Lobby seeks US intervention after American convicted of sex with minor

An American advocacy group has sought the intervention of the United States (US) government in the case of an American citizen who was convicted in Jamaica for having sex with an underage girl.

Robert Benoit was found guilty by a jury in the St James Circuit Court last month for having sex with a 12-year-old girl in December 2020, hours after he had a telephone conversation with the child’s father.

“Go spend the night with him and bring back the money,” the girl’s father was quoted as telling her as she left their home with Benoit, prosecutors disclosed, citing evidence presented during the trial.

But the New York City-based Families for Freedom (FFF) has slammed the conviction, charging that Benoit is the victim of an attempted shakedown led by the girl’s family and that the evidence used to secure his conviction was coerced by investigators.

Benoit knew the girl’s family through her mother, prosecutors said.

Janay Cauthen, executive director of FFF, said their assertions are among the findings of a private investigator hired by the lobby and statements made by the victim in video-recorded messages.

She disclosed, during an interview with The Gleaner on Tuesday, that the findings will be shared with officials at the US State Department, which has already agreed to a meeting on April 26 in Washington, DC.

“I am going to the State Department to get some intervention,” she insisted.

A legal observer based in Jamaica called the evidence against Benoit “very, very poor and [the verdict] really should not have been left up to the jurors”.

But Jamaica’s chief prosecutor, Paula Llewellyn, defended the prosecution, saying that the evidentiary materials presented to her office were “sufficient” to lay an indictment against Benoit for the offence of having sex with a person under 16 years old.

Llewellyn disclosed, too, that the then 12-year-old victim gave evidence during the trial and was “robustly” cross-examined by top criminal defence attorney Christopher Townsend, who represented the American.

At the end of the prosecution’s case, she said, Benoit was ordered by the presiding judge to present his defence, “which would mean that as a matter of law, the judge was of the view that a prima facie case had been made out”.

“The jury are the supreme judges of the facts and they came to a verdict,” Llewellyn, the director of public prosecutions, told The Gleaner on Tuesday.

“So if it is that the person who has been convicted believes that there are meritorious grounds for an appeal, then our system of justice provides a clear avenue for that appeal to be ventilated.”

Benoit is scheduled to be sentenced on May 5.

Townsend declined to comment when contacted on Tuesday, citing the upcoming sentencing hearing.

Cauthen, who was born in Jamaica, confirmed that Benoit’s conviction will be challenged in the Court of Appeal and that the lobby is close to identifying an attorney to argue the case.

Prosecutors presented evidence that the 12-year-old girl was asleep on a bed inside Benoit’s home on December 23, 2020, when she felt someone on top of her.

EVIDENCE PRESENTED

According to the girl’s evidence, the American had sex with her before cops, acting on a tip, showed up at the house early the next day.

The police reported that they heard talking inside the house and said it took several minutes before Benoit opened the door. The child told the cops that he was trying to hide her, prosecutors said.

Responding to a number of questions from the cops, the girl said that she and Benoit were not related and remained silent on whether they were in a relationship before confirming that they had sex.

But Cauthen said Benoit insisted that he never touched the 12-year-old victim and said he gave her a totally different account of what transpired.

“If I had an inch of belief that he did this, I would say [expletive] it. I’m a mother, I have daughters,” Cauthen said yesterday.

“But to see that my people would go this far … . I understand that we come from a history of slavery and white people hurting black people, but not every white person is bad. Just like not every black person is good,”

She claimed, too, that the police have not been able to account for a motorcycle, an undetermined sum of cash and Benoit’s American passport, which were taken from his home at the time of his arrest.

Cauthen said that a report has been made to the police oversight body, the Independent Commission of Investigations.

INDECOM Senior Public Relations Officer Denyelle Anderson said three complaints have been filed on Benoit’s behalf since 2020.

His latest complaint was filed this year and is still under investigation, Anderson said without disclosing any details.

No cop was recommended for criminal charges or disciplinary action in one of the other two cases. There has not yet been a conclusion in the third.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com