Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Good morning. Is April 1 and Senate Judiciary. We are taking up page six twenty six and we have Kiera Kilburn here to amplify and if you could just please introduce yourself and then the floor is good.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: My name is Kiera Pilgrim, I'm the resident of Bergen, Vermont. I want to thank you all for your opportunity to speak today and share my story as an image based speeches. In 2018, while I was at work, I learned that a video of me undressing had been posted on a pornographic website. Years earlier in 2012, trusted college film professor invited me and my sister participate in a public access TV video for extra class credit. The concept of the video recruited many outfit changes, which we did in a storage closet that he directed us to change it.

[Kiera Pilgrim (public witness)]: He recorded us changing with a hidden camera and uploaded it to the internet. At the time I was 19 and my sister was 17. The discovery was life shattering, felt like my future flashed before my eyes. And I'd always heard what you put on the internet stays there forever. And that fear became my reality and is my reality. I panic. I take my career very seriously. I worked in homeless services for the past eleven years and more recently worked for a domestic violence shelter in Chittenden County. I worried I'd be fired in a career serving those less fortunate I cared about so much with the over. I thought about my family members seeing this video, my future partner, and my future children. I went to the police immediately. The detective I worked with told me it was one of the longest cases that he had ever handled, but despite my immediate action and his commitment, there was nothing they could do. The statute of limitations had expired before I even knew the crime had happened. During the investigation, police discovered videos of other young people who were recorded in restrooms and changing rooms. They also discovered the perpetrator had searched online the statute of limitations in Vermont. He knew exactly what he was doing. I didn't get the justice that I wanted. I wanted him to be held accountable for harming me and my younger sister and abusing my trust. I wanted my community to know he was the leader so no one else would be harmed the way that I was. Instead of carrying the weight of this for the rest of my life while he gets to walk free. I was later diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. It has been incredibly difficult to process how deeply I was violated without even knowing what was happening to me at the time. When I'm in public, I'm still terrified that I am being recorded. I want people, especially children, to be and feel safe and to be able to trust the adults around them. While this law cannot help me, it can help others and it can ensure they are protected and able to access the justice. Knowing that would be incredibly meaningful to me. Thank you for your work on this issue and taking the time to listen to my story today.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: And I'm sorry that all happened to you. I mean, words aren't strong enough, but I'm sorry that it will happen to you. And thank you for coming in to share that story as well. And as you know, this is a bill that was introduced both in the House and the Senate. And we are working on the House bill, which is Yes. It's like we refer to them as companions and only let that happen since it is a strong desire to make sure that policy or whether it's south or the senate ends up passing. The statute of limitations I guess was one of the last points earlier and

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: And

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: if you don't know the specifics, no worries at all. But the statute of limitations piece, can you dive a bit more into that? And regarding the time of the discovery of the events and how much time it elapsed and how the statute of limitations that we have now basically failed your situation and how we can change that here in this.

[Kiera Pilgrim (public witness)]: Yeah, absolutely. So as I referenced, this crime took place in 2012. As soon as I saw the video, I recognized instantly what it was, where it was, and when it was. But I did not discover it until the 2018. I had figured that it had been recently released because it was brought to my attention through a mutual person. And since then, multiple more people had sent it to me. That was confirmed by suspicions that the video had been more recently released when we had a forensic detective go through his computers and find that he searched hidden cameras and the staff implementations in Vermont, which is three years from when the crime happened. At the time when I went to the police, they thought it was three years from discovery and thought that this was a done deal case, but it wasn't. And because in the state of Vermont, my sister was 17 and while still considered a minor, is above the age of 16, it wasn't considered child pornography. We've had a longer statute of limitations.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Thank you. That's all I needed.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: So it's not really, it's more mushy burn in turning there and making you, but I wonder, I I understand sort of statutory for someone consent. I believe it's 16. It's a little bit fuzzier than that, but there's no consent here. So I wonder if it should be considered child pornography. It's a minor who didn't consent to this.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I'm not I don't know if I fully need something.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: So if the current law would not consider this child pornography because your sister was 17, that to me is around consent. We allow 16 year olds to consent. We allow, I think, sometimes people younger than that. If both people are younger than that, but in this instance it is a minor, someone under the age of 18 who did not consent. So we're not talking about consent anymore. So for me this type of thing should still be child pornography. Does it make more sense this time?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think so. Okay. Maybe a question for counsel.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: That's what I thought. It might be a question for alleged counsel, but I figured I'd put it into the conversation.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you again. And feel free to follow-up with any questions or comments as we work with the bill. I know we'll have markup, which is where we make edits here and there. I'm not sure how long it'll take for us to get through this bill, but we'll keep working on it. Thank you. Morning. Thanks for joining us. And if you just wanna introduce yourself and then, always, always, to hear your Hispanic model bill.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: It's Matthew Raymond, and I'm the Internet Crimes and Children Task Force commander from the State of Omaha. This is called IDAC, Girl of IDAC. And our mission is to prevent the victimization of children and the people who use technology or the Internet. And we deal with these crimes all the time. We come across voyeurs of this, our fire, environmental abuse, material investigation. I can actually speak on the question we have about child mammography. The reason it's not about mammography, we're not just strictly age based because the statute 65 child reunification, we're all unyielding under 60, so it's not, it's not a part of that, obviously, because children can't get some of their admission. And so it's, and federally it's under equal to shelter and other things, or child's physical materials, we call it now, federally skilled health shelter and other things. But in Vermont it's under 60. So sometimes when we're not able

