Dear Source:
For the past week or so, I have been marveling at the campaign being waged against the St. Croix Avis for publishing an article that was apparently both truthful and relevant.
The multi-millionaire employer for whom a prospective first lady of the Virgin Islands works in a top level executive position was accused by the police department of the Florida community in which he maintains one of his residences of involving minor girls in sexual activities. After intervention by a team of top criminal defense lawyers, backed by the efforts of celebrity private detectives, the prosecutor has him indicted of a sex-based offense, but not with a minor.
From what I have read after doing a Google search, the defendant/employer, Jeffrey Epstein, does not deny the sordid activities, he simply says that the girls were all at least eighteen years old!
After all of this is publicized, Ms. Cecile deJongh has the man's Foundation, which she directs, sponsor the CHS girls volleyball team and puts his name on the backs of their uniforms.
Eighteen and even nineteen year old girls may no longer be "underage", but they most certainly are still teenagers. Does this community really want to go on record saying that it has no problem with the judgement involved in having sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen year old female old high school athletes advertising a man who admits to paying eighteen year old girls to consort with him in sordid sexual activities?
The hue and cry against the Avis for printing the story and the calls for a boycott would be laughable, except that they are actually being taken seriously.
This is taking political intimidation much too far. I know that this is now the way political campaigns are run up in the United States, but if we want to copy the way things are done there, why don't we choose the good things rather than the shameful practices.
Judith L. Bourne
St. Thomas
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