SEX CRIMES, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPES: I

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/6/06)

Justice is Yavapai County is administered differently from justice in Coconino County. Clifton Bennett, son of Ken Bennett, President of the Arizona State Senate, along with his friend, Kyle Wheeler, were charged with sodomizing 18 boys with foreign objects. The Yavapai County Attorney reasoned that assault by sodomy isn’t a sexual crime which means that Sheila Polk is either willfully ignorant, profoundly uninformed, or unfair in the administration of justice. Perhaps, all three.

In Coconino County a young man was caught videotaping men and boys urinating in a mall restroom. As a result the young man must register as a sexual offender and undergo psychological treatment along with serving a year in jail and three years probation. He actually didn’t physical assault anyone. He just watched them and videotaped them surreptitiously. Clifton Bennett and Kyle Wheeler physically assaulted boys, ages 11 to 14, in a morbid sexual demonstration of power. The two Yavapai County culprits may get off with misdemeanors, no counseling for their perversions, and no jail time.

While the young man’s behavior in Coconino County was clearly bizarre, he wasn’t actually hurting anyone. He didn’t show the videotapes to anyone else. Bennett and Wheeler traumatized young boys and physically harmed them.

Sheila Polk will have a hard time explaining herself the next time she runs for re-election. If she loses her bid for re-election, perhaps she could get a job at Duke University as a legal affairs officer for its lacrosse team.