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: to charge it under Vermont law, we'll charge it under federal law. Would that possible in this case to charge it

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: under federal law? Under the prior case that we just had. Yeah, it would depend on the, what was captured on the recording. So there's different requirements. You have the Vermont law, it has to be a child over the age of 60, either the code is smoothly or it has to be the, the animals have to be this one. So, and then it's all the different federally. So it's hard to talk about without it, but, yes, it's possible that would been charged federally or it might not have been the criteria, the actual accounting standard. So then it would be charged under voyeurism, but at that time it was a three year statute of limitations. And then, and also a part of the note comes with prior testimony. So like she said, once the, I know about the piece, once the computer was examined, his devices were examined, there's multiple, multiple, they're one in one. We never anytime we come across these we may have one report, but then once we get into their devices, you're talking, you know, dozens or hundreds of victims.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: When the large council comes back on this, can we ask them to bring a comparison of the federal laws around this, the Vermont laws?

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Yeah, guess there's a lot, there's a lot, there's a lot of differences and there's a lot of good stuff in our laws with no existing hormones. Then Yeah. I

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: that. I just it kind of boggles my mind that we wouldn't set that gap at 18.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: So, well the problem comes around agent consent. Right. When your laws are not even there, and then that I used to be able to talk about this, I forget the case law on this, on some states that had their calendron rate at 18, their age consent at 16, there was some type of deal that happened that covered the problems with their health insurance insurance problems. Yeah. Appreciate a little bit. So they need to

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: bounce. Certainly not in this building, but I do want to take a little bit of a dive into that and see if there are changes that need to be made to strengthen the protections we have. So

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: what I wanted to speak on today is the pardon bell that's called central exhortion.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: And just to orient, that's which page?

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Yep, that's the final spray before the stench of levitation. It'll be 24 or 28 on whiteboard now. Is the wording that has the No. Our origin is

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: 14 pages. Okay. Well, which

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: I didn't know where the photo were.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah, no worries. Sorry. Which section of the bill?

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: So it's section three, sexual extortion.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Well, our version is page 10, line 17.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: So were the versions the same when it started in the house?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: We had a couple

