She has a boyfriend who was angered by the situation.

Sex-themed text messages may have been exchanged before the night in question, and ones suggesting another meeting may have been sent after.

She has a Facebook page upon which she posted “nothing out of the ordinary” during the month where the alleged [...]]]> She waited three months to report.

She has a boyfriend who was angered by the situation.

Sex-themed text messages may have been exchanged before the night in question, and ones suggesting another meeting may have been sent after.

She has a Facebook page upon which she posted “nothing out of the ordinary” during the month where the alleged crime occurred.

She joined the man she’s accusing at a bar that hangs women’s underwear from the ceiling.

Dear God, why is anyone even investigating this? Why is Martha Bashford, the highly capable sex-crimes chief at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, wasting time to determine what happened between this complainant and Greg Kelly?

Hopefully because Bashford isn’t being swayed by “law enforcement sources,” quoted widely in the media this week and assigning authoritative finality to factors like the ones above. DA Vance has firmly stated he doesn’t know the source of the leaks and does not condone them. He has good reason beyond their basic irresponsibility.  They reflect a stunning ignorance regarding the reality of sexual violence.

I have no idea if Greg Kelly is guilty of anything; it’s been a week since a complaint was made and there are far more questions than answers. Hence the investigatory process and venerable presumption of innocence. Kelly has been charged with no crime. He deserves to be treated respectfully and without smearing or assumption.  But to assert that the case against him is false because of the factors being touted is dangerous nonsense.

-Delayed reporting is hardly abnormal or indicative of a false report, despite the fantasies of apparent “veteran investigators.” Delaying is extremely common, if anything the norm rather than the exception in acquaintance cases. Survivors delay reporting for dozens of valid reasons, most exacerbated by the circumstances seen here (a celebrity accused, a media frenzy, microscopic scrutiny of the victim, etc).

-The idea that women regularly, falsely report being raped in order to cover regretful behavior or the betrayal of another relationship is vacuous. Has it happened?  Surely. Is it remotely common?  Hardly.  Reporting rape falsely and enduring what follows is anything but a typical impulse, let alone a popular choice when confronted by an angry boyfriend who wants to know why you’re pregnant.

- Sexually charged texts from a woman to a man prior to an encounter says absolutely zero about whether that man is capable of raping her either by force or as a result of physical helplessness. It also says zero about her inclination or ability to tell the truth about an event she recalls as a crime. Rather, they demonize her as someone less deserving of legal vindication no matter what happened.  Texting afterward might be more problematic, but it depends on the context, what was said, and when. If the texts sought clarification of what happened (which would make sense in a case alleging severe intoxication and incapacity to consent), they are hardly smoking guns. What of texts suggesting another meeting? Again, it depends- when were they made in context to when she realized fully what had happened? An evolving sense of what occurred is also not uncommon in cases where incapacity through intoxicants is suspected.

Comparisons are already being made between this situation and the cases of meteorologist Heidi Jones (who fabricated a rape complaint originating in Central Park), Kobe Bryant, and Duke Lacrosse.  Never mind that Jones accused no one by name (very common in false complaints), Bryant’s legal team savagely wore down the complainant until she gave up (yet he later apologized), and the complainant in Duke Lacrosse was so severely mentally ill that authorities suspected she probably believed her own lies.

The issues so far in this nascent case present challenges for the prosecution; that is undisputed. Kelly may be innocent of anything criminal, a fact which may genuinely co-exist with the complainant’s belief that she was violated.

But to conflate these challenges with the recklessness and moral bankruptcy that must accompany falsely accusing a man of rape- at this point and on these factors- is dangerously unfair and ignorant.  The “sources” publicly voicing skepticism should be kept far away from the investigation. Commentators, particularly former sex crimes prosecutors who should know better, are doing little good by furthering myths they either 1) never understood as such, or 2) allowed to intimidate them into inaction. If these things occurred when they were on the job, it was the victims who paid the price.

If the complainant has falsely accused Kelly, then she is already getting what she deserves. If her complaint is valid or at least sincere, she is getting far, far worse. My prayer is that NYDA gets it right, and for the right reasons.

© 2012, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.

“There is no vulnerability without danger.”  Veronique Nicole Valliere, Psy.D.

