Florida Student, 18, Arrested for Sex with Teammate, 14
By CARLOS HARRISON
Published: May 21, 2013
MIAMI — Kaitlyn Hunt’s parents insist that their daughter, a Central Florida high school senior, is being prosecuted for sex crimes only because her lover was another girl. The state attorney says that gender makes no difference; the age of the two girls is at the crux of the case.
PJ Leffingwell
Kaitlyn Hunt, 18, could stand trial for sexual encounters with a 14-year-old girlfriend.
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Ms. Hunt, 18, is an adult. The girl with whom she allegedly had sexual encounters is 14.
Ms. Hunt, described by her parents as a happy, hardworking girl who played on the basketball team, sang in the school choir, helped mentor other cheerleaders and taught gymnastics to younger children, became an international cause célèbre over the weekend after details of her arrest and pending prosecution exploded across the Internet.
Between Friday night and Tuesday morning, more than 100,000 supporters from around the world signed an online petition siding with Ms. Hunt’s parents. About 30,000 supporters, some from as far away as Australia, South Korea and the Netherlands, had joined the Facebook group Free Kate.
The police arrested Ms. Hunt on Feb. 16 at her mother’s home in Sebastian, near Vero Beach, charging her with two counts of lewd or lascivious battery, a second-degree felony. According to the arrest affidavit, the two girls, who knew each other from the basketball team, began a relationship in November. Just before Christmas, they had a sexual encounter in a bathroom at Sebastian River High School. They had at least one more encounter there, according to the affidavit, and one in Ms. Hunt’s bedroom in January after the 14-year-old, a freshman, ran away from home.
The younger girl’s parents went to the police after learning from a coach, school employees and students that their daughter was having a relationship, according to a report from the Indian River County Sheriff’s office. The parents’ information led to the investigation.
A sheriff’s deputy interviewed Ms. Hunt. In a summary of her statement, he wrote that she had confirmed having a sexual encounter with the girl in the school bathroom and in her bedroom. The younger girl’s name is blotted out throughout the publicly released form, but the final line of the report tackles the difference in age. When he asked Ms. Hunt if she knew it was wrong to have sex with the 14-year-old, “Kaitlyn stated that she did not think about it because” the girl “acted older.”
Steven Hunt Jr., Ms. Hunt’s father, wrote in an introduction to the online petition that he believed “Kaitlyn’s girlfriend’s parents are pressing charges because they are against the same-sex relationship, even though their daughter has stated that this is a consensual relationship.” A little later, he added, “Now she’s been expelled from school and is facing serious felonies — all because she is in love.”
The father of the 14-year-old said he had no comment at this time.
A spokesman for the sheriff’s department, Sgt. Thom Raulen, said that there was no indication that Ms. Hunt had forced the younger girl into a sexual relationship. However, in Florida, a minor is not considered capable of giving consent, he added.
But to Ms. Hunt’s Facebook supporters, it seemed like a tale of high school love, archaic laws and antigay prejudice.
“People are frustrated with the current laws and stipulations against anyone, whether it’s for age or same-sex, and maybe the fact that people just think that what is happening is unfair, because that’s a lot of the comments that we’re seeing on the page, is that it’s just not right,” Nichole Mottau-Sweet, who began the Facebook page, said. “It’s the old quote ‘The punishment doesn’t fit the crime.’ Although no one considers what went on any kind of crime that deserves punishment.”
State Attorney Bruce Colton said Florida statutes were quite specific. “The law makes no distinction between whether it’s a boy and a girl, an older boy and a younger girl, younger boy and an older girl or two boys or two girls,” he said. “If one person is over the age of 18 and the other is between the age of 12 and 16, that’s the crime, regardless of the sex of either or both of them.”
Prosecutors have offered Ms. Hunt a plea-bargain agreement that would allow her to plead no contest to a lesser charge of child abuse, and they have promised not to seek prison time. She could then be sentenced to community control, which could require an ankle monitor, or probation. The judge could withhold adjudication. That would mean she would not have to register as a sex offender, and her record could be expunged later.
Still, Ms. Hunt’s parents are emphatically opposed to her accepting this plea deal. They fear that it is too big a gamble to hope that a judge will agree. If not, her parents worry, sex offender status would haunt their daughter for the rest of her life.
“It’s life-changing. It’s like a death sentence to all her future goals,” her mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, said. “I have four other daughters. She could not be involved in their activities. There’s just so many things — you can’t go and pursue pediatric nursing. There’s just a lot of things she will not be able to do.”
The state attorney has given Ms. Hunt until Friday to accept the plea offer. Otherwise, she faces trial.
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