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: weeks, so. So I have to follow-up, I was working off well past the house of female creators.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Do have has passed by the house. I think you have the one that has the redness, right? Yeah. And I don't know why they do that. So we have the version that has passed by the House. Okay. And it's 14 pages.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Okay. So it's, you know, section three, twenty six-seventy, sexual extortion. So sex torture is a serious threat facing our nation's youth and has resulted in at least thirty eight suicides across the nation at the end of the Historically in ICAC, we'd seen sex based sex torture for a long time. The victims were primarily young females, the conversations were long in narration from days to months, the perpetrators portrayed themselves as peers engaging in grooming techniques, making gradual requests over time, Sometimes providing gifts to the victims, the suspects were not aggressive until they actually received the child sexual abuse material and then quickly turned and threatened to expose them if they didn't get more content. The sole purpose of that was more content And usually the suspects were in US based and they were tracking them and arrested them. Then around 2019, we began seeing financial based extortion for the first time. The victims, and this is pretty much nationwide, the victims were primarily male, 13 to 17, very short in duration, a max of hours, sometimes it happens in minutes. The suspects always portray themselves as a female, the chats are very aggressive, always ask for genitals and face pictures in the same image. The request comes fast. The sole purpose is to contain money. They usually ask for a lot and then negotiating down to whatever they need. They threaten to have to go with the child and offer screenshots of their friends to us, parents and relatives, and friends that pose the images that they got to be sent to them. Thank you very much. If they're paid, the user doesn't stop. They just come back for a more. It's a lot like, you can't grant all of them. And all of a sudden you're sending more. The suspects in these cases are largely, by large, non Lumispaced. And the vast majority come from Nigeria, The Ivory Coast, The Philippines, and any of them. However, we're seeing some US based actors now, also like the atomic actors that that they can do it and be directly now. Also with the foreign actors, they're organized gangs, basically, sometimes with a US based money mule consisting and the money mules used to transfer the money overseas to get around some of the protections of the public police. So around 2022, these cases ballooned and that makes that such a huge increase in the reports and Vermont is no exception. We deal with them now on a weekly basis. More times than not, we have the victims here in Vermont and track the perpetrators elsewhere, again, many times overseas. But we've also had cases where the perpetrators went here with Levant as well, and the victims were elsewhere. Prior to this law being enacted, as I hope it does, we had to get creative on chartering some of them to even use in the stopping extension. So, again, we deal with victims along the line, but also do medication. And we have a bunch of stuff that we pass out on abuse and problems and what happens if you're 61. So I had testified in the house on the original versions and advocated for changes that are in this version now. Primarily my, I'd ask for if you change it to a felony with higher jail time available, obviously for extradition purposes, a native felony, makes extradition possible. Again, these are never one hand wonders. Normally they have many victims all over the place. So the you'll see in the in that section, they now have a tiered penalty section that has, like so I think it's three years for an adult, ten years for a child, and then fifteen years, and then students probably need a fast consultant. And that was one of the ask that we had asked me to do. Again, we do lose all the time in there. The big worry is that the child doesn't reach out to a parent or somebody else and have us to look once other thirty days for the, they go over the manic mode. That's

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I do have one question here. It goes back to something you embraced earlier regarding the age of percent make a And I'm looking at lines three and line six where it's referring to 18 years of age or older or 18 years of age. And just to preface I do think it should be 18, 60.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: These both on the same and the child mammography law this would be from my understanding, this would be okay. It's a long way to the section, I can't remember the chapter in the study three zero four, the child exploitation chapter that deals with sending images to the children that's 18 as well. That's not about the child and heart failure or heart science. It's about the the. Is the exposure result. So I don't think that's an issue. It's a voluntary issue for us. And then the statute of limitations, as you just heard, we've been asked this all the time on the pieces, so I think we find the lawyers under the current sex limitation that has been over three years, we can't charge it. But just the big here on that. Are there throughout the entire thing, are there other changes that you guys were thinking about? Not off the top of my head.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Think I did have actually a question in subsection e, which is on page 12, where it started with a person who, in good faith and in a timely manner, and so on. My initial Well, I want to make sure that can't be used in such a way against a victim, know, by somebody who is engaging in sex torture and maybe there was a sexual rating of images and then they decided they split up and that the other person is trying to engage with sex torsion, but then they try relying on this immunity clause. And I mean, there's always a million variables, but any thoughts on potentially Yeah,

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: so under the current language I don't have any concerns. So almost always the initial imagery exchange is consensual identities. And I say that when they're children, know, they don't, I really can't consent, but it's always, you know, conceptual level, then it changes and then if they're asking for more imagery or sorting it for it or it's money they're storing up with that. So the big thing we see all the time is threat because in the financial big slumps, which is really what's running rampant right now, they almost never really send the images anywhere. And that's that's why in in our that we give to I mean, it's, you know, they'll obviously don't send monthly. All I was gonna do is I was gonna keep coming back, and it can block them and go the soft response. They don't I don't send imagery for me because they're just purely out for money. So it's the threat of doing it where it is where the real problem is. I mean, obviously, that on the other side of this, the first part is built with lawyers and so that's all about people that even possess the self that you heard from the previous testimony, which is different. For the sexual orientation, the referral of the Thrive. And

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: the other piece, the other question I had, and this might have been a question from the agency's office, going back one page, page 11, went by the phrase identifiable person. Can you just provide more context on what that means and how a person can be identifiable? Like, it just the person or can the background of where they are, where they're located, also be used to assist in determining if they're an identifiable person?