It’s a simple and brilliant truth, introduced to me at a sex assault prosecution training in 2009. The doc was discussing how we blame women (and men) who are sexually assaulted, particularly when their choices leading up to the attack make them, in most minds, “more [...]]]>

“There is no vulnerability without danger.”  Veronique Nicole Valliere, Psy.D.

It’s a simple and brilliant truth, introduced to me at a sex assault prosecution training in 2009. The doc was discussing how we blame women (and men) who are sexually assaulted, particularly when their choices leading up to the attack make them, in most minds, “more vulnerable.” Like when they drink too much, or when they go home with a man they don’t know well. And so on.

When I heard it, I nodded sagely. Sure, I believed in what I called “rape prevention,” and felt that everyone needed to take some responsibility for their own personal safety. But that’s all. I wasn’t anywhere near victim blaming. Because I was too smart for that. Too enlightened. Too smugly ensconced as one of the more influential sex assault prosecution experts nationwide. So naturally, I understood her perfectly.

Except that I didn’t. Because I was victim blaming, even though I told myself I wasn’t. And in buying into the kind of “rape prevention” I believed in, I was a part of the problem. Many of us, most with the best of intentions, still are.

The ad above from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (now pulled) sparked a debate in feminist circles. The ad itself wasn’t the issue; most agreed it was offensive. Visually it sexualized violence, right down to the blue underwear around the seductively placed ankles matching the tile on the floor. That’s not a representation of the aftermath of a felony. It’s wanna-be pornography. And of course, it callously blamed both the curled up, naughty-girl and her irresponsible friends for not preventing the rape she apparently endured. No mention of the rapist.

But while the attempt was botched, the underlying message begged a question: Shouldn’t we warn girls and women about the dangers of losing control, and thus “becoming vulnerable?” Isn’t it simply a dangerous world, like it or not? Of course it is and of course we should, went the argument. It was a bold one apparently, expectant of a backlash from uber-feminist PC police who would label it victim blaming even though the goal was simply to “reduce vulnerability.”  When the backlash came, I initially sided against it. I had seen a career’s worth of victimization- how could I not encourage safe behavior myself, in the name of reducing vulnerability? Because vulnerability invites danger.  Right?

Wrong.

Go back to the statement at the top of the page. Vulnerability does not exist unless danger is present. Choices, however reckless they appear, do not create danger anymore than liquor creates rape in a man who is not a rapist. Danger exists because of the choices dangerous people- rapists, in this case- make. From this reality, two others flow: First, encouraging young people (the most at-risk population, male or female) to avoid victimization through more responsible behavior will not prevent a single rape, as author Jaclyn Friedman points out in her piece on the subject. Rape is never an accident, and it’s almost always a planned attack. The rapist who cannot target the “better-behaved” woman will find one who isn’t. So there won’t be less rape, just rape of perhaps different people. Of course, the predictable rejoinder is “well my daughter won’t be the targeted person, then.” Game, set, match. Admonish away.

Except that she might be regardless, which is the second reality that results from Dr. Valliere’s observation. The woman who believes she is safer because she’s avoiding something like heavy drinking might well be safer to a particular kind of attack. But there are many others, and being lulled into a false sense of security because of the avoidance of one behavior will likely blind her to the danger that can exist under the most responsible appearing of circumstances.  Women are raped by trusted friends. They’re raped during the daytime while studying or just listening to music with known, clean-cut, well-regarded men in their communities, on their campuses, from their churches. Alcohol is extremely helpful to acquaintance rapists. But it is hardly their only tool.

Youth involves blind spots, but regardless of age, risk-taking is at bottom the essence of life.  There is no elimination of it short of solitary confinement. What we must do is grasp that vulnerability exists only when danger is present, and turn the focus rightly on the dangerous and away from the endangered.

Because when we create rules, particularly ones laced with moral superiority in order to somehow deliver us from evil, we then distance ourselves from those who break them. When those people are victimized, we rest easy, believing that our wisdom and temperance saved us. But there are always more rules, both to make and to break.  In the end, all that rule making accomplishes is the encouragement of an insidious urge to will to life something other than luck separating us from the unlucky.  So we’ll draw attention to the choices the rule breakers made that we wouldn’t make. And we’ll blame them for theirs.

© 2012, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.

I don’t resent it. I think it’s made me a much more effective special victims prosecutor over the years. And in any event it’s who I am. My closest circle of male friends will readily confirm that I navigate those friendships [...]]]> It’s really not a secret: I have a pretty strong ‘anima‘ or feminine side.

