U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested an illegal alien who was previously jailed for alleged rape and other criminal charges.
Jesus Romero-Bisos was released by the Philadelphia Police Department on October 17 even though ICE had placed an immigration detainer. Philadelphia police had arrested Romer-Bisos “or the criminal offenses of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion, unlawful contact with a minor/sex offense, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault without consent, sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of minors, indecent assault of a person less than 13 years old, reckless endangerment of another person and harassment,” ICE <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-captures-illegal-alien-released-philadelphia-custody-despite-detainer-criminal">reported</a>.
Romero-Bisos was also charged “in a second scheme of criminal conduct with unlawful restraint with serious bodily injury, indecent assault without consent, simple assault and harassment.
Despite these charges and the immigration detainer, the Philadelphia police department released Romero-Bisos. The police department told The Daily Wire that all inquiries regarding Romero-Bisos’ release were being referred to the office of Philadelphia Mayor James Kenney. The mayor’s office did not immediately return a Daily Wire inquiry.
Three weeks later, on November 8, deportation officers with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) found Romero-Bisos and arrested him. He is currently in ICE custody pending immigration proceedings.
“ICE is willing to work with local law enforcement at all times,” said ICE Philadelphia Field Office Director Simona Flores-Lund. “ICE shares the city’s ultimate objective to protect public safety and national security while simultaneously preserving the critical community-police bond. Unfortunately, elected officials are putting politics before the law, and most significantly before the safety of the communities they swore to serve.”
Philadelphia is a sanctuary city, meaning it won’t cooperate with federal immigration officials to deport illegal immigrants. As ICE explained, these policies put citizens at risk by allowing potentially dangerous individuals into the communities. The organization said that the lack of cooperation from local law enforcement increases “the likelihood that other individuals previously not targeted for arrest will be taken into ICE custody.”
This incident has occurred even though ICE field agents in Philadelphia arrested 45 illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia. As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ice-offices-across-the-country-arrested-hundreds-of-criminal-illegal-immigrants-last-week">reported</a>, most of the illegal immigrants arrested had previous criminal histories, “including driving under the influence and sex-related crimes.”
“ERO deportation officers are committed to enforcing the immigration laws set forth by our legislators,” said Simona Flores-Lund, field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Philadelphia at the time of the arrests. “Targeted operations like this reflect the vital public service that ERO officers do every day to protect the nation, we will continue to conduct similar operations, while seeking to ultimately remove criminal aliens with a final order of removal and other immigration fugitives who pose a threat to public safety.”
Many of the illegal immigrants arrested by ICE at the time had been released from prison despite detainers requested by federal immigration officials.

Anti-ICE activists

ICE Arrests Illegal Alien Released From Prison Despite Rape Charges

Illegal Immigration

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Rape

A common tactic for the “believe all women” crowd is to claim that prosecuting false accusations will lead real victims to avoid reporting a crime. The mental gymnastics it takes to achieve the claim ignores the fact that false accusations actually hurt real victims because they make people less inclined to believe the next victim. Thus, false accusations need to be prosecuted to deter further criminals.
As it stands now, there is virtually no punishment for a woman who falsely accuses a man of sexual assault. The charge for such a false accusation is usually a misdemeanor charge for filing a false police report, a charge that doesn’t take into account the enormous toll the false accusation takes on the actual victim.
Now prosecutors in Kansas are feeding into this culture by dropping the charges against a woman police believe fabricated a rape claim in order to get back at her ex-boyfriend for moving on with his life. As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/she-told-cops-she-was-raped-text-messages-showed-ashe-schow">previously reported</a>, the woman called police before entering a hospital for a rape examination. She gave police access to her phone, which quickly proved to them that the sex between the woman and her ex-boyfriend’s best friend was consensual. Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson said the messages showed the University of Kansas student “fabricated the rape story to effect the relationship between herself and the victim … and her ex-boyfriend.”
“The State believes the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing, including: the testimony of (the victim), (her ex-boyfriend), law enforcement officers, and evidence collected by law enforcement, specifically, text messages from the Defendant to her friend … indicate the sexual encounter … was consensual,” Branson said in a statement.
The woman <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article234717197.html">told</a> the Kansas City Star that her messages joking about and downplaying her sexual encounter were due to her inability “at the time to admit she had been raped.”
The woman only called the incident rape the next day after one of her acquaintances said they would tell people what happened. The accuser texted this person back, saying, “I’m pretty sure it was borderline rape and I have the bruises and statements to prove it so if you want to go there let’s do it.”
Those bruises were on her arms, legs, and neck. She had been drinking the night before and said she didn’t remember how she got them. Bruises tend to show up 1 to 2 days after an injury, not hours.
The woman was arrested for making a false accusation, even though she told police she did not want to press charges. Police investigated anyway due to the seriousness of her allegations. Her legal fees have been paid for by a legal defense fund created during the #MeToo movement.
The Chicago Tribune <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-bc-us--false-rape-report-20191029-story.html">reported</a> that prosecutors are dropping the charges against the woman because of the “cost to our community and the negative impact on survivors of sexual violence cannot be ignored.&#8221;
&#8220;We are concerned this case, and the significant amount of misinformation surrounding it, could discourage other survivors from reporting their attack,&#8221; Branson said in a new statement. &#8220;That is unacceptable.&#8221;
Branson failed to address what dropping the case meant for victims of false accusations. As it stood, the woman only faced up to 23 months in jail for a felony false reporting charge. Had the male student been arrested, he faced decades in prison.
As is typical, media outlets won’t name the woman because she claims to be a victim of sexual assault.

Justice scales

Kansas Prosecutors To Drop False Rape Charges For Fear Real Victims Won’t Come Forward

Crime

Kansas

Sexual Assault

After being accused of rape and sexual assault, even if a man is found “not guilty” or proven to be innocent, the mere accusation can and will haunt him for life.
People often only hear about the accusation and not the outcome. Those who have been falsely accused struggle intensely with their ordeals. In a recent <a href="http://thewarrzone.blogspot.com/2019/11/no-rehabilitation-for-innocent.html">blog post</a>, Simon Warr – a BBC broadcaster and falsely accused man – details the difficulty that one British man has had since his rape conviction was overturned.
The Daily Wire will not name the man, because his accuser cannot be named. We feel it is unfair to name an innocent person, especially if their accuser enjoys permanent anonymity.
This man, whom we will call John Doe, was charged with raping a woman after a brief sexual relationship. He was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison plus lifetime registry as a sex offender. Jurors never heard or saw the full messages between John and his accuser because she had edited them to give a misleading account of their interactions.
It wasn’t until after John was convicted that his sister-in-law began helping him prove his innocence. In doing so, she quickly discovered the full messages, which gave the impression that the sex between John and his accuser was consensual, as he had maintained.
Further, the messages between the two provided a motive for the accuser to lie: She was upset that John did not continue to speak with her after their encounter.
“Of course, the detectives who dealt with the allegations against [John], prior to his being charged, could have found this vital evidence in a matter of minutes, because that is how long it took his sister-in-law to unearth the unedited messages via his Facebook account,” Warr wrote. “But the police officers didn’t bother doing any investigation into his accuser’s very serious allegations, in order to verify whether or not she was telling the truth &#8212; they just presumed she was.”
Armed with the newly discovered evidence, John appealed his conviction and it was overturned. As he left the court a free man, John explained: “[I]t’s always going to smear my name … there’s always going to be people out there who have the doubt.”
Indeed, John’s words were prescient.
As Warr explained, “Innocence in sexual allegation cases, whether established by a jury’s verdict or via the Court of Appeal, means, in reality, next to nothing these days.”
John tried to claim compensation from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice for the false accusation. His claim was denied, based on the following:
The Secretary of State for Justice has concluded that the conviction was not reversed as a result of a new or newly discovered fact that shows beyond reasonable doubt that you did not commit the offence.
Warr asked where are “the charities, think-tanks and social enterprises queuing up to help those blameless folk whose lives have been utterly devastated by cruel and calculating liars, fantasists and fraudsters,” and suggests that men falsely accused of sexual assault and rape are merely “the wrong kind of victim.”
“What a cruel society we can be when dealing with unfashionable minority groups, such as the falsely accused,” Warr concluded.

