Former officer's child sex trial starts

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Why try to minimize it because he's a cop? She lied about her age, which is apparently typical from other stories I've read, but the cop should have know, right? That is what they say about sex offenders who are caught in the same issue. Hope he gets what the average Joe would get for this crime, but I doubt he will. She said she was not forced, doesn't matter, he abused the girl.

04/19/2007

In a matter-of-fact tone that belied her age, a 16-year-old girl described to jurors Wednesday the first time she and a former Palm Beach County sheriff's sergeant had sex, after they bathed each other and watched pornography in November 2004 at his West Palm Beach apartment.

The girl, who said she was 14 when she began to have sex with Craig Knowles, 48, testified that she never was forced into the physical relationship, nor was she ever threatened.

Knowles, who was fired in January after more than 24 years at the sheriff's corrections department, contends the sexual relationship never happened. He is charged with sexual activity with a child.

Defense attorney Michael Salnick told jurors that Knowles treated the girl, who frequently accompanied his son to visit him, as a daughter. Jurors will find much more than reasonable doubt -- they'll find a false accusation, Salnick said.

"What happened to him was a travesty," Salnick said in his opening statement. "He's asking you to make this right."

But prosecutor Sierra Kornbluth said the relationship between Knowles and the girl went from father-daughter to boyfriend-girlfriend.

The seduction was in full swing, with Knowles going from flirting to touching to having sex with the girl, Kornbluth said. Consent is not a defense in this case, Kornbluth added, because the girl was only 14.

"It doesn't matter if she had sex willingly," Kornbluth said.

Jurors may decide they don't like the girl, who has had a tough life, moving from one state to another without a steady and responsible parental figure, Kornbluth said, but the case is not about anybody's opinion of the girl.

Answering most questions succinctly, the girl kept her cool during testimony, though she scowled at Salnick when he asked her how many times she had previously had sex.

The teenager testified Knowles wasn't the first man with whom she had had sex. The investigation began when the girl's sister reported the relationship to her caseworker.