursue charges," said 4th Judicial District Attorney Dan May, whose office initially set a course to charge the 17-year-old boy and his 15-year-old girlfriend with sexual exploitation of children, a felony usually reserved for sex predators who deal in child porn - not children themselves.
The case north of Colorado Springs is a local example of a national challenge: How best to manage teens who use their camera-equipped cell phones for "sexting," or sending and receiving lewd images.
The practice can leave a trail of illegal images that circulates among cell phone users and Internet sites, breeding lasting damage.
(eAdvocate Post)
Last July, an 18-year-old Cincinnati woman committed suicide when her ex-boyfriend sent classmates nude photos of her after their relationship soured.
Authorities in some parts of the country have resorted to drastic measures to staunch the problem, filing child pornography charges and seeing them through to convictions as an example to other impulsive teenagers.
In Colorado Springs, an El Paso County sheriff's school resource officer began investigating the couple at the request of the school administrators, said sheriff's spokeswoman Lt. Lari Sevene.
There is no evidence the couple sent the lurid picture messages to their friends, and nothing in the law prevents children that age from engaging in a sexual relationship.
But capturing minors nude or involved in sex activities with a camera constitutes child pornography, regardless of the context in which they were taken.
The couple were issued juvenile summonses on suspicion of sexual exploitation of children on March 17 after a three-week investigation that included input from the District Attorney's Office, Svene said. They were fingerprinted at the Police Operations Center and released to the parents. The Gazette is not publishing their names because they are minors and because no charges have been filed.
May, who dealt with a similar case in Castle Rock while in the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office, said he could not discuss the allegations in detail because the office ultimately decided against filing charges.
He said is office is refining its approach to the crime - taking into account how others across the country are grappling with changing technology.
Investigators will consider each offense on a case-by-case basis, he said, and their decision to pursue charges will rest on a number of factors, including the age of the people involved, the nature of the images, whether they were distributed and if "malicious actions" were involved.
"It may be that we can do this without issuing a summons," May said. "I think in the future you'll see us coming out with a more formalized procedure."
In Colorado Springs, police have yet to see a case in which "sexting" got out of hand. But examples from around the country have convinced Colorado Springs Police Sgt. Bill DeHart that communities need to get involved in the effort to craft a sensible approach."It's a social phenomenon right now, because you have kids that are obviously curious about sexuality and they've got access to things like this," he said. "The public at large is going to have to figure out what we're going to do."
Dr. Mary Zesiewicz, a psychiatrist who practices with the Pikes Peak Mental Health Center, suggested that process should begin when parents purchase new gadgets for their children. They should set clear limits, talk about acceptable behavior, and be sure the children know they are being monitored.
"I'd be very honest and say, know what? I don't want to be policing you around the clock, but it's a scary world and I have the right to look." ..News Source.. by Lance Benzel, Colorado Springs Gazette
April 8, 2009
Commentary: Is 'sexting' child pornography?
4-8-2009 National:
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- "Sexting."
Have parents out there ever even heard of this term?
Whether you want to admit it or not, teenagers are sending sexual messages and naked pictures of themselves to their boyfriends and girlfriends. In most cases it's the girl sending a picture or message to the guy.
If you're thinking to yourself right now, "What's the big deal?" then you should think again. This practice can ruin our teenagers' lives.
Six teens in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, were charged as juveniles with possessing child pornography after three girls sent nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to three boys.
It gets even worse.
A 13-year-old boy in Middletown, Ohio, is facing felony pandering obscenities charges after taping a sex act and showing it to friends at a skating party. A felony? Yes this kid needs to be punished but we don't need our 13 or 14-year-olds charged with child porn and lumped in with adult pedophiles and labeled as sex offenders.
I've spoken with several attorneys on our show and it seems there is no one reason prosecutors are opting to charge teens with child porn instead of lesser charges. Some may be doing it to "send a message."
(Posted by eAdvocate)
Some may feel they have an obligation to charge these teens with the most serious offense possible and, according to the law, naked pictures of underage kids are usually considered child porn. And others may feel they are left with no options since there aren't really any laws that apply specifically to sexting.
In any case, it's clear we need to change our laws to catch up with technology.
A great illustration of why change is needed now is the story of Phillip Alpert, of Orlando, Florida. He didn't ask, but his girlfriend sexted him naked pictures of herself, according to the Orlando Sentinel. When they broke up, he mass e-mailed the photos to get back at her. Alpert, 18, was convicted of transmission of child porn and he will carry the label of "sex offender" until he is 43. He lost friends, was kicked out of school, he can't even move in with his dad because his dad lives near a school.
Should Phillip be punished? Yes. Should the six teens in Pennsylvania face consequences? Yes. But let's kick them off cheerleading squads and sports teams. Make them do community service and take classes on sex crimes. Educate other teens on the dangers of sexting. Pay a price, yes, but these young people shouldn't pay for this for the rest of their lives.
