Woman falsely accuses man of rape

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
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This is a disturbing story. The part I don't understand is that the rape kit showed that she hadn't been raped, but the jury convicted the guy anyway. (Apologies in advance because this is a "teaser story" to get you to watch 20/20, but the main point is that this woman falsely accused a man of rape and he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

On video

Text version
 
Aside from "rape kit", I do not see anything in the story indicating she falsely accused him. Or does the video show more?
 
How is this news? Happens all the time.
Rape accusations are such a powerful weapon in our society; we really shouldn't be surprised that they're misused by the unscrupulous.
 
Puppycow said:
This is a disturbing story. The part I don't understand is that the rape kit showed that she hadn't been raped, but the jury convicted the guy anyway. (Apologies in advance because this is a "teaser story" to get you to watch 20/20, but the main point is that this woman falsely accused a man of rape and he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

On video

Text version
Click to expand...

Not only the jury, the cops and the prosecutor. When the rape kit came up negative, that should have been the end of it.

Also, it seems that she originally made up the rape story to get herself off the hook with her friends, who were justifiably mad at her abandoning them. She ruined that poor slob's life, just to avoid taking responsibility for her own actions. What a piece of work she is.
 
A negative rape kit is not evidence against a rape just that it left no evidence to collect, so I don't get your point.
 
Puppycow said:
This is a disturbing story. The part I don't understand is that the rape kit showed that she hadn't been raped, but the jury convicted the guy anyway. (Apologies in advance because this is a "teaser story" to get you to watch 20/20, but the main point is that this woman falsely accused a man of rape and he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

On video

Text version
Click to expand...

This is an old story: Biurny Peguero Says Gang Rape Story Was Hoax; Man She Put in Jail 5 Years Isn't Laughing.

This sort of thing is, sadly, all too common, which both destroys the lives of innocent men and makes it harder to prosecute real rapists.
 
I really really hope that I am never on a jury on a rape case where there is no compelling evidence of force and it all boils down to he said/ she said. Even if I believed the acusing woman, the rules are you have to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If the only thing I have to go on is the woman's word, I simply could not consider one person's word evidence enough. Even if I *believed* him to be guilty, that's not enough. You're supposed to KNOW.

I know several women who were date raped in college, none of them came forward for this reason. The guy was not forceful enough to leave evidence of rape as opposed to consensual sex, and they just didn't feel they had any proof of what happened to them.

I just don't know how a woman can make false accusations like this. How can you ruin someone's life, ESPECIALLY considering the fact that sex offenders at at a huge risk to be assaulted themselves in prison? And then, every time a woman falsely cries rape, it diminishes the believability of women who really were.
 
MikeMangum said:
... This sort of thing is, sadly, all too common, which both destroys the lives of innocent men and makes it harder to prosecute real rapists.
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The meme for this is "She's the victim, so she ought to know", and this meme trumps lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary.

A sub-set of this kind of sexual abuse is paternity fraud, wherein people (parents, prosecutors, judges, et cetera) believe a woman's claim for who her child's biological father is solely because "She's the mother, so she ought to know".

Pathetic.
 
Fnord said:
The meme for this is "She's the victim, so she ought to know", and this meme trumps lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary.

A sub-set of this kind of sexual abuse is paternity fraud, wherein people (parents, prosecutors, judges, et cetera) believe a woman's claim for who her child's biological father is solely because "She's the mother, so she ought to know".

Pathetic.
Click to expand...

At least in the US, any man being sued for paternity has every right to a paternity test. No need to take anyone's word.

So I'm not sure what you're talking about.
 
paximperium said:
A negative rape kit is not evidence against a rape just that it left no evidence to collect, so I don't get your point.
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A negative rape kit can most certainly be evidence against a rape if the story of the rape indicates that there should be something there. It's not like they look for just semen. They look for hairs, bruising, saliva, and several other things including debris from wherever the rape took place. In this case it appears they didn't even have consensaul sex, much less a brutal rape at knife point after he beat her.
 