Man&#8217;s eyes

‘The Wrong Kind Of Victim’: Man Falsely Accused Of Rape Still Struggling With Suspicions

Hoax

A sex-trafficked 15-year-old girl told police that she was taken to get an abortion by 30-year-old Christopher Johnson, the man charged with &#8220;lewd or lascivious battery&#8221; against the minor.
Despite the age discrepancy between the two and the victim&#8217;s exceptionally young age, (the <a href="https://www.ageofconsent.net/states/florida">age of consent</a> in Florida is 18), it appears the abortion clinic went through with the abortion and never so much as notified authorities.
“The victim stated that she got pregnant from the defendant and he took her to the clinic to have an abortion,” wrote Detective Adam Granit in Johnson’s arrest report, according to the <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/davie/fl-ne-davie-man-arrest-teen-porn-20191023-cpv5yq7dmjh7dd4cuunuqq7wmi-story.html">South Florida Sun Sentinel</a>.
The outlet noted that authorities found paperwork from an abortion clinic inside Johnson&#8217;s apartment after executing a search warrant.
Nearly a year after she went missing, the 15-year-old, whose name is being withheld due to her young age, was spotted by her mother online in numerous pornographic photos.
&#8220;Police investigated and discovered nearly 60 pornographic videos of the Sunrise girl posted on Periscope, Pornhub, Modelhub, Snapchat and other websites, according to an arrest report,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/davie/fl-ne-davie-man-arrest-teen-porn-20191023-cpv5yq7dmjh7dd4cuunuqq7wmi-story.html">South Florida Sun Sentinel</a>.
Police recognized a &#8220;bald man&#8221; in some of the pornographic videos as one of the men, later identified as Johnson, spotted with the girl in February at a 7-11. Surveillance video from the 7-11 &#8220;shows the girl trying to shield her face so the clerk at the store &#8230; couldn’t see her,&#8221; the Sentinel reported.
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The black Dodge Challenger Johnson drove to the convenience store was eventually linked to Johnson. On October 22, officers pulled over the vehicle and arrested Johnson.
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The sex tapes wherein the girl had sex with Johnson were filmed inside his apartment, the girl told police.
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Johnson, who denies having sex with the teen, is being held on $75,000 bond at a Broward Country jail. The 30-year-old was charged with felony lewd or lascivious battery on a victim between 12 and 16.
Abortion facilities have a history of allegedly protecting predators. For example, reporting from 2014 revealed that a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia was reportedly caught covering up child rape.
&#8220;Pennsylvania Department of Health inspectors found that in six out of six medical records reviewed of girls under age 16, there was no documentation that Planned Parenthood employees sought to ascertain the age of the individual who had sexual intercourse with the child,&#8221; <a href="https://prolifeaction.org/2014/phillypredators/">Pro-Life Action League</a> reported after reviewing inspection reports from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
&#8220;Planned Parenthood employees did not report these incidents to child protection authorities,&#8221; the report continued, noting that two of the girls were 14, and four were 13 years old.
&#8220;Two of the 13-year old girls were known to have had sex before the age of 13,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;One reported her first sexual intercourse at age 11. Another reported her first sexual intercourse at age 12. It was in their medical records. Even Planned Parenthood’s own policy acknowledged that sex with a child under age 13 is always, by definition, rape. Under Pennsylvania law, a child under 13 cannot give consent.&#8221;
&#8220;These incidents of child sexual abuse should have been reported by Planned Parenthood employees, but they were not,&#8221; Pro-Life Action League reported. &#8220;Let the record also show that an inspection of Planned Parenthood’s Far Northeast Health Center on September 19, 2013 also revealed that Planned Parenthood’s Northeast Health Center likewise &#8216;failed to develop a policy that met the reporting requirements for statutory sexual assault victims&#8217; as defined by Pennsylvania law. What’s more, inspectors found two instances of possible child sexual abuse that went unreported by employees at Planned Parenthood’s Far Northeast Health Center.&#8221;

Christopher Johnson

Report: Sex-Trafficked 15-Year-Old Taken To Get Abortion By 30-Year-Old Alleged Rapist; Clinic Never Notified Police

Abortion

On Wednesday, NBCUniversal announced that there will not be any additional investigations into sexual misconduct allegations surrounding former “Today” host Matt Lauer. 
&#8220;There is no additional investigation being launched,” NBCUniversal spokesperson Hilary Smith said, according to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nbcuniversal-wont-conduct-new-matt-lauer-investigation-1248592">The Hollywood Reporter</a>. &#8220;We are very confident in the report that was conducted.”
&#8220;We fired Matt Lauer within 24 hours of learning what he did, and promptly launched a corporate investigation,” Smith contended. “Based on our investigative findings, we have swiftly taken appropriate actions to address the situation and improve workplace culture. It is also worth noting that this was a corporate investigation that was conducted by an almost entirely female team, none of whom are part of the News division.&#8221;
Megyn Kelly, a former NBC employee who’s been vocal in her support for an outside investigation, blasted the network for their lack on transparency. 
“CBS, FOX, NPR, NFL &#8211; all hired outside investigators,” she posted to Twitter. “NBC again refuses to do so &#8230; as it claims it has ‘nothing to hide.’”
“RELEASE ALL LAUER ACCUSERS FROM THEIR NON-DISCLOSURES,” Kelly added, in all upper case letters.
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CBS, FOX, NPR, NFL &#8211; all hired outside investigators. NBC again refuses to do so &#8230; as it claims it has “nothing to hide.” RELEASE ALL LAUER ACCUSERS FROM THEIR NON-DISCLOSURES. <a href="https://t.co/cMoLMYCcE6">https://t.co/cMoLMYCcE6</a>
&mdash; Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) <a href="https://twitter.com/megynkelly/status/1184971434856202240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
While working for NBC, Kelly publicly called for an outside investigation into the network over internal claims of sexual misconduct regarding Lauer and the suspect handling of allegations into Democrat megadonor Harvey Weinstein.
“There is a question about whether or not there should be an outside investigator to take a hard look at this,” Kelly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tucker-carlson-floats-real-reason-megyn-kelly-was-canned-from-nbc">said</a> on NBC airwaves on September 2, 2018, referring to the Lauer allegations and apparent stonewalling on Weinstein reporting from then-NBC journalist Ronan Farrow. “To me, as a lawyer, it’s just always better to just send it outside, and then people can have more faith in it, and if there’s nothing to hide, you have no worries about it,” she added.
While Kelly was ostensibly fired from NBC a month later for remarks about darkening one&#8217;s face for Halloween costumes, Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested Wednesday that Kelly was actually canned for calling for an outside investigation.
Kelly neither confirmed nor denied Carlson&#8217;s theory.
“There needs to be an outside investigation into this company,” she told Carlson. “They investigated themselves, that doesn’t work. Fox News had an outside investigator, CBS News had an outside investigator, NPR, the NFL, this is how it’s done. You get somebody on the outside who can be trusted.” 
As reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/matt-lauer-accused-of-rape-by-former-colleague-lauer-responds">The Daily Wire</a> last week, former NBC news employee Brooke Nevils claims she was raped by Lauer in 2014 while covering the Sochi Olympics, Farrow&#8217;s new book &#8220;Catch and Kill&#8221; reveals.
“Once she was in his hotel room, Nevils alleges, Lauer — who was wearing a T-shirt and boxers — pushed her against the door and kissed her. He then pushed her onto the bed, ‘flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex,’ Farrow writes. ‘She said that she declined several times,’” a report from Variety said.
Nevils claims she “was in the midst of telling him she wasn’t interested again when he ‘just did it,’” Farrow wrote in the book. “Lauer, she said, didn’t use lubricant. The encounter was excruciatingly painful. ‘It hurt so bad. I remember thinking, Is this normal?’ She told me she stopped saying no, but wept silently into a pillow.”
“It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” the former NBC employee told Farrow. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”
Nevils admitted that she had consensual sexual encounters with Lauer following the alleged rape — some of which she initiated.
According to Farrow, Nevils says the alleged incident was an open secret at NBC before a formal complaint was filed and Lauer was canned.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tucker-carlson-floats-real-reason-megyn-kelly-was-canned-from-nbc">Tucker Carlson Floats Real Reason Megyn Kelly Was Canned From NBC: Called For Independent Investigation</a>