And if you think this couldn't happen to your kid, think again. Sexting is more prevalent than you think.
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy teamed up with CosmoGirl.com and asked over 1,200 teens about their sexual behaviors in cyberspace.
According to their study, 39 percent of teens (that's ages 13-19) are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages over IM, text or e-mail and around the same number of teens are receiving such messages. Half of those teens, 20 percent, are sending or posting nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves. That's frightening.
Why are our kids doing this?
On our show, psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser said, "What I'm finding is a lot of girls are doing this because they're hoping it will help them get or keep a boyfriend." The numbers agree with Stacy.
According to the study, 51 percent of girls say it's "pressure from guys" that's making them send sexual messages and pictures of themselves. So guys are expecting this and our girls are saying "OK." It makes me wonder how much progress we've really made in how young women are viewed and treated.
The bottom line: We need to educate, not incarcerate, our teens and it has to start with parents.
Don't let the culture indoctrinate your little boy or girl about sex before their time. So strike first as a parent. If your kids are older, let them know a digital record is for life. When little Suzie tries to win the affection of little Bobby by sexting him a picture, she is putting her future at stake. There is no control over that image or video once it gets out. But that doesn't mean little Suzie should be charged as a child pornographer. ..News Source.. by Mike Galanos
April 7, 2009
MD- 'Sexting' Challenges Prosecutors To Walk Fine Line
4-7-2009 Maryland:
Prosecutors in Maryland are working with schools to deal with the growing number of teenagers sending nude pictures of themselves over the phone to friends and others.
While not strictly illegal if consensual, sexting, as the practice has come to be known, has led to prosecutions in some cases nationwide.
Local prosecutors say they are responding on a case by case basis, and do not, as a usual practice, charge minors who are caught sexting.
"Does the transmittal of a photograph constitute child pornography, and, if it does, we want to get to the bottom of it," Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellengerger said. "Most of the cases don't qualify as child pornography."
Problems may develop, however, if the photos end up on the web, where the sender no longer has any control over their use.
(Posted by eAdvocate)
The main effort, Shellenberger said, is to educate students, parents, and others about the dangers and the reach of the law.
"The possession, the making, and the sending of child pornography is against the law," Shellenberger said.
A misdemeanor carries a two year jail sentence, he said. A felony has a 10 year sentence. "It depends on the kind of photograph that you're sending," Shellenberger said.
"What we're trying to concentrate on is serious child pornography," Shellenberger said, "And those folks go to jail."
"Sending images of sexual matters is child pornography, no matter how you cut it," Assistant U.S. Attorney in Baltimore Bonnie Greenberg said.
"Generally, our office does not prosecute juveniles," Greenberg said.
Her office is working with the state's attorneys offices to help educate the children to stop the conduct, she said.
The problem, she said, is once it gets on a friend's computer, it can go on the web, and "once it's there, it's there forever."
About 1 in 5 teens surveyed in the latest study reported sexting.
Several teens in Pennsylvania were charged earlier this year with child pornography after sending images of themselves on their cell phones. ..News Source.. by Steve Fermier
April 3, 2009
VA- 'Sexting' Hysteria Falsely Brands Educator as Child Pornographer
4-3-2009 Virginia:
It was an incident that began innocently enough, but nearly ruined the life and three-decade career of a veteran high school teacher and administrator.
Rumors had been flying at Freedom High School in South Riding, Virginia that students were distributing nude pictures of each other on their cell phones. It's a phenomenon, known as "sexting," that's become increasingly worrisome to educators across the country, and Ting-Yi Oei, a 60-year-old assistant principal at the school, was tasked with checking it out.
The investigation was inconclusive, but led to a stunning aftermath: Oei himself was charged with possession of child pornography and related crimes -- charges that threatened to brand him a sex offender and land him in prison for up to seven years. Transferred from his school and isolated from colleagues, Oei spent $150,000 and a year of his life defending himself in a Kafkaesque legal nightmare triggered by a determined county prosecutor and nurtured by a growing hysteria over technology-enabled child porn at America's schools.
"The heaviest burden is the [label] of 'child pornographer'," Oei says. "It just hangs so heavy around me. How you ever recover from that I don't know. "
On Tuesday, Oei's legal nightmare ended when a Virginia judge threw out the case before it got to trial. But as the educator begins piecing his life back together, similar tragedies are unfolding across the country. Reacting to the phenomenon of underage "sexting," prosecutors in at least a dozen states have resorted to arresting or charging kids for possession of child pornography. In a recent case in Pennsylvania, six teens aged 14 to 17 were charged with creating, distributing and possessing child porn. And this week a judge in a separate case in Pennsylvania temporarily barred a prosecutor from charging three teens for taking photos of themselves in their bras and a towel.
