Wealthy businessman charged with statutory rape after employing under‑age masseuses

4.2.12 WC: 191694 Too Young To Consent? Under the law, can a rape occur even when both parties consent and even when the alleged victim is eager to engage in the sexual activity? The answer to this question is also yes. This is so because every state has a statutory age of consent, and anyone below that age (girl or boy) is irrefutably deemed incapable of consenting even if she initiated the encounter and was sexually experienced. The age of consent varies from state to state and from country to country. In some places, it is as low as fourteen; in other places, it is as high as eighteen. In some states, the age of the alleged rapist is also relevant. Under these “Romeo and Juliet” statutes, consensual sex between people of approximately the same age is not rape even if one of them is below the age of consent. May contemporary commentators believe that the age of consent statutes in states that place it as high as 17 or 18 are unrealistic, since a large percentage of teenagers become sexually active at lower ages. Setting the age of consent higher than the norm accords prosecutors enormous discretion to pick and choose whom to prosecute among the many violators. I worked on such a case recently My client in this case lived in a state in which the age of consent was seventeen, had a home in a country where the age of consent was fourteen, and also had a home in a state where the age of consent was eighteen. Unfortunately for him the sexual encounter for which he was charged took place in the state where the age of consent was 18. It was also a state in which the age when most teenagers became sexually active was far lower than 18. My client was a wealthy businessman and philanthropist, who was single, middle-aged, and had many young girlfriends. He loved receiving massages, and his preference was to be massaged by young women in their late teen years. (He was not a pedophile, and had absolutely no interest in prepubescent girls). My client had a large home with a swimming pool at which he liked to entertain willing young women who often sunbathed and swam topless. No crime there. His assistant arranged for the young women who would come and give him massages, which sometimes ended happily. The young women were paid for the services they rendered, which sometimes included some touching, but nothing beyond that. The assistant was instructed to ask for ID for each of the masseuses and to be certain they were all over eighteen. Because he paid handsomely for services — $200 for half an hour — young women were eager to provide them, and a few of them presented false IDs to conceal the fact that they were not quite 18. Some of them already worked as masseuses in what were euphemistically called “jack shacks,” where they were paid to provide happy endings to massage customers. Others worked as strippers. And several were prostitutes who paid for their drug habits by selling their bodies for sex. None was sexually inexperienced. One day, the wife of a policeman overheard their seventeen-year-old daughter talking on the phone about giving a massage to a middle-aged man. The policeman reported the incident to his chief, who then began a full-scale investigation. 253 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017340