Posted by D. Cupples | In Florida, seeking unpaid sex from consenting adults is not a crime. It couldn't be: our state economy is tourist dependent, and vacations tend to stoke libidos.
Similar to U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), Florida Rep. Bob Allen (R-Meritt Island) was arrested in a Florida park in July for allegedly seeking to pay for sex with an undercover policeman. If Allen (and Craig) had done these deeds, their arrests would be deliciously ironic because Craig had publicly blasted homosexuality, and Allen pushed tougher laws against public sex.
The problem: there is doubt about whether Craig and Allen had done what they were accused of, because the undercover officers did not record the sting. Instead, both men's reputations have come down to "he said, he said."
Note: merely being accused of (or arrested for) such things -- even falsely -- is enough to ruin a career. And it could easily happen to any of us who stumbles upon any type of sting operation that doesn't include recording equipment.
Consider Allen's case. Rep. Allen stumbled onto an impromptu sting in a deserted bathroom at a public park near his bank and a restaurant he'd patronized. The officers involved were in the park working on a burglary case, when one of them (Danny Kavanaugh) decided on the spur of the moment to suspend the burglary case and follow Allen into the bathroom.
Having entered, exited and observed the bathroom before Allen entered it, Kavanaugh knew that no one else was in the bathroom, so it's unclear what kind of crime Kavanaugh had suspected Allen would commit.
Rep. Allen ended up charged with essentially offering sex for money, not for accepting such an offer. At trial, Kavanaugh admitted that he was the one who mentioned both money and sex, not Allen, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
"Eisenmenger [Allen's lawyer] said it was the police who mentioned money, not Allen, and the representative only went along because he feared being robbed. Even if Allen was hitting on Kavanaugh, Eisenmenger said, it wasn't criminal until the officer introduced money and prostitution.
``'So until you suggested money it wasn't illegal, and you can't arrest somebody if they don't do something illegal,'' Eisenmenger said, raising his voice.
"Kavanaugh said he couldn't."
It gets better: Allen's lawyer asked Kavanaugh why he didn't simply wait for Allen to propose sex for money (i.e., to commit the crime). The officer responded:
"Up until that point, everything I had observed [long pause] wasn’t illegal." (WESH-TV text & video)
So the large, muscular, plainly dressed Kavanaugh decided out-of-the-blue to ask Allen for $20. Allen told newspapers he'd feared that he might end up being mugged if he didn't give money to the 200+ pound man.
As the photo (right) indicates, Rep. Allen doesn't have the most althletic or muscular build. Frankly, I can't imagine that he's confident in his ability to bust out Chuck Norris moves against a stranger as impressively built as Kavanaugh.
I'm not saying that Allen's story was true, just that it's plausible. Apparently, the jury saw things differently: it convicted Allen of a misdemeanor on Friday (Orlando Sentinel).
At trial, Allen didn't give the jury much to go on, given that he didn't present any witnesses. Obviously, Allen had failed to persuade a witness to accompany him to the bathroom.
Also, Allen didn't testify. Perhaps Allen's lawyer thought that poking holes in (i.e., casting reasonable doubt on) the prosecution's case was all he had to do, which makes sense because -- if the system is working according to its design -- defendants are presumed innocent even if they exercise their Fifth Amendment right to not testify.
Even if Allen successfully appeals the case, his political career is over, his personal reputation is scarred, and his wife and daughter will face embarassment.
Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio has already started pressuring Allen to resign, though people with misdemeanor convictions are allowed to serve in Florida's legislature (Lakeland Ledger). This policy considerably broadens my state's pool of candidates, given that DUIs (among other crimes) are often misdemeanors.
Of course, all of this is Bob Allen's own fault. Given that Florida law doesn't require undercover policemen to record "stings," Allen should certainly have known better than to walk into a public restroom without a witness or two in tow -- or maybe his own film crew, just to be on the safe side.
Just to be clear: if I'd lived in Bob Allen's (or Larry Craig's) districts, I would not have voted for them.
Now, would you not vote for Allen because he's a Republican, because you think he's guilty, or because his reputation is sullied?
Just curious.
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This loser Republican must have heard that gays use public bathrooms for sex from Ft. Lauderdale's mayor, but hey it's more important to protect the public from people having sex than from criminals. Nevertheless, it is easier to sit and wait for sad closet homosexuals to come into a public bathroom and attempt to get a bj, than to actually go out and stop real crime.
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