Megyn Kelly

NBC Won&#8217;t Open New Investigation Into Matt Lauer; Megyn Kelly Responds

Matt Lauer

Ronan Farrow

Violent crime in America, despite experiencing an overall <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1993-2012.xls">dramatic decline</a> since the 1990s, has started to <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/25-years-crime-wave-back-republicans-refuse-talk/">surge back</a> over the past few years. Amidst this distressing social trend, alas, America&#8217;s <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/rnc-blasts-kamala-harris-not-pro-criminal-enough/">erstwhile</a> &#8220;law-and-order&#8221;/tough-on-crime political party has been ideologically and financially captured by pro-criminal libertarians who ally with the Left to spout hackneyed, outmoded orthodoxies like the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-dont-let-kim-kardashian-fool-you-america-josh-hammer">alleged (non-)issue</a> of &#8220;mass incarceration.&#8221; The most tangible result of this unholy alliance was the bipartisan 2018 passage of the harrowing First Step Act jailbreak law — a law enactment which President Donald Trump, viewing the <a href="https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20191004/he-was-released-early-from-prison-in-february-now-hes-wanted-for-murder-on-federal-hill">murderous early results</a>, apparently already <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-reportedly-regrets-passage-jailbreak-first-step-act-gullible-conservatives-supported/">regrets</a>.
Alas, the leftist/libertarian alliance on &#8220;criminal justice&#8221; issues, just highlighted during last night&#8217;s Democratic Party presidential primary debate when Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) touted her work with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on the crime-abetting issue of &#8220;<a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/jailbreak-epidemic-gang-member-released-6k-bail-now-accused-raping-12-year-old-girl/">bail reform</a>,&#8221;continues unabated. Which brings us to prominent libertarian lawyer/legal commentator <a href="https://www.cato.org/people/clark-neily">Clark Neily</a>, who has been on a roll, of late. Neily, who spent years with the rabidly <a href="https://ij.org/center-for-judicial-engagement/">pro-judicial power</a> libertarian legal group <a href="https://ij.org">Institute for Justice,</a> now works for the equally <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/proper-judging-means-principled-engagement-not-judicial-deference">pro-judicial power</a> libertarian Cato Institute. Neily&#8217;s title at Cato is &#8220;Vice President for Criminal Justice&#8221; and, based on his recent musings, he appears to embody the zealous leftist/libertarian jailbreak alliance.
The precise target of Neily&#8217;s recent ire is the prosecutor. More specifically, Neily is convinced that far too many prosecutors become federal judges — and that not nearly enough criminal defense attorneys become federal judges. In a highly revealing but nonetheless sober-minded recognition of his core readership for such anti-prosecutorial musings, Neily has published on the subject at both <a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/studies/are-disproportionate-number-federal-judges-former-government-advocates">Cato</a> and, just this week, at left-wing <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/too-many-prosecutors-federal-judiciary.html">Slate</a>. The latter piece goes so far as to call for an outright &#8220;moratorium&#8221; on the nomination of former prosecutors to the federal bench.
I am not a former prosecutor. But I do have the benefit of education at a top law school and the experience of serving as a law clerk for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And I believe Neily is severely misguided in his anti-prosecutor crusade.
Crucially, Neily&#8217;s Cato <a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/studies/are-disproportionate-number-federal-judges-former-government-advocates#summary-previous-studies">study</a> makes no attempt whatsoever to control for education, intellect, or legal credentials. To many lay observers, this may seem anodyne — after all, can&#8217;t former prosecutors and defense attorneys/public defenders, as classes of attorneys, be presumed to have roughly equivalent legal acumens and credentials? Well, no. For generations, gifted law students of all political stripes have seen the prosecutorial career path — be it via the Department of Justice (DOJ), local U.S. attorney&#8217;s offices, state attorneys general offices, or even local district attorneys — as a prominent avenue for vocational success. The DOJ <a href="https://www.justice.gov/legal-careers/entry-level-attorneys">Honors Program</a> has long been viewed as one of the most prestigious entry-level attorney tracks in the nation, and scores of lawyers hoping to one day be considered for a federal judgeship have routinely sought U.S. attorney&#8217;s office experience as a means of padding their resumes and evincing a demonstrable commitment to public service. Again, this holds true for lawyers and judges of all political persuasions and partisan affiliations: As but two prominent examples for those on the Left, 2016 failed Barack Obama U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is a former federal prosecutor and current presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is a former California attorney general.
This is simply not nearly as broadly true for those who pursue careers in the criminal defense bar — be they in private practice or working as public defenders. Leftists and libertarians can gnash their teeth and wail all they&#8217;d like, but the reality, as I <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1176324820771819520">tweeted</a> last month, is that in no sane world is the median defense lawyer of the same acumen and credentials as the median prosecutor. Representing drug traffickers, gangbangers, and felons in possession of firearms is not a dream job. Again, my claim is that this holds true for prosecutors and the defense bar, viewed as a class — obviously, there will be innumerable individual dispensations to such a broad rule, when comparing class sizes of this magnitude. But anecdotally, based on (1) my own personal experience knowing many individuals who have become prosecutors and defense lawyers, (2) my own law clerk experience and thinking back to a comparison of the median prosecutor&#8217;s brief and oral argument versus the median defense attorney&#8217;s brief and oral argument, and (3) discussing the issue with other former federal appellate law clerk friends, I feel eminently comfortable making such a claim. We should feel comfortable establishing a rebuttable presumption that prosecutors, considered as a class, have superior legal credentials to defense attorneys. Based purely on my own experience, I cannot even begin to count the volume of public defender&#8217;s office legal briefs I read that were of an immensely shoddy quality.
At a bare minimum, libertarians and leftists who would seek to place a moratorium on nominating prosecutors to federal judgeships ought to be asked how they can be so sure that they are not sacrificing legal acumen or credentials. I understand that such logic is arguably circular — anti-prosecutor libertarians and leftists could respond that such a moratorium may prophylactically disincentivize smart law school graduates who may aspire for judgeships from pursuing prosecutorial careers. But the salient point is that the general prestige of many prosecutorial career paths is so deeply ingrained in our legal culture. That is not something that can be easily reversed, and I highly suspect the criminal defense bar and its apologists have no particularly compelling argument to offer for how they might be able to do so.
Prosecutors do not write our nation&#8217;s criminal statutes — they merely enforce them. To the extent leftists and libertarians — hooked as they are on the anachronistic talking points of &#8220;mass incarceration&#8221; and &#8220;low-level non-violent offenders&#8221; — have substantive issues with our criminal statutes, they ought to lobby policymakers. By all accounts, considering both <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/needs-leftists-gop-texas-gov-greg-abbott-endorses-radical-ban-box-pro-criminal-mandate-employers/">state-level initiatives</a> and the aforementioned First Step Act, the pro-jailbreak cabal is quite successful in its lobbying efforts. Pro-jailbreak forces are wrong, on the policy merits, but that is an issue that can be debated in the political space. But it would be dangerous for justice and the rule of law, absent pro-jailbreak forces&#8217; ability to overcome the rebuttable presumption about the credentials of disparate vocational classes, for such forces to also take out their frustrations as part of the judicial nominations process.

Judge gavel with Justice lawyers, Businesswoman in suit or lawyer, Advice and Legal services Concept.

HAMMER: In Defense Of Prosecutors

Constitution

Department of Justice

Drugs

Federal Government

Guns

Homicide

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

Kamala Harris

On Wednesday evening, Matt Lauer&#8217;s rape accuser Brooke Nevils ripped the former NBC daytime news host&#8217;s open letter defense, accusing him of &#8220;victim blaming.&#8221;
&#8220;There’s a Matt Lauer that millions of Americans watched on TV every morning for two decades. And there is the Matt Lauer who this morning attempted to bully a former colleague into silence,&#8221; Nevils wrote in the statement to NBC News, according to <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/10/09/brooke-nevils-calls-lauer-defense-a-case-study-in-victim-shaming/?_ga=2.254381576.1881320997.1570721058-1941273117.1559752445">Page Six</a>.
&#8220;His open letter was a case study in victim blaming. I am not afraid of him now regardless of his threats, bullying, and the shaming and predatory tactics I knew he would and now has tried to use against me,&#8221; the accuser added.
Nevils&#8217; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/matt-lauer-accused-of-rape-by-former-colleague-lauer-responds">rape allegation</a> against Lauer hit the press earlier on Wednesday. Nevils, a former NBC News employee herself, told journalist Ronan Farrow she was anally raped by Lauer in 2014 while covering the Sochi Olympics.
After socializing at a hotel bar with Lauer and then-&#8220;Today&#8221; anchor Meredith Vieira, Nevils said she went to Lauer’s room to get back her press credentials, which she said were taken by Lauer as a joke. She then returned to his room a second time upon his invite, when the alleged rape took place.
&#8220;Once she was in his hotel room, Nevils alleges, Lauer — who was wearing a T-shirt and boxers — pushed her against the door and kissed her. He then pushed her onto the bed, &#8216;flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex,&#8217; Farrow writes. &#8216;She said that she declined several times,'&#8221; the <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/matt-lauer-rape-nbc-ronan-farrow-book-catch-kill-1203364485/">Variety</a> report said.
Nevils claims she &#8220;was in the midst of telling him she wasn’t interested again when he &#8216;just did it,'&#8221; Farrow wrote in his book &#8220;Catch and Kill.&#8221;
&#8220;Lauer, she said, didn’t use lubricant. The encounter was excruciatingly painful. &#8216;It hurt so bad. I remember thinking, Is this normal?&#8217; She told me she stopped saying no, but wept silently into a pillow,&#8221; the book claimed.
&#8220;It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,&#8221; the former NBC employee told Farrow. &#8220;It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.&#8221;
Nevils admitted that she had consensual — though she described them as &#8220;transactional&#8221; — sexual encounters with Lauer, some of which she initiated, after the alleged rape took place.
Lauer flatly denied the rape allegation in a fiery <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/read-it-matt-lauers-open-letter-slams-accusers-my-silence-was-a-mistake">open letter</a>, saying Nevils&#8217; accusations &#8220;defy common sense.&#8221; He also noted that his past silence on the matter was &#8220;a mistake.&#8221;
&#8220;Over the past two years people have asked why I have not spoken out to defend myself more vigorously against some of the false and salacious allegations leveled at me,&#8221; Lauer wrote in the letter, which was released by his lawyers and published by <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/matt-lauer-pens-open-letter-ronan-farrow-book-allegations-1246419">The Hollywood Reporter</a>. &#8220;It is a fair question and the answer is deeply personal. Despite my desire to set the record straight and confront the individuals making false allegations, I wanted nothing less than to create more headlines my kids would read and a new gathering of photographers at the end of our driveway. So I decided to just stay quiet and work on repairing my relationship with the people I love. It has been the most important full-time job I have ever had.&#8221;
&#8220;But my silence has been a mistake,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Today, nearly two years after I was fired by NBC, old stories are being recycled, titillating details are being added, and a dangerous and defamatory new allegation is being made. All are being spread as part of a promotional effort to sell a book. It’s outrageous. So, after not speaking out to protect my children, it is now with their full support I say &#8216;enough.'&#8221;
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Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/read-it-matt-lauers-open-letter-slams-accusers-my-silence-was-a-mistake">READ IT: Matt Lauer’s Open Letter Slams Accusers: ‘My Silence Has Been A Mistake’</a>

Matt Lauer&#8217;s Rape Accuser Rips His Defense As &#8216;Victim Shaming’

