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8-Year-Old Charged For Sexual Conduct With Sitter

KUTV, CBS Broadcasting, Salt Lake City, U.S.A., July 28, 2005

(KUTV) SALT LAKE CITY, Utah A mother is upset after a 14-year-old babysitter engaged in sexual conduct with her eight-year-old boy, and the eight-year-old was charged with lewd conduct.

Prosecutors have since dropped the charges against the boy, but his mother is still concerned.

The sexual conduct occurred during a game of "truth or dare" while the boy was being watched by the babysitter.

Prosecutors say that, while the babysitter initiated the contact, the young boy was a willing participant.

"She dared my son to touch her breasts," says Michelle Grosbeck, the boy's mother.

After hiring the teenager to baby sit, Grosbeck got the feeling something was wrong.

"It was just that sense that something wasn't quite right with this 14-year-old girl," she said. She asked her son what had happened. "He just came right out as if nothing was awry, and just started talking about what had happened."

Grosbeck went to police and child protection workers, and the case went to the district attorney, after which her son, age eight, had been charged with an act of lewdness with a minor.

Grosbeck says the Salt Lake County District Attorney told her both the child and teenager were equal participants. But Mrs. Grosbeck didn't believe that.

"My son is eight, he's a little boy. He does not have the ability to participate on the same level as a fourteen-year-old," she said.

Although the charges against her son were dropped, she is concerned that the same thing could happen to other victims of sexual abuse.

"I don't want parents to be afraid to go to the state agencies that are supposed to be protecting our children when things like this happen, out of fear that their children are going to be charged

The district attorney's office confirmed the charges had been made,

and that they had been dropped. Other than that, they wouldn't comment. The Division of Child and Family Services also declined to comment.

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