Teens Told About a Big Dating Don’t

Tamara Bogosian stands in front of a room packed with more than 100 rambunctious Oak Park teenagers. It’s 7:30 p.m. on a weekday, and her job is to engage them in a lecture about underage sex.

Not about whether it’s moral -- but whether it’s legal.

Bogosian, the prosecutor in charge of Ventura County’s statutory rape program, gives them the straight talk: It’s a crime, punishable by up to four years in state prison, for an adult to have sex with anyone under age 18.

She reads them the grim statistics: 51% of all babies born to teen moms are fathered by men older than 20.

And, hopefully, she gets their attention.

This is one aspect of the program that Bogosian, 30, has run out of the district attorney’s office for more than a year.

When she’s not talking to teenagers, she’s prosecuting statutory rape offenders.

It can be a difficult task, especially because about 40% of victims do not want offenders prosecuted.

But Bogosian said she believes enough in the cause to stay motivated.

“If I could prevent at least one girl from getting into these relationships, I would be doing my job,” she said. “It really has an effect on these young girls. The decisions they make impact them for a lifetime.”

Ventura County is one of 54 counties in the state receiving annual grants from the Office of Criminal Justice Planning to run the statutory rape programs, said Tim Herrera, agency spokesman. Last year more than 2,500 cases were filed statewide, including 60 locally.

But the state’s projected budget shortfall means the program’s $8.3-million budget could be cut by $1.6 million -- about 20% -- next year, Herrera said. The reductions could mean that prosecutors in some counties will have to become part-time employees, he said.

Most areas, however, will be able to avoid eliminating the program altogether, Herrera said.

In Ventura County, the effect of the proposed cuts remains unclear. But Bogosian said she would push to ensure the local program survives.

“We want to continue to send the message that we take this crime seriously,” she said. “It’s not something we’re going to put on the back burner.”

Bogosian started out in the district attorney’s office -- her first job after law school -- handling general misdemeanors. About a year and a half later she moved to the domestic violence unit to prosecute spousal and child abuse, but she never quite clicked with the work.

In December 2001, her bosses asked her to take over the statutory rape assignment, and she jumped at the chance.

“I think teenagers are very much in need of attention,” she said. “They are looking for people who are in a role-model position to give them positive feedback. I want to educate them and give them tools they need to make good decisions.”

She has an even closer perspective now, as she’s pregnant.

“Being pregnant is trauma on the body,” Bogosian said. “I’m 30 years old and married, and I’m thinking: How in God’s name does a 14-year-old do this?”

Still, many of the teenage girls who are referred to her office are resistant to her help, she said, believing that the older men they are involved with will take care of them.

“They feel they are still in love,” Bogosian said. “They often tell me I’m ruining their life.”

But later, most teenage girls -- who make up the bulk of the victims in her cases -- realize they have been exploited and manipulated, she said.

Getting young girls to that point is Bogosian’s gift, said Michelle Robertson, a victims’ advocate who also works with the program.

“She’s able to really connect with the girls, on their level,” Robertson said.

Bogosian doesn’t handle cases where force is involved -- only those where sex was consensual. But people under age 18 legally cannot consent to sex, which is where the statutory rape law comes in.

“If a 15-year-old wants to have sex with a 20-year-old, a ‘yes,’ in the eyes of the law is a ‘no,’ ” she said.

Charges are not filed on every case that comes to her office, she said, and many of them are tough calls. It may not be in the interest of justice, for example, to go after an 18-year-old boy who is accused of having consensual sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend, Bogosian said.

“Our goal is to prosecute adults who are predators,” she said.

But such a concept is difficult for many to understand, particularly young people, Bogosian said.

“I ask them, ‘Why is a 30-year-old man interested in a 14-year-old girl?’ Is it intellectual conversation, is it a long-term relationship, or is it sexual?”

Bogosian speaks at high schools and colleges across the county at least once every two or three weeks.

Her talk, “When Dating is Dangerous,” includes information on everything from relationship-power dynamics to date-rape drugs.

At a recent presentation at Oak Park High School, she invited two students from the audience to act out a dialogue in which an older man tries to convince a younger girl to sleep with him. The boy who played the male part said the exercise made him realize how silly it is to try to coerce someone into having sex.

“The truth is, the more we educate that this is a crime, the less incidences we’re seeing,” Bogosian said. “Slowly but surely, I think we’re making a difference.”