I felt like Kitna was not given a fair shake from the get-go. Seemed like a rush to judgment and as AgingGator suggested, media and GPD more interested in drawing attention to themselves than giving the young man the professionalism one would hope law enforcement and media would provide. Turned the case into tabloid fodder from the start. Wishing the Best for Jalen and his family.
Firstly, I don’t trust the media. Not certain segments of the media on one side or the other but any of them. They all have agendas, present distorted narratives under the guise of “context” and tell us how we should feel about events rather than presenting the facts. They pander to their audiences for ratings and clicks and in the process at times the facts are set to the side. I am also aware that we have two standards of justice in this country in more than one sense. In one sense a person who can afford the best legal representation that money can buy can enjoy certain advantages but at times that wealth, notoriety or celebrity can work against you by making you a target. I also have a deep seated hatred for child abusers I firmly believe that as a society we should do everything possible to protect those who are vulnerable among us, if we fail to do that it speaks volumes about who we are. I don’t know the actual facts of this case but I see several ways this could have been an innocent mistake made by a young man that appears in hindsight to have blown out of proportion and somewhat sensationalized by the media. The plea deal points to this and perhaps indicates that the state had a poor case to begin with. If that is in fact the case I wish him all the best and would be open to him returning to UF (not that I think that’s an option), I thought he looked really good and showed a lot of potential in the limited time we saw him on the field. I was really excited to see what he could have done as a Gator.
However, I don't think it's in anyone's interest for him to ever come back to Florida. You can almost rest assured that every media discussion of him will find some "clever" way to re-introduce the past. That's what media does . . . and ESPN is part of it all as you well-described.
I like that but I am not sure that Kitna feels the same way. Coming back would be really hard but we should recruit him and try to help make it up to him if he wants another chance.
What bothers me the most is if he was so completely innocent, then why did he plead at all? How did he "breach the peace?" Kitna has child porn charges dropped in plea deal
The answer is: the State had overcharged Kitna and couldn't just drop everything. If they did that, they would get the crap sued out of them, and raked over the coals. They knew that they had completely slandered and trashed Kitna. They knew they were also clearly incapable of proving the original charges, which hit the media. They needed a deal, any kind of deal, to get out of the mess they had created. From Kitna's perspective, if he had told the State to eff off, and he wanted to go to trial, he most likely was going to trial. Given the media attention and damage the State had done to him, they couldn't just do the right thing and dismiss the charges. Thus, he was faced with this: take a chance at a jury doing the right thing, and if they didn't do the right thing, go to jail for god knows how long on BS felony charges, or enter a plea to a chicken scratch misdemeanor. "Breach of peace" is a complete nonsense charge, with zero consequences for his future. He was essentially exonerated on the original charges, could move on with his life, and the state managed to avoid getting their asses sued off and slammed in the media. The State Attorney in every county in Florida is an elected official. He was in full save my job mode on this case.
People plead out to stuff like this all the time to avoid a trial and move on with their lives. With all the continuances and nonsense, something like this could drag on in court for years. Even if you win, and that isn’t guaranteed even if you’re innocent, you’ve still set yourself back years and wasted tons of time. Plead to a nothing burger charge and move on with your life.
Someone that gets it. The original charge was complete BS. Hell, I probably "breached the peace" yesterday when I was driving back from Miami across the Alley and stopped to pee in a canal at a recreation area.
Uhh.. I don't know where you got your facts. However, I will agree with you on this: by all accounts Kitna fully cooperated with the police, including turning over his laptop voluntarily. This was BEFORE he lawyered up. What idiot wouldn't hire a lawyer once they were arrested on serious felony charges??? If the State had any legitimate evidence of his involvement in child porn, they would NEVER have begged out of the case on a "breach of peace" charge. They take pedophilia/child porn very, very seriously. You might want to spend some time learning how things work in this country.
I know a guy who’s on the sexual predator registry for pissing in an alley behind a bar. Was arrested by a woman cop and charged with some sort of sexual battery or assault. He could have plead out to a minimal charge, but chose to go to trial figuring he’d get the whole silly thing dropped, and ended up getting convicted of the trumped up charge. You never know what will happen when you put your life in the hands of a jury.
OMG!! Damn. So, in your world, a man can be prosecuted based on photos he allegedly had of girls who can't be identified , with age and whereabouts unknown? After he voluntarily cooperates. The state has unlimited resources. Are you telling me that the "experts" they hired couldn't differentiate between a 10-12 year old girl and an 18 year old girl? Come on. Everyone in the world can see the difference. Look...I despise pedophilia and child porn. But the dismissal of this case on "breach of peace" terms says it all. Your reliance on the news media for your information is your undoing.
If memory serves, didn’t the recipients of the photo immediately recognize it as child porn and turn him in? And as he mentioned it was half of a body (the half that made it difficult to determine age), means he, AT BEST, was distributing porn on a discord server to potentially underage kids. This ‘up in arms’, sue everyone response seems like maybe not the right move. Best to kind of let this thing die as dead as it can and not keep poking the bear.
And you have contact to these three "different" policy agencies? Who were these "three different police" agencies? Do tell. Why would three different police agencies be involved? Cops bust people all the the time for child porn, simply off their hard drives. All the time. They had Kitna's lap top. I don't know what your beef is with the Kitna family, but I think you're full of crap.
