Site icon Fabius Maximus website

Believe the victim and get many false accusations of rape

Larry Kummer, Editor

Summary: Few propaganda campaigns have been based on obvious lies yet succeeded on the scale of “women don’t lie about rape” and “believe the victim”. That combination shows how gullible we’ve become. Can such a people govern themselves? Ponder that while reading about the horrific consequences. This is an update and revision of a post from 2018. Sadly, it remains just as valid.

“I interviewed the victim twice, and I believed her.”
— District Attorney Denise Lunsford, explains why she ignored evidence showing that Mark Weiner was innocent (from Slate).

Justice: blind and lying down on the job.

In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, an all-white jury convicts a black man of raping a white woman in a small 1930s southern town, despite the efforts of his lawyer who defies the town’s lynch-mob mentality and proves the victim’s story to be false. We have begun a new century, a sequel has come out – and we still have men being falsely convicted of rape despite the evidence.

We are told that false rape accusations are extremely rare. But so many high profile rape cases prove to be false. Here are a few examples.

  1. The 1987 rape of Tawana Brawley by 3 men (including a police officer), uncritically accepted by journalists (ironically, Bill Cosby was an early supporter), who stoked a nationwide firestorm of outrage. It was a fake claim. See the NYT story about a re- analysis of the case.
  2. Wanetta Gibson’s false rape accusation in 2002 put football star Brian Banks in prison for 5 years. She recanted in 2011. The verdict was overturned in 2012. Details here.
  3. Journalists went into hysterics from Crystal Mangum’s accusations of rape by the Duke Lacrosse team in March 2006. District Attorney Mike Nifong sought re-election through their prosecution. It all collapsed, eventually.
  4. The 2009 rape of a Hofstra coed by five students; she recanted in a few days when questioned by the police.
  5. Buzzfeed and others hyped the 13 October 2013 story of a sexual assault on an Ohio U coed. A Grand Jury found it quite false.
  6. “UVA, Ferguson and Media Failure, op-ed at the WSJ by Bret Stephens: “Narratives and allegations are not facts, despite what the media would have us believe”. It points to “A Woman’s War” in the 18 March 2007 NYT Magazine, telling how Amorita Randall was raped twice while serving in the Navy, then told by her commander “not to make such a big deal about it.” The key supporting details proved false; the NYT had not allowed the Navy time to verify the facts before publication.
  7. We might never know the truth, but the Columbia U “mattress girl’s” story fits the “believe the girl despite the evidence” script. See this early coverage, and this with more evidence.
  8. The easily debunked accusations against November 2014 issue of Rolling Stone: “A Rape on Campus.”

Especially note this story: “Lena Dunham ‘Raped by a Republican’ Story in Bestseller Collapses Under Scrutiny“ at Breitbart, 4 December 2014. A follow-up reports that “Both Dunham and her publisher Random House have apologized to “Barry One”, offered to reimburse his legal expenses, and have agreed to edit future copies of Dunham’s memoir in a way that will ensure he is not misidentified as her rapist.”

A typical story of our injustice system at work

The latest example is Mark Weiner, who on a rainy day gave a woman a ride to her home – a good deed ending in a sentence of eight years in jail for abducting a woman with the intent to sexually harm her. There was little evidence of his guilt, and considerable exculpatory evidence (some of which was not disclosed to his attorney). Of course, none of that matters to the true believers who increasingly run America. This happened in Charlottesville, home of the infamous fake rape publicized in the November 2014 issue of Rolling Stone.

“During the sentencing phase of the hearing, {District Attorney} Lunsford reminded the court of previous incidents in which Weiner had made unwelcome advances to two women and called it a ‘pattern of behavior.'” (source.)
— “Unwelcome advances” are an indication of criminality when done by a beta male.

This story will disappoint those who believe in the power of the press to limit governmental abuse of power. It was covered in detail by journalist Lisa Provence (who deserves a career boost from this). For example, see this story about the Judge’s sentence of 20 years in prison (with 12 years suspended). That is quite impressive since the evidence showed his innocence. False rape accusations often show prosecutors extreme efforts to frame the innocent (for a mind-blowing example see “First DNA Exoneration: Gary Dotson” at the Northwestern Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions – “The rape that wasn’t; the nation’s first DNA exoneration”).

This week, after two and a half years in prison, a judge vacated Weiner’s conviction. For a summary of the case, see this article at Slate by . The story received desultory coverage from other news media, such as this from NBC. No wonder news media companies are laying off reporters and watching their profit evaporate, when they ignore such a hot story of injustice. No wonder that people believe false rape accusations are extremely rare, when the press gives them little attention. And reports them with little concern.

No analysis is complete unless it explains why the key actors felt their actions to be rational. It is easy to see in this case. The DA believed that rape victims tell the truth, that subjective reality trumps evidence, and that she can tell if somebody is telling the truth (vast research proves that nobody, even experienced interrogators, can reliably do so).

“When a reporter asked Lunsford about criticism she’d received for not pursuing justice in this case, the prosecutor said, ‘Sometimes it comes down to, do you believe the victim? I believe her.'” {source}.

