Asia Argento accused of sexual assault to then 17-year old

NY Times

The Italian actress and director Asia Argento was among the first women in the movie business to publicly accuse the producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. She became a leading figure in the #MeToo movement. Her boyfriend, the culinary television star Anthony Bourdain, eagerly joined the fight.

But in the months that followed her revelations about Mr. Weinstein last October, Ms. Argento quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser: Jimmy Bennett, a young actor and rock musician who said she had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room years earlier, when he was only two months past his 17th birthday. She was 37. The age of consent in California is 18.

That claim and the subsequent arrangement for payments are laid out in documents between lawyers for Ms. Argento and Mr. Bennett, a former child actor who once played her son in a movie.

The documents, which were sent to The New York Times through encrypted email by an unidentified party, include a selfie dated May 9, 2013, of the two lying in bed. As part of the agreement, Mr. Bennett, who is now 22, gave the photograph and its copyright to Ms. Argento, now 42. Three people familiar with the case said the documents were authentic.

The Times has tried repeatedly since Thursday to get a response to the matter from Ms. Argento and her representatives. She did not reply to messages left on her phone, sent by email and sent to two of her agents, who agreed to forward it to her. Carrie Goldberg, her lawyer who handled the matter, read email messages from The Times, according to two people familiar with the case, but she has not responded. A woman who answered the phone at Ms. Goldberg’s office on Friday said the lawyer would not be available to discuss this article.

Mr. Bennett, who lives in Los Angeles, would not agree to be interviewed, said his lawyer, Gordon K. Sattro. “In the coming days,” Mr. Sattro wrote in an email, “Jimmy will continue doing what he has been doing over the past months and years, focusing on his music.”

In an April letter addressed to Ms. Argento confirming the final details of the deal and setting out a schedule of payments, Ms. Goldberg characterized the money as “helping Mr. Bennett.”

“We hope nothing like this ever happens to you again,” Ms. Goldberg wrote. “You are a powerful and inspiring creator and it is a miserable condition of life that you live among shitty individuals who’ve preyed on both your strengths and your weaknesses.”

But for Mr. Bennett, who as a child actor charmed Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis and earned the nickname Jimmy Two-Takes because he rarely flubbed his lines, the 2013 hotel-room encounter was a betrayal that precipitated a spiral of emotional problems, according to the documents.

The fallout from “a sexual battery” was so traumatic that it hindered Mr. Bennett’s work and income and threatened his mental health, according to a notice of intent to sue that his lawyer sent in November to Richard Hofstetter, Mr. Bourdain’s longtime lawyer, who was also representing Ms. Argento at the time.

Ms. Argento, who lives in Rome, subsequently turned to Ms. Goldberg — a prominent lawyer for victims of online attacks — to handle the case. (Mr. Hofstetter is now handling the estate of Mr. Bourdain, who killed himself in June. Although Mr. Bourdain helped Ms. Argento navigate the matter, neither Mr. Hofstetter nor Kimberly Witherspoon, Mr. Bourdain’s longtime agent and now a spokeswoman for his wife, Ottavia Busia, from whom he was separated, would comment for this article.)

Mr. Bennett’s notice of intent asked for $3.5 million in damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery. Mr. Bennett made more than $2.7 million in the five years before the 2013 meeting with Ms. Argento, but his income has since dropped to an average of $60,000 a year, which he attributes to the trauma that followed the sexual encounter with Ms. Argento, his lawyer wrote.

In October, a month before Mr. Bennett sent his demand for money, The New Yorker published an article by Ronan Farrow that included Ms. Argento among 13 women who accused Mr. Weinstein of harassment and rape.

Ms. Argento, whose father, Dario Argento, is a noted director of Italian horror films, began her acting career as a child. She went on to win two David di Donatello Awards, the Italian equivalent of Oscars, and has directed films, written a novel and recorded music.

After she spoke out about Mr. Weinstein, Ms. Argento quickly emerged as a powerful voice for women who have been mistreated by men. In May, she gave a riveting speech at the Cannes Film Festival in which she called the festival Mr. Weinstein’s “hunting ground.” She said he had raped her there in 1997, when she was 21.

The relationship with Mr. Weinstein continued for years afterward and sometimes included sex, The New Yorker reported. Ms. Argento, who had acted in a movie Mr. Weinstein produced, told the magazine that she feared angering him. It was a complicated situation in which she said she felt powerless. “After the rape, he won,” she told Mr. Farrow.

