Posted on 03/04/2004 12:01:23 PM PST by Elle Bee
Key West The Newspaper KWTNBLUE@ bellsouth.net 305 292 2108
February 27, 2004
Opinion
By Dennis Reeves Cooper , Editor and Publisher
Julio: It’s Okay For a Cop To Have sex With a Minor - As Long As I Wasn’t Yesterday
City Manager Julio Avael continues to argue that it’s okay for a cop to have sex with a 17-year-old-boy as long as it didn’t happen yesterday. It’s also apparently okay with Avael for an officer to lie on his application to get a job with the Key West Police Department - as long as it didn’t happen yesterday. That’s what new Police Chief Bill Fortune did back in 1985. And Avael knew that when he promoted him to Chief last month.
Meanwhile, a former Sheriff’s deputy in Butler County, Ohio, was sentenced to six months in jail after admitting that he had sex a 17-year-old girl. He was convicted of sexual battery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was also sentenced to five years probation and is prohibited from working in law enforcement. But if you have sex with a minor in Key West, you don’t go to jail; you get promoted to Police Chief.
Up in Orlando, an appellate court has ruled that a former Orlando sex-crimes detective who pleaded guilty to a sexual relationship with a teenage girl did not deserve the lenient sentence he had received. Back in 2002, a judge had sentenced the cop to a virtual wrist slap -- two years of house arrest and 25 years probation. But this week, the 5th District Court of Appeals ordered the man to be resentanced to 26 years in prison! But if you have sex with a minor here in Key West, you get promoted to Police Chief.
We have written here before that Chief Fortune seems to be a nice guy and we hope that he will make a good Police Chief. But he is starting out wounded. How can he tell his troops, with a straight face, that their behavior must be above reproach; and that they are not supposed to lie?
Once again, we gotta ask: What was Juilo thinking when he set up this situation?! Did he think no one would notice? Keep in mind that our City Manager is the same guy who thinks that a journalist who reports the bad behavior of the KWPD to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement -- and then writes about it -- should be handcuffed and jailed. Yet he promotes guy to Police Chief who admits that he had felony sex with a minor! Can you spell hypocrisy?
But Julio couldn’t get away with this stuff if he didn’t have permission. He gets his marching orders from the Mayor and City Commissioners. If any of them are at all concerned that their new Police Chief was forced to resign from the Sheriff’s Office for having sex with a minor and then lied about that when he applied for work with the KWPD, they are not articulating that concern. At least publicly.
What if -- and this is just a “what if” -- they found out that, while working to close down a local lap dancing parlor, Julio, himself, may have frequented one or more lap dancing establishments and may have even had his favorite dancer?
Can you imagine the spin? Mayor Jimmy Weekly might say something like this: “Well, we don’t really have all the facts here, but even if Julio wants to pay to feel some girls tits, that’s his own personal business. The key question is, did it happen yesterday?
We have been waiting for Avael to address the “Fortune Issue” in his periodic I-Love-Julio email newsletter. But for some reason, he has been avoiding it. If you’ve also been wondering about that, why don’t you ask him? Email him at javael@keywestcity.com . Copy us at kwtnblue@bellsouth.net. An, if you get a response, please forward it to us for possible publication.
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The yourg man had been a participant in the Sheriff's Cadet program.
The next day, Undersheriff Lawrence Meggs sent a memo to Fortune: "It has become apparent that you do do not meet the standards of efficiency, morale and reputation required .... for the responsible position of Deputy Sheriff with this department.
Fortune's letter of resignation was short and to the point: " I hereby submit my resignation effective March 5, 1985."
We broke this story in June 2000. the "secret" had been rumored around the Police Department for months, but it had been difficult to investigate.
Sources inside the KWPD speculated that Fortune had been promoted to captain because Avael "had something on him" and could therefore control him." KWTN 1.23.04
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and you have to be very stupid:
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Key West has been a lost cause on this issue for a very long time. Hell, they'll probably have a public orgy to celebrate the news down there.
But that doesn't mean that a vocal minority can impose their will upon a moral majority
don't give up the battle
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1089972/posts
The argument was offered that we should worry more about Iranian nukes instead of "trying to moralize" or words to that effect.
The argument came in the form of the trite political cartoon of Bush standing on a giant nuke and railing against a homosexual-couple.
I would submit that this news story is the natural consequence of ignoring moral conduct and denying that sexuality has a moral component.
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and when the judges and the governing bodies also ignore the law.... society rots from the head down
I wonder if Jeb Bush has the stones to intervien here
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