It’s Okay For a Cop (the New Key West Police Chief) To Have sex With a Minor (17 yr old boy)

Key West The Newspaper ~ Journalism as a Contact Sport ^ | February 27, 2004 | Dennis Reeves Cooper

[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.

.

[Recovering_Democrat]

The link doesn't show the article...

[longtermmemmory]

more art colony than homo colony. Actually Key west itself is being corpratized. The big chains are buying out the small shops. The little bars like sloppy joes and hogs breath are corporate.

Besides it cant go too "fee fee" then none of the regular events will go back. (for example the Key West Poker Run in Sept. (aka key west MC Raly))

Remeber its a key not an island. It is too small to get lost on.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Well! They have their "rights!" Now one can see what they do with those "rights."

[longtermmemmory]

Only if the 17year old is complaining that he was abused.

Otherwise what would the legal case be?

Is this a confession? Where is the proof? This chief got away with a crime.

[Elle Bee]

This is Key West we're talking about.

like so much else down here not everything works

.

[Elle Bee]

Only if the 17year old is complaining that he was abused. Otherwise what would the legal case be? Is this a confession? Where is the proof? This chief got away with a crime.

when you are under the age of consent ...... there can be no concent ... just felony

.

[Elle Bee]

Well! They have their "rights!" Now one can see what they do with those "rights."

or whom they 'do'

.

[longtermmemmory]

age of consent in FL (unfortunatly) is 16. Above that it is contributing to the delingquency to a minor.

I think the age of consent must be raised to 18 across the USA.

That would make most homosexual first encounters a criminal act.

[breakem]

There's two examples in the story of men havinf sex with 17 year old girls. I guess those homosexuals held a gun to the men's head and made them do it so they wouldn't look so bad.

[breakem]

and most heterosexual ones for that matter.

[GladesGuru]

"Your brain is your friend".

Consider using it before posting.

For whatever reasons, still being debated in the medical fields, females are maturing far earlier than they once did. "Once did", as in the period when age of consent laws were written.

Whether we like it or not, and you cn verify this by visiting any 9 th graed class, society is dealing with sexually functional adults years earlier than when the age of consent laws were written.

Recent raises in the age of consent did little more than offer irristable opportunities for arbitrary and capricious enforcement of the age of consent laws.

The reality is that if the parents didn't teach their children to wait for sex in a stable marriage relationship, anything the heavy hand of John Law can do is unlikely to remedy the aforementioned parential failure.

Criminalizing sex as you suggest would only result in egregiously unfair, capricious enforcement. We simply don't have the court capacity, nor the jails, to imprision all that you propose to make criminals. Why are you so eager to grow the already bloated legal/prison system?

There is a limit to what government can do. Raising moral children isn't one of them. And jailing a large part of America's under 18 set is likewise beyond the reach of government.

As Washington observed, never issue an order that you can't enforce.

Personally, I am fed up with whining adults wanting to force government to do things which are not the appropriate role of government. Families, not governments, teach moral behavior.

[longtermmemmory]

actually what I am looking for is clarity in criminal prosecutions. Right now it is far too ambiguous for prosecution of adults who have sex with minors who are close to majority.

Which is why you get statuory rape at below 16 and contributing to delinquency at 16-17. An adult should not be having sex with a 16 year old.

I am no looking at it from the point of controlling the children. The ADULTS are the responsible ones, the children are CHILDREN.

There is one judge in central FL who ruled that statutory rape charges had to be thrown out because if a girl could consent to an abortion, she can consent to getting pregnant.

It is not the children who go to jail, it is the adults who should not be having sex with the minors. Jail is not always required. Sex with a minor makes the adult have to register as a sex offender under FL Law.

You should be less petty when posting.

[GladesGuru]

"The ADULTS are the responsible ones, the children are CHILDREN."

I beg to differ with both statements. Tostart with teh adults, to assume responsible behavior is often a stretch, especially when sex is involved.

Secondly, to assume that the under 16 aged female is a child is likewise a stretch. Often, as those who have to deal with children realize, they really are adults who matured earlier than the laws recognized, earlier than society has a mechanism to cope with, ect.

But they are most assuredly not children except to those who profit from such classifications; social workers, counselors, an assortment of lawyers, all too many agencies, etc.

I used the "Your brain is your friend" as a jest, which I thought was apparent. My apologies if it came across as anything else. While I often have differences of opinion with others on this forum, I am generally impresed with the level of intelligence of the FReepers, the sheer level of data they have available, and the willingness with which they share their knowledge.

My use of "generally impressed" is due to a slight reservation which I meant to apply to the ocasional un-zotted troll which I have encountered.

Though I must admit that the troll arguments do seem to be limited - reality does impose stringent limits on a troll's position and arguement.

Poor trolls. sarcasm off>/

[SirBuck911]

Your comments are disgusting. A prime example of "Situational Ethics". The police chief was wrong wrong wrong. Nothing, including consensual admission from the 17 year old boy, makes it right. I am willing to bet you are a card carrying member of NAMBLA.
If laws existed and/or enforced based on societies ability to punish the criminals, then mass revolt of any law would render it impotent.

[Elle Bee]

Overnight Sleep-Over at the Police Chief’s House Turns Bad (Key West)

KEY WEST the newspaper ^ | JULY 13, 2012 | Dennis Reeves Cooper

.

Update: Overnight Sleep-Over at Police Chief’sHouse Turns Bad(Key West)

KEY WEST THE NEWSPAPER ^ | AUGUST 10, 2012 | Dennis Reeves Cooper

.