Mr. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to six felony counts in New York, including first-degree rape; none are related to Ms. Argento. His lawyers have said their relationship was consensual.

Mr. Bourdain, long a fan of her father’s work, met Ms. Argento when he was shooting an episode of his CNN show “Parts Unknown” in Rome in late 2016. The two became a couple, and Mr. Bourdain became her champion as she emerged as a leading figure in the battle against sexual assault and harassment, speaking at conferences and at Harvard.

For Mr. Bennett, seeing Ms. Argento present herself as a victim of sexual assault was too much to bear, his lawyer wrote, and called up memories of their hotel reunion. “His feelings about that day were brought to the forefront recently when Ms. Argento took the spotlight as one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein,” Mr. Sattro wrote in the notice of intent to sue.

Ms. Argento, who is divorced and has two children, was both a mentor and a mother figure to Mr. Bennett, the document says, and the two were intermittently in contact as he grew up. “Jimmy’s impression of this situation was that a mother-son relationship had blossomed from their experience on set together,” Mr. Sattro wrote.

Mr. Bennett began acting at age 6, when he was cast in a commercial for a Dodge Caravan. He went on to appear in dozens of other commercials, and secured roles in several television shows. His prolific movie career started in 2003 with “Daddy Day Care,” which starred Eddie Murphy.

Mr. Bennett was 7 when he was cast in “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things,” a 2004 film Ms. Argento directed, starred in and helped write.

The script, based on a book by the pseudonymous writer JT LeRoy, depicts the grim relationship between a drug-addicted prostitute played by Ms. Argento and her son, played by Mr. Bennett and two other young actors. Ms. Argento’s character dresses her son as a girl to lure men, and the boy is ultimately raped.

In interviews and subsequent social media posts between the two over the years, they referred to each other as mother and son.

On May 9, 2013, the day they met for a reunion in her room at a Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, Calif., she posted on Instagram: “Waiting for my long lost son my love @jimmymbennett in trepidation #marinadelrey smoking cigarettes like there was no next week.”

Mr. Bennett responded, “I’m almost there!:)”

Mr. Bennett, who has an eye condition that prevents him from driving, arrived at Ms. Argento’s hotel room that morning with a family member, according to his notice of intent.

The document lays out Mr. Bennett’s account: Ms. Argento asked the family member to leave so she could be alone with the actor. She gave him alcohol to drink and showed him a series of notes she had written to him on hotel stationery. Then she kissed him, pushed him back on the bed, removed his pants and performed oral sex. She climbed on top of him and the two had intercourse, the document says. She then asked him to take a number of photos.

Later that day she posted a close-up of their faces on Instagram with the caption, “Happiest day of my life reunion with @jimmymbennett xox,” and added that “jimmy is going to be in my next movie and that is a fact, dig that jack.” That post and others were included with the notice of intent, along with three photos apparently taken by Mr. Bennett that depict him and Ms. Argento in bed, their unclothed torsos exposed. (Only one of the photos taken in bed shows both their faces.)

The two had lunch, and Mr. Bennett headed home to Orange County, where he lived with his parents. As he was driven home, according to his claim, he began to feel “extremely confused, mortified, and disgusted.”

But a month later, on June 8, he sent Ms. Argento a Twitter message, “Miss you momma!!!!” that included a photograph of an engraved bracelet she had given him to commemorate the movie. (His Twitter account has recently been shut down.)

That same month, he confronted his mother and stepfather over the state of a trust into which some of his earnings as an actor had been deposited, according to a lawsuit he filed in Orange County Superior Court in October 2014.

Mr. Bennett claimed his parents had barred him from the family’s house and kept his possessions, and over the years had cheated him out of at least $1.5 million in earnings. He said he was broke and two months behind on his rent. The case was settled in December 2014, but the terms were not disclosed.

In the agreement between Ms. Argento and Mr. Bennett, she agreed to pay him $380,000 over the course of a year and a half, starting with an initial payment of $200,000 that was made in April, according to a letter to Ms. Argento in which her lawyer, Ms. Goldberg, outlined the terms of the deal.