Even in this environment of prosecutorial excess, Oei's case stands out as likely the first to entangle an adult who came in possession of an image that even police admit wasn't pornographic, and who did so simply in the course of doing his job.
"These charges are so toxic and incendiary," says Diane Curling, a former teacher and Oei's wife of 35 years. "Children need to be made aware of the dangers of sexting, but to intimidate public education officials and try to make it a felony to even touch something like this is terrifying. . . . If we are not careful, we will find ourselves with a new McCarthy era. "
Oei's problems began in March of last year, when his investigation of sexting rumors at Freedom High led him to a 16-year-old boy. Oei and the school's safety and security specialist met with the student to ask if he knew anything about the photos.
"He says, 'Oh yeah, I've got one on my cell phone,'" Oei recalls.
The image depicted only the torso of a girl -- later determined to be a 17-year old student -- wearing only underpants, her arms mostly covering her breasts. The boy claimed he didn't know who sent him the photo or who the girl was.
Oei says he showed the image to his boss, Principal Christine Forester, who told him to preserve a copy on his office computer for the investigation. A computer neophyte, Oei didn't know how to transfer the image from the boy's cell phone, so the teen sent the picture to Oei's phone, and told him how to forward it to his work e-mail address. When the process was complete, Oei instructed the student to delete the image from his phone.
Oei and the school security specialist interviewed more students, but were unable to find additional pictures or identify the girl in the photo. Oei concluded she probably wasn't a student at the school. Relieved, he says he reported his findings to the principal, thinking the matter was done.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
Two weeks later, the boy caught with the photo was in trouble again -- he'd pulled down the pants of a girl in class. The school suspended the student for 10 days. But when the boy's mother learned from Oei about the earlier photo incident, she was outraged that Oei hadn't reported the picture to her. She called his house at 7:00 a.m., screaming at him that the suspension had to be revoked.
When Oei refused, the woman went to the police about the photo. Sheriff's investigators came to the school, ostensibly to investigate the sexting issue. They helped the technologically-challenged Oei recover the photo from his cell phone and later determined the girl in the photo was a student at the school.
A month later, the first charges were filed against Oei: failure to report suspicion of child abuse, a misdemeanor. The charge alleged that Oei had a legal duty to report the girl's photo to her parents, and to state agencies or law enforcement.
"First of all, nobody thought this was reportable," Oei says. "Who would have thought this was suspected child abuse?"
Oei also hadn't known the girl's identity and therefore wasn't able to notify her parents.
The prosecution looked like an error right out of the gate. The photo didn't show sexual activity or genitalia, and even the sheriff's office conceded it was "inappropriate" but not "criminal" -- making it unclear what the "child abuse" was supposed to be. In any event, as a matter of law, Oei was only required to report suspected abuse to his principal, which he'd done. It was then Forester's job to report it to authorities if needed. Oei said Forester didn't step in to defend him to authorities. (Forester didn't return phone calls for this story)
But rather than drop the misapplied charge, Loudoun County prosecutor James Plowman upped the ante.
Plowman had been swept into office as Loudoun's Commonwealth's Attorney in 2004, following a lively campaign in which he accused the incumbent prosecutor of turning Loudoun into "one of the softest counties in Virginia on crime." In 2007, his tough-as-nails image won him re-election with 80 percent of the vote.
The prosecutor gave Oei an ultimatum: resign, or see his misdemeanor charge bumped up to a felony. "We just feel very strongly that this is not someone who should be in the Loudoun County school system," Plowman's assistant explained to reporters. Oei refused, and on August 11, a grand jury indicted him for possession of child porn, a crime that carries a possible sentence of five years. The misdemeanor charge was dropped.
And so it was that Oei, a Quaker of Chinese and Dutch descent, a former Fullbright exchange teacher, Peace Corps volunteer and 30-year veteran educator, was arrested nine days later at school.
Oei's world changed overnight. He was released on his own recognizance, and the district reassigned him to a job at the county testing center, away from students. A parent that Oei encountered one day at a restaurant avoided eye contact with him, and his colleagues at the school were advised not to contact him. The day after his arrest, Oei was on a treadmill at the gym when his face suddenly appeared on two large TV screens broadcasting the news.
"There I am, big as life," he recalls ruefully.
An exerciser on the treadmill next to him glanced his way.
He lost 15 pounds, and couldn't sleep. Oei resigned from his position as president of the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans of Virginia so the organization wouldn't be tainted by his legal troubles, and took out a second mortgage on his house to cover legal costs. His wife, already struggling with a serious physical health issue, became paranoid.
"We had to tell all our friends when they sent us e-mail that police could seize computers at any time so anything they wrote us could be accessed," Curling says. "Any phone call they made to us could be recorded."
