Politics

Sex solicitation trial gets under way for lawmaker

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 8, 2007

VIERA - State Rep. Bob Allen peered over a stall in a public park restroom to show his interest in soliciting sex from an undercover police officer, a prosecutor said in opening arguments in the lawmaker's trial Wednesday.

Allen sat emotionless as prosecutor Pat Whitaker described how the lawmaker eventually followed the male officer into the same stall, where Allen said the restroom was too public. The lawmaker suggested "across the bridge," saying "it's quiet over there," and then agreed to pay $20 for oral sex, Whitaker said.

"You're not a cop, are you?" Allen asked the officer, according to Whitaker.

Defense attorney Greg Eisenmenger later countered that Allen never solicited sex and that it was the officer who asked for $20 in exchange for oral sex.

The Republican lawmaker faces a second-degree misdemeanor charge of soliciting prostitution. The charge carries a maximum 60 days in county jail and a $500 fine. Allen pleaded not guilty after being arrested at Titusville's Veteran's Memorial Park in July.

Allen's attorney later suggested the lawmaker agreed to pay the officer $20 because he was intimidated by the plain-clothed officer in the restroom and was playing along until he could get out of the restroom. He also said the bathroom's stall walls are too high for Allen to peer over.

Even if Allen had agreed to the deal because he wanted sex, Eisenmenger said, it was the officer who initiated the exchange.

"The only way you can find my client guilty is that if you find he offered (the officer) money for sex," the defense attorney said.

Allen grew up in the Titusville area and has served it for seven years in the Legislature.

[Last modified November 8, 2007, 00:57:39]