Kids Horseplay = RSO for Life

2 N.J. teens labeled sex offenders for life after 'horseplay' incident

Published: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 8:30 AM    By MaryAnn Spoto/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger

Ed Murray/The Star-LedgerJudge Victor Ashrafi, pictured in this file photo from 2004, is one of the three New Jersey appeals court judges who ruled that two young teenagers must register as sex offenders under Megan's Law for an incident the teens described as "horseplay."

SOMERSET COUNTY — Call it bullying or call it horseplay. Either way, a state appellate court panel says roughhousing with a sexual connotation by a pair of 14-year-old Somerset County boys was a crime that requires them to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.
In a decision handed down Monday, the three-judge panel acknowledged the severity of its decision, but said it was bound to uphold the law.
"We are keenly aware that our decision may have profound lifelong ramifications for these two boys as well as others similarly situated," Judge Jose Fuentes wrote.
One of the boys, whose case went to trial, said he had sat on the faces of a pair of 12-year-old schoolmates with his bare buttocks in November 2008 "cause I thought it was funny and I was trying to get my friends to laugh," he told a family court judge.
But an act is considered criminal sexual contact if it is done for sexual gratification or to degrade or humiliate the victim, and punishable by lifetime registration — even for juveniles — under Megan’s Law, which requires a person convicted of a sex crime against a child to notify police of changes of address or employment.
The trial judge concluded the teenager intended to humiliate or degrade his victims and found him guilty of criminal sexual contact. The second teenager who was implicated pleaded guilty to criminal sexual contact, and received the same penalty.