PANAMA CITY BEACH — Three teenagers were charged with lewd battery Monday and their 15-year-old victim was arrested for lewd conduct, Panama City Beach Police said Tuesday.
All four teenagers were visiting Panama City Beach from their homes in Indiana, police said.
According to police, investigators learned Monday the 15-year-old Greencastle, Indiana, girl had a sexual encounter with three teens: Kyle Jay Coleman, 18, and D’Andre Lee Winston, 16, both from Indianapolis, and Marquise Isiah Moore, 17, Cloverdale, Indiana.
Police did not identify the girl.
The incident happened at about 5 p.m. in a room at Wyndham Beach Resort condo on 14700 Front Beach Road, police said. After an investigation, the three males were charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a person under the age of 16.
According to an arrest affidavit, the girl was in contact with the three teenagers via text message, requesting they pick her up and take her back to their condo, according to the affidavit.
The girl and the three males engaged in sex acts in a bedroom of the condo, the affidavit states.
After conferring with the State Attorney’s Office, the girl was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct, police said. Capt. Robert Clarkson said the State Attorney’s Office presented the girl’s arrest as one legal option in the incident.
“At the persistence of the victim’s parents and recommendation of the State Attorney’s Office, there was probable cause to charge all persons involved in this incident,” police said in a press release.
Clarkson said the girl’s parents asked officers not to arrest her.
Coleman was booked into the Bay County Jail, Moore and Winston were turned over to the state Department of Juvenile Justice, and the victim was released to the custody of her parents.