Cavemonster said:
At least in the US, any man being sued for paternity has every right to a paternity test. No need to take anyone's word.

So I'm not sure what you're talking about.
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Maybe you should read the the link he provided. Men in the USA can be required to pay child support even when there is conclusive DNA evidence against paternity.
 
Cavemonster said:
At least in the US, any man being sued for paternity has every right to a paternity test. No need to take anyone's word.
Click to expand...
Not in every state, and in those states where the law permits it, there is a time limit.

Read the freekin link, fer cryin out loud!
 
Black vs. White

Could there be some deep underlying racial issue involved?

Maybe it's just bizarre coincidence, but it seems every instance I've ever come across in the news regarding a false rape accusation - has been a black woman falsely accusing a white man of rape.

Tawana Brawley

Crystal Gail Mangum (Duke University lacrosse team rape)

As well as others that don't make national headlines. Had the Brawley and Mangum "rapes" not been in the national spotlight, it's quite possible that these women's lies would have never been exposed, and the men they falsely accused would have been convicted and quietly sent to prison.

I don't know the actual statistics of inter-racial rape, but it almost seems as if there are more false accusations than actual occurrences of white men raping black women.
 
Puppycow said:
This is a disturbing story. The part I don't understand is that the rape kit showed that she hadn't been raped, but the jury convicted the guy anyway. (Apologies in advance because this is a "teaser story" to get you to watch 20/20, but the main point is that this woman falsely accused a man of rape and he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

On video

Text version
Click to expand...

Hm. Pity didn't get any DNA from that bite mark.

McHrozni
 
chainlink said:
Could there be some deep underlying racial issue involved?
Click to expand...
I doubt it. The issue may actually go no deeper than personal finance.

If the accused can give enough money to the alleged victim, then the accusation can quietly go away.
 
Fnord said:
I doubt it. The issue may actually go no deeper than personal finance.

If the accused can give enough money to the alleged victim, then the accusation can quietly go away.
Click to expand...

That happens also, but follows a different path. To coerce money out of someone by claiming rape, the general practice is to first have a consenual encounter and later (or at the final stages of the act) decide that it was indeed a rape. I think its fair to say that most men would rather pay off such an accuser than go through the agony of a costly, lengthly, and potentially life-changing trial.

But when the alleged rape is a complete fabrication rather than a "difference of opinion" - that's when battle lines are drawn.
 
chainlink said:
That happens also, but follows a different path. To coerce money out of someone by claiming rape, the general practice is to first have a consenual encounter and later (or at the final stages of the act) decide that it was indeed a rape. I think its fair to say that most men would rather pay off such an accuser than go through the agony of a costly, lengthly, and potentially life-changing trial.

But when the alleged rape is a complete fabrication rather than a "difference of opinion" - that's when battle lines are drawn.
Click to expand...

I really don't think anyone can claim to accurately know what the 'general practice' is in this case. All the research I've seen on the subject is far from that level of detail because, in the end, how do you know which were false accusations and which were rapists getting off free in the cases where no one is convicted?
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
Well I read the link, and all I have to say about that is...

:eek:
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For what it is worth there is SOME logic behind the laws. Courts in some jurisdictions give a time limit because they don't want a mother to get dependent her husband's care just to have him bail 12 years later and leave the kid without support. In other words, it is for the benefit of the child more than the woman.

Still horrible but not completely arbitrary.
 
paximperium said:
A negative rape kit is not evidence against a rape just that it left no evidence to collect, so I don't get your point.
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Innocent until proven guilty. Negative rape kit is not somehow proof of guilt, unless you're an idiot.
 