MeToo

While the decidedly progressive notion of uncritically believing all women continues to be pilloried by <a href="https://quillette.com/2018/11/06/how-the-metoo-movement-helped-create-a-script-for-false-accusers/">endless evidence</a>, it remains very much in vogue among the Left. The most recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-latest-allegation-against-brett-kavanaugh-matt-walsh">spurious allegations</a> against Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh demonstrate this to a fatiguing degree. Due process has been thrown out of the proverbial window when it comes to accusations of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-moral-musical-chairs-metoo-movement-continues-sharif-khan">sexual misconduct toward men</a> with little hope of change in the foreseeable future, particularly in the increasingly progressive court of public opinion.
What these zealots fail to recognize in their uncritical witch-hunts is just how hard we, as Americans, fought to eradicate such false accusations. For reference, the most telling example in our recent history is that of Emmett Till and Carolyn Bryant.
In 1955, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till">Emmett Till</a> was a mere 14-year-old boy when 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant accused him of sexually assaulting her. A kangaroo court ensued. Till was murdered by a small mob, his body mutilated and dumped in the Tallahatchie River.
Historian Timothy Tyson states that in a 2007 interview Carolyn Bryant admitted to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/how-author-timothy-tyson-found-the-woman-at-the-center-of-the-emmett-till-case">fabricating her accusations</a> against Emmett Till. While historians can debate the details, what simply cannot be denied is that a young teenage boy was denied due process and brutally killed over an accusation.
While public figures often steal the headlines, countless men continue to face outright ruin over false claims of sexual misconduct as well. In 2010, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-11676804">Paul Joseph</a>, an IT consultant from the UK, was accused of rape by his then-girlfriend. Though she was punished with three years in prison for the false allegation, it still destroyed Joseph’s life in the process.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Banks_(American_football)">Brian Banks</a> was once a top football prospect out of high school on his way to attend USC. Instead, a false rape claim forced him to serve six years in prison. He was finally exonerated in 2012, but his dreams of playing pro ball were long dashed upon the rocks.
A <a href="https://torontosun.com/news/world/mean-girls-face-lawsuit-over-false-sex-allegations-against-teen">Canadian teenage boy</a> was falsely accused of sexual assault simply because he was disliked by a group of teenage girls. He was forced out of his job, had to be homeschooled for the remainder of high school, and suffered extensive psychological damage as a result.
<a href="https://coloradosun.com/2019/02/14/moses-el-exonerated-compensation/">Clarence Moses-EL</a> was imprisoned for 28 years because his accuser dreamt he raped her. Though awarded a settlement, no amount of money can give back nearly three decades of his life lost behind bars.
The tragic story of Emmett Till needs to haunt the hashtag of #believewomen. The cruel, regressive irony of the murdered young boy amid the shrill, uncritical demand of progressives results in a suffocating kind of disbelief. Due process, the hallmark of American justice, remains under constant attack as progressives recklessly wield their hashtags with ineptitude and a complete disregard for actual principles. In doing so, they resurrect old ghosts from our past we once thought banished to the halls of history.
More from Sharif Khan:
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-moral-musical-chairs-metoo-movement-continues-sharif-khan">KHAN: The Moral Musical Chairs Of The #MeToo Movement Continues</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-brief-view-streets-addiction-epidemic-sharif-khan">KHAN: A Brief View From The Streets Of The Addiction Epidemic In California</a>
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Emmett Till&#8217;s Grave

KHAN: The Ghost Of Emmett Till And The Inherent Dangers Of #BelieveWomen

Racism

Sexism

The media this week is trumpeting a study that makes a shocking claim: One in every 16 women say their first sexual experience was rape. As NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/09/16/761201571/tip-of-the-iceberg-1-in-16-women-report-first-sexual-experience-as-rape">notes</a>, this is just &#8220;the tip of the iceberg.&#8221; The one-in-16 figure — over 6% of all women between the ages of 18 and 44 — could even be an &#8220;underestimate,&#8221; we&#8217;re assured.
News reports on this study have, of course, tied these revelations to the #MeToo movement. We are meant to come away with the impression that America is chock-full of rapists, and millions upon millions of women have fallen victim to the millions upon millions of predators lurking behind every corner. A closer look at the data, however, reveals a drastically different picture. There is no reason to artificially inflate rape statistics — rape is horrible enough, and far too common already — but this study does just that.
Here&#8217;s the key portion of the NPR report (emphasis mine):
<blockquote>About 6.5% women — an estimated 3.3 million nationwide — said that their first sexual experience was rape.
The average age of most victims was about 15 when they were assaulted. The average age of their partner, or the assailant, was 27, Hawks notes. This suggests a &#8220;major power discrepancy&#8221; and, possibly, a difference in physical size as well, she says.
More than 26% said they were physically threatened during the encounter, 46% said they were physically held down. Over half (56%) of them said they were verbally pressured into having sex, and 16% said that their partner threatened to end the relationship if they didn&#8217;t have sex. These forms of coercion were not mutually exclusive.
&#8220;The definition of rape is any sexual encounter that&#8217;s unwanted or nonconsensual,&#8221; Hawks says. &#8220;And when a [woman or girl] is coerced into having sex that she doesn&#8217;t want to have, that is still considered a rape.&#8221;</blockquote>
There is quite a lot going on in these few paragraphs. First, NPR misquotes the study&#8217;s <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2751247">findings</a>. The average age of most &#8220;victims&#8221; was actually 15.6 and the average age of the &#8220;assailant&#8221; was six years older, which would make him 21 rather than 27. More to the point, &#8220;verbal pressure&#8221; has been lumped together with physical force. Dr. Laura Hawks, the primary author of the study, broadens rape to include &#8220;any sexual encounter that&#8217;s unwanted.&#8221; The &#8220;or&#8221; in the phrase &#8220;unwanted or nonconsensual&#8221; makes it clear that a sexual act could be in every sense consensual — meaning, both partners actively and affirmatively agree to participate in it — and yet rape still may have occurred.
This is madness.
Traditionally, rape hinges entirely on consent. The Department of Justice <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog/updated-definition-rape">defines</a> it with precise detail: &#8220;The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.&#8221;
Now, it is understood that verbal consent is not always legitimate consent. A child is not capable of consenting, no matter what they say, because they lack the psychological and emotional faculties to make that sort of decision. For a similar reason, you cannot get consent by drugging someone. That&#8217;s one of the reasons why &#8220;unwanted&#8221; does not and cannot enter into the definition of rape. A rapist cannot be excused by arguing that the victim really &#8220;wanted it.&#8221; The only question we need to ask is this: Did you have sex with someone who did not or could not consent? If so, you&#8217;re a rapist. If not, you aren&#8217;t.
A man who pressures a woman to have sex by threatening to end the relationship might be a jerk, but he&#8217;s not a rapist. The woman, if she is a mentally competent adult, can still make her own choice. She is not being forced to do anything. She can decline the man&#8217;s advances and she can terminate the sexual act at any time. Her situation, however unpleasant, cannot be compared to a woman who is physically held down against her will and violated. If she decides to go through with it, the sex may be unloving and transactional, but it is still consensual. She may regret it afterwards. She may feel used (she was). She may want to leave him (she should). But none of this, in itself, makes it rape.
And this new definition of rape wouldn&#8217;t just make everyday jerks and bad boyfriends into rapists; it would turn any man who has ever used any form of persuasion — flattery, sweet talk, and so forth — into a sex criminal. In all of those cases, it could be argued that the woman didn&#8217;t really want to, wasn&#8217;t really into it, and thus was raped. Any wife that has ever had slightly begrudging or unenthusiastic sex with her husband is now a sexual assault survivor. Dr. Hawks is right: By this definition, the actual percentage of &#8220;rape victims&#8221; is way, way higher than 6%.
To make matters worse, the standard is inconsistently applied. If a man who convinces a woman to have sex is a rapist, isn&#8217;t a woman who seduces a man also a rapist? Aren&#8217;t strippers coaxing money out of men&#8217;s pockets now rapists? Aren&#8217;t prostitutes strutting on the street corner rapists? Isn&#8217;t any woman who uses emotional pressure of any kind to extract any concession or compromise out of a man now guilty of assault? It&#8217;s true that men can be manipulative in getting what they want out of a relationship — and it&#8217;s true that what they often want is sex — but women have been known to employ their own forms of manipulation to achieve their own ends. If the man is a rapist, so is she. Coercion, pressure, and manipulation is far from a one-way street, as anyone familiar with male-female relationships well knows.
And this is all to say nothing of pressure and coercion in other contexts. By this standard, isn&#8217;t an effective salesman who convinces people to buy things they don&#8217;t want now a thief? Isn&#8217;t the homeless beggar guilt-tripping quarters out of people&#8217;s pockets now guilty of emotional robbery? Isn&#8217;t persuasion of all kinds, in all contexts, problematic at best — and violent assault, at worst?
This is what happens when coherent definitions are broadened into ambiguous, incoherent, all-encompassing concepts. Before long, everyone is a rapist and everyone is a rape victim. The word no longer means anything. And the real victims — of which there are many — are left high and dry.

couple in bed.jpg

WALSH: Media Trumpets Study Claiming That All ‘Unwanted’ Sex Is Rape. That Is Insane And Dangerous. Here&#8217;s Why.

