LUSK - A Lusk teen facing criminal charges for a sexual encounter he allegedly had with a 14-year-old girl on Aug. 19 when he was 17 will be tried as an adult, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Seventh District Judge Scott Skavdahl took under advisement a series of defense motions to dismiss most of the charges in the case after hearing arguments from defense attorney Michael Krampner and prosecutor Lowell Fitch.

The defendant is charged with soliciting a child under age 16 to engage in illicit sexual relations, conspiracy with a codefendant to commit that crime, taking indecent liberties with a minor, sexual exploitation of a child, and being an accessory before the fact to sexual exploitation of a child.

Together, the charges carry maximum penalties of more than 40 years in prison.

The codefendant, Michael Swope, has already pleaded guilty in adult court in the case to the three charges he faced - the conspiracy, indecent liberties and sexual exploitation charges. He has not yet been sentenced.

Both defendants were 17 during the incident but are now 18.

Krampner and Fitch described their opposing views of the case when arguing whether the defendant should be tried as an adult.

"This case is about two children, both of whom have grown into the bodies of adults and did not know how to maturely handle those bodies," Krampner said.

Fitch couched the issue in a much more sinister light.

"This was sexual degradation," he said. "This was sexual abuse. This was sexual exploitation by a much older, mature individual against a child who was in between middle school and high school."

Krampner argued that various factors in the case did not justify trying his client in adult court. The teen has no prior criminal record, posed no danger to the community, and was not particularly sophisticated or mature, he said.

Fitch, however, pointed to the seriousness of the offense, emotional injury to the alleged victim, and the maturity of the defendant. The teen is active in football, wrestling and track and field, making him somewhat of a leader in his school, the prosecutor said.

Skavdahl agreed with Fitch on most issues and agreed to keep the case in adult court.

One problem the judge had with trying the case in juvenile court is that the defendant is now 18, which means he couldn't serve any time in the Wyoming Boys School, and there is a limit to the facilities where the court could send him for rehabilitation, were he found to be guilty.

Krampner's motions to dismiss most of the charges centered around the age of consent in various state laws.

The sexual assault laws set the age of consent at 16, while people who are 14 or 15 can consent to sex with someone who is not more than four years older, Krampner said. "That is a deliberate decision by the Wyoming Legislature," he said.

He said an older law, the indecent liberties statute, prohibits taking "immoral, immodest or indecent liberties" with anyone younger than 18.

The Wyoming Supreme Court has ruled that a juvenile can be charged with taking indecent liberties with another juvenile under that law, but the jury must judge the acts under the totality of the circumstances, which can include the alleged victim's consent and societal standards.

Krampner urged the judge to use the sexual assault statutes to determine what are "illicit sexual acts" and thus dismiss the solicitation and conspiracy charges.

Fitch, however, said the sexual assault statute means someone has to be 16 years old to consent to sex, and it is illegal to solicit sexual acts from anyone younger than that.

"The statute is very, very clear," he said. "If they're under 16, don't ask them to have intercourse."

He said the alleged victim's level of consent or past sexual history does not come into play.

Meanwhile, laws banning sexual exploitation of minors generally are aimed at outlawing child pornography, Krampner said, and the specific law under which his client was charged bans displays of minors engaging in sexual acts such as intercourse and oral sex.

Under the prosecution's interpretation of that law, the age of consent would be 18 under all circumstances, and it would render the sexual assault and indecent liberties laws meaningless, Krampner said.

Fitch, though, said the sexual exploitation laws are not limited to pornography but are written to protect children against sexual exploitation for any purpose.

"You can't say, 'Because this is not a porn case, then I'm not guilty,'" he said.

Both attorneys grappled with what Fitch called "the layman nightmare scenario" of two 17-year-old sweethearts having consensual sex.

Fitch argued that both could be technically charged with felonies under the indecent liberties and sexual exploitation statutes. But, he said, a prosecutor who would bring those charges would be "run out of town" and be guilty of an abuse of power.

Prosecutors have discretion to determine whether to pursue charges in all such cases, and if a judge finds that the decision to charge someone was arbitrary, the judge would have the power to dismiss the case.

Krampner said it defies common sense to assume that two 17-year-olds or 15-year-olds engaged in consensual sex are culpable under the sexual exploitation law.

"Anything that does that to otherwise good kids is ridiculous," he said.

He cited a study of 15- to 17-year-olds that found that 47 percent of girls and 65 percent of boys have been sexually intimate, and 42 percent of boys and 33 percent of girls have had intercourse.

"A fair number of young people, whether we like it or not, engage in sexual relations," he said, adding that there was no reason to believe the numbers would be any different in Niobrara County.

Krampner used those figures to support his argument that the defendant's federal constitutional protection to equal protection under the laws was violated when the prosecutor charged the boy but not the girl with a crime, while both had engaged in sexual acts with a minor.

But he withdrew his equal protection argument after he had a chance to review case law over the lunch break.

On that point, Fitch argued vehemently that his decision to charge the boy but not the girl was anything but arbitrary.

He accused the defendant of "predatory sexual conduct" and degrading behavior.

"This wasn't about kids having fun," Fitch said. "This was about some kind of a scheme engaged in by (the defendant) and his friend, Mr. Swope, to engage in sex-tagging girls."

Skavdahl also ruled on a series of motions related to the attorneys' sharing of evidence in the case, jury selection and other matters. The trial is scheduled to begin June 7.

Except under special circumstances, the Star-Tribune does not publish the names of those accused of sex crimes unless they have been convicted.