Kaitlyn Hunt, the Sebastian, Fla., teenager who was charged with having sex with a minor girl, has recently found herself in more controversy and in jail. On August 19, Hunt was brought to the Indian River County Jail by her bail/bond agent and booked, according to reports.
Hunt had been offered two plea deals in the past, the most recent in July. According to reports, this would have meant being subject to a curfew, community service, and probation but no jail time or ankle bracelet, and she would not have had to register as a sex offender.
However, the plea deal was revoked by the state attorney’s office, following allegations that Hunt violated her pretrial conditions, which included an agreement to have no contact with the stated victim.
A copy of the Notice of Violations is available online [http://media2.wptv.com/documents/kaitlyn%20hunt%20violation.pdf]
and provides details of some of the alleged 20,000 texts that Hunt is said to have exchanged with the younger girl. These include admissions that Hunt knew she was violating her court order and the words, “If my mom finds out we’re talking, I’m blaming it on you.”
In addition, the state says it has in its possession several “lewd and lascivious” photographs and videos, which show the two together and include images of Hunt in the nude and engaging in sex acts.
The younger girl has apparently testified that Hunt told her to lie in her testimony. Complicating matters further is a text from Hunt’s mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, to the victim, admonishing her to delete all texts between the victim and her daughter.
According to the Notice of Violations, prosecutors are also looking into the possibility of applying new felony charges for Hunt’s transmission of sexual images.
In reports, Hunt’s attorney does not deny the charges.
The latest is a sudden turn in a case that has often been cast as a case of young love gone awry. Hunt’s parents have repeatedly alleged that the parents of the younger girl only brought charges because of the same-sex relationship. The younger girl’s parents have gone on record denying this, saying they brought charges as a last resort, after telling Hunt to stop and in an attempt to end the relationship.
Several of Hunt’s supporters and her family have alleged that the charges were only brought because both parties are female. In fact Florida and other states have seen so many such cases, that they specifically passed a “Romeo and Juliet” exception law (named after the famous and ill-fated, fictional opposite-sex couple) in 2007.
In Florida, acknowledging that sexual relations even between an adult and a minor can be consensual, the Romeo and Juliet law could apply to a case where the victim is 14-17 and where the offender would be no more than 4 years older and have no other sex crimes on his or her record.
Cases of sex offender registration in such opposite-sex cases, where one offender is barely a legal adult and the other a minor, are so common that they are also often referred to, generically, as “Romeo and Juiet” cases.
At the time of the original charges in May, both ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) Florida and Equality Florida spoke out against the charges. ACLU FL published a statement which included the words, “While effective laws are certainly needed to protect Florida’s children from sexual predators, one cannot seriously maintain that Kaitlyn’s behavior was predatory.”
http://aclufl.org/2013/05/21/aclu-of-florida-statement-on-prosecution-of-18-year-old-kaitlyn-hunt/
ACLU FL states, in a note appended to the statement, that it is not providing legal assistance in the case.
Equality Florida also released a statement in May, asking that State Attorney Bruce Colton to drop felony charges.
On the same day, Kaitlyn Hunt’s attorney A. Julia Graves released a statement that echoed the ACLU one almost exactly, and said she was would be working with “the assistance of” ACLU Florida and Equality Florida. She emphasized that “although there are different statements out in the media, we have NEVER requested that the charges be completely dropped.” Instead, she stated that, “[W]e are willing to enter a plea to a misdemeanor charge with appropriate punishment that will allow everyone to move on and not dwell on this their entire lives.”
Both ACLU Florida and Equality Florida were contacted for comments on recent developments, but they did not return our calls. A. Julia Graves also did not return a call made to her office.
Assistant State Attorney Christopher Taylor responded to WCT, but would not provide more details, saying only that the Notice of Violations provided all the necessary details for now.
Hunt, now 19, will be in jail till the trial begins.
Originally published in Windy City Times.