Media Bias

National Public Radio (NPR)

Charges have been dropped against an Uber driver accused of raping a woman in April.
In May, the driver, who will not be named by The Daily Wire because he is a victim, was charged with sexually assaulting a woman in his SUV after picking her up as a passenger. He was ordered to be held without bail, based on the woman’s claims.
The woman, who has not been named in news articles, <a href="https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/05/07/uber-driver-rape-charge-melvin-guerrero-encarna-wrentham/">claimed</a> the male Uber driver picked her up after she left a party in Franklin, Massachusetts, early one morning. The woman ordered the Uber because she was too drunk to drive to her friend’s house, CBS Boston reported. The woman claimed the Uber driver stopped short of her destination and then raped her for more than an hour in the back seat of the vehicle. She claimed she received bruises on her arm, leg, and back as a result of the attack.
Uber records showed the 3.53 mile trip did last one hour and 13 minutes, but the driver’s attorney, Robert Carmel-Montes, said the woman had spent the hour talking about her problems.
“There was no assault here,” Carmel-Montes told reporters in May. “I think that the facts will bear out here there’s a predator in this case, but it’s not the man behind bars.”
“I think the facts will bear out that the alleged victim knew exactly what she was doing,” Carmel-Montes continued. “She left him her phone number at the very end of their interaction.”
As to the length of the ride, Carmel-Montes said the woman was “discussing all of her problems with him and she had asked to be dropped off a little bit before her final destination, claiming that there were dogs or something outside and she didn’t want them barking while she was talking to him.”
Four months later, DNA evidence excluded the Uber driver as having committed the alleged rape, and the <a href="https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/09/17/uber-driver-rape-charges-dropped-melvin-guerrero-encarnacion-wrentham/">charges were dropped</a>. He had worked for rideshare companies for five years without incident but was let go as soon as the woman made her allegation.
There is no indication the woman who made the claim will be arrested.
This is not the first ride-hailing driver to be falsely accused of rape. In August, Linda Hood was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50330/she-accused-taxi-driver-rape-tracking-data-proved-ashe-schow">found guilty</a> of perverting the course of justice after she claimed a taxi driver detoured from their route in order to rape her. Tracking data proved no such detour was taken. Hood also claimed the driver who raped her was in his 50s and was clean-shaven, yet the accused driver was 29 and had a full beard. Still, her accusations sent him and another taxi driver with a similar license number to jail for nearly a full day. In this case, DNA also proved the men were not responsible.
Hood maintained her status as a victim for nearly two-and-a-half years before finally accepting her claims were false.
In September 2017, another woman, Sophie Pointon, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/21397/student-jailed-falsely-accusing-taxi-driver-sexual-amanda-prestigiacomo">was sentenced to 16 months in prison</a> after falsely accusing her taxi driver of assaulting her five months earlier. The falsely accused driver proved his innocence with a voice recording, which showed Pointon was “extremely intoxicated and became aggressive after he refused to take her £10 because it was covered in kebab oil,” as reported by The Daily Wire’s Amanda Prestigiacomo.

Carjacking

She Claimed Her Uber Driver Raped Her. DNA Proved It Was A Lie.

A female student at the University of Kansas told police that she had been raped the day before. She didn’t remember all the details because, she said, she was drunk. She told the officers she didn’t want to press charges but gave them access to her phone before she entered the Lawrence Memorial Hospital for a rape examination.
After looking through her phone, police suspected she was not being truthful about the encounter and continued to investigate. They determined she had lied and arrested her for falsely reporting a felony crime.
The Kansas City Star did everything it could to <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article234717197.html">report</a> the story in a way favorable to the female accuser, including placing the misleading claim that only 2%-8% of rape accusations are false immediately under the paragraph explaining the woman was arrested. The study has been widely used to insist that women don’t lie about rape, even though the study’s percentages refer to accusations that were proven false. It is nearly impossible to prove a negative, so of course this number is low. An equally small percentage of rape reports result in a guilty finding before a jury, so using the same misleading method, one could say an equally small number of rape reports are true.
In reality, we don’t know how many reports are false because cases can be categorized as false or as having too little evidence to make an arrest, which doesn’t mean it is false or true.
As for the KU student, her text messages show that she “fabricated the rape story to effect the relationship between herself and the victim &#8230; and her ex-boyfriend,” according to Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson.
“The State believes the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing, including: the testimony of (the victim), (her ex-boyfriend), law enforcement officers, and evidence collected by law enforcement, specifically, text messages from the Defendant to her friend … indicate the sexual encounter … was consensual,” Branson said in a statement quoted by the Star.
The woman claimed she had been drinking and didn’t know how she ended up in bed with her ex-boyfriend’s best friend. She claimed to the Star that she joked about the incident with a friend in a text message because, as the outlet claimed, she was “unable at the time to admit she had been raped.”
She only claimed the incident was rape the next day after an acquaintance “threatened to tell people about the incident,” the Star reported.
The woman threatened the acquaintance back by texting: “I’m pretty sure it was borderline rape and I have the bruises and statements to prove it so if you want to go there let’s do it,” according to court documents reviewed by the Star.
The woman then began to “remember” the incident, claiming she tried to leave but her ex-boyfriend’s friend wouldn’t let her and that she told him “no” as he held her down. She apparently had bruises on her arms, legs, and neck that she could not explain. Bruises, however, don’t appear immediately after an injury and usually take 1-2 days to form.
Text messages sent after the incident to a friend “made light of the incident and seemed to suggest the encounter was consensual and ‘just a mistake on her part,’” the Star reported. When asked about the messages, the female student attempted to “downplay” the situation.
Weeks after the encounter, she went to KU’s Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access to file a Title IX complaint against the male student. Police told the school it doubted her story.
Text messages from the alleged perpetrator mentioned that the female student appeared to want to have sex with him.
Police allege the woman had sex with her ex-boyfriend’s best friend to get back at him, but then feared news of the encounter would spread.
“Furthermore, the detective said the woman likely decided to press charges after speaking with the university’s IOA office because she wanted to punish her on-again, off-again boyfriend for having a relationship with another woman at the same time as her,” the Star reported.
The woman’s attorney, paid for by a legal defense fund created during the #MeToo movement, naturally said the female student was telling the truth and chastising police for failing to adhere to “trauma-informed practices,” which insist women never lie and that any evidence of such is simply evidence of trauma and truth.

Woman texting

She Told The Cops She Was Raped. Text Messages Showed Otherwise. Now She’s Been Arrested.

Education

Since 2015, Jonesboro, Georgia, residents and those in the surrounding areas had been terrorized by a series of rapes. At first, investigators weren’t sure the rapes were connected, since the method used to intimidate or find victims differed. Evidence would later suggest that one man was behind each of the attacks.
For nearly three years, police were unable to figure out who was committing the rapes, despite police sketches and information from the victims. The tides finally turned in 2018, when the man who has now been charged with the crimes joined the Clayton County Police Department academy. Kenneth Bowen III was arrested last Tuesday for seven rapes and one sexual battery.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/cops-background-check-linked-former-police-recruit-clayton-county-rapes/guCqRA01rYHNQmDT3vapkL/">reported</a> that Bowen joined the police academy on June 25, 2018 but was fired less than three months later after he showed up to training four hours late and lied to supervising officers about where he was.
At the time, police were still trying to figure out who was raping black women. The AJC reported that the most recent attack involved a woman who was raped in her home at knifepoint. The attack was interrupted when the woman’s boyfriend came home. The perpetrator was able to get away before police could find him.
During a press conference last Wednesday announcing the arrest, Clayton County Police Chief Keven Roberts said that Bowen may not have been caught had he not joined the police academy. During the investigation, police “realized that it’s possible that if he was committing these crimes, breaking into women’s windows and assaulting people by buildings near their apartment complexes, then somebody over the last few years must have talked to police and said, ‘This guy is a suspicious person in the area,’” said Lt. Thomas Reimers, a Clayton County investigators who worked on the case.
When investigators looked back through 911 calls regarding suspicious people near the attacks, they came across Bowen’s name. They then looked over incident reports “to see if any of the details pointed to Bowen,” the AJC reported. They discovered that victims had mentioned tattoos on the attacker’s right arm and the vehicle he in which he escaped. Police discovered photos on Bowen’s social media accounts and learned he had a car that matched the vehicle description. Also, he looked like the police sketches of the suspect.
Further, police came across a photo that showed a family member of Bowen’s in a police uniform. This is when police realized their suspect also had briefly worked for them. More background information revealed the tattoos mentioned by victims matched those on Bowen’s arm.
Police then obtained a warrant for Bowen’s DNA and were able to forensically link Bowen to rapes and the sexual battery. The AJC reported that the attacks “all happened within a 2-mile radius of where Bowen lived.”
Reimers thanked the victims for coming forward to help catch their attacker.
“I wanted to address the victims,” he said. “They are true survivors. Without them coming forward to the police department to provide details of the assaults in intimate detail and sitting down with [Georgia Bureau of Investigation sketch artist] Kelly Lawson, we would not have been able to get a sketch of the individual.”

Upset handcuffed man imprisoned for financial crime, punished for serious fraud

A Serial Rapist Was On The Loose. Police Caught Him After He Tried To Become A Cop.