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Yeah. Think there's another section that actually is being denied. Yeah. Well, you know, what my reading of that would be that they would have to be identifiable from the end of sheet. You know, there are things or some other way to identifying something. But I thought there was a section here that said it through context or definitions or if that had been changed.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: For the record, Michelle Tao's Office of Legislative Counsel. So, if you're looking at the as a house, by house version, not if you have the red line version, it's a different page. We're talking about the dissemination of sexually explicit images without consent in Subdivision B2. And so this is current law. Remember this section is a lot of it is just kind of moving things around.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it's current law, but it's moved into this new subdivision too. I'm on page eight, line 17. The purposes of this section, a person may be identifiable from the image itself or information offered in connection with the image. And so that has been in there since the statute was adopted in 2015. There is case law on this particular section. Court upheld it as constitutional, did not go into any particular discussion about, you know, they had no issues with identifiable person and probably, you could probably address this because you have a broader scope on working with

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: the Yeah, was the section I was actually looking for.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Is you do see in both state and federal laws around this identifiable person language. It's not uncommon and I haven't seen anything that has taken issue with it being vague or Trump or something. It's not common

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: to us to have issues with emergencies. Any questions or comments? A quick one. So I'm looking at the bill as presented from the enforcement aspect of it. Maybe you don't, but do you have any recommendations that would make it easier for enforcement purposes with this particular incident? I did, but they were all addressed and caged and person at the house has all the cases that I requested. Great. So, yeah, we're gonna pop away a couple of them, see if there's anything that we need to change. Don't know if it's a splinter.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah. Let's hear from Legis Council and just go through to the smaller line. There other witnesses actually that the House heard from that he did? Yeah.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: That's why I have several bills, so I'm getting the visa. Mean, this he was really waiting. Yeah. It's probably a better one. Yeah.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would say you haven't heard from Danica?

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Yeah. Yeah. So she that's she was asked for it today. I think what's in the bills. So I'm here.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I mean, depends on your your timing and everything, but I think

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: she can give you perspective that I have on this.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But if you have certain questions about

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Right. Christ.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Prostitution or certain things that they feel like she'd be a good way to explain it. If you don't Okay.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I that well I guess she wants one last question. Do you know if she has no you're good.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Do

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: you know if she has any additional language recommendations? I can also just email her.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Yeah. No. No. I just spoke to her yesterday about the language. And she's good with it. We're both good with that. Went past the house. It addressed all of our concerns that we had. There was some other other issues that I addressed at the at the house level. I can't remember. There was some language in one protection that was taken out. So so we have no issues with the bill that has passed the house.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay. Thanks. Thanks.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I'll also note for you is that I worked with Dominica throughout the process. From getting the original building regimen through the process. I've kept her in locating and she's seen all the different paths and I know what she wants.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: But yes, let's do markup if there is even anything that we want to change. So we'll just start from section one. There any, I don't think I believe though line by line with my counsel, without any additional thoughts or recommendations based on all this.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just as the review, so just to remind people, so the main change with the lawyers and statute in section one is it was reworked to separate viewing from the filming, recording, dissemination, all of those things, because this proposal created a different stash of notifications for when there's a recording or you're doing a So there's the existing three year statute of limitations that would apply under the institution viewing, but then there's the expanded one because of the context of, like, when you have a recording, it might not be discovered until as only the written site that's test by three years and that might be beyond the three year stack of conclusions. And I know you had a question about, should it be from data discovery? In Vermont law, you only see that in the context of civil actions. So like, med mal, assault and batteries, the lender, liable, things like that. They will be, they start the clock from data discovery. We don't have anything like that in the criminal realm. Just generally, that is not common. There's a distinction because the whole purpose of statute of limitations, especially in the criminal context, is you know that there's kind of a deep certain that you can't be kind of pulled into criminal charges. But you can, as you know, you can play around with those statute limitations. You can set it low, you can set it to have no statute criminal protections. And I believe the bill of abuse was from date of discovery. But then in discussions in the House, it seemed as though because there really wasn't any precedent for Vermont law, even though some states are using that in the context of certain narrow crimes where they find themselves to be more likely to not be discovered for a certain number of period of years. But it's more fitting kind of with how we do things now. It doesn't mean necessarily that you can't do it, but Prostration shows it was kind of a more straightforward approach, is that we do have these tiers for certain lengths of time and when you're looking at what, and it's in here, a

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: lot of your

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: sections. So they slide in a tenth at the forty year, which is where you also have statute limitations for sexual exploitation of children.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Regarding the three years for viewing, the issue of viewing isn't in here. It's disclosure and the extortion?