“Lunsford has said all along she believes the victim and she’s still not backing down. Instead she says this case is a prime example of why the job’s so difficult: ‘Sometimes, and often in these cases, it’s one person’s word against another so the decision of how to prosecute and whether to prosecute isn’t an easy one. I believed her in this case and that’s why I went forward with it. I felt she was telling the truth and I felt it was a community safety issue.'” (From Slate)

This is a commonplace, if quite mad, belief. Sophie Hess, general manager of the campus radio station WOBC, said it in pure form about the rape accusation made by actress, writer, director Lena Dunham.

“Asking whether or not a victim is telling the truth is irrelevant, …It’s just not important if they are telling the truth” {source}.

Even senior government officials have moved beyond concern about truth. Ideology rules! No evidence needed, as we saw in Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.

“Not only do women like Dr. Ford, who bravely comes forward, need to be heard, but they need to be believed. They need to be believed.”
— Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) at a press conference on 19 September 2018.

Lesser known examples of fake rape claims

Here is a typical story of brutal rape – by Black men! The rising tide of accusations of rape, assault, and harassment have disproportionately affected African-American men (details here), no surprise to anyone familiar with US history.

“Last March {2017}, investigators with the Denison Police Department received a call from a man who said his fiance, Breana Harmon Talbott {18}, was missing. The man told police that Talbott’s car had been found in the parking lot of an apartment complex. When officers arrived, they discovered the driver’s door was open, one shoe was on the ground and her phone and keys were sitting near the console.” {Oklahoma 4.}

“{Several hours later she} stumbled into a church clad only in bra, shirt and panties, bleeding from cuts and claiming to have been abducted by three African-American men in ski masks. …Social media lit up with angry demands for vengeance.” {Miami Herald.}

“This is going to be a brutally honest post. Today my daughter, Breana Harmon Talbott was taken by force by 3 black men. 2 raped her and she is cut head to toe by a knife.”
— Posted by her mother on Facebook.

Very “credible” (since it was in the news)! But the rest of the story took a different turn.

“Breana Harmon, 19, pleaded guilty to two counts tampering with evidence and two counts of tampering with a government record in Grayson County district court last month. …She faced up to 2-10 years in prison along with a $10,000 fine. … {She was} sentenced to 8 years probation, over $8,000 in restitution, and to pay another $2,000 in court fines on Tuesday.” {From KXII-TV.}

Such stories are quite common. Note how many of these false claims are made for frivolous reasons, showing that these women feel immune from prosecution.

  1. “Here Are 8 Campus Rape Hoaxes Eerily Like The UVA Rape Story“ in the Daily Caller, 14 December 2014 – Some of these involve innocent men falsely accused for political gain.
  2. “German teen admits she lied about migrant gang rape” by UPI, 2 Feb 2016. Too bad about the riots sparked by this false rape accusation.
  3. Mary Zolkowski, 21, was sentenced to 45 days in prison after pleading guilty to falsely reporting a felony. She had claimed she was attacked by an acquaintance, an African-American man, in February 2017. See Newsweek’s story.
  4. “Stalker who tried to ‘destroy’ a care worker with false gang rape allegations ‘because she was left out of a trip to the zoo’ is jailed” at the Daily Mail. Her trial was still in progress as of September 21 (source).
  5. “Woman cried rape after man she had first date train sex with ran away at his stop“. The man was saved by Britain’s ever-present CCTVs. For more examples, see The astounding story of false rape accusations in England.
  6. Here is a case in Britain of a woman making 4 different accusations of rape against a total of 25 men, two of whom spent years in jail.

Even false accusations of sexual assault that do not claim sexual assault are costly and often ruinous to men: “Two Students Hooked Up. It Was Clearly Consensual. He Still Spent $12,000 Defending Himself.” by Robby Soave at Reason – “A brief romantic encounter at UC-Davis triggered a Title IX investigation after the female student changed her mind about it weeks later.

Also see the increasing number of kangaroo court verdicts in the military, overturned either by appear or later evidence. For example, this harrowing tale of a SEAL convicted despite the evidence proving his innocence: “False convictions, ruined lives” by Lynn Vincent in World Magazine. And the overturned verdict against a West Point cadet, sentenced to 21 years in prison on the basis of he-said-she-said evidence and preposterous logic: the Army Times story and the 2 page appellate court ruling.

DNA is uncovering old false rape accusations: “Two men exonerated in 1991 rape claim.”

Articles and studies about false rape accusations

“It is a nonsense for our daughters to be more frightened of penises than our sons are of knives or guns. …Raped women will be told not only that they are irrevocably damaged in soul and body but that if they do not acknowledge this they are in denial.”
— By famous second-wave feminist Germaine Greer in her book On Rape (2018).

Slate has a well-written but superficial article with some sad stories: “Crying Rape” by Cathy Young — “False rape accusations exist, and they are a serious problem.” For more depth, see these articles by Francis Walker. They are rich with links and analysis. She takes a hard look at the soft foundation of the numbers about false rape accusations.

See this the money paragraph in Washington Examiner about conclusions of the not peer-reviewed “MAD Study” by End Violence Against Women International. It’s one of the 2 best known and relatively recent studies of US rape, although from an advocacy organization.