The agreement does not prevent either party from discussing it. In the letter, Ms. Goldberg explained that California law does not allow nondisclosure agreements in civil contracts involving the types of allegations made by Mr. Bennett.

One alternative, Ms. Goldberg wrote, would be to work around the California law by using New York lawyers and arguing that the laws of New York govern the agreement.

“Ultimately, you decided against the non-disclosure language because you felt it was inconsistent with the public messages you’ve conveyed about the societal perils of non-disclosure agreements,” she wrote to Ms. Argento.

“Bennett could theoretically tell people his claims against you,” she wrote. “However, under this agreement, he cannot sue you for them. Nor can he post the photo of the two of you.”

“At the very least,” Ms. Goldberg added, “he is not permitted to bother you for more money, disparage you or sue — so long as you comply with your obligations in the agreement.”

Although it is unclear whether Mr. Bennett and Ms. Argento have spoken since the payment was made, Ms. Argento seems to remain supportive. On July 17, she added a “Like” to a moody portrait of himself he had posted on his Instagram account. The account has since been scrubbed of much of its content.

What in the straight f***!?

Fun fact: Before # was called hashtag, it was (and to some extent still is) called pound. So the MeToo movement is literally called PoundMeToo lol.

Back on topic. The worst part is how she had formed a director-actor relationship with him when he was just a small child, and then it eventually turning sexual as he got earlier. Pretty clear signs of grooming and pretty disturbing. Nevertheless, this shouldn't negate her criticism of Weinstein. She might be hypocritically taking the moral high ground, but everything she said about Weinstein and the movement still stands.

Hollywood's a hell of a drug. So many shady people.

I heard about this. Look rape culture is real and sexual assault is a real issue. That being said the little sjw metoo bs movement was not the answer. It was so muddled with serious crimes and then just celebrities being ruined by rumors.

Agreed. Plus he did it like... a bazillion times to her apparent one. That doesn't make her one instance any less reprehensible, but I don't know if I'd call her "just as bad".

-Byshop

I hope you're not using this to excuse Weinstein........

No! Just pointing out that Argento is a scumbag like Weinstein is.

Asia Argento could sexually assault 17-year old me all she wants.

To quote South Park: "Niiiiiiiiiiiice"

In all seriousness, I'm done being surprised by the hypocrisy of the rich and famous. And also their idiocy; did she honestly expect this to not happen? Or did she delude herself into thinking that, unlike everyone else, she was somehow different and this was OK.

She is the daughter of Dario Argento, she was literally born famous. I'm sure that did not help.

Bwahahahahaha nice.

I had to explain this to someone when they were on the phone with an automated system the other day. They were like "The voice keeps asking me to hit the 'pound sign' but what is that?" and I just sort of facepalmed, sighed, and said "It's the hashtag..."

Good.

Keep your eye on the ball.

We live in the age of misdirection and counter-counterculture.

That's fine and all. I'd just like to point out that that your topic title is really sending the wrong message. This isn't about Harvey Weinstein, it's about Asia Argento committing sexual assault. By immediately grabbing people's attention by referring to Asia Argenta solely as "one of Harvey Weistein's accusers" in the title, and then going on to say that she's "as bad as he is", that's coming way to close to looking like the intent is to excuse Weinstein by painting one of his accusers as being "just as bad".

Nothing inherently wrong with the rest of the content of your post, but your topic title is VERY unfortunate and really gives the rest of your post a pretty damn ugly undertone to it. Couldn't you have just chosen a title such as "Asia Argento accused of sexual assault"?

Eh... point made.

I used to think rape culture was stupid feminist rhetoric. Then I saw the #MeToo movement (despite being wrong on some occasions and a dangerous approach) a real thing in Hollywood, or in places where people seek power. They brought out awareness to these dark entities, whether you see their approach being wrong or not.

Anyway, this lady has a weird relation with this dude, even goes far back to when he was 8 years old.

@mrbojangles25: South Park forever

What's good for the goose is good for the gander I guess.

I agree with MrGeezer's sentiment, but in the interest of fairness I'll point out that the way nintendoboy framed it (which I agree is skewed) isn't too far off from how some news outlets are framing it.

-Byshop

It´s funny to follow this debate.

You got the same women who cried out "believe the victims" when it was a woman, now when it´s their favourite it´s suddenly "let´s take a step back and see if it´s true"

This will luckily backfire on the #metoo´s who can´t see that this is as bad as Weinstein, and no it´s not cool to have a grown woman sexually assault you because you are a guy.

