Your government, not mine

MANASSAS, VA — A 17-year-old boy is being persecuted because he and his 15-year-old girlfriend voluntarily shared naked pictures with one another. As if that were not enough injustice, the boy was forcibly photographed naked as evidence… and investigators want even more.

Trey Simms, 17, is the teen at the center of this controversy. He has been charged with two felonies — manufacturing and distributing child pornography — because of the text messages shared between he and his girlfriend, who is two years younger than him.

Police confiscated his cell phone and iPad as evidence. They also forced him to pose nude for photographs that would be used as further "evidence." NBC Washington provided an interview with the boy's aunt, in which she explained what has already been done to the boy:

"He said they took him to a room and took pictures of his genitalia," Stacy Bigley [Trey's aunt] said. "I asked if they're allowed to do that, and [Trey] said, 'I tried to refuse,'" which he did, he didn't want to do it. They told him if he did not they would do it by force."

A local magistrate signed off on a new search warrant Thursday, asking for more nude pictures of Trey's genitalia to compare with evidence. The teen said police wanted to force him to become aroused.

According to the boy's lawyer, Jessica Harbeson Foster, prosecutors want more nude photos of the boy — while he has a medically-induced erection. There is an actual signed search warrant to acquire "pictures of his erect penis."

When Foster asked how police were going to acquire the photos, she was told,according to the Washington Post: "we just take him down to the hospital, give him a shot and then take the pictures that we need."

Detective David E. Abbott of the Manassas City Police Department is the lead investigator of Trey Simms' case. When the defense attorney spoke with the detective, he said that after obtaining photos of the teen's erect penis he would "use special software to compare pictures of this penis to this penis."

"Who does this?" Ms. Foster asked. "It's just crazy."

"This is a 17-year-old who goes to school every day, plays football, has never been in trouble with the law before," said the boy's lawyer to the Washington Post. "Now he's saddled with two felonies and the implication that he's a sexual predator. I don't mind trying the case. My goal is to stop the search warrant. I don't want him to go through that. Taking him down to the hospital so he can get an erection in front of all those cops, that's traumatizing."

The irony of the situation is that in the process of "investigating" this so-called child pornography case, the government is itself creating more "child pornography" — by the state's own definition. Whereas no victim existed when two teenagers were voluntarily showing pictures to each other, the government's involvement has produced actual child abuse and humiliation.

The government apparently will stop at nothing short of ruining this boy's life. If Trey Simms is convicted of the felonies he has been charged with, he could face years in prison and spend the rest of his life as a registered sex-offender. All because of an activity that should not have been made into a criminal matter.

See more from NBC Washington:

Accountability Check
Manassas City Police (Virginia)
Phone: 703-257-8000