Shane Sparks who is/was a choreographer on Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance and a Judge on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew was arrested on 9 counts of alleged child molestation according to
TMZ. The charges go back to 1994 and depending if you read his IMDB or the court papers will determine whther he was either 20 or 25 at the time of the alleged crime. According to
court papers acquired by TMZ, “The lewd acts include oral copulation and other acts “with the intent of arousing, appealing to, and gratifying the lust, passions, and sexual desires of the defendant, who was at least 10 years older than [the victim].”” The victim was under 14 at the time of the alleged crime according to court papers, but no age was specified. So gross if it is true.
Sparks is currently be held on $590,000 bail.
No word if he will continue on America’s Best Dance Crew that will be back in January or on So You Think You Can Dance that had its season finale on Wednesday.
Sparks is the second choreographer from SYTYCD to be arrested in the last year, Alex Da Silva was arrested for alleged rape. Who knew Fox really needed to do background checks on their choreographers?
[ # 396833 ] Comment from Alden Loveshade [May 13, 2010, 12:14 pm]
I’m surprised there isn’t a flurry of people here who already convicted him and proclaimed some monstrous punishment. So often in cases like this people forget the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”
Currently, many U. S. states make absolutely no distinction between consensual acts with a person who’s under the arbitrary legal age and non-consensual acts. That’s because the law often defines consent as being impossible. In fact in some states if anyone even mentions in court that an act was mutually agreeable they can get in legal trouble.
A kindergarten teacher just got found not guilty of 22 charges of child abuse. But it was no win; she lost custody of her kids and has to work to get it back, lost her job and her home and had several death threats against her. It ended up the young witnesses against her were told what to say by their parents.
http://loveshade.org/blog/2010/05/teacher_found_not_guilty_of_se.html