Orange Park resident arrested on Clay County sex battery and computer harassment charges

A man from Clay County has been accused of raping an incapacitated woman and subsequently posting pictures of the woman online. According to an article in the Florida Times Union, the man knew the woman before the alleged incident, which police are saying occurred this past New Year’s Eve. The article reports that the two were together the next day, after the alleged rape. The man allegedly put provocative pictures of the woman on social media after the encounter. Those posts will most certainly be used in the prosecution of the accused.

The first and most serious charge the man is facing is sexual battery while the victim is incapacitated. Under Florida law, a sexual battery is any sex act forced on someone else without consent. Consent has to be “intelligent, knowing and voluntary”. When a victim is helpless to resist, the sexual battery is elevated from a second degree felony to a first. This means the accused is facing up to thirty years in prison and being a sexual offender for life. A victim is considered physically helpless if they cannot tell the other person they are unwilling to consent to the sex act. In most Clay County rape cases involving physical helplessness, the victim is drunk on alcohol or high on some kind of drug. If the sexual battery case went to trial, a jury will have to be convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that the alleged victim was in fact incapacitated.

The other two charges are less common and are both misdemeanors in Florida. Sexual cyber harassment is when a person publishes sexual images of someone on the Internet without that person’s consent. The person posting the sexually explicit material must have the intent to cause the victim substantial emotional distress. It has to be willful and malicious. This law does not just apply to pictures. It also includes videos or any other real depiction of another person in a sexual position. Video voyeurism is the second misdemeanor the man is charged with. This occurs when a suspect installs a recording device to record someone where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. If the suspect is nineteen years-old or older, the Clay voyeurism charge is a third degree felony. If the suspect is under nineteen, it is a first degree misdemeanor.

If you or a loved one needs a criminal defense attorney in Jacksonville or the surrounding area, call The Mussallem Law Firm at (904) 365-5200 for a FREE CONSULTATION. Our Clay County Sex Crime Attorney, Victoria “Tori” Mussallem, is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.