Summoned from her cell at Indian River County Jail in Vero Beach, Fla.,
19-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt said she didn't know she was breaking the law
when she engaged in a sexual relationship with her underage high school
girlfriend.
"I wouldn't have wanted get myself in this situation," Hunt told ABC
News' Matt Gutman. "I wouldn't have continued, if I really knew what the
laws were and if I knew what I was getting myself into."
Hunt was first sent to the county jail for violating a judge's order to
not contact her girlfriend. Just yesterday, she accepted a plea offer
that will keep her locked up for two more months. She will also have two
years of house arrest, and a long probation.
Their relationship became sexual with the two having encounters in the
school bathroom. Hunt's mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, said she knew her
daughter was in a same-sex relationship, but she did not know the other
girl was so young.
"I did not know the girl was 14," Smith told 20/20. "She looks older than my daughter."
Rumors of a relationship between Hunt, a senior, and the freshman still
in braces eventually reached the younger girl's parents, who immediately
reported it to the local sheriff's office.
Police then arrested Hunt, who, when interrogated, admitted to having a sexual relationship with the freshman.
After 24 hours in county jail, Hunt was released on bail, with the condition of having no contact with the younger girl.
The state attorney originally charged Hunt with two counts of lewd or
lascivious battery of a child, which are felonies in Florida, with the
possibility of a criminal record, having to register as a sex offender,
and going to prison for a maximum of 30 years.
Hunt's mother claimed that the prosecutor and the younger girl's family were motivated in part by an anti-gay bias.
"We have people that are homophobes," Smith said. "It's not something
they're willing to allow their daughter to express. It's not something
that they're willing to accept."
The victim's parents disagree. "It wasn't the gender," Laurie Smith, the 14-year-old's mother, told "20/20."
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