Texas teenage sex laws under fire

AUSTIN (KXAN) - He was 17. He said he had no idea she was 13. He said she told him she was 15. So when they went to bed, it never occurred to him he was violating his state's laws regarding teenage sex. It also never occurred to him he should ask the girl for an ID. Her mother found out and she took the news hard. She contacted police. The police filed charges. Considerable legal wrangling ensued. The kid spent parts of two years in the Williamson County jail. Finally, a state district judge there laid down the law: Jean Ponzanelli was headed to prison for three years. His partner was considered a victim. She was also considered a victim when another older man also went to prison, also for having consensual sex with her. She remains free.

As for Ponzanelli, he has some real good friends, friends like Jan Fewell, who met him through her daughters. She and her children went to bat for their friend, enlisting the help of media, lawyers and the public at large. Maybe it helped. Before prosecutors settled for three years behind bars, they had been insisting on eight. Small consolation for a young man who was forced to quit school, enroll in treatment programs with hard-core pedophiles and ultimately, climb aboard a Texas prison bus for a long and scary trip to what judges call, an "Institutional Division" facility in Huntsville.

Fewell worked tirelessly on Ponzanelli's behalf. In the process, she came across many more people who were busy with similar campaigns. There was a national organization called, ReformSexOffenderLaws.org and a Texas group called, Texas Voices. Many of the members of both groups are family members of young people, mostly men, who ran afoul of teen sex laws, even though their partners willingly participated and sometimes initiated the sexual contact.

The legal cases not only imprisoned the teenagers, they often destroyed the families of those convicted.  In some cases, after leaving prison, the young men married their partners, had children with them, and lived a normal life, except for the fact that they were listed on a state Sex Offender Registry.  That creates enormous roadblocks to them finding a job, locating a place to live, taking their own kids to parks and other places where children gather.

"The 20-year-old man who has had consensual sexual activity with his 16-year-old girlfriend has broken the law," said Texas Voices chair Mary Sue Molnar. "But, his offense is much different than 60-year-old Uncle Joe who has molested his six year-old niece. There's a huge difference here, a huge difference. The law does not differentiate."

So Molnar, Fewell and hundreds of others are working with lawmakers in search of  common sense reforms. In Texas, some changes being talked about include:

• Reducing charges in such cases to the misdemeanor crime of "sexual misconduct."
• Dropping the requirement for listing those convicted on the Texas Sex Offender Registry.
• Removing those already placed on the list.
• Designing treatment programs for them that are separate from those conducted for hard-core offenders.

Lawmakers return to Austin in January. What will they do? Clearly there is pressure to appear "tough on crime," especially sexual crime. Fewell, now a member of Texas Voices, admits to moments of despair.  Choking back tears, she said, "After Jean, you know, was sentenced, and then after, you know, he was transported, it was kind of hard, because I kind of thought like, this was a hopeless cause, that we're not going to make a difference. And, even my daughter told me, she says, 'You know, Mom, you can fight 'til the day you die and they're not going to change the law.' I told my daughter I'll die trying."

Jean Ponzanelli is grateful.  He's a bit busy these days, though, working as a janitor in the prison and counting the days. That would normally be the end of this story, but in this case, there is one more detail: Ponzanelli's parents brought him to the United States from Mexico when he was only a toddler. He said they never told him he was not an American citizen. He grew up in Round Rock, Texas, just north of Austin, living the life of an American kid.

So, when he accepted a plea bargain, he checked a box on the form that asked if he was a citizen of this country. After that plea deal was accepted, he learned he is a citizen of Mexico. Oops, too late. When Ponzanelli is finally released from prison, he faces almost certain deportation to a strange country where he knows no one, has no friends and no prospects for a job or a life. The question his supporters can't shake: Is this really what we want to do? Is it really?