Four make plea deals in assault on 14-year-old girl
The charges agreed to have no sexual connotation, no prison time and possibly nothing on their records.
By GRAHAM BRINK
Published April 7, 2004
TAMPA - The victim said her memory of Plant High's homecoming night was blurred by rum. But she remembered her boyfriend saying, "Hey Sean, I have a present for you!"
Sean Kushmick would be the fourth young man that night to have sex with the 14-year-old girl.
The incident last fall led to a police investigation of sexual assault allegations involving three Plant High athletes and a former student from the school.
Despite the disturbing claims, the case approached an end Tuesday when the four young men pleaded no contest to felony battery.
The charge comes with no sexual connotation, and the plea will keep the young men out of prison. If they behave on probation, no conviction will appear on their records.
The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office also released investigative documents that painted a grim picture of what happened in the back of the SUV; a parent's nightmare of alcohol and sexual conduct.
"The family of the 14-year-old victim hopes that every parent will use this tragedy as an example and spend time with their families discussing how alcohol leads to irresponsible behavior and serious life changing consequences," said Steve Crawford, the lawyer for the victim's family.
The investigative report gives this account:
The victim and two of her girlfriends sneaked out of her parent's home about 2:30 a.m. Sept.20. The St. Petersburg Times is withholding her name because of the nature of the allegations.
The girls met fellow Plant High students Shannon Lynn, Shane Ward and Corey Brown, who were waiting in a Ford Expedition parked down the street.
Lynn, 17, was the girl's boyfriend. He and Ward were senior leaders on the varsity football team at Plant High, which Newsweek ranked in the top 4 percent of high schools in the nation last year. Brown was a baseball star.
The three had Captain Morgan rum and Pepsi, which they offered to the girls.
Ultimately, Lynn and the victim began having sex in the back of the SUV while the others were still in the vehicle. Although it was consensual, sex with a 14-year-old is against state law.
The two other girls got out of the SUV, but the victim said she wanted to ride around a while. She told them she would meet them back at her house soon.
Once in the vehicle alone with the young men, she had sex with Ward, 18 at the time, Brown, 17, and Kushmick, a 19-year-old former Plant High student. Ward had asked to have sex, and although the victim didn't answer directly, she said she felt obliged. "I'd lose Shannon, they'd all like make fun of me," she told detectives.
It was while she was having sex with Kushmick that another young man in the group, who had come to the gathering with Kushmick, interrupted the scene, got her dressed and ordered the others to take her home.
She slowly revealed to her parents what happened and eventually, authorities got involved.
At first, she told investigators that she didn't want Lynn, Ward and Brown prosecuted. She only wanted Kushmick charged because she didn't know him, a police report states.
The families of the young men all retained prominent lawyers. Some observers wondered why the young men were not arrested for having sex with an underage girl. But the case was not simple. A lawyer for her family said the girl suffers from a bipolar disorder. She spent several days in a mental health facility in Clearwater after the incident and the prescription drugs she was taking exacerbated the effects of alcohol, the reports say.
The defense lawyers also pushed the prosecutors away from rape or lewd and lascivious charges during months of negotiations. And, perhaps most important, the victim's family did not object to the plea deal.
The young men turned themselves in last month.
The family accepts "these pleas by the defendants as an important first step toward healing," Crawford said outside the courtroom Tuesday.
The girl, however, appears to feel differently. In a recent letter to the judge in the case, she wrote that the teens had raped her and that she wanted to see them punished. The letter contradicts what she originally told investigators.
"They RAPED me. I did not have sex with them," she wrote.
Regardless, the young men were allowed to plead to the lesser charge Tuesday. Kushmick was sentenced to four years of probation and 100 hours of community service. He must undergo alcohol and mental health evaluations and send a letter of apology to the victim. He also has to pay a share of $20,000 in restitution.
The other defendants are expected to receive similar sentences at a hearing in June, after they graduate from Plant High.
School Board policy allows Brown, Lynn and Ward to remain at Plant because the victim no longer attends the school and the incident did not take place on school grounds.
Kushmick's lawyer Norman Cannella said it was in his client's best interest to negotiate a plea that eliminated the chance of prison time. Cannella, however, said he thought the girl should also take responsibility for her actions.
"This was consensual," he said. "I think it is an injustice when we don't have equal punishment."
Martee Craparo, a mother of a Plant High student, said the victim's parents showed "grace and dignity" in the way they handled the case. "I pray these men recognize and appreciate the opportunity they have been provided."
- Times staffer writer Logan Mabe and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Graham Brink can be reached at brink@sptimes.com or 813 226-3365.