“From all of this one could determine that 15.6% of reports could reliably be determined as false, another 17.9% weren’t actually crimes and just 1.2% (or 2.2%) could be reliably determined as true. The remainder would fall into a “we’ll never know for sure” category. …And beyond all of this, none of this data can be applied to reports of campus sexual assault. There is no data available on the number of campus sexual assault accusations that turn out to be false, as it hasn’t been studied.”

See these for more information about false reports of rape. None of the studies to date are comprehensive and deep.

  1. “The Truth behind Legal Dominance Feminism’s Two Percent False Rape Claim Figure” by Edward Greer at the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, April 2000.
  2. A review of the literature: “False allegations of rape” by Philip N. S. Rumney in The Cambridge Law Journal, March 2006 — gated, open copy here.
  3. “False Reports: Moving Beyond the Issue to Successfully Investigate and Prosecute Non-Stranger Sexual Assault“ by Dr. Kimberly A. Lonsway et al at the American Prosecutors Research Institute, 2009.
  4. “How Often Do Women Falsely Cry Rape?“ by Emily Bazelon and Rachael Larimore in Slate, 1 October 2009 – “The question the Hofstra disaster left dangling.”
  5. See the section starting on p147 of the “2013 Statutory Report on Sexual Assault in the Military” by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Horrific stories of false accusations and kangaroo courts. But this was a minority submission about matters not of interest to the other Commissioners.
  6. I have not checked this, but it looks interesting: “Ten reasons false rape accusations are common” by Jonathan Taylor. The ten reasons look reasonable.
  7. Other nations grapple with this: “Does India have a problem with false rape claims?‘ by Joanna Jolly at the BBC.

The tide changes on false rape accusations.

Falsely accusing a man of sexual assault might be the safest crime in America. Accusations that look suspicious are ignored, or charges dropped after investigation clears the man. It is only a misdemeanor in most (all?) States because that would discourage women from reporting these crimes. Even if proven in court, perjury is seldom prosecuted (e.g., see the absurdly tiny number of Federal prosecutions).

That appear to be changing as “always believe the woman” looks irrational. But the sentences are usually mild.

Conclusions

These stories show the number of obviously false beliefs about rape successfully created by propaganda. First, that people can watch testimony and reliably determine if its truthful. Our own personal experience proves that to be false. Even polygraphs are of questionable validity. Second, that false rape accusations are extraordinarily rare. The number of high profile cases going bust should prove otherwise. We have become a gullible people, which puts our ability to govern ourselves at risk.

Available at Amazon.

Increased awareness of false rape accusations – often made for trivial reasons, and only lightly punished when discovered – is typical of the forces eroding the legitimacy of our political regime and poisoning relations between men and women.

It is another example of the tribalism that increasingly dominates America. Martin van Creveld predicted this in The Rise and Decline of the State (1999). We are shifting our loyalty from the political regime – America – to new groups (e.g., defined by gender or ideology). As always, our highest loyalty defines our truth. This tribalism acts as clumps of metal in the machinery in the State, so that it no longer works well. Worse, few people believe in God and Hell – so swearing on Bibles is meaningless ritual and perjury is commonplace.

We’ve begun the next stage, as this dysfunctionality could encourage us to reform America. If we fail to do so, we will continue shifting our loyalty away from America. Much depends on our choices in the years ahead.

For a different spin on rape

See “Today In Rape Apologia, Ayn Rand Edition” by Scott Lemieux (Asst Prof of Political Science at College of St. Rose) at Lawyers, Guns and Money. Ayn Rand is a feminist by many standards, yet the sex scenes in her books often glorify rape. That was considered normal in her day. Such scenes are still common in chick lit. Fifty Shades of Grey is a popular example of the genre.

For More Information

If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about women & society, about rape, and especially these…

  1. It’s time to forcibly re-shape America to fight the campus rape epidemic! Even if it’s fake.
  2. The University of Virginia shows how change comes to America: through agitprop and hysteria.
  3. Forms to sign before having sex. Progress or madness?
  4. Important: MeToo = Salem Witch trials 2.0 — see the similarities.

A book for our time

How to Avoid False Accusations of Rape: Self-Defense in the Feminist State

By John Davis (2015).

Available at Amazon.

From the publisher …

“This book contains a thorough discussion of the new ‘Affirmative Consent Laws.’ This book is a quick study for sexually active men, for men who are in constant contact with women in work or social environments, and, for men going to college. Studies indicate that over 60% of accusations of rape, that women make against men, are false. There are no known cases of men falsely accusing a woman of rape. Women make false accusations of rape against men most commonly for the following reasons.

“The book is written by a noted former prosecutor who has prosecuted rape and sexual assault cases. It is designed to be a quick guide to inform men, and especially male college students, of the hazards of dating in an age of feminist rape hysteria. The book explores the current climate that encourages women to falsely accuse men of rape, and the dynamics which reward women for falsely accusing men of rape. The book offers some insightful and practical means of avoiding false accusations of rape for sexually active men of all ages.”

 

Exit mobile version