Rape cases are pretty shaky ground, because there is always at least one victim. If there is no rape, it is the accused who is victimized. Even if acquitted, the stench of a rape trial will follow a guy around forever. So it merits having absolutely concrete evidence that shows she was attacked, which can be tricky. Bruises don't really prove anything, and a rapist could have his own "rape kit" consisting of a condom (with spermicide), a bottle of ammonia, and a disposable douche.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
I really really hope that I am never on a jury on a rape case where there is no compelling evidence of force and it all boils down to he said/ she said. Even if I believed the acusing woman, the rules are you have to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If the only thing I have to go on is the woman's word, I simply could not consider one person's word evidence enough. Even if I *believed* him to be guilty, that's not enough. You're supposed to KNOW.

I know several women who were date raped in college, none of them came forward for this reason. The guy was not forceful enough to leave evidence of rape as opposed to consensual sex, and they just didn't feel they had any proof of what happened to them.

I just don't know how a woman can make false accusations like this. How can you ruin someone's life, ESPECIALLY considering the fact that sex offenders at at a huge risk to be assaulted themselves in prison? And then, every time a woman falsely cries rape, it diminishes the believability of women who really were.
Click to expand...

I was on a jury of a rape case, although it was "Statutory Rape" still a difficult thing to unravel. He was a 23year old self proclaimed minister and she a 14 year old girl.

We convicted him, the most compelling bit of evidence was a taped phone conversation between him and the victim. He pretty much convicted himself with just a few words. Without that he would have walked. Even with that it took two days to reach a verdict.

The thing that almost hung the jury was a generational divide. Two of the charges against the man were for performing oral sex on the girl. All of the Jurors who were over 60, five in all, could not believe that a man would do that. It took a lot of red faced conversations to get passed that hurdle.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
I just don't know how a woman can make false accusations like this. How can you ruin someone's life, ESPECIALLY considering the fact that sex offenders at at a huge risk to be assaulted themselves in prison? And then, every time a woman falsely cries rape, it diminishes the believability of women who really were.
Click to expand...

It's simple: women are people, and in any group of people there will be those who are selfish, irresponsible, and unconcerned with how their actions impact others. Add in the fact that an accusation of rape is very powerful way of getting attention and/or gaining sympathy and/or getting revenge and/or creating an alibi for sex she doesn't want someone else to know is consensual...and there will be some women who fall into the selfish group listed above who are willing to pollute the commons with a false accusation of rape.
 
Cavemonster said:
At least in the US, any man being sued for paternity has every right to a paternity test. No need to take anyone's word.
Click to expand...

A man doesn't have to be "sued" to establish paternity as a legal fact (as opposed to an actual fact) when someone else names him as the father (in other words, placing obligations on him), but he does have to sue when he is trying to gain paternal rights.

Many states have laws whereby when a woman names a man as the father, his name is printed in a specific section of the classified ads in the local paper (whichever paper happens to correspond to his address of record) and he has a limited time thereafter to contest paternity.

Then there is federal law.

http://defaultpaternity.org/
The Default Paternity Judgment Project has been formed for the purpose of ending the cruel practice wherein unsuspecting men are trapped by default judgments into paying 18 years of child support for children who are not theirs, and who in many cases they’ve never even met.

This money rarely goes to children, but instead to the state. The problem is a result of bureaucratic bungling and misguided state and federal child support enforcement policies which benefit no one, and which could be corrected at a relatively small cost.

...

The problem stems in large part from 1996 welfare reforms which mandate that a mother seeking benefits for her child must provide the name of the child’s father so the state can recoup its costs by securing a child support order.

However, the process by which the men are notified of the court proceedings against them is very flawed. Many men do not find out that they have been named the "father" of a child until their wages are garnisheed to pay child support. By then it is usually too late.

A federal report shows that in many child support enforcement offices, half or more of the paternity judgments are entered by default. Of the 250,000 paternity judgments ordered in California each year, more than two-thirds are entered by default. Even when men obtain DNA tests clearing them of paternity, most courts rarely set aside these judgments.
Click to expand...
 
