LA School District Thinks 14-Year-Old Girls Can Consent To Sex With Their 28-Year-Old Teachers

Last November, lawyers representing the Los Angeles Unified School District successfully argued that a 14-year-old girl was capable of consenting to sex with her 28-year-old teacher. The district’s attorneys talked about the girl’s sexual history as part of their defense strategy. So the sexual history of a 14-year-old excuses a predatory teacher using his age and position of authority to get one of his teenage students naked? Just set everything on fire. I’m done.

Elkis Hermida, a math teacher at Thomas Edison Middle School, had a sexual relationship with the 14-year-old girl that lasted six months. He was convicted with lewd acts against a child in July 2011, and sentenced to three years in prison. The girl’s family filed a lawsuit against the district, alleging they were “negligent in preventing the relationship.”

From SCPR.org:

During the three week civil trial, district lawyers denied that L.A. Unified had any knowledge of the relationship, argued the girl knew what she was doing when she chose to have sex with Hermida and suggested the girl was to blame for her situation, not LAUSD.

“She lied to her mother so she could have sex with her teacher,” said Keith Wyatt, L.A. Unified’s trial attorney in the case, in an interview with KPCC. “She went to a motel in which she engaged in voluntary consensual sex with her teacher. Why shouldn’t she be responsible for that?”

Because she’s a child, that’s why. This is why statutory rape laws exist. The morally bankrupt attorneys cited two cases to show that minors could legally consent to sex. California is one of the states where “the criminal age of consent laws clash with the civil laws.” So he’s convicted criminally but there can be no civil suit, because for some reason when it comes to a civil suit it’s A-ok to use a 14-year-old victim’s sexual past as an excuse for lewd acts against a minor.

This is why women don’t report sexual abuse. If you can put a 14-year-old on a stand and successfully argue that she has a checkered enough sexual history to prove that she can actually consent to sex with someone twice her age and in a position of authority — no words. Here’s more from the district’s attorney:

“Making a decision as to whether or not to cross the street when traffic is coming, that takes a level of maturity and that’s a much more dangerous decision than to decide, ‘Hey, I want to have sex with my teacher,'” Wyatt told KPCC.

Wow. He really outdid himself in his closing arguments though:

“She wants to be paid for doing something that she knew was wrong, that she acknowledged was wrong, that she knew was from the beginning,” Wyatt argued, adding, “She doesn’t want therapy, she wants money. That’s what they are asking you for.”

Just to reiterate, “she” was a 14-year-old middle school student. I wonder if Wyatt has any kids. I’m thinking “no,” unless he just has the ability to turn off his conscience when he’s on the job.

(photo: California Dept. Of Justice)