State v. Zeidell

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

COLEMAN, J.

The issue raised in this appeal is whether a defendant who has criminal sexual contact with himself that is observed by two children of eight and ten years from a distance of approximately seventy-five feet has committed second-degree sexual assault. In a reported opinion, a divided panel of the Appellate Division reversed two convictions for sexual assault. The majority concluded that because no specific victimization and aggressive assaultive conduct had been established, the necessary relational component for sexual assault had not been…