SRW said:
I was on a jury of a rape case, although it was "Statutory Rape" still a difficult thing to unravel. He was a 23year old self proclaimed minister and she a 14 year old girl.

We convicted him, the most compelling bit of evidence was a taped phone conversation between him and the victim. He pretty much convicted himself with just a few words. Without that he would have walked. Even with that it took two days to reach a verdict.

The thing that almost hung the jury was a generational divide. Two of the charges against the man were for performing oral sex on the girl. All of the Jurors who were over 60, five in all, could not believe that a man would do that. It took a lot of red faced conversations to get passed that hurdle.
Click to expand...

very interesting...
 
Cavemonster said:
At least in the US, any man being sued for paternity has every right to a paternity test. No need to take anyone's word.

So I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Click to expand...

BOY, I hope you don't have to find out, but you are WRONG!!!!!


I personally know a guy who's wife got pregnant by another guy she cheated on him with. She didn't tell him and said the chid was his. They split, partly because he suspected her of cheating. She sued him for child support, he had a paternity test that determined that the child could not be his! He is STILL paying child support!
 
paximperium said:
A negative rape kit is not evidence against a rape just that it left no evidence to collect, so I don't get your point.
Click to expand...

I don't get your point. A negative rape kit is at the very least "reasonable doubt." It could reasonably be argued that it is "evidence against a rape" if collected soon after the alleged rape and it doesn't agree with the victim's version of events.

People (juries) put too much emphasis on eyewitness testimony.

The rape kit backed up his story, not hers.
 
Peguero's family and friends were baffled by what happened next. Even McCaffrey, whose life was about to take a stunning turn for the better, was shocked.
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What happened next? The story just ends there on the third page just after hinting at more to come. Where's the rest of the story?

Is there a link to a complete text version of this story somewhere?
 
chainlink said:
Could there be some deep underlying racial issue involved?

Maybe it's just bizarre coincidence, but it seems every instance I've ever come across in the news regarding a false rape accusation - has been a black woman falsely accusing a white man of rape.

Tawana Brawley

Crystal Gail Mangum (Duke University lacrosse team rape)

As well as others that don't make national headlines. Had the Brawley and Mangum "rapes" not been in the national spotlight, it's quite possible that these women's lies would have never been exposed, and the men they falsely accused would have been convicted and quietly sent to prison.

I don't know the actual statistics of inter-racial rape, but it almost seems as if there are more false accusations than actual occurrences of white men raping black women.
Click to expand...
She's black? Looks Puerto Rican to me.

Anyway, here's a famous one from the 80s, all parties were white: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/ilDotsonSummary.html

It's notable because it was the first time DNA evidence was used in Illinois, and the Governor himself held the hearings.
 
Magyar said:
BOY, I hope you don't have to find out, but you are WRONG!!!!!


I personally know a guy who's wife got pregnant by another guy she cheated on him with. She didn't tell him and said the chid was his. They split, partly because he suspected her of cheating. She sued him for child support, he had a paternity test that determined that the child could not be his! He is STILL paying child support!
Click to expand...

Yes, in some states, marriage or a period of the child being under a man's financial or practical care can establish legal paternity, that is not by any means the same thing as the woman being taken at her word.
 
Cavemonster said:
Yes, in some states, marriage or a period of the child being under a man's financial or practical care can establish legal paternity, that is not by any means the same thing as the woman being taken at her word.
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Interesting. You seem to have missed where it was pointed out that in cases where marriage or a period of the child being under a man's financial or practical care is not involved, and those men can demonstrate that they are not the biological father, they are still required to make child support payments.

See post #31 for instance, here's a quote from that post:
A federal report shows that in many child support enforcement offices, half or more of the paternity judgments are entered by default. Of the 250,000 paternity judgments ordered in California each year, more than two-thirds are entered by default. Even when men obtain DNA tests clearing them of paternity, most courts rarely set aside these judgments.
Click to expand...

Bolding mine.
 
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