16 year old boy has consensual sex with his 15 year old sister, gets registered as a sex offender for life. Now, a potential 2nd round pick, no NFL team will even look at him.

2010-08-28T14:55:00+00:00

the bigger problem is that we only hear this story because he is an athlete. how many kids are made sex offenders for life, ruining their hopes and dreams, and nobody cares because they're not exceptionally talented athletes?

syntekz · 2010-08-28T11:59:30+00:00

It's a tragic story still isn't it? The kid didn't know any better from the story that is told and now has to 'pay' for the rest of his life. I have no sympathy for sex offenders - I find it to be disgusting - but should teenagers continue to be prosecuted for consensual actions between teenagers that are sexual in nature?

I've read several stories of kids sending photos of themselves to a girlfriend or boyfriend over a phone and being convicted of sending child pornography... I don't think it can be so black and white, cut and dry.

a_true_bro · 2010-08-28T12:21:35+00:00

Why didn't she get registered as well?

zakrn · 2010-08-28T12:20:24+00:00

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HazDomain · 2010-08-28T16:08:11+00:00

And this is why we need to get rid of statutory rape laws. Saying that consensual sex between teenagers is 'rape' belittles and trivializes real rape survivors.

carchamp1 · 2010-08-28T13:58:28+00:00

The whole sex offender list has just gotten stupid. This is just hysteria folks. See the Salem witch trials for another example. Thank the bullies in the radical feminist and purity movements for this BTW.

absurdistfromdigg · 2010-08-28T14:10:22+00:00

Setting aside the insane injustice of his being a registered sex offender while she is not, why do we allow the government so much control over matters sexual in the first place? Prostitution, polygamy, incest, etc... - these are not matters that the government should be involved in in any way. Branding someone with the scarlet letter is a holdover from our puritan past that should be eliminated.

free_world · 2010-08-28T16:40:50+00:00

At least he didn't run dog fighting rings, then he'd really have no chance with the NFL. Oh wait..

2010-08-28T10:21:32+00:00

In related news, West Virginians came up with a new use for sheep - wool!

J973 · 2010-08-28T13:57:55+00:00

The legal system is too stupid to think on it's own. Who every prosecuted this case should be fired. Neither sibling should have been put on the sex offender registry for consensual sex. He is as much a VICTIM as a perpetrator. They were 15 and 16. It's not like he forcibly raped a 5 year old sister. Then the punishment would fit the crime.

IronWolve · 2010-08-28T15:57:54+00:00

For life?! This needs fucking overturned in courts NOW. He cant be around his own children, thats cruel punishment.

vampireface · 2010-08-28T13:55:28+00:00

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froderick · 2010-08-28T14:36:57+00:00

Shameful situation here (that the guy is being punished like this, not that he had consensual sex with his sister), but this article takes wwaaaayyyy too much time getting to the point. Instead of sticking with facts and just telling us what has happened, it gives the reader a deluge of non-relevant information like telling us the tone people spoke with, their body language and all, this reads more like a short story than a news article.

japaneseknotweed · 2010-08-28T15:46:23+00:00

For every big newsworthy football player struggling with our idiot sex offender laws, there are hundreds of just plain ok guys.

This is a HUGE issue, folks. Do some reading. Write to your newspapers (the people who need to hear about this aren't on reddit). Call your congressperson. We can do a lot to help, but we each have to reach beyond this web page.

tmesispieces · 2010-08-28T16:01:47+00:00

An extremely well-written piece of journalism. I'm not surprised so many of the comments on the ESPN website complained about its length or its style, but damn -- it's not often you get a sports piece that so effectively intersects other realms of human life and highlights the nuanced conflicts therein.

In any case, there was some serious gross misconduct on the police's part, no doubt because it was easiest in their minds to build a story around the 15-year-old as a girl forced into prostitution by her brother/rapist. Hell, to give them a touch of credit they'd probably seen enough cases like that that they were all too ready to assume the same had happened here, and possibly thought they were doing the right thing at the time.

However, they weren't. At all. And this monstrous act on their part was only further compounded by a system that allows them to get away with treating adolescents as adults and so damning them for life. I hope to all hell things get better for this kid going forward. And for his sister, whose love for her brother suggests she'll be hanging on to a sense of guilt for being played by the system when she too was still very young.

mrAsshole · 2010-08-28T19:21:49+00:00

I thought you needed a criminal record to play in the NFL

xfollowthereaperx · 2010-08-28T11:42:34+00:00

People are too sensitive, Hillary Clinton ran over and killed a person but this guy fucked his sister? I don't give a rats ass.

