ShortHand: Dahvie Vanity – Juggalo Enemy #1

**Hannah Maguire** (0:13)
Hello, bon evening.

**Suruthi Bala** (0:15)
Bonnui. Bonnui. Welcome.
Bienvenue.

**Hannah Maguire** (0:19)
Very good.

**Suruthi Bala** (0:19)
To Shorthand.

**Hannah Maguire** (0:21)
Yeah, don't know what Shorthand is in French.

**Suruthi Bala** (0:23)
Petit, petit hand.

**Hannah Maguire** (0:29)
What's the French for it? I knew it. Pomme de...

**Suruthi Bala** (0:30)
Hand.

**Hannah Maguire** (0:31)
Pomme.

**Suruthi Bala** (0:32)
Ma. Ma.
Petit ma. Welcome to Petit Ma.

**Hannah Maguire** (0:40)
Anyway, we don't have French stuff today for you on this week's Shorthand, but we do have a disgusting YouTube man.
Late one Sunday evening in June 2007, a 14-year-old girl, Sarah, not her real name, was sat alone in her bedroom listening to a Christian radio show where teens ring in and discuss their Christian problems. And Dawson McAllister, the host of said radio show, lent a sympathetic ear to these young Christians and he provided them with Christian advice. That night, Sarah, long-time listener, first-time caller, decided to pick up the phone and share something on the air.
Sarah told McAllister, Dawson McAllister, the radio host, a story of how she had been sexually assaulted in her own home just eight days before. The staff working on the show acted quickly, and while Sarah was still on the line, they contacted the police. The following evening, officers arrived at Sarah's home in Pinellas County, Florida. She was a shy and introverted eighth grader who was regularly bullied at school and spent most of her time on the computer editing photos. So being questioned by police officers terrified her.

**Suruthi Bala** (1:51)
But Sarah knew she had to tell them what had happened to her. At the hands of a man she met on MySpace named Dahvie.
This Dahvie had contacted Sarah, saying he was a hair stylist living in Orlando, and that he wanted to give the 14-year-old a new look. He said he'd even come to her house to dye her hair if she wanted. Sarah's mother is a single parent working two jobs as a nurse. So one night when she was out on a shift, Dahvie paid Sarah a visit. That night, Sarah, who was 14 years old, don't forget, performed oral sex on Dahvie.
This was Sarah's first ever sexual experience. The 14-year-old burst into tears as she explained to the officers sat in her house how she'd started speaking with Dahvie a few weeks before the night in question. She told them how Dahvie would end their conversations by telling her how much he loved her. And she said she'd believed him then, and that she still did, kind of, now.

**Hannah Maguire** (2:55)
Heartbreakingly, Sarah's main concern was that she was going to get Dahvie in trouble. One of the officers, Captain Kurt Romanowski, a detective within the Crimes Against Children squad in Pinella County, tracked down this Dahvie character through a MySpace page entitled Dahvie, Elite Hair God.

**Suruthi Bala** (3:15)
Hate him for everything.

**Hannah Maguire** (3:17)
So MySpace, though. Dahvie's real name was Jesus David Torres, and he was 22 years old.
So Captain Kurt phoned this Torres and in quite an odd move, told Jesus David Torres that Sarah's mother wouldn't go after the rest on the condition that he stopped contacting Sarah altogether. Torres told Captain Kurt that he wasn't aware that Sarah was just 40 He apologised and promised to cut off all contact.

**Suruthi Bala** (3:47)
Now let's be clear what the law actually says about situations like this.
What Torres did to Sarah falls under lewd and lascivious battery, which means engaging or inciting a minor under 16 years of age to engage in any type of sexual activity, or intentionally touching a child in a lustful manner. This we took from like Florida's description of it. It may vary state to state, but this is what Florida says, and that's where they were. Now just to be clear, lewd and lascivious battery is a second degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Good, exactly. And it can be more than 15 years if that person already has like another charge or another conviction that links to it. That feels like the average amount of time that people kind of get for crimes like that.

**Hannah Maguire** (4:34)
Absolutely.

**Suruthi Bala** (4:35)
And claiming not to have been aware of the victim's age is most definitely not an admissible defense in Florida. Just saying, I didn't know she was 14
That's not good enough. But for some reason, Captain Kurt and the police simply let Torres off the hook, as though he'd been driving around with like a broken headlight or something. They're so like casual about it. They're so just want to make it go away. And again, we need to be clear, Captain Kurt wasn't just like a random officer beat cop who turned up that he works in the Crimes Against Children unit.