"The boyfriend kept asking the girlfriend to send him a nude photograph of herself. She denied it [but] finally after enough pestering she gave in and sent him one of herself," Erica O'Bryon, a spokeswoman for the Roswell Police Department, told AOL Weird News.
Photo in hand, the teen boy allegedly set the second part of his plan into motion: to extort what he wanted from his high school sweetheart.
"He told her if she did not have sex with him he was going to post the picture on the Internet," O'Bryon said. "She refused, so he did, in fact, post the picture on Facebook"...
According to O'Bryon, officials did not file any charges related to child pornography because they did not want to "victimize the victim again, because we would have to charge her with it as well," she said.
There's more than one lesson that should be learned here, by more than one person.
7 comments:
Sorry Darren, got to disagree with you on this one. The girl did nothing wrong except cave in to the pressure and trust that her boyfriend would keep her nude picture private.
I think they should prosecute him to the fullest extent, and I don't understand why she would also be brought up on pornography charges. Seems to be a defect in the law.
To Anonymous-Criminal? Yes, it is! Maybe you would feel different if it was your daughter and her nude body was posted on Facebook for millions to see. Not only posted, but a page was made to showcase her...she was not just humiliated, but violated!
I saw way too much of this while teaching. The girls need to get A LOT smarter when dealing with the pressure from the boys...and, the boys need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. This needs to be taken more seriously.
She's complicit--she *took the picture* of herself and sent it to him! To make her a weak little lamb who gave into an overbearing wolf--well, isn't that a bit chauvinistic? Do we hold people to the same standards of behavior regardless of whether they have indoor or outdoor personal plumbing, or not?
Saying she's the victim *because* she's a girl is the worst form of double standard.
I think one can still wind up in jail for roughly a year just on a blackmail conviction. The kid is 14. Isn't that enough?
-Mark Roulo
I have no problem with the boy's being in trouble. I have difficulty with papering over the girl's actions *because* she's a girl.
Some states have put legislation in place to handle situations such as this, i.e. sexting. New Mexico is not one of them.
About 4 states do say its a crime for a minor to send nude pictures of oneself via communication devices. Illinois states its a crime as long as the sending was done without force or coercion.
And even though New Mexico is behind the times in their laws, this is a clear case of a coercion. Gender isn't a factor. It is one minor is coercing/forcing another minor into an unlawful/inappropriate act. The minor sending the picture should be held accountable for said actions, but not equal to the criminal actions of the other.
The laws are going to have to be put into place, and there are going to have to be some examples set before kids get it into their heads that this just isn't smart behavior.
I'd say to stick with the blackmail / extortion angle.
The laws on child pornography need to be rewritten to account for sexting in this time of ubiquitous cellphone cameras and teenager morals.
The laws governing the parents' responsibility to care for their minor children also need to be rethought in light of whether we want to hold them responsible for every actions of their minor children.
MrElliott, this is *not* a case of coercion. The girl was pressured or even nagged, but she was definitely not coerced. Your kid treatment of her in this case--yes, she *is* a kid, but she's a year older than the boy--is the very double standard I refer to in the title of this post.
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