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Sentencing

Judge blasts 'hookup' culture, requires sex offender registration for teen

A Michigan judge who instituted contempt proceedings against a woman for using the F-word in front of court clerks has turned to another problem plaguing society: the Internet hookup culture.

Judge Dennis Wiley of Berrien County remarked on the hookup culture when he sentenced 19-year-old Zach Anderson for having sex with a 14-year-old girl who said she was 17, report Raw Story and Reason’s Hit & Run blog. The Elkhart Truth had stories here and here on the April 13 sentencing of the Elkhart, Indiana, man, who met the girl through the app Hot or Not.

Wiley sentenced Anderson to 90 days in jail, required him to register as a sex offender, and banned Internet use for five years of probation. The judge did not offer leniency under a state law that allows expungement for some younger offenders.

“The Internet’s wonderful—thank you, Al Gore—but it also is a danger,” Wiley said during the sentencing hearing.

“You went online, to use a fisherman’s expression, trolling for women to meet and have sex with. That seems to be part of our culture now: Meet, hook up, have sex, sayonara. Totally inappropriate behavior. There is no excuse for this whatsoever.”

Anderson’s lawyer is seeking to withdraw the teen’s guilty plea to criminal sexual conduct, 4th degree. The lawyer, Scott Gragel, contends the prosecutor did not remain neutral on the leniency law as promised when he reminded the judge he had twice denied leniency in similar cases.

In the F-word case, Wiley was censured for instituting contempt proceedings against a woman after overhearing court clerks complain that she had used the F-word in interactions with them. The woman was jailed for 10 days during the Christmas season when she couldn’t make bail.

Updated at 5:33 p.m. to change a reference to comply with Associate Press style.