If all she saw was them two going into a bedroom, she would not have been able to testify that she saw them have sex. They could have stepped into the bedroom for any number of reasons. Yes, we can infer what happened in that bedroom, but that inference carries no legal weight without other evidence to support it. If she saw a sexual act take place before they went into the bedroom, then she still saw a 35 year old man sexually assault a minor.
She was 17, not 7, if you were in that situation would you call, especially that you don’t know the age?
If I had reason to believe she was 18 and of sound mind, I’d have forgotten that I saw them walk into the bedroom together by the time I was done with my next drink.
Even if she found out the girl was 17 later, she still didn’t call the police and say “Hey, I saw a member of the United States House of Representatives sexually assault a 17 year old!”. At some point, she knew who Gaetz was, knew the girl was 17 at the time, knew what happened and did nothing.
I’m not going to go into the age of consent issue, or the “Hey she’s 17, she knew what she was doing” argument, or the fact that she got into porn afterwards. A Representative in Congress trafficked a girl under the age of 18 across state lines for the purposes of sexual activity. If that were you or me, we’d be in jail right now with our names permanently etched into the sex offender registry. If a jury of his peers wants to look at the whole picture and say “meh”, then so be it. But he needed to be put in front of that jury.
If all she saw was them two going into a bedroom, she would not have been able to testify that she saw them have sex. They could have stepped into the bedroom for any number of reasons. Yes, we can infer what happened in that bedroom, but that inference carries no legal weight without other evidence to support it. If she saw a sexual act take place before they went into the bedroom, then she still saw a 35 year old man sexually assault a minor.
If I had reason to believe she was 18 and of sound mind, I’d have forgotten that I saw them walk into the bedroom together by the time I was done with my next drink.
Even if she found out the girl was 17 later, she still didn’t call the police and say “Hey, I saw a member of the United States House of Representatives sexually assault a 17 year old!”. At some point, she knew who Gaetz was, knew the girl was 17 at the time, knew what happened and did nothing.
I’m not going to go into the age of consent issue, or the “Hey she’s 17, she knew what she was doing” argument, or the fact that she got into porn afterwards. A Representative in Congress trafficked a girl under the age of 18 across state lines for the purposes of sexual activity. If that were you or me, we’d be in jail right now with our names permanently etched into the sex offender registry. If a jury of his peers wants to look at the whole picture and say “meh”, then so be it. But he needed to be put in front of that jury.
Yeah, many people don’t want to put themselves in a position where they’re publicly accusing very powerful people of crimes.
I would argue that the vast majority of people aren’t going to put themselves in that situation.