Georgia

A top Hollywood executive met a woman on a &#8220;sugar daddy&#8221; dating website and threatened to tell her family and her employer that she had accepted money for sex if she did not continue to have sex with him after she tried to break off the relationship, a police affidavit says.
Steven Fabrizio, Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), was arrested last Friday and charged with rape and blackmail, according to the police affidavit obtained by The Daily Wire. Fabrizio’s arrest was <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/08/26/exclusive-mpaa-executive-hollywoods-man-in-washington-arrested-for-alleged-rape-and-blackmail/">first reported</a> by Breitbart News’ Matthew Boyle.
The affidavit describes how Fabrizio and his female accuser met on a dating website known as &#8220;Seeking Arrangement,&#8221; which helps individuals find a &#8220;Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby/Sugar Momma.&#8221; The accuser, whose name is not included in the affidavit, said in her first message to Fabrizio that she was &#8220;new to the website, but definitely open to it!&#8221; The two allegedly exchanged sexually charged messages and agreed to meet in person.
The affidavit says the two met in person on August 19 and &#8220;engaged in consensual sexual activity.&#8221; Fabrizio then allegedly paid his eventual accuser $400 for the encounter. The accuser told police that the money was part of the arrangement &#8220;and the defendant wanting to spoil her.&#8221; Yet the accuser did not enjoy the encounter and told police she thought Fabrizio was too rough and had scared her. She told police she &#8220;bawled her eyes out&#8221; afterward and decided she didn&#8217;t want to continue the arrangement.
The affidavit says that Fabrizio messaged the accuser the next day, telling her he would &#8220;stop by tomorrow morning baby.&#8221; The accuser replied by telling him: &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry I&#8217;ve given it thought all last night &amp; I don’t think this is right for me.. it&#8217;s nothing personal. I&#8217;m sorry to have wasted your time.&#8221; Fabrizio allegedly told her he just wanted to have sex one more time and that he would leave her alone after that. When the accuser reiterated her position that she did not want to have sex with him again, Fabrizio allegedly began sending messages threatening to tell her landlord and employer about their arrangement.
&#8220;Baby. Don&#8217;t be like that. I know where you live, I know where you work. Don&#8217;t think Georgetown Hospital would be happy to know that it’s young nurses are having sexual [sic] for money. Same for your landlord,&#8221; Fabrizio wrote, according to the affidavit.
The accuser responded by asking, &#8220;You’d get me fired because I don’t want a relationship with you?&#8221; Fabrizio allegedly continued to insist that he just wanted to have sex one more time and that he would leave her alone if she complied. He also allegedly continued to threaten to tell her employer about their interaction if she refused. The conversation went back and forth like this for a while longer until the accuser asked Fabrizio if he would delete all the messages between them if she agreed to have sex with him again. Fabrizio said he would – during their sexual encounter so she couldn&#8217;t back out, according to the affidavit.
The accuser sent screenshots of their messages to her roommate except for the messages sent just before Fabrizio arrived at her apartment. After the encounter, the two deleted their messages in each other&#8217;s presence, according to the affidavit, however, Fabrizio started messaging his accuser shortly after he left her home.
He tried to ask if she liked the sex and she again told him she didn&#8217;t want to talk anymore. Fabrizio responded, &#8220;Baby … you may have to do that quickie every once in a while. Not a lot. Once or twice a month.&#8221; After the accuser said she was &#8220;not interested&#8221; and that the arrangement was &#8220;not for me,&#8221; Fabrizio began sending threatening messages again, according to the affidavit.
&#8220;I&#8217;ll leave you alone for now. But I’m going to text in a couple of weeks and tell you I’m coming the next morning. If you don’t answer of sat [sic] no you understand what will happen. It will only be once or twice a month and always very quick like today. Bye baby. Look for my text in a couple of weeks. Xo,&#8221; Fabrizio allegedly wrote.
The accuser called police nearly two hours after that final message was sent. Two detectives came to interview her, during which Fabrizio messaged her with personal information including her full name, the names of her parents, and her parents’ phone number, suggesting they would &#8220;be shocked to learn&#8221; what she had done.
With the detectives with her, the accuser called Fabrizio to ask him if he would not call her parents if she agreed to continue to have sex with him. He suddenly said he couldn&#8217;t talk after telling her he wouldn&#8217;t call her parents. After the two hung up, according to the affidavit, Fabrizio messaged the accuser saying: &#8220;Relax baby. I would never do anything to hurt you. You are sweet. You have nothing to worry about. Ok? Answer me baby. Tell me you’re ok.&#8221; The accuser asked why he kept threatening her.
The affidavit says that Fabrizio continued to message the accuser for two days and threatened to tell people if she did. On August 21, the two again exchanged messages wherein the accuser said she did not want a relationship and Fabrizio said he would come over and kept saying he would come over the next day.
Police determined that the phone number the accuser was communicating with belonged to a service that allows subscribers to mask their phone numbers. Police were able to trace the number to the subscriber and found that the number belonged to Fabrizio. His photo &#8220;appeared to be the same individual&#8221; as the one pictured in the dating website profile the accuser shared with police.
When Fabrizio parked outside the accuser’s home, police asked him for his driver’s license to confirm his identity. They then asked him to step out of the car and arrested him for &#8220;rape and blackmail,&#8221; though earlier in the affidavit they suggested he committed second-degree sexual abuse and blackmail.
Following the arrest, Variety <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/mpaa-steven-fabrizio-fired-sexual-abuse-blackmail-charges-1203315135/">reported</a> that Fabrizio had been fired.
&#8220;On Monday morning, MPAA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin informed his board — which includes all of the major studios and Netflix — that Fabrizio was dismissed &#8216;for violating certain terms of employment,'&#8221; Variety reported. &#8220;Daniel Robbins has been appointed interim general counsel as a replacement is found, Rivkin added.&#8221;

gettyimages-1087888078

Top Hollywood Executive Arrested And Fired For Alleged Rape And Blackmail

Hollywood

Last week, a jury acquitted former NBA player Mateen Cleaves of four charges of sexual assault stemming from an incident with a 24-year-old woman in 2016.
In surveillance footage, a nude Cleaves can be seen dragging the struggling alleged victim, wearing nothing but a black bra, outside of a motel room around 2 a.m.
The footage was released this week by the Wayne County Prosecutor&#8217;s office through a public records request, according to ABC affiliate <a href="https://www.wxyz.com/news/local-news/investigations/jurors-acquitted-mateen-cleaves-prosecutors-say-this-video-proved-his-guilt">WXYZ Detroit</a>. Though it was withheld from the public during the trial, it was presented in court.
&#8220;The first clip shows Cleaves&#8217; accuser walking away from the motel partially nude, followed closely by Cleaves in pursuit. Cleaves is seen wearing only socks,&#8221; WXYZ Detroit said of the footage, which can be viewed below. &#8220;The video shows Cleaves grab the woman, who we are not identifying, spin her around and pull her back towards the room she just tried to leave. She resists, bending her knees and trying to pull away. … 13 minutes later, Cleaves&#8217; accuser is seen on video again, this time running from the former MSU star who can be seen chasing her, then grabbing her with both arms and pulling her back to the room again. The struggle continues until she ultimately falls to the ground. Seconds later, she is seen trying to pull away again. Once more, Cleaves pulls her back, wrapping both arms around her waist and pulling her back to the room.&#8221;
Colleen Dowdall, a motel resident and witness to the incident, said in court that she called the police after the alleged victim repeatedly yelled &#8220;help me&#8221; during the dragging. &#8220;She looked at me and she said: &#8216;Help me, help me, help me.&#8217; And I had the phone in my hand and I told her I&#8217;m on the phone right now calling the police,&#8221; Dowdall recalled. &#8220;I looked Mateen in the eyes, he didn’t say one word.&#8221;
&#8220;She said he got on top of her,&#8221; the witness added, referencing a conversation she had that night with the alleged victim. &#8220;She couldn’t fight him off and she just laid there.&#8221;
Cleaves&#8217; attorneys claim the video shows their client attempting &#8220;to protect the partially nude woman when he pulled her back into the room,&#8221; WXYZ reported.
&#8220;The video was presented in a Court of Law. A Jury found Mr. Cleaves Not Guilty of all charges,&#8221; Cleaves defense attorney Frank Manley said in a statement. &#8220;The complainant had her day in Court. The criminal matter is closed. Not Guilty remains Not Guilty.&#8221;
At the time of his initial arrest, the former Detroit Piston posted to Twitter: &#8220;My family and I are devastated by these false charges. I am innocent and the allegations are without merit. We truly appreciate your continued support.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/former-michigan-state-univesity-basketball-star-mateen-cleaves-charged">Click on Detroit</a>, the accuser met Cleaves at a charity golf event the day before the incident. At about 1 a.m., the accuser&#8217;s boyfriend left a location where the group was drinking to give another friend a ride home, according to the report. &#8220;The victim, thinking they would return to the golf club, rode with Cleaves in his car. It is alleged that Cleaves took the complainant to a motel located in the 2400 block of West Grand Blanc, in Mundy Township, held her in a room against her will, and sexually assaulted her, [Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L.] Worthy said.&#8221;
It took jurors three hours to side with Mr. Cleaves, acquitting him of all charges.
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Mateen Cleaves Mugshot, 2016

VIDEO: Former NBA Player Acquitted Of Rape; Video Shows Him Dragging Struggling Alleged Victim In The Nude