I suspect they're trying to get more people to click on the articles. After all, Harvey Weinstein is a bigger name than Asia Argento and pretty much everyone has heard about the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Framing it as "Harvey Weinstein accuser commits sexual assault" is probably just plain going to generate more traffic than "Asia Argento accused of sexual assault."

Still an unfortunate way to put it though. But I'm going to take nintendoboy at his word that he wasn't trying to excuse Weinstein. More than likely, he was just trying to get more traffic too. And hey, at least nintendoboy changed the title after it was pointed out to him how it could look.

I liked Asia in xXx.What a shame.

Jesus now she is dragging Anthony Bourdain through the mud, this women is low.

This whole situation is sad and hilarious at the same time.

First, I think the guy is full of shit. He probably enjoyed the time and after the #metoo craze he simply saw the opportunity to cash in using some of the hysteria.

But then again I support him completely because I'm sure many others who are taking advantage of this #metoo thing are doing the same and receiving sympathy for it because, of course, they should be believed no matter what. Luckily this will set an example of how turning anything into a witch hunt is not the right way to do things. There's a reason to why our society has evolved into a system of innocent until proven guilty. Because it is the best course of action, ALWAYS, even when injustices happen. No system is perfect but to change that principle to a guilty until proven innocent is a huge step backwards and a extremely dangerous move. Because when the shit will really hit the fan, everyone will end up covered in it.

This also demonstrates this movement is based in a puritanical and absurd notion of sex. Suddenly sex has become the most traumatizing thing that could happen to a human. FFS what a bunch of hogwash. What about a person that doesn't want to drive a car for a living as a taxi driver but he has to because he has to feed his family? Now these girls who slept with Weinstein many times to further their career without really wanting it are more of a victim than the taxi driver who has no choice but to drive a car and probably get a bunch of different illnesses, physical and mental, for spending the whole day sitting and being miserable and stressed? Newsflash, the vast majority of the people in the world are doing stuff they don't really want to do to get ahead or survive. In the case of Hollywood and in other power circles, this stuff you don't want to do just happens to involve sex sometimes. But boohoo I'm such a victim because my body is so much more important than the life and mental sanity of a person working in slavery conditions in a factory. Both situations are not ideal but this craze about sex being the worst is just that, a hysterical nonsense out of puritanical ethics that has lost its perspective completely.

Sex is a perfectly natural thing that humans do and it is pleasurable most of the time! Some humans are dumb doing it of course, or awkward or use it as a tool to get what they want. People should start looking back towards reality and stop seeing the world through pink-colored glasses where there are only victims and perverts. Sure there are real abusers out there, but there are also manipulators, young people who actually like sex and don't get traumatized out of it (I've seen some 16 year olds more sexually mature than some 30 year olds out there) and also people that are awkward and clumsy and behave inappropriately sometimes because -gasp- to learn anything in life you have to commit errors! Or did people start talking english out of the womb without having to stutter and make grammatical mistakes? This whole hysteria around what should be part of normal sexual interaction and learning has left no room at all for error. You have to go from a completely clueless 17 year old to a completely knowledgeable 18 year old in sex matters otherwise you're going to be abusing someone at some point. And this creates exactly the opposite effect of what these puritans are trying to do, they are creating a bunch of people who conceive sex as something they should feel guilty about by the mere notion of wanting it and the other side is conceiving it as a dangerous thing they should be afraid of because everyone is an abuser. What type of people are going to come out from this mix of guilt and fear? You're going to be left with a bunch of frustrated sexual illiterates and probably real abuse is going to increase because there will be a bunch of adults with the sexual maturity of children who never properly learned what sex is really about because they were too scared of it or feeling guilty about it.

I really think the Christian notion that sex is a sin has bored itself into our culture and people are becoming crazy over sex being the most dangerous and important thing surrounding our lives. Now everything has to be categorized in sexual terms and bodies are the ultimate transgression border. A person wasting their whole life being exploited and employed in almost slave conditions by a company doesn't deserve our sympathy as much as a person that gets her buttocks grabbed without consent or that gave a blowjob in trade of a favor and the latter examples generate many more headlines and outrage. So it's ok if people waste their entire life being miserable just don't grab their ass because that will destroy them psychologically. Really this reality we live in is completely absurd and I hope it all comes crashing down, the sooner the better.

