Anonymous rallies behind Kaitlyn Hunt

The hacker collective has taken up the case of an 18-year-old facing felony charges over a same-sex relationship

Published May 24, 2013 1:04PM (EDT)

          (Reuters/Tobias Schwarz)
(Reuters/Tobias Schwarz)

Anonymous has taken up the case of Kaitlyn Hunt, an 18-year-old Florida high school senior who was arrested and charged with a felony over a consensual same-sex relationship with a 14-year-old freshman classmate.

The hacker collective urged Assistant State Attorney Brian Workman to drop the charges and threatened to massive protests, according to a letter released by #OpJustice4Kaitlyn:

This letter is addressed to the Indian River County State Attorney's Office:

You are currently pursuing 2 felony charges against an 18-year-old girl by the name of Kaitlyn Hunt... She was a student at Sebastian River High School before they expelled her...

While in the course of performing your duties we feel that you've lost perspective. Tsk, tsk. The truth is, Kaitlyn Hunt is a bright young girl who was involved in a consensual, same-sex relationship while both she and her partner were minors. She has a big future ahead of her and there are people, thousands of people in fact, that have no intention of allowing you to ruin it with your rotten selective enforcement...

We hope you'll keep all of this in mind because the next petition [for resignation] we put 200,000 signatures on will have your name on it (maybe you Brian Workman), or your bosses name on it, and we will be calling for a resignation.

Hunt and her parents (and more than 400,000 others who have rallied behind the family through an online petition) believe Kaitlyn is being targeted because she is gay and that the felony charges are unjustified; her former girlfriend has told police that the relationship was consensual.

“This is killing us as a family, and I would just beg for them to look at that and look at the reality of it,” Kaitlyn's mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, told The Todays Show on Thursday. “Listen to their own child, what she says. Just what’s the purpose of this?”

Prosecutors have offered Kaitlyn a plea deal that would allow her to avoid registering as a sex offender if she pleads guilty to charges of child sex abuse, but would still mandate two years of house arrest and a year of probation.

Friday is the final day to accept or reject the offer.

 


By Katie McDonough

Katie McDonough is Salon's politics writer, focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Anonymous Anti-gay Discrimination Gay Rights High School Kaitlyn Hunt Lgbt Rights