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, viewing, under voyeurism, there is an offense for viewing and that hasn't changed. So that would just be, you know, there's no recording or filming or anything like that, but that someone, instead of having a secret camera set up to view someone might be doing that themselves.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So in that case, if there was a camera and it was them viewing and it was voyeurism but they were also recording it but not disclosing it to anybody else or using it for extortion, what would that fall under that?

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is still a that let me show you the Okay. So if you look at so If you look at page two, you'll see that now B is unlawful viewing. Again, these are all criminal under the current statutes, just rearranged. Then you have page three, subsection C, we've broken out for unlawful photographic filming for recording. So then if you go to the end of the bill in section four, from statute of limitations for criminal offenses, and you'll see subsection C, which is the 40 stash in limitations. If you turn on to the back on page 14, you'll see voyeurism involving photographic filming or reporting under 2,605. Oh, that covers that. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay, alright. And

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then you'll see seven is display or disclosure. So three years for viewing and then anything involving a recording or dissemination of that recording would be the forty years.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Committee, any questions or thoughts for section one?

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: Section two.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section two is on page seven, and that's your disclosure of sexually explicit images without consent. Primary changes there are if you look at page eight. Subsection B, subject to one, is that you'll see on line seven, removing the work, the threatened vote for coerce. And that's because those offenses, those elements are captured in the use of sexual extortion section, so those are taken out here. Again, down at the bottom, B2, that's existing law, and you can see where it's struck on line eight through 11, and it's just brought down into subdivision two. But again, I think it's the Van Buren case that looked at that statute, say, comprehensive, could, you know, as that's their constitutionality, upheld it. There was really no, you know, they discussed a lot about it being one of the elements in terms of making these determinations as to why it was constitutional, because they were saying that it was narrow drawn, and you could have all these different elements of identifying what person would be one of them. But there was no concern or anything with using the term or how it was defined in the statute. Then like I said, you used to do that, that term identifiable herself, fairly frequently.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Knowingly, for this, can you weigh out for the committee what this would look like if we went from knowingly to recklessly?

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Be lowering the standard. I think the instructions for recklessly. Employer is just reverse. Use is intentional. So use is the highest. Knowingly, know, those charts here, so a little bit under the intentionally, but recklessly, I have to think about whether or not that would tip the balance in any way. Try to think of circumstances where somebody I'll be honest, it makes me a little uncomfortable just from the sense of, I'm not saying that once the court upholds a statute that's constitutional, you can't go back and look at it and change it and things like that, but because types of statutes really do implicate a lot of constitutional issues and it's been kind of held and you want to be careful and maybe find a different patient's office as to whether or not lowering the mens rea for something like this be comfortable with.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah, it was just a thought and some thinking of, know, there's a difference between the person who is sending these images off to their friends and then compared to somebody who should have known, if they decide to post them on a website and they come and say, well I wasn't disclosing it to anybody, was just posting it publicly on this website. If they could use that as an offense, even though they should have known that if they disclosed in the Vidgetana public website, other people would want to see them. I don't know about explaining my thought as well as I want to.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Mean, think I know what you're saying, but I think it would be extremely hard for someone to argue that by putting something on the internet. Disclosing it to everyone. Right. They're it to someone. I haven't heard, I will say, you know, I haven't heard any concerns about the knowingly standard. I think the debate that's kind of been out there in terms of should something be changed or not was around the intent to harm. And I had testified earlier about it varies in the different states. Whether or not, say, inclusive intent to harm is one of the elements. And so that's really it. Haven't heard any concerns about the health community. And I think where the house district wound up landing and a demonetization for the advocates, I think with the advocates too, it was more like, again, there's a statute that's been upheld as constitutional that's working. Is it worth enough to take out that element, taking a little block out of the Jinka Tower, how does that affect it? Not to discourage you from doing that, if that's something that's important to you. Yeah, no. You know, you want to hear again probably from the AG's office, but they did my recollection is they didn't express any concern about wanting to remove that intent on our.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah, it was just a thought. Just wanted to explore the idea for a minute just because I know the internet is constantly changing and with how social media is always transforming and how messages are sent, it just feels like there's a lot of different ways to frame how things get exposed to other people. So, was trying to make sure all bases are covered. I mean, if no concerns have been raised, I mind keeping it as it is.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If it's helpful, so for knowingly, it's, yeah, I'm just looking at the jury objection. So, improve when the defendant acted knowingly and not inadvertently, or because of mistake, or by accident. You can find that the defendant acted knowingly if the person was aware that their conduct would cause or it's practically certain to cause the electric bar. And then for recklessly, it's that the state must prove that the defendant acted recklessly. You can find that the defendant acted recklessly if they consciously ignore the substantial and unjustifiable risk that their conduct would cause they would upon people. The persons disregard the risk when considering light of the nature and purpose of their conduct and the circumstances known to them must have been a close deviation for how a law abiding person would have acted in the same situation.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So any thoughts on section two? Else that you wanted to add, Michelle? No.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: That takes us to the missing piece. I I