In a report published Thursday, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-whats-on-jeffrey-epsteins-spotify-and-pinterest-pages-2019-8?op=1">Business Insider</a> provides a look at the social media accounts of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell on Aug. 10 after being charged for sex trafficking of underage girls.
Business Insider&#8217;s Meghan Morris reports that a close review of his Pinterest, Twitter, and Spotify accounts — all opened under the username &#8220;jeevacation&#8221; (J.E.E. vacation) — presented a man with an eclectic taste in music — though a particular penchant for songs that &#8220;emphasized male sexual conquest, as well as the odd song about sexual attraction between children and adults&#8221; — an apparent admiration for Peter Pan, and some other &#8220;winking&#8221; references to the allegations against him.
Upon being released from his infamously brief prison sentence back in 2009 for a felony charge of solicitation of prostitution involving a minor, Morris notes, Epstein commissioned a painting of himself in prison garb, telling one visitor, &#8220;I had this painted because there is always the possibility that could be me again.&#8221; Some of Epstein&#8217;s social media activity &#8220;gesture in a similar direction,&#8221; Morris writes.
Epstein&#8217;s Spotify account reveals &#8220;a wildly varied taste in music, from Beethoven to Elton John and Pitbull to Celine Dion,&#8221; but aslo &#8220;a preference for hard-rock songs from the 1970s that emphasized male sexual conquest, as well as the odd song about sexual attraction between children and adults — Van Halen&#8217;s &#8216;Hot for Teacher&#8217; and an Oscar Peterson performance of &#8216;My Heart Belongs to Daddy.'&#8221;
Then there&#8217;s Epstein&#8217;s Pinterest page, which had a single board with eight home decoration pins, including a painting of Peter Pan, who Morris suggestively describes as &#8220;the boy who never grows up and leads a young girl and her siblings out of their home.&#8221;
Business Insider found that Epstein&#8217;s Twitter account was a blank slate, with no tweets and no follows.
While Epstein listed his name on both Twitter and Pinterest, Morris notes, he only listed part of his name on Spotify, which turned out to be his most active account that included &#8220;19 playlists created from 2011 to 2015,&#8221; some of which appear to have been created for specific flights to Paris.
Along with &#8220;Hot for Teacher,&#8221; Epstein liked comedian Louis C.K., who has been accused of masturbating in front of non-consenting women over the years without their consent, an allegation he has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23427/louis-ck-responds-sexual-harassment-allegations-ben-shapiro">admitted is true</a>.
Morris also highlights a playlist named &#8220;celina&#8221; created in 2011, which is likely a reference to the 24-year-old daughter of two longtime friends, who some sources have described as his &#8220;goddaughter.&#8221; (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-whats-on-jeffrey-epsteins-spotify-and-pinterest-pages-2019-8?op=1">Read the full report here</a>.)
Epstein&#8217;s death has been the cause of much controversy and speculation, as he has been connected with many powerful figures and the circumstances of his death are so unusual. However, medical examiners have ruled his death a suicide by self-strangulation.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50937/epstein-accuser-says-she-massaged-simpsons-creator-paul-bois">Accuser Says She Massaged ‘Simpsons’ Creator Matt Groening’s Feet On Epstein’s Private Plane</a>

Jeffrey Epstein Appears In Manhattan Federal Court On Sex Trafficking Charges

Report: Here’s What Was On Jeffrey Epstein’s Social Media Accounts

Jeffrey Epstein

Registered sex offender and multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein allegedly had three poor 12-year-old girls living in France flown in as a &#8220;birthday present&#8221; for him from a friend, an alleged sexual assault victim claimed in a Florida civil suit.
The disturbing allegations resurfaced in light of Epstein&#8217;s apparent suicide in his Metropolitan Correction Center jail cell last week.
&#8220;The worst one that I heard from his own mouth was this pretty 12 year old girls he had flown in for his birthday,&#8221; alleged victim Virginia Roberts, who now goes by Virginia Giuffre, said of Epstein, according to <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9751878/jeffrey-epstein-12-year-old-french-girls-birthday-gift/">The Sun</a>.
“It was a surprise birthday gift from one of his friends and they were from France. I did see them, I did meet them,&#8221; she said, noting, &#8220;Jeffrey bragged afterwards after he met them that they were 12-year-olds and flown over from France because they&#8217;re really poor over there, and their parents needed the money or whatever the case is and they were absolutely free to stay and flew out.&#8221;
According to a report from <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-billionaire-pedophile-goes-free">The Daily Beast</a>, &#8220;These same civil complaints allege that young girls from South America, Europe, and the former Soviet republics, few of whom spoke English, were recruited for Epstein&#8217;s sexual pleasure.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11359139/Jeffrey-Epstein-offered-sex-slave-a-mansion-to-have-his-baby-according-to-court-documents.html">The Telegraph</a> reported in 2015 that Epstein proposed Roberts have a child for him and former partner and alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell.
&#8220;He offered me a mansion and some of his money every month, I forget what he called it, a monthly income of what he made to bear one of his children,&#8221; she recalled, adding, &#8220;The proposition was that if anything ever happened between Jeffrey and I, that I would have to sign my child over to him basically and that the child would be his and Ghislaine&#8217;s, and I would be looking after it as long as nothing happened between Jeffrey and I.”
Epstein was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50567/cbs-report-shouting-and-shrieking-heard-epsteins-amanda-prestigiacomo">reportedly</a> found hanging in his jail cell on the morning of August 10 and was transferred to an area hospital, where he arrived in cardiac arrest.
As noted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50654/breaking-epstein-had-multiple-broken-neck-bones-ryan-saavedra">The Daily Wire</a> last week, Epstein&#8217;s autopsy results showed that the disgraced financier had multiple broken bones in his neck, which can occur from suicide-by-hanging, but is a more common finding in homicide victims.
&#8220;Among the bones broken in Epstein&#8217;s neck was the hyoid bone, which in men is near the Adam&#8217;s apple,&#8221; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/autopsy-finds-broken-bones-in-jeffrey-epsteins-neck-deepening-questions-around-his-death/2019/08/14/d09ac934-bdd9-11e9-b873-63ace636af08_story.html">The Washington Post</a> reported. &#8220;Such breaks can occur in those who hang themselves, particularly if they are older, according to forensics experts and studies on the subject. But they are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation, the experts said.”
&#8220;The revelation about the broken bones that were found in Epstein&#8217;s neck followed the revelation on Tuesday night that the two guards who were supposed to be monitoring him fell asleep for three hours and allegedly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50608/breaking-prison-records-were-falsified-morning-ryan-saavedra">falsified prison records</a> to cover up their actions,&#8221; The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50654/breaking-epstein-had-multiple-broken-neck-bones-ryan-saavedra">noted</a>.

Virginia Roberts

Epstein Given 3 Poor 12-Year-Old Girls As Birthday Present: Report

Children

In what is the first lawsuit involving Jeffrey Epstein filed after his death and among the first targeting his associates, Epstein accuser Jennifer Araoz filed a suit Wednesday against the billionaire financier&#8217;s estate and his &#8220;network of enablers,&#8221; specifically Ghislaine Maxwell, a female &#8220;recruiter,&#8221; a maid, and a female secretary, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-jennifer-araoz-sues-ghislaine-maxwell-3-other-n1041901">NBC News</a> reports.
Epstein was arrested in early July on charges of sex trafficking &#8220;dozens&#8221; of minors over several years. After his arrest, more information and accusations came to light, with several high-profile names cited in connection with the disgraced billionaire. On Saturday, Epstein was found dead in his cell from what authorities say was a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50543/breaking-new-details-emerge-about-jeffrey-epsteins-ryan-saavedra">suicide</a> carried out by self-strangulation using a bedsheet tied to the top of a bunk bed.
Before his death, Araoz came forward to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49358/new-epstein-accuser-heres-how-he-lured-me-when-i-james-barrett">accuse</a> him of sexually assaulting her over a period of several months beginning when she was just 14 years old. In her account, Araoz detailed the crucial role played by a female &#8220;recruiter,&#8221; who Araoz says approached her outside of her high school in New York City in 2001 and convinced her to meet Epstein, and a secretary who set up her weekly &#8220;massage sessions&#8221; with the financier. On Wednesday, Araoz filed a lawsuit against those &#8220;enablers.&#8221;
&#8220;The complaint Araoz filed Wednesday alleges Maxwell and the staffers &#8216;conspired with each other to make possible and otherwise facilitate the sexual abuse and rape of Plaintiff,'&#8221; NBC News reported Wednesday.
Maxwell has repeatedly been named by accusers as Epstein&#8217;s chief &#8220;accomplice,&#8221; multiple women describing her as one of his recruiters and one of the people who helped manage his various sessions with females.
Despite the accusations, which she denies, Maxwell is yet to be criminally charged. Araoz&#8217;s lawsuit, however, specifically names Maxwell as one of Epstein&#8217;s &#8220;enablers&#8221; who &#8220;conspired with Epstein in the implementation and maintenance of his criminal enterprise which, in turn, victimized Ms. Araoz.&#8221;
On the same day Araoz filed her new lawsuit, she explained her rationale in an op-ed published by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/jeffrey-epstein-jennifer-araoz.html">The New York Times</a>.
&#8220;I&#8217;m filing a civil action against Jeffrey Epstein&#8217;s estate and accomplices today, under New York&#8217;s Child Victims Act. A key provision of the law goes into effect today and allows survivors to revive claims if the statute of limitations had expired,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;Epstein was found dead, apparently by suicide, in his jail cell last week. I&#8217;m angry he won&#8217;t have to personally answer to me in the court of law. But my quest for justice is just getting started.&#8221;
She goes on to detail the role played by some of Epstein&#8217;s alleged accomplices, including the unnamed recruiter and a secretary (formatting adjusted):
<blockquote>During my freshman year, one of Epstein’s recruiters, a stranger, approached me on the sidewalk outside my high school. Epstein never operated alone. He had a ring of enablers and surrounded himself with influential people. I was attending a performing arts school on the Upper East Side, studying musical theater. I wanted to be an actress and a singer.
The recruiter told me about a wealthy man she knew named Jeffrey Epstein. Meeting him would be beneficial, and he could introduce me to the right people for my career, she said. When I confided that I had recently lost my father and that my family was living on food stamps, she told me he was very caring and wanted to help us financially. The trap was set.
The visits during the first month felt benign, at least at the time. On my second visit, Epstein also gave me a digital camera as a gift. The visits were about one to two hours long and we would spend the time talking. After each visit, he or his secretary would hand me $300 in cash, supposedly to help my family.</blockquote>
After recounting the alleged sexual abuse and ultimate rape at the hands of Epstein, she cites again the empowering enactment of the Child Victims Act as a reason she was finally able to take action. &#8220;For years I felt crushed by the power imbalance between Epstein, with his enablers, and me. The Child Victims Act finally offers a counterweight. Moving forward, victims will now have until age 55 to bring a civil case,&#8221; she writes.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49358/new-epstein-accuser-heres-how-he-lured-me-when-i-james-barrett">New Epstein Accuser: Here’s How He Lured Me In When I Was Just 14 Years Old</a>

