Though it was the legendry supergroup Steps that sang “Words Are Not Enough”, those sentiments were echoed yesterday by the New York State Supreme Court, which ruled that sending sexually explicit e-mail to a minor is permissible so long as you’re too lazy to attach a jpg of your private bits. From Newsday’s Ann Givens.
The decision by the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, Second Department, hung on the meaning of the word “depict.” Jeffrey Koslow, a Manhattan lawyer who was convicted last year of attempted disseminating indecent material to a minor, appealed his case saying that his e-mails did not “depict” sexual conduct because they contained only words, not pictures.
The fact that the appeals court agreed with him means that local law enforcement officials who work to lure pedophiles on the Internet by pretending to be children will now have to convince those pedophiles to e-mail them sexually explicit photographs in order to secure a felony conviction.
I don’t mean to tell the experts how to do their jobs, but they might also consider discouraging children from learning to read. Based on what I’ve seen of the public school systems in Givens’ hood, some of the educators might have already taken this bold step without any prompting.