Judge said a teen from a ‘good family’ should not be tried as an adult in sexual assault

The family court judges were in different New Jersey counties, but the question prosecutors asked them was the same: Can we charge these male juveniles as adults on allegations of rape?

Judge James Troiano in Monmouth County said a 16-year-old girl who accused a 16-year-old boy of sexually assaulting her — and filming it — at a pajama-themed party should have been told by prosecutors to consider the long-term damage to the boy before she decided to pursue criminal charges against him. G.M.C., as court documents identified the suspect, allegedly sent a text to his friends that read, “When your first time having sex was rape.”

But the boy was college-bound, from a “good family” and an Eagle Scout, the judge said in his denial.

The 16-year-old girl who attended the basement pajama party told her mom the morning after the alleged attack that she feared “sexual things” had happened and that she did not understand why her body was bruised and her clothes torn, according to court documents. Her family decided to pursue criminal charges several months after the alleged assault.

About 30 teens attended the party, where both the girl and G.M.C. were intoxicated, prosecutors said. The girl had slurred speech and stumbled as she walked.

According to court documents, the two went into a closed-off, dark area. A group of boys sprayed the girl with Febreze and slapped her on the bottom so hard she found hand marks the next day.

Prosecutors said G.M.C. used his cellphone to film himself assaulting the 16-year-old girl... They said he later sent the video to friends and had sexually explicit conversations with them via text message.

In his ruling denying the waiver, Troiano dismissed G.M.C.'s alleged remarks as “just a 16-year-old kid saying stupid crap to his friends.”

Or, you could have a son brought up on such charges after attending a typical high school bacchanalia, based on the allegations of a drunken teenage girl, supposedly damning evidence from another, probably equally incapacitated teen’s cell phone, a text message, and a coercive police interrogation.

All this is from a sensationalized media account based on a selective quote from remarks made by the judge. This is after previous, infamous prosecutions like The Duke Lacrosse team, the Rolling Stone smears published against a Virginia fraternity or the fantastic claims made against the last Supreme Court nominee.

Also, despite the writer’s obvious intention to churn up an outrage (’if it bleeds, it leads’), the incident is not described as ‘rape.’ It was described as “sexual assault, ‘ a nebulous term for anything ranging from a joke about ‘pubic hair on my coke can’ to a frenzied attack by muslim rioters on a journalist who wandered too far off the reservation. This is ongoing, and in a culture saturated with media-disseminated (pun intended) incitements to have sex with anything and everything anywhere.

Final point: The parents’ prior efforts to raise their son to be a responsible member of society by such things as years carting him every week to boy scout meetings, and their probable willingness to punish him, are to have no bearing on the outcome. Nor do the illegal actions made by the girl and/or her parents have any place in deciding his punishment.

Now this kid will be labeled a sex offender, the record will proceed him everywhere he goes for the rest of his life, based on a drunken night when he was 16.

Is he guilty of rape? I don’t know. All I know is that he deserves the presumption of innocence granted to any offender.

Well, seems harsh to label a 16 year old as sex offender. He’ll probably be registered and tracked online for the rest of his life. Tried as an adult, he’ll be beyond redemption.

But I agree, vigorous prosecution would mean fewer such incidents. I do think all parties should suffer the consequences, including the girl who hosted the party, the attendees, and the parents.

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