2010-08-28T13:27:55+00:00

LOL thats some messed up shit. But personally, if he can play, I'd still pick him :P Everybody is their own special brand of messed up

kloo2yoo · 2010-08-28T15:30:48+00:00

MORE OFFICERS CAME into the interrogation room. Caylen was alone. She had no lawyer, just her and a passel of cops and detectives, and it got later and later into the night, and she was hungry and tired. It was then, four hours in, she says, that they started talking about jail.

hello 4th amendment.

eta: even though she wasn't suspected of the crime, she was effectively in custody. She was not allowed to leave.

tidder8 · 2010-08-28T17:47:35+00:00

The real question is, is he a danger to the general public? If he lives next door to you are your daughters in any danger?

If the answer is no, then what good does it do to put all these restraints on him that prevent him from getting a job? He and his children will be on public assistance and we will be paying to support them.

MrCoolFX · 2010-08-28T16:39:08+00:00

I think the question everybody is overlooking is actually the most important one: is his sister hot?

brunes · 2010-08-28T13:30:54+00:00

This has nothing to do with mens rights because the entire process of registering minors as sex offenders is totally un-constitutional to begin with. The US is the only OECD country with sex offender laws this retarded.

Chicken-n-Waffles · 2010-08-28T13:42:55+00:00

He should go to the NBA then. The NFL has some felons but I think the NBA has all felons.

driftw00d · 2010-08-28T14:06:29+00:00

What is this registration about sex offenders about? I am not from the US so I don't really understand it. What purpose does it serve? If someone commits a crime, let them serve a sentence and that's it.

Zoshchenko · 2010-08-28T20:12:29+00:00

Maybe he should have killed some dogs instead. Then he could apologize and become a wealthy hero to millions of kids across the country.

picsandnsfwonly · 2010-08-28T20:22:25+00:00

how old is 15 reallly

weewah · 2010-08-28T20:23:05+00:00

This was a long rambling pity-party of an article. Who knows what really happened, but we sure know what we're supposed to think about it! But what gets me is that she was picked up for suspected prostitution and somehow the cops start asking her out of the blue if she's screwing her brother? I smell BULLSHIT.

"A few months after they first had sex, Washington's sister went out one night to meet somebody. Her boyfriend, she says. JOHNS, the police suspected. Soon after, Washington's phone rang. His sister had been picked up by the cops. He needed to come get her, and he needed to come right away. "All I knew was my sister was in trouble," he says. "So when I showed up, and they asked me about the two of us, I said yes. I didn't know it was illegal." "

They're lying, and I wonder why.

Mikevercetti · 2010-08-28T15:47:03+00:00

The sex laws in America are so fucked up. Age of consent, incest being illegal, etc etc. If two people are consenting, regardless of relation or age, then there should be no ramifications of them having sex. Simple as that.

tomek77 · 2010-08-28T11:56:20+00:00

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shawnfromnh · 2010-08-28T17:07:46+00:00

WTF, there is incest in almost every family that exists if you go back a couple hundred years and dig up them little secrets. So they feel getting this guy on incest charges is good but lets not put any priest on that list since they have church connections even though they are homosexual pedophiles. The list was made for rapists and such not this shit.

Gotta love this country.

Il128 · 2010-08-28T21:40:54+00:00

Wait just a fucking second. Are you guys for incest?

Synaptic_Gap · 2010-08-28T15:56:53+00:00

The government job should be to protect those whose rights are infringed upon. This was a consensual act so it is nobody's fucking business. The only crime here is the excessive and unnecessary force of Government.

Thunderwing · 2010-08-28T16:22:05+00:00

I wonder if Tony and Caylen have thought about hiring a lawyer and pursuing a overturn of his conviction and the removal of his sex offender status, based on the possibility that their Constitutional rights were violated during the investigation? What they did was wrong, but i believe they honestly didn't know that. Tony Washington and his sister Caylen should not have to pay the rest of their for an honest mistake they made as foolish teenagers, and Tony shouldn't have to pay for the rest of his life for the possible sex abuses he may have suffered in his preteen years.

Normally, incest cases make me sick because of the inbreeeding and rape aspects. This one does because an innocent, previously ignorant family is paying a price they don't deserve.

guitarofozz · 2010-08-28T19:47:02+00:00

Definitely feel for him but his analogy was off. More like the coach telling them to go out there but to tackle their own teammates. And since it says looking back he knew it was wrong, the players also know this is not how it works. But let's do it anyway because were just not good enough to just play the ther team, well just make out own rules.

shortname111 · 2010-08-29T05:13:42+00:00

I'm still stuck on the whole incest thing. That is seriously gross.

BigDaddy_Delta · 2010-08-29T05:29:27+00:00

You dont fuck your sister, simple as that

toxicbrew · 2010-08-30T00:32:27+00:00

He's too tied down with family to do this, but if I were in this situation, I'd try to head out of the country, with permission of course. If I could restart a life in Australia (play rugby?) where I didn't need to register all my moves, I'd think long and hard about doing so.

bad_keisatsu · 2010-08-28T11:01:16+00:00

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dregofdeath · 2010-08-28T16:04:25+00:00

does girl also get registered as a sex offender? I call bullshit,this is sexism

Blakwulf · 2010-08-28T18:28:51+00:00

Is no one else more bothered by the fact that he was fucking his sister than he got put on the registry?