@zappat: I'm just going to point out that you're not going to get a whole lot of sympathy telling people that being forced into having sex isn't a big deal. Look man, you're free to believe whatever you want, but if I were you I'd be really careful who you say that to.

People who cry the loudest about an issue tend to be guilty of that which they condemn. I chuckle when I see "stars" claiming this is a Weinstein frame-job.

I'm not saying it isn't a big deal. Rape is a big deal and shouldn't be tolerated. But a person that consents to sex because they are getting something out of it and then claims that that is rape is ridiculous even if I agree that can also be abusive because the part with more power is using their power to manipulate the other into doing something they wouldn't normally do (I'm excluding children out of this of course since they can't consent). My point is that this type of power relationships happen everywhere and in many more cases that are much more abusive. Like a worker that has no choice but waste their entire life doing a mechanical work in degrading conditions for CEOs. Yet everything now seems to be revolving around sex being the ultimate worst and most traumatizing thing that could happen to someone.

The other day a person in facebook put a picture of a child working selling candies on the street and in the picture it was written that the kid was a champion. The kid obviously doesn't want to be doing that, he was sad, probably depressed, he is wasting his childhood being ignored, rejected by adults constantly that consider him an annoyance and walking among cars that are going to destroy his lungs from the fumes. And yet it is still a romanticized idea of a child fighting for his survival or just an annoyance for most not an outraging abuse towards a child. These cases should be regarded as abusive as sexual abuse towards a child, at the same level. Both instances have a good chance of completely impairing them for life but the second case is not met with the same outrage. Most of the people here will react even with violence at the sight of a child being sexually abused (understandably) but not at the sight of a child being abused in other ways such as this. There's a lot of hypocrisy and double morality involved and I think sexual hysteria is not making things better for anyone and it's making people lose perspective.

@zappat: Is it really "consent" if you're being coerced or threatened into doing it?

Anyway, I'm not going to continue this discussion. I'm just going to tell you one final time that telling people that sexual assault isn't a big deal can get you in trouble. If you've been a victim and it wasn't a big deal to you, then that's your business. But people don't take kindly to someone telling them how they're supposed to feel about it. If they say it's a big deal, then yes: it's a big freaking deal.

Anyway, I'm not going to discuss this matter any further. But for the last time, I strongly recommend that you be very careful about who you say this kind of thing to, because this is the kind of talk that can get a person in trouble.

No but then there's not a lot of consent on any power relationship. If a worker has no other way to subsist but to work in precarious conditions for a company then he's not being consenting either, he's just resignated. Practically all power relationships involve the part with less power surrendering something to the part of more power. Are we prepared as society to be equally outraged at many of these power imbalances or are we going to keep being selective with it?

I 'm not saying sexual abuse isn't a big deal. I'm saying this environment is creating a situation where many people that don't even feel abused could take advantage of it because all it takes is an accusation to submit the other into complying to their will. And that also is an abuse in its own way. I'm also saying that other types of abuses should be also considered a big deal and people should become as outraged as with sexual abuse. Yet those abuses are not considered a big deal by 99% of the people and they're affecting people negatively as much or more than sexual abuse.

@davillain-: Interesting. Seems more like an American thing though. The £ sign is used in the UK, but because American typewriters and keyboards lacked the £ sign, they used the # sign.

Oh look, a far left virtue signaling leftist is just as bad as the person they threw under the bus.... what a surprise.

who?

It feels more like both parties are in fault here instead of one. I read the lastest update to the story and it was pretty confusing.

I would agree that this doesn't discredit the point of the whole movement just like other bad things in the past didn't discredit the point of a certain other movement.

But she is now a great example in the spotlights that it's not always men who are being bad. Maybe that will start to open some eyes.

The only problem I have with these movements is, that obviously, it turns into a witch-hunt that does not care very much about evidence but more about achieving something... getting as far as possible, discarding all nuance. How do you deal with that? Well, nuance and not jumping to conclusions. Especially if you're the employer or someone in control. You look at the facts. But that doesn't seem to apply anymore when these movements reach a high. Are our lives too busy for us to think even if we are responsible? Or is that responsibility being drowned by the number of people that are chanting guilty?