Warned that their house could be searched, Curling went through the family photos to see if there were any baby pictures of their now-grown children in a state of undress. "Heaven forbid that a parent might think it was cute for a baby to play in a bubble bath and there might be an inappropriate part showing," she says. "Luckily all of our rubber-ducky baby photos had the children covered in bath bubbles or something."
After planting her garden with flowers, she saw people looking up at the house and pointing. "I was wondering if they were neighbors saying, 'Oh, that's where the pervert lives,' or complimenting me on my choice of Chrysanthemum colors," she says.
Four months later, Plowman charged Oei with two more misdemeanor counts for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, claiming Oei broke the law when he had the 16-year-old boy send the photo to his cell phone and advise him on how to then forward it to his desktop computer. Each count added another year to his possible prison term. "The December charges really felt like piling on," Oei says.
When things looked darkest, the family found an unexpected wellspring of support.
The Loudoun Education Association and Virginia Education Association came to Oei's aid with loans and grants that covered about 30 percent of his legal costs. Then dozens of current and long-lost friends from the family's Quaker community and elsewhere -- including former students and friends they'd been out of touch with for decades -- started appearing to offer support. Oei went to court for a pre-trial hearing, and found 38 supporters crammed into the gallery pews.
Then last month, Oei's defense attorney, Steven Stone, filed a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the photo didn't constitute child pornography. In a ruling on Tuesday, Loudoun Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne agreed. Citing a long history of state appeals court decisions, Horne noted that nudity alone is not enough to qualify an image as child pornography. The image must be "sexually explicit" and "lewd."
"As a matter of law, the photograph does not meet the requirements established by our appellate courts and the felony charge will be dismissed," the judge wrote. "[T]he two misdemeanor counts will be dismissed as well."
Despite the ruling, Plowman, the prosecutor, stands by his initial assessment of the photo.
"The issue of whether it meets the definition under the statute ... goes to whether it is lewd," he says. "This one I felt was [lewd] because of the focus of the picture, which was the private areas ... and the provocative pose she was in. The judge felt it didn't meet the precedent case law for child pornography, but it was apparently provocative enough of a photograph that he saw fit that it should be sealed."
Plowman insists he never intended to seek prison time for Oei. He would have been satisfied with a fine, probation and Oei's resignation. The case would never have gone this far, he says, if Oei had resigned when asked.
"I thought that was a just and appropriate sanction for his behavior," he says. "But he was unwilling to be responsible for any kind of accountability for what he did."
Now Oei is left with the aftermath, including deep debt and a tarnished reputation. Asked about the possibility of suing the prosecutor's office to recover the cost of his defense, Oei's lawyer says it would be difficult. "Prosecutors in Virginia have a pretty solid grant of immunity, so he's going to be up against a lot if we get to that point," Stone says.
Oei says he's grateful that the school district never took away his pay throughout the ordeal, but he isn't sure he wants to go back to the school after being abandoned by its principal. Yet he knows that finding another job wouldn't be easy.
"If someone were to Google me, why would you want to touch someone who had [this trouble], even if I had the charge dismissed?" he says. "I don't think you'd necessarily want that baggage." ..News Source.. by Kim Zetter
FL- EDITORIAL: 'Sexting' isn't a crime
4-3-2009 Florida:
The New Jersey teen who posted 30 nude pictures on her MySpace page for the visual pleasure of her boyfriend needs counseling, education and discipline, not a juvenile arrest record.
Charging the 14-year-old with possession and distribution of child pornography - as the Passaic County Sheriff's Office did - is absurd. As is the nationwide effort by prosecutors to pursue child pornography charges against other over-sexualized teenagers who send nude pictures of themselves to each other via cellphone - called sexting - and e-mail. This case also should make politicians think twice before grandstanding on child pornography and the Internet.
The charges against the New Jersey teen could force her to register as a sex offender if she's convicted. That's hardly the answer for children who see nothing wrong with exposing their bodies to their peers and the rest of the world. And it certainly wasn't the intent of Megan's Law, the legislation that makes available information about sex offenders so members of local communities can protect themselves and their children.
The behavior of these teenagers is inappropriate, even inane. But what they are guilty of is self-exploitation. For that, they need intervention by parents, not law enforcement. ..Source.. by Palm Beach Post
April 2, 2009
OR- Does 'Sexting' Count as Child Pornography?
4-2-2009 Oregon:
EUGENE, Ore.-- More and more teens are sending naked pictures of themselves to their peers. It's called 'sexting' and lawmakers say it's a big problem. Many teens who are sending and receiving these racy messages are underage, which brings up the issue of pornography.
The Lane County Chief Deputy District Attorney says taking a picture of yourself--even if you are naked and underage--and forwarding it to others is not a crime.
The issue then becomes the age of the recipient. If the person is within three years of age of the sender, it is not a crime. But if the person is three years older than that person and keeps or forwards the message--knowing the person in the photo is underage--then they could face charges. ..News Source.. by Heather Hintze
