I was giving trainings to high schoolers in Brooklyn about dating violence as the Jermaine Cunningham story broke. Fortunately I had a break at 5th period for Joe Mauceri to interview me. The Jets linebacker is facing gun charges as well as third degree invasion of privacy charges for sending naked pictures of a woman without her consent. Earlier reports indicate he was also charged with destruction of clothing. The judge smartly denied Cunningham’s request for a diversionary sentence involving rehab instead of jail. Such rehab is available in New Jersey when underage offenders are busted for sending and receiving sexts. There’s no reason he is entitled to it.
Cunningham’s lawyer wants to mitigate the charges because he claims the images were shared with only a few people and without malicious intent New Jersey’s statute does not hinge on the number of people with whom the images were shared. Sending images to a few targeted people (e.g. boss, family, colleagues, peers etc.) can be just as devastating to the victim as uploading to the Internet for thousands to see. New Jersey’s law also does not require the offender to be acting with malicious intent. This is logical. The offender’s motive should never matter. The harm to the victim is just as great whether the offender did it out of malice, for money, fun, sport, entertainment, to humiliate, boredom, or for no reason at all.
In this particular case, though, why did he do it if not out of malice? Concern about a mole?