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell

Epstein Accuser Files First Post-Death Lawsuit Against His ‘Network Of Enablers’

A former University of Memphis defensive lineman is suing his university after he was suspended over a sexual assault accusation that was eventually dropped by local police.
The football player, who will not be named by The Daily Wire because he has not been charged with any crimes, was accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student in 2017. He was arrested just before the school was to play the Naval Academy’s football team. The Memphis Commercial Appeal <a href="https://amp.commercialappeal.com/amp/1777853001?__twitter_impression=true">reported</a> that the charges were dropped eight months later after the state could not “carry its burden of proof on to the elements of this offense.” The student still faced disciplinary charges at UM, which require a lower burden of proof and do not have the same protections as the regular legal system.
The student alleges in his lawsuit that UM never completed its investigation, but suspended him from the university and cut him from the football team, causing him to lose his scholarship. Because the school still hasn’t made a decision as to his culpability, he cannot appeal UM’s punishment. He wrote in his lawsuit that he lost his “scholarship, reputation, job prospects and a potential career in the NFL&#8221; due to the university’s lack of due process in its procedures. While the student is seeking monetary damages, he mainly wants his disciplinary record cleared and to have the accusation completely removed from school files.
He said the school never spoke to his roommate, who was apparently present during the alleged sexual assault and would say no crime occurred.
The student further claims that race may have been a factor in his treatment. He alleged in his lawsuit that after a white student was indicted on rape charges in 2017 — the same year the football player, who is black, was arrested — he was able to return to campus. The football player was barred from campus after he was arrested.
UM President M. David Rudd also released a statement after the white student’s indictment saying, “we are a community and country governed by the rule of law, and we will follow those laws and provide due process throughout.”
“When the facts of investigations are established and evidence gathered, we have not hesitated to take the harshest position possible for criminal activity on our campus,&#8221; the statement added.
Conversely, when the football player was arrested, a statement from the university did not mention due process.
The student’s story is not uncommon among those accused of rape and sexual assault on college campuses. Schools sometimes suspend investigations while police investigate, but often, even after police dismiss charges for lack of evidence, schools will continue to punish the accused student. For example, late last year a University of Cincinnati student <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39722/school-pays-male-student-47000-after-it-punished-ashe-schow">settled with his former university</a> after the school suspended him even though police declined to charge him. The school didn’t allow the student to cross-examine the witnesses or evidence against him and credited the accuser’s story even though she changed it repeatedly. The student eventually had his record cleared and was awarded $47,000 from the school.

Former University Of Memphis Football Player Suing University Over Suspension After Sexual Assault Charges Dropped

It&#8217;s been a few years since the dangerous &#8220;affirmative consent&#8221; standard has made headlines. Many colleges and universities began adopting the standard about half-a-decade ago, following the state of California&#8217;s <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/5-problems-with-californias-affirmative-consent-bill">example</a>.
The wording changes from state to state and from school to school, but it all boils down to narrowly defining consent in such a way that it is impossible for anyone to actually have &#8211; and prove &#8211; consensual sex. These policies inevitably shift the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused, meaning the accused has to prove they obtained consent for an encounter that they saw at the time as consensual.
Proponents of the policies <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-can-those-accused-of-sexual-assault-prove-consent-under-yes-means-yes">have never said</a> how accused persons would be able to defend themselves from an accusation under &#8220;affirmative consent.&#8221; Without video evidence that one obtained consent throughout every physical and sexual interaction, the accused would have no way to defend themselves. Even that would be risky, since someone who claims they were too drunk to consent to sex could also say they were too drunk to consent to being recorded. Given how much weight an accusation holds in today&#8217;s &#8220;believe all women&#8221; society, a case of he said/she said would most likely default in favor of the accuser.
Legal groups, law professors, and attorneys were critical of the &#8220;affirmative consent&#8221; standard, yet schools and states adopted it anyway.
In 2015, the American Law Institute at its annual meeting <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/has-the-federal-government-ever-had-sex">debated the standard</a> ahead of what was supposed to be a vote on adopting a new section of the model penal code. The criticism against the standard outweighed the support, and the vote was delayed. A <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/prepare-to-have-your-sex-life-regulated-by-government">year later</a>, ALI again attempted to hold a vote on a revised draft, yet further criticism delayed the vote again. In 2017, opposition precluded the group from adopting the standard <a href="https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2017/05/29/legal_group_rejects_endorsing_campus_rape_policies.html">once again</a>. The draft was not included in ALI&#8217;s agenda in 2018.
But now the American Bar Association (ABA) appears to be picking up where ALI failed. At their annual meeting this week, the ABA will vote on a resolution that would urge state legislatures to adopt &#8220;affirmative consent&#8221; as the criminal definition of consent. Here&#8217;s the <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/directories/policy/annual-2019/114-annual-2019.pdf">resolution</a>:
<blockquote>
RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges legislatures and courts to define consent in sexual assault cases as the assent of a person who is competent to give consent to engage in a specific act of sexual penetration, oral sex, or sexual contact, to provide that consent is expressed by words or action in the context of all the circumstances, and to reject any requirement that sexual assault victims have a legal burden of verbal or physical resistance.
</blockquote>
As Samantha Harris of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education noted, the resolution essentially makes &#8220;sex presumptively nonconsensual unless and until someone can produce evidence of consent.&#8221; This pushes the burden of proof onto the accused, who likely believed they had consensual sex and therefore did not need to keep documentation to prove it.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers <a href="https://www.thefire.org/national-association-of-criminal-defense-lawyers-opposes-affirmative-consent-resolution-aba-resolution-114/">condemned</a> the ABA&#8217;s resolution for this very reason.
&#8220;NACDL opposes ABA Resolution 114 because it shifts the burden of proof by requiring an accused person to prove affirmative consent to each sexual act rather than requiring the prosecution to prove lack of consent,&#8221; the group wrote. &#8220;The resolution assumes guilt in the absence of any evidence regarding consent. This radical change in the law would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and the Presumption of Innocence.&#8221;
The NACDL also opposed ALI&#8217;s efforts, which are cited in the ABA&#8217;s resolution.
It is only sexual assault where the burden of proof has been flipped in recent years. No other crime requires the defense to prove a negative.

Couple filling out paperwork

Top Legal Organization About To Adopt Dangerous ‘Affirmative Consent’ Resolution That Defines All Sex As Rape Unless Otherwise Proven

A British woman who claimed she was raped by a taxi driver was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and sentenced to three years in prison for making her false accusation.
Laura Hood, 27, claimed in 2017 that a taxi driver attacked her and raped her in the back of his cab. On the night of the alleged attack, Hood “hysterically told her mother she had been sexually assaulted and then informed police she was attacked in the back of a black cab in a side-street,” according to British news outlet <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2019-06-26/woman-faces-prison-after-falsely-claiming-a-taxi-driver-raped-her/">ITV</a>.
The driver, who will not be named by The Daily Wire, was arrested and held in custody for 20 hours while police investigated Hood’s claims. A second man was also arrested because his taxi’s registration number was similar to the first driver’s. The second man was held for 14 hours in police custody. Both men provided DNA samples to prove their innocence.
Hood’s story fell apart due to vehicle tracker data. She had claimed the driver had made a detour to attack her, yet the data showed no such detours apart from one where Hood exited the vehicle to use an ATM. Hood also claimed the driver who raped her was in his 50s, yet the driver was only 29. She also said her attacker had no facial hair, yet the accused man had a full beard.
Despite the evidence disproving her claim, for two-and-a-half years, Hood maintained that she had been raped — even through her trial. She cried on the witness stand and said the sexual assault examination she underwent after the alleged incident was “awful,” ITV reported. She also said she had “absolutely no idea” how male DNA on her underwear didn’t belong to either of the men named in the case.
Hood finally accepted that her claims were false at the end of her trial, saying: “I wish I knew. I wish I could explain why something so clear in my head &#8230; obviously it can&#8217;t be true.&#8221;
A forensic psychiatrist told the court there was no medical or psychiatric reason why Hood should have believed she was raped when she wasn’t.
Hood cried as she was found guilty of perverting the course of justice at the end of June.
Judge Julie Warburton thanked the jury and told them, “It is quite apparent to me that it has not been easy for any of you.&#8221;
The BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-49197716">reported</a> that Warburton said during Hood’s sentencing on August 1 that what she did “strikes at the very heart of criminal justice.”
“It has a tendency to damage the public perception of justice and can impact on the administration of justice in rape cases generally,&#8221; Warburton added, according to the BBC.
Defense attorney Thomas McKail said Hood had been mildly depressed and used alcohol and drugs to cope with her troubles, but Warburton argued that she had to “balance those mitigating factors against the impact on two innocent men.&#8221;
The main suspect said he didn’t know if he could ever fully recover from the false accusation, according to ITV.
“It still affects me in my day-to-day life. I don&#8217;t know if I will ever come back fully from this,” he said. “Before this incident I was a strong person. However, I&#8217;m now negative and worry that things can go wrong. This is the most disgusting thing that anyone can be accused of. When I pick up single female passengers I always worry that something could happen again.”

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