A man who drunkenly crawled into bed with a nine-year-old girl after a room mix up is suing the hotel he was staying at for damages.
Daniel Hughes was intoxicated following a business conference when he returned to the St. Louis’ Ritz-Carlton hotel and was given the key to the wrong room by hotel staff, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The 42-year-old wound up in bed with the child, wearing only his underwear, and was subsequently charged with three counts of child molestation and statutory sodomy, which he was later acquitted of.
He told a jury he accidentally cuddled the girl after mistaking her for a woman he had been out drinking with earlier in the evening.
One of the jurors remarked afterwards it was one of the most difficult decisions he’d ever made, particularly as intoxication was not considered an appropriate defence.
“I don’t think I could prove that he intended to molest or assault anybody,” the prosecutor Kathi Alizadeh said.
“If you listen to his statement, I believe that he, in his fogged state, did think this was an adult woman. If that’s the case, he didn’t intend for that touching to be provocative. He thought this was all consensual.”
Top Comments
He was initially charged with molestation and sodomy - which means he must have penetrated this poor girl --- how the fuck do you not know you're doing this to a child and not an adult -- and where is it appropriate (sober or drunk) to climb into bed and penetrate them ... without so much as a how are you going? Total scumbag got off on a technicality more like it!
It doesn't mean that at all. You can be charged with sodomy and not actually penetrate anything. It seems to me that you're just filling in the massive gaps of information and evidence with your own version of what happened. Better keep you away from the courts!
ummm, so what is your definition of sodomy then? Cos I'd sure like to know!
Oh sh*t I completely 'skimmed' over that in the article.
Sodomy under the law is usually defined in Australia as 'A person who does, or attempts to do, any of the following commits a crime—
(a) sodomises a person under 18 years;
(b) permits a male person under 18 years to sodomise him or her;
(c) sodomises a person with an impairment of the mind;
(d) permits a person with an impairment of the mind to sodomise him or her.'
- That's from the Queensland Criminal Code. Notice that (d)and the inclusion of 'attempts' means that penetration is not required. Now you know!
When does a nine year old child feel like a woman - drunk or not?