They must apologize to a girl who was 14 when she accused them of assault. They pleaded no contest to felony battery.
By SHANNONCOLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published June 15, 2004
TAMPA - Three former Plant High School athletes charged after they had sex with a 14-year-old female classmate during homecoming were sentenced Monday to four years of probation.
Shannon Lynn, Corey Brown and Shane Ward, all 18, will have to do 100 hours each of community service. They can't drink or take drugs, nor be anywhere near places that have them. And they will have to pay a total of $20,000 in restitution to the victim.
The sentences come two months after the three men, along with Plant High graduate Sean Kushmick, 19, reached a plea agreement that kept them out of prison.
They pleaded no contest to felony battery, a charge that carries no sexual connotation. If they follow the terms of their probation, no conviction will appear on their records.
They had been investigated after the 14-year-old girl said they all had sexually assaulted her last September, during Plant High's homecoming.
But a lawyer for Corey Brown, 18, filed a memorandum with the court Monday arguing that his client's only crime was having consensual sex with a fellow high schooler who was too young by state standards.
"This should never have been prosecuted as a felony," said the lawyer, Ralph Fernandez. "This case is only about the statutory age. And if that law is applied all over, 60 percent of high school seniors would not be there."
Brown was a baseball standout headed for the University of Virginia, but because of the felony charge, the school rescinded its scholarship offer.
Fernandez said Brown might not go to college at all.
"If, in fact, the state wanted these boys to serve four years' probation, they could have pursued some misdemeanor charges and gotten the same result," Fernandez said. "I told the prosecution that this (felony) would affect my client's ability to go to college, and it has. How does that make the victim's life whole?"
In the 13-page memorandum, Fernandez cited a decision by the Supreme Court of Georgia earlier this year.
The court upheld a statute that says consensual sex between teens with three years separating them (even if one teen is only 14) is only a misdemeanor. In Florida, sex with a 14-year-old is a felony.
Fernandez' memorandum included statements that he said should have been made part of the record. For example, he said, the girl at one point told police the sex had been consensual. The victim had sex with Shannon Lynn, who was her boyfriend, in the back of a Ford Expedition the night of Sept. 20, 2003, while the other boys were in the vehicle, according to court records. Then she had sex with Ward, Brown and Kushmick.
Ward had asked to have sex, and although the victim didn't answer directly, she told detectives she felt obliged. "I'd lose Shannon, they'd all, like, make fun of me," she said.
Beth Kaplan, the victim's psychiatrist nurse practitioner, said Monday that the girl's "sense of self-esteem has been shattered, not only by the attacks but by the ramifications of the justice system."
As part of the sentences handed down Monday, Judge Daniel Perry ordered Lynn, Ward and Brown to write the victim a letter of apology. Perry said all three could get off probation after three years if they fulfill the terms of their sentences.
