The 15-year-old Ohio girl charged with sending nude photos via cell phone to classmates will not be listed as a sex offender.
The Newark, Ohio, high school student agreed Nov. 20 to court-mandated conditions, which for a teen are essentially house arrest, to avoid being charged with a felony and ending up on sex offender lists for the rest of her life.
She needs to comply with restrictions on cell-phone and Internet usage, as well as a curfew, and the case will apparently be dismissed in the spring and the whole fiasco wiped from her record, according to this report in her local paper.
Earlier in the fall, the girl had taken nude photos of herself with her own cellphone, and sent them to several classmates. The pics promptly went viral in Licking Valley High School, and school authorities soon went berserk, pointlessly confiscating cell phones (closing the barn door after the horses are gone) and calling the cops to arrest the girl for sex crimes.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Three layers of stupid. First layer: the girl sends the photos. Second layer: school goes ballistic. Third layer: law enforcement over-reacts. At least the courts are sensible.
Here’s the icing on the stupid cake. The local newspaper insists on identifying the girl as a foster child, as if that status explains everything. (“Look, she’s a foster kid, and you know they’re trouble. A regular kid wouldn’t be a perv.”) The first report about her made a point of telling the world she was fostered out. This most recent one quotes her “foster mother,” perpetuating the label.
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