Red_Inferno · 2010-08-28T15:29:18+00:00

Holy shit thats a long story I made it halfway and kinda gave up(I really think I got the most of it though).

cowboyitaliano · 2010-08-29T01:59:11+00:00

age has nothing to do with it - it was his sister jeez ...

2010-08-28T14:11:54+00:00

Football is show business. Who the hell is going to buy a jersey with this dudes name on it? He is going to have to get a real job like the rest of us. He doesn't get to be a millionaire for running into other millionaires on TV? Boo fucking hoo.

Metalgrowler · 2010-08-28T19:23:39+00:00

Oh no he has to go find a real job the horror the horror

Boc-Maxima · 2010-08-28T20:53:34+00:00

Sexuality is the bane of humanity - Especially when you're young and developing. A huge percentage of the population has dealt with sexual abuse and deviance. The fact of the matter is - Incest happens a lot in nature, and it has nothing to do with being nasty. It's just animal urges. This was probably one of the few things in his life at the time that brought him some kind of relief. And if they both agreed to it - Is it really that wrong? He certainly knows it now. I mean.. There are some very awkward, confused teenagers out there. He could have done much worse.

EDIT: AND HONESTLY - It's insulting as a woman that the girl didn't get charged, too. I mean, with the way the law is today, basically women are regarded as sexually 'stupid'. As if she was any less capable of understanding the situation - Why is it automatically a matter of a man taking advantage of a woman?

grahamonrye · 2010-08-28T21:03:46+00:00

i think its not so much his criminal record thats keeping him from the nfl, its just that no one wants to associate themselves with the guy who will be forever known as that "guy who banged out his sister".

Boreal99 · 2010-08-29T00:20:46+00:00

I don't see anything wrong with this.

Wait,what? Thed public spurning. 16 is old enough to know better. Tough beans.

gc161 · 2010-08-29T00:36:09+00:00

He clearly should have known better. Quite frankly he was acting like a 15 year old. ...who wanted his sister...for some reason....

Descente36 · 2010-08-29T05:53:52+00:00

definitely a slippery slope. Pretty soon parents won't even be able to tickle their kids without being labeled a child molestor.

stringerbell · 2010-08-28T16:20:45+00:00

Remember people - this shit ONLY happens because of RELIGION... And, I'm not talking about deviant sex (although religion always has it's dirty little hands in there too), I'm talking about punishing people for the rest of their lives for the 'crime' of having consentual sex...

ignatiusloyola · 2010-08-28T12:35:44+00:00

Both should be sex offenders. It shouldn't affect him for the rest of his life, nor her. Their ability to do a job is unrelated to having one transgression in the past.

Is it a Men's Rights issue? Well, the gender prejudiced treatment of the two siblings is, but not the fact that he is a sex offender.

Whether the law is right or not, he still broke a law. At 16/15, they should have known better. And incest laws have a lot of reasons, so I am not opposed to incest laws.

GZerv · 2010-08-28T16:46:37+00:00

maybe he shouldn't be fucking his sister?

what the fuck is wrong with people!?!?

ugh.. nasty

ubergeek404 · 2010-08-28T13:14:33+00:00

yuck.

[edit] Am I getting downvotes because I think incest is yucky? Or because people think jocks should get even more breaks than they already get.

2010-08-28T12:11:52+00:00

Not men's rights, he seriously needed better family guidance when he was young. I'm sorry but I don't think I can sympathize with someone who had sex with his sister, consensual or not. It's not even a moral thing, it's just that people who commit incest of this kind obviously have problems and I don't think I can side with them, but I do agree that he shouldn't have been registered as a sex offender for life.

Gormogon · 2010-08-28T11:25:28+00:00

Lol, age....ok questionable. HIS SISTER, unforgivable, as a football fan I wouldn't want him on my team.

Nothing to do with mensrights, sorry.

Il128 · 2010-08-28T11:38:06+00:00

Um... Wow. Tough one. Men's Rights? Human rights maybe. I just can't do it. Lines have to be drawn. We can't defend people like Tony. We'd be dragged down with him.

kasumi1190 · 2010-08-28T16:25:15+00:00

Registered sex offender bull shit that needs to be fixed aside, dude still had sex with sister, gross.

And the NFL cares why? As if they ever judged players on their moral decisions...

Strong_Black_Proud · 2010-08-28T21:43:02+00:00

Dat nigger be, a sister fucker

Il128 · 2010-08-28T12:55:13+00:00

A lot of up votes and people defending incest. Could this be feminists invading and trying to make men's rights look like a pervert movement?

Comments