The nation is continuing to reel from the “#MeToo” movement, with many women newly empowered to publicly out men who have committed sexual crimes against them. The form these crimes have taken varies, of course, and not everyone who has been outed has had the same severity of a fall from grace. The president, for instance, has remained in power even though he remains credibly accused of sexual misconduct by numerous women.
In this context, this week, a former staffer for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for sharing sexually explicit material of his former boss and her husband. He obtained the material after offering to take the phone belonging to his old boss — Virgin Islands Del. Stacey Plaskett, who is a Democrat — to a store for repairs.
He took the material off the phone at that time and circulated it on the web anonymously. The staffer, Juan McCullum, was assisted in his efforts by former Plaskett staffer Dorene Browne-Louis, both of whom pleaded guilty in January. Dorene Browne-Louis will be sentenced next month. The two completed their efforts in an attempt to keep Plaskett from being re-elected.
In conjunction with the “#MeToo” movement across America, there has been a renewed interest in ensuring that the U.S. government is a safe place for women to work.
In that light, leading members of Congress including Al Franken and John Conyers have both been forced to resign in recent months after misconduct allegations came to light.
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