Posted on 07/31/2005 11:44:24 AM PDT by wagglebee
A Utah mother was upset to see her 8-year-old son charged with lewd conduct after a 14-year-old babysitter allegedly initiated sexual conduct with the boy.
While prosecutors dropped the charges against the boy, his mother is still concerned.
The sexual conduct allegedly occurred during a game of "truth or dare" while the boy was being watched by the babysitter.
Prosecutors said, while the babysitter initiated the contact, the young boy was a willing participant.
"She dared my son to touch her breasts," says Michelle Grosbeck, the boy's mother.
After hiring the teenager to baby sit, Grosbeck got the feeling something was wrong.
"It was just that sense that something wasn't quite right with this 14-year-old girl," she said in an interview on KUTV. She asked her son what had happened. "He just came right out as if nothing was awry, and just started talking about what had happened."
Grosbeck went to police and child protection workers, and the case went to the district attorney, after which her son was charged with an act of lewdness with a minor.
Grosbeck says the Salt Lake County district attorney told her both the child and teenager were equal participants. But Mrs. Grosbeck didn't believe that.
"My son is 8, he's a little boy. He does not have the ability to participate on the same level as a fourteen-year-old," she said.
Although the charges against her son were dropped, she is concerned that the same thing could happen to other victims of sexual abuse.
"I don't want parents to be afraid to go to the state agencies that are supposed to be protecting our children when things like this happen, out of fear that their children are going to be charged," she said.
It's called BRAGGING!
However, if a 21-year-old woman gets drunk at a college frat party, goes upstairs with a 21-year-old man, passes out on his bed, and is raped -- will she be charged as a willing participant? Most assuredly not.
To have considered charges against this boy is ludicrous.
That lucky kid....snicker snicker snicker
When I was 8 back in the 50's all I got was warm milk. Hope that didn't leave a scar.
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