Fayetteville: fayobserver.com is reporting that a sixteen-year-old high school student was charged with "two felony sex crimes against herself." Yes you read that correctly! The charges were a result of the girl making "a sexually explicit nude photo of herself for her boyfriend last fall, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office concluded that she committed two felony sex crimes against herself and arrested her in February."
This bizarre situation has resulted in an even stranger charge sheet: "The girl was listed on a warrant as both the adult perpetrator and the minor victim of two counts of sexual exploitation of minor - second-degree exploitation for making her photo and third-degree exploitation for having her photo in her possession."
Luckily for the girl, Brianna Denson, she avoided prison time and being put on the sex offender's register, after a plea bargain in July may allow her record to be cleared altogether.
The boy she shared the images with is yet to be as fortunate. According to fayobserver.com, Denson was "sexting" her boyfriend Cormega Zyon Copening. The Sheriff's Office hit Copening with "five sexual exploitation of a minor charges - four for making and possessing two sexually explicit pictures of himself and the last for possessing a copy of the picture that Denson made for him.
Copening, who was 16 at the time and is now 17, also faces possible prison time and the requirement to register as a sex offender if convicted. The charges have already forced him off the football team at Jack Britt High School. He had been the quarterback."
In court on July 21, Denson told District Court Judge Stephen Stokes that she was responsible for the crime of disseminating harmful material to minors. This is a misdemeanour and does not have the life-ruining requirement that she register as a sex offender.
One of West's assistants dropped the felony sexual exploitation charges.
Stokes put Denson on probation for a year. He ordered her to pay $200 in court costs, stay in school, take a class on how to make good decisions, refrain from using illegal drugs or alcohol, not possess a cellular phone for the duration of her probation and to do 30 hours of community service.
If Denson stays out of trouble, West's office next July will drop the misdemeanour charge. She will be able to move on with her life with a clean criminal record.
She shouldn't have been charged in the first place, researchers Temple and Drouin said.
"It seems to me that you might be among the strictest of the laws that I've heard of" in the country, Drouin said.
Copening's case is still pending.
To read the more in depth article including the logic in implementing these kind charges, and the place of sexting in teen culture, please click here.
