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A 15-year-old North Platte boy was ordered to 12-months probation for sending a picture of his private parts to a 13-year-old girl on her cell phone. The boy, a freshman student at North Platte High School, was the first student to be convicted for sexting in North Platte. Sexting is students circulating sexually explicit photos of themselves and others on cell phones. North Platte High School Principal Jim Whitney was so worried about the number of students involved in sexting, they visited with law enforcement officials about the problem and then sent a letter to every student’s parents recently informing them of the practice in February. John Striebel, a psychologist with Mental Health Associates, told the North Platte Bulletin he has counseled a number of students involved in the practice and the youngest one was a local middle school student. Whitney said more and more students are involved in sexting and school officials wanted to warn parents what was going on. The district sent letters to high school parents explaining the situation. Whitney said they don’t really know how many students are involved in sexting at the school but that he’d “like to think it’s not all that widespread.” The 15-year-old was arrested for distributing obscene material March 31. Court records indicate the 13-year-old girl’s mother took her phone away from her that day because she was “mouthing off.” Shortly after dropping the girl off to school the phone received a text message with a picture attached to it. The mother looked at the message and the picture and found it “very disturbing,” court records said. The boy who sent the picture used to date a friend of the 13-year-old girl, court records said. The mother took the phone and image to the police, who contacted the boy’s mother. She was able to confirm that the room that the photo was taken in was the spare room of their residence. The boy was cited into court. After pleading guilty to the charge May 6, Lincoln County Judge Kent Turnbull ordered the boy to probation, 20-hours of community service, counseling as directed by the probation department, no contact with the victim, a strict curfew and no use of a cell phone during his probationary term. The Bulletin is withholding the boy’s name.
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- 5/14/2009 1:17:07 PM
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