One thing seems certain about all this. People are easy to steer, but not easy to stop.

It's worth noting that, in Italy, the age of consent is only 14. Asia Argento comes from a country where it is legal for adults to sleep with 14 year-olds. But the act took place in a state where the age of consent is 18.

So if let's say Weinstein was doing it in a country where it was apart of the culture, it would be ok?

I think me and my brother were the only people of our 'crew' that was not having sex by the age of 15

just sayin

I'm sure we can explain most cases of sexual abuse as a logical event if only we knew the reasons behind it. Maybe it was simply a mistake. Maybe it was just an emotional outburst. Maybe she was tricked.

But I think that on that same note we should also add that she knew she had done that in that country, and that it was considered wrong over there, before the MeToo movement happened. I mean if I am reading this correctly there was a lawyer involved. Which is interesting.

@Jacanuk: Weinstein is accused of rape and sexual assault, which are illegal no matter where he did it. Age of consent, however, varies from country to country. What Asia did would've been legal in her native Italy, but it's illegal in California. She did it in California, so she should be prosecuted according to Californian law.

Weinstein used his power to seduce/rape and sexual assault women under him. Asia used her power to seduce/rape and sexual assault a 17-year-old kid.

Where is the difference? is it because she is a woman that it´s less serious and we should accept that this guy is just a lucky kid.? Rape is Rape, also consent is a useless term, when we are talking about a 17-year-old and almost middleaged women.

But you defending her, pretty much shows how hypocritical this whole #metoo movement is

@Jacanuk:

AFAIK, the 17 year-old boy approached her for sex, which she agreed to. In California, an adult in her 30s sleeping with a 17 year-old is classified as statutory rape. But in many other US states and most of Europe, it would not be classified as statutory rape.

Aren't you from the UK? Here in the UK, the age of consent is 16. Does that mean you condemn Britain as a nation of rapists and sexual predators?

What Asia did is a morally grey area, especially in Europe (and US states where the age of consent is 16-17). But what matters is that she broke Californian law, so should be prosecuted under Californian law. Just because something is legal in her own country (Italy), that doesn't give her the right to break another state's laws.

Let´s hear from the victim

"Many brave women and men have spoken out about their own experiences during the #metoo movement, and I appreciate the bravery that it took for each and every one of them to take such a stand. I did not initially speak out about my story because I chose to handle it in private with the person who wronged me. My trauma resurfaced as she came out as a victim herself. I have not made a public statement in the past days and hours because I was ashamed and afraid to be part of the public narrative. I was underage when the event took place, and I tried to seek justice in a way that made sense to me at the time because I was not ready to deal with the ramifications of my story becoming public. At the time I believed there was still a stigma to being in the situation as a male in our society. I didn't think that people would understand the event that took place from the eyes of a teenage boy. I have had to overcome many adversities in my life, and this is another that I will deal with, in time. I would like to move past this event in my life, and today I choose to move forward, no longer in silence."

If this was a woman you and the other #metoo´ers would be up in arms demanding this person lynched. As this side has said so many times, it´s not important what the "man" felt, it´s the victim we should believe.

Also, any middleaged women should run far away from someone who is 17, also especially someone who she had known since he was just a small child, which makes this even more disturbing is that she saw him at least according to public records as a son.

@Jacanuk:

Strawman argument. There are a few MeToo allegations where I've defended the accused (for example, my thread on Nolan Bushnell). As I've always maintained, each allegation needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis.

At the time of the incident, she was in her 30s, not middle-aged. If she used her power to pressure him into sex, then sure, she should be condemned. But she claims that he "jumped her" and posted some love letter he wrote her. So it's not clear-cut. The case needs to be investigated further before jumping to conclusions.

Ok, not seen the times where you have defended them. But good on you for judging each on their merits, like with Spacey etc..

And she was 37, which is almost 40 and middle-aged. Also even if she did not use her influence, she should have been the adult and seen that this is a kid And that a kid is not able to fully understand the ramifications of the actions. Kids are kids and should not be even tempted to enter into an adult relationship.

But I do agree that cases should be judged on their merits, but in this case, we have someone who has been outspoken and claimed to be a victim herself, so she ends up on the other side makes it so much worse. Also the interesting thing here is that others who always claimed that we should believe the victim no matter what, suddenly are on the "but we should investigate and not judge so harshly" side.