Update: Outrage After Teen Gets 10 Years for Oral Sex With Girl
Feb. 2, 2007 — -- There are new developments in the case of Genarlow Wilson, a 17-year-old Georgia high school football star and honor student who received a mandatory 10-year prison sentence for aggravated child molestation.
His crime: receiving consensual oral sex from a 15-year-old female schoolmate.
A bill introduced last week in the Georgia state Senate would allow judges to change or suspend sentences in these kinds of cases. The new law would allow Wilson's case to be reconsidered.
Speaking on the Senate floor, state Sen. Emanuel Jones, a Democrat and the bill's sponsor, said "I do not believe this body intended to keep this child in prison for 10 years."
Last year the Georgia legislature decided that the maximum sentence for offenses such as Wilson's should be punishable by one year in jail. Wilson was sentenced in February 2005, before the new law went into effect. It could not be applied retroactively to his case.
Wilson, now 20 years old, is not eligible for parole. He has served 23 months of his 10 year sentence.
"As we debate, Genarlow waits," Jones told his colleagues.
Wilson's Atlanta attorney B.J. Bernstein has filed numerous appeals, all of them unsuccessful. In its most recent decision not to hear the case, the Georgia Supreme Court called Wilson "a promising young man."
New Year's Eve 2004. Genarlow Wilson and a group of friends had the kind of bash no parent would want their teenager to attend. Crime scene investigators combing the room in a Days Inn in the small town of Douglasville, Ga., found evidence of drinking, as well as condoms and wrappers littered everywhere. Plus, there was a video camera.
In a portion of a tape obtained by "Primetime," Wilson, then 17, is seen having intercourse with a 17-year-old girl, who was seen earlier on the bathroom floor. During the sex act, she appears to be sleepy or intoxicated but never asks Wilson to stop. Later on in the tape, she is seen being pulled off the bed.
Other portions of the tape show a second girl, who was 15, and later said she did not drink that night. She was recorded having oral sex with several boys in succession, including Wilson.
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