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When a slow news day hits, Florida is always there to provide a good story
For all the bad things I’ll say about folks in Florida, at least they know how to party. How to obey the law while partying? Maybe not so much. Which is why Mr. Karl Denhar is now standing trial for charges that he promoted the sexual performance of a minor.
This stems from a fateful night back in 2003, when the then-52-year-old was having some food at a Crispers, a Florida food chain that serves “fresh salads and such.” While there, he met some folks, including then-21-year-old Sarah Hall and an unnamed minor (we’ll call her Go-Go Betty). After this meal, Karl, Sarah, Go-Go Betty and another guy went back to Karl’s house to have some drinks and hang out.
While hanging out and drinking, both Sarah and Go-Go Betty (who happened to also be an exotic dancer) got nekkid. The exact details here are a bit fuzzy because Sarah has been testifying for the prosecution while Go-Go Betty has been testifying for the defense. Sarah says that Go-Go Betty started stripping first, and that Sarah followed suit although she was uncomfortable about the whole thing. The other guy who was there started taking pictures, but he says he eventually left because he thought Sarah was doing drugs and this made him uncomfortable. Sarah denies doing any drugs.
Meanwhile, Go-Go Betty says they weren’t trying to be sexually provocative:
“It was very simple. Me and this other girl were there, and we were drinking and goofing off,” she said. “It wasn’t like I was posing. It wasn’t like some photo shoot or anything like that…it wasn’t intended for that type of thing. It was just hanging out.”
In any event, pictures were taken. Now Sarah says that old-man Karl developed them and gave them to her. Go-Go Betty says Sarah developed them herself (and thus, Karl wasn’t involved at all in the photos, according to her). But where the story actually gets good is in detailing how the photos got from Sarah to the cops.
Sarah went to a barbeque at the house of this guy named Michael Lyles. She took the package with the photos there, and forgot them. By the time she remembered she had left them there, they were gone. This is because Lyles and his wife were in the process of getting a divorce and the wife found the photos. Thinking they might be evidence that Michael was fooling around on her, she took the photos to her lawyer. The wife later fired that lawyer and started working with a new lawyer.
So the wife gave the naked photos to the new lawyer who, in turn, passed them along to a P.I. buddy of his, who also happened to be a former cop. The P.I. figured out who everyone in the photos was, and when he figured out that Go-Go Betty was underage, he gave the pics over to the cops.
And now that the jury has seen these photos, that concludes it - every single person in Florida has now seen photos of Go-Go Betty getting naked. Oh yeah, and also the photo of her hanging in a leather swing over old-man Karl’s bed. I’m telling you, old-man Karl knows how to throw a party!
