TRUMBULL COUNTY Judge to decide on sex charges

The defendant told the court that the law isn't being equally applied.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- Municipal Judge Michael A. Bernard will decide within a week if a 43-year-old truck driver paid to have sexual activities with four teenage girls who turned out to be Liberty High School students.
Charles R. Slenker of Taft Avenue, Youngstown, is charged with procuring, a misdemeanor. He said in court Thursday that the money he gave the girls was a gift. There was no intercourse or oral sex, he explained.
Slenker, who defended himself, also said that the sexual activity was done within the privacy of his home with women who told him their ages ranged from 18 to 20.
He also asserted that his 14th Amendment right of equal protection has been violated because he wasn't doing anything different from daily activities in gentlemen's clubs and bars.
He termed the charge against him a "double standard." The law, Slenker asserted, allows him to enter into personal relationships and have a good time with friends.
Allegation
Prosecutor Robert Johnson argued that Slenker paid for sexual activity in a premises under his control -- his Stoneybrook Drive mobile home in Hubbard Township, where he lived at the time.
The age of those he is accused of paying is not an element of the charge. Johnson said the four girls are 16 and 17 years old.
Hubbard Township police Detective Mike Begeot told the court that he received a complaint last fall alleging inappropriate activity in Slenker's mobile home.
Begeot testified that Slenker told him the girls told him they were between 18 and 20 years old and unemployed strippers living in Alliance.
The teens were in his home four or five times during September and October 2003, the detective testified Slenker told him.
In a videotaped statement, Slenker told Begeot and Detective Robert Altier of the Hubbard city police department that one of the girls contacted him. Four girls showed up the first time, and then three during the other visits. They needed money to pay bills, Slenker told police.
His defense
The divorced Slenker said he paid $20 to $120 to touch their breasts, one of them stripped naked and they fondled themselves. He paid one girl $10 each for four pairs of panties, he told police.
If found guilty, Slenker faces six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. He turned down a plea agreement in which he would be fined $100, placed on probation and receive no jail time.
"These girls are not prostitutes," Slenker told Judge Bernard. "They are attractive and come from good families."
Three of the teens were charged in Trumbull County Family Court with prostitution and two of them with falsification for lying to police, Begeot said. They have pleaded to lesser offenses so they don't have prostitution on their records.
yovich@vindy.com