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: will just note for you that in those two forms we wanted to use the addition to both was the ability in a negligence claim to, for actual injuries, to be satisfied by a diagnosis of a disorder resulting from trauma. And that was specifically coming from the case that was referred earlier by the witness Chief Riber saying, hey, we ought to really, the legislature should consider whether or not, you know, it's appropriate to do this advocating for expansion of it beyond physical injury.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Would well, makes me wonder. So I remember reading that over the summer, concern or the differentiation between the physical injury versus the mental injury. Would we want to add on line 10 the diagnosis of a mental disorder resulting from trauma? Does that need to be further clarified?

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think it's necessary, but, I don't know, think it's kind of broader if you don't put that in. That, specific language of disorder resulting from trauma, was recommended by the network, I don't know if they have any input on that. I mean, the issue in the case, and looking at it on a physical, is that, you know, can, they have like this narrow way to be able to get at some type of, emotional trauma like PTSD that results in physical manifestations, right? It's really tenuous and not clear, and they did find it in this particular case. Again, it's something that's been built through case law that you do have the ability to change. But I haven't heard any concerns with this particular language. I

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Charlie, I guess I'll catch you on the spot real quick. Was there did you want to chime in on that? There needs to be, it's like a pain for you? Right here. Okay. Any thoughts?

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: Absolutely. Charlie Grossman, policy director of the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violent. I'm happy to answer any questions, but we feel good with the language as it's before the committee right now. You.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Committee, anything else on that section?

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: I know

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: on page eleven sixteen and seventeen regarding accusing a person of a crime or causing criminal charges to be instituted against the person. Which I understand, I think we had some conversation about it the last time, I understand the concept, I haven't heard the word or the phrase criminal charges be instituted against the person. Is that?

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: Yeah. My recollection was that we were looking at, in preparation for drafting this, again, I was working with the AG's office and the network is we were looking, oftentimes we'll look and see what do the other states have, you know? Everybody got some great ideas out there that we haven't thought of. And so I think it was kind of a pulling different provisions from different states. This was one that I think we had not originally listed. So in terms of, I think, did I go through the scene? Know, don't know the different scenarios, but I think it would be, you know, not that common under this type of thing, but I think it did raise, maybe you talked about it earlier, there have been some transprofile cases in Vermont lately around law enforcement. Charged with certain sexualized offenses and there being a because of the power that we like between law enforcement and the survivors in these particular cases, the threat There was a, I don't remember, on the exam, but it's somebody who's currently charged. The threat of the perpetrator accusing and reporting the survivor for being the video prosecution or other types of things like that was used as a way to discourage reporting of the crimes.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: But as it's worded, you don't see any issues with how it's worded. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: I don't.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Mindy, anything else

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: in Section three?

