Cops No Longer Want Photos of Teen's Erection, Warn Kid to Stay Out of Trouble

Charges are likely to be dismissed against a 17-year-old Virginia teenager who was arrested for sexting his girlfriend.

Wikimedia Commons

Here's a belated update to a case Reason covered previously: Charges are likely to be dismissed against a 17-year-old Virginia teenager who was arrested for sexting his girlfriend.

Readers will recall that prosecutors had obtained a warrant to take the teen to a medical facility, inject him with drugs that would give him an erection, and then photograph his penis. The intrusive demands raised—ahem—eyebrows, and eventually the Manassas City Police backed off.

According to The Washington Post, the teen was given a year's probation last week. If he stays out of trouble for that amount of time, the charges may be dropped:

[The judge] set a hearing for next August. "Assuming the defendant complies with everything I've articulated," he said, "the cases will be up for possible dismissal at that time." …

The teen defendant said: "I don't know how to feel about it yet. It hasn't sunk in. .?.?. I feel good about the sentence, but then again, I feel bad because we didn't need to get involved in all this. .?.?. They just blew it all out of proportion."

Keep in mind that the crime in question was the mutual and consensual exchange of nude photos between two teenagers. It was perfectly legal for them to have sex, but any such photos constitute child pornography.

Comments

[What-what, in the butt]

All of a sudden this story got a whole lot less interesting.

[BardMetal]

I think if you asked most parents if they would rather have their teenager engaging in sex or having their teenager getting their head bashed by the local cops many would pick the later.

[Invisible Finger]

I think if you asked most parents, they'd be relieved their kids were only sending nude pics rather than screwing.

[BuSab Agent]

I didn't care if my kids were screwing as long as they were using condoms.

[Brett L]

Ridicule works! God bless the internets.

[Obama's Buttplug]

No, the cops just lost interest after blowing their load.

[AustinRoth]

"The law is an ass ? an idiot."

[AlmightyJB]

@$$&!^@&*@(?*?$ cops and judges

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know who else wanted to see teen erections?

[Reveillon]

That South Carolina Special Olympics coach?

[Poppa Kilo]

Your mother?

[Honestly, do I always have to be the one to fill this in?]

[Plopper]

Poor guy, after all that attention was put towards his erection, now the cops decide they don't want to see it. 🙁

[MegaloMonocle]

No way in hell am I doing any internet searches from work relative to this story, but I am curious:

Is there an exception in the child porn laws for cops who are actually taking child porn pics? I can see an exception for possessing it, because they need to be able to hold the evidence.

But an exception for the cops to manufacture child porn seems . . . unlikely.

[Plopper]

No, they're just immune because they're cops. Prosecutors and other cops won't touch them as a result.

I know someone who used to do IT stuff for some Sheriff's office and they had a computer which they supposedly used for "luring pedophiles", the thing was stuffed full of child porn and was infected with malware pretty much always.

He said he had to clean malware off of the PC about once a week.

One time he saw one of the "investigators" attaching an external HD to the machine and seemed to be copying a bunch of images and videos from it when he was about to end his shift.

[LarryA]

I really would like for some defense attorney to legally ask the judge how the heck you can prosecute someone as an adult for something that's only illegal if you aren't an adult.

[Cyto]

Bonus subjective justice from the WaPo article:

The female, who had sent nude photos to the male, did not testify and was not charged.

[Cyto]

Double bonus for the self-serving statement from the prosecution about how the whole thing was the defense's fault for not accepting a plea deal in the first place. Nice revisionist history claiming to only have the best interests of the kids at heart and never intending to hit the kid with a felony or sex offender status.

[Tony]

"They just blew it all out of proportion."

For all his trouble, hopefully she did too.