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: I'm wondering, and I saw that Michelle sent the federal statutes, but I'm wondering if we can dive in a little bit of the differences between the federal and state statutes. Yeah, I can't say that I had time to dive into the federal. I wasn't sure if you knew or if the issue of aligning consent age. I don't know if you heard that. Right, I did hear that.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's when I was like, and Commute Arraignment was correct. So in Vermont the age of consent is 16. So when you look at certain sexually based offenses, there's this 16 year old threshold there. And offenses that are in the chapter on sexual expectation of children, and within that chapter are the creation of and possession of child abuse materials. It is 16, so it's time to the age of consent. Don't, you know, it's been that way as long as I've been here, and I don't know, assume that that's very intentional as to if you wanted to raise the age and the exploitation ones to 18 while keeping everything else agent consent at 16. Know, it's something maybe going to talk to the Attorney General's Office about that. I can certainly understand in an instance where it is all consent, you know, and we've said at 16 you can consent to engaging in sex. I can understand why we would also say it's okay for you to engage in sharing explicit images, but when the consent is gone Right, and I think for there, you know, mean if the goal is to try to capture that specific instance, then we can craft on its own kind of little stand alone statute on that, right? Saying so aside from, I mean I'm just saying that if you wanted to change all of chapter 64, it'd be 18, it's 16, that's a really big change. But if you really wanted, you know, I can try to think about

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: It's the lowering section that won't take the hit because you're, they, at 16, they can consent to engage in sexual activity so that when they're lowering their long lines, this was from another state that had that did the same thing, had issues. And, again, let your council better speak of this and mean that that's where the that's where the problem would have been if you draw on everything to or raised everything to I don't lowering section was caught in the wrong wood. I immediate problem.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not suggesting that we raise everything to 18 because, again, if you can consent to engaging in sexual activity, I think you should be able to consent to sharing this type of thing. It's this narrow piece. We can grab, I can grab if you want me to. I can work on something like that and come up with some language where you can take a look at it.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So I might be probably misunderstanding sometimes, but how is your concern not covered by what we see on page 12 with the violations for the ages of 18 and under? Starting off lines four, getting at with with the intent to compel a person to produce individual images and so on, no person should economically threaten. So, obviously, there's no consent there, and it's for 18.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This only deals with the sex torsion piece. I don't believe it deals with the voyeurism or the disseminating of the images without consent. I understand your concern to be what the witness testified to, which is that, so statute limitations have gone on the voyeurism statute, right? There is a longer statute limitations, forty year statute limitations under sexual, for the whole all of the forms of sexual acts and locustion program. And so, for the 1816, is that we can still craft something under the 16, you know, that if images, and I think come back to think about it, and then I would ramify the ages on this, but crafting something that if images are obtained under the lawyers and statutes, obviously, that whole statute is without consent, right? That you can create a penalty or you can lift it back to the other counter.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah, think that's worth exploring. As long as we make sure to draw the AG, skip there, repeat with the language as well. Anything else on this section?

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section four on page 13. And so this is, settlement.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Sorry. I'm double

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: checking my notes here.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Just wanna make sure. Right, sorry. 52. Just wanna make sure we didn't have the background.

[Michelle Tao (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, no worries. Section four, statute of limitations, and I've already touched on this a little bit, the changes in C1 and C2 and C3, I was just adding some prop references. You'll see on page 14, so what's being extended from three years to forty years is, as we've discussed earlier, it's the voyeurism involving photographing, filming, or recording, as well as the dissemination of those images. There's the disclosure of sexually explicit images without consent, and then the sexual extortion.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Comments, thoughts on this section four? And section, not seeing anything. So section five is the effect of savings. So, okay. So I think the next step then is to look at that idea that Senator Hosie Grace about the AG development network and we're also going to reach out to Jeff Coleman. Is there anybody else? All right great thank you appreciate your time thank you thank you all for coming in Before we go off, generally speaking, priorities for the next two weeks, general conversation with

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: the building we want to

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: work on. We've got We've got eight forty nine and six zero six which are going to take up the rest of this week. And I'm sure 606 will bleed into next week as well as well as 849. So what other areas for bills belong to?

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: What are folks' privates? We have 606 coming up tomorrow. Yep. That's the primary.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a Senator)]: And I have can we come back to this conversation later? You know, we've I've had some time to kind of look at what has caused me. Because I I know I do have some stuff. I just wanna figure out where it has to fit so we can organize my thoughts.

[Matthew Raymond (ICAC Task Force Commander, Vermont)]: All I'm doing right now is wait until everyone has to

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Alright. Sounds good. We can come back at 10:30 or 08:49. K. Yes.