I don’t resent it. I think it’s made me a much more effective special victims prosecutor over the years. And in any event it’s who I am. My closest circle of male friends will readily confirm that I navigate those friendships more as if I were a spouse or partner than any sort of a “guy’s guy.” That can be frustrating for everyone involved. And of course, I have my professionally inspired inferences, which should and do make me more sensitive to things like rape culture, male privilege, and other issues faced by women and girls in ways that most men really can’t imagine. So yeah- I’m something of a woman trapped in man’s body if you’re going to buy into a lot of generalizations about how women think and react, and what it means to be emotionally “feminine.”

So be it. Nevertheless, I’m a straight guy and generally typical where sexual fantasizing is concerned. So shameful or not, tasteless or not, over the years and at every social stage of my life, I’ll readily admit that I’ve taken some part in the game of “Hey man, who would you sleep with in [insert environment here]?”

And believe me, it can be any environment. And it is every environment, at least where members of the opposite sex are even remotely observable. A high school Spanish class. A summer camp. A basic training unit, an introductory psychology course, the 5^th floor of a dorm, an office mail room, the accounting department, the DNA lab, etc, etc, etc.

Yes, it’s tawdry. And utterly pointless. Regardless, it’s what men do. Gay men do it as well, and sometimes in mixed groups we’ll all play the game, with the gay guys making their own considered judgments about men, and often commenting with high degrees of validity on women as well.

For most of us, this stupid tradition begins innocently, scattered across that late elementary to middle or junior high school period where girls become suddenly and then perpetually interesting (and of course, for homosexual boys it really can’t begin until they find themselves in much more progressive environments then the kind I came up in). So it might start in 5^th grade or thereabouts with “who would you want to see without her clothes on?” But it quickly progresses to more imaginative and specific scenarios, and it never really stops. It’s far from angelic, often inaccurate, and always objectifying. It’s wrong and I won’t make excuses for it.

I’ll also note that, regardless of what I do and who I am or profess to be, I’ve played the game in places that are hardly feminist enclaves. I’ve played it in warehouses, on airport tarmacs and construction sites where I worked for years before entering professional life. I’ve played it in countless police cars, detective squad rooms, bars, diners and alleyways, passing the time for various reasons and waiting for something to happen. I’ve played it with men educated and not, supposedly enlightened and not, gentle and not.

What I’ve never, ever heard in roughly 35 years is any man, anywhere, ask “so if you could rape someone, who would it be?”

It’s true: That cyber-blessed term “WTF” was honestly coined for such an abomination.

There are variations of this game I will remove myself from or avoid if I detect cruelty or a line I just don’t feel comfortable crossing. But no guy in my experience has ever even approached the idea of rape. Ever. If I could rape someone, who would it be? Even writing that out makes me cringe.

So “WTF” the fraternity brother at the University of Vermont was thinking when he added that to the lets-get-know-each-other ‘new brother questionnaire’ is worth exploring. And I mean between him and a good mental health provider. Because it’s more than just tasteless; it’s downright scary. Perhaps the guy who wrote this and anyone else at this chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon who deemed it acceptable is just remarkably awkward and clumsy with word choice. But I’ll vote for disordered. The word “rape” is one of the ugliest in our language. It’s mono-syllabic, blunt, and shocking. It’s supposed to be. While it usually doesn’t involve these things, it conjures in most minds gratuitous violence, torn clothing, screaming, and injury. It at least evokes- as it should- terror and a life-altering, shattering experience of trauma on the part of the victim. So how it could be in any way confused with the desire to engage with someone sexually is beyond me. There are psychological and legal terms for men who only or primarily respond to non-consensual sexual situations. If that’s the case with the questionnaire author or authors, then those who share their environment should know about it.

I’m glad that (at least) there’s been a tremendous backlash at UVM and an appropriate student response to the leaked document. I hope this gratifying response lingers after the dust settles, and that male and female students in this well-loved college environment continue to reject the idea of anything like this in their midst. Because it’s more than just disgusting. It’s dangerous.

© 2011, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.

In it, Scott Turow describes “Brownian Movement,” the apparently random collision of particles in the air, resulting in a hum that children can sometimes hear before the bones of the inner-ear harden in puberty. Turow’s character, a [...]]]> “Presumed Innocent” was perhaps the one book that led me more than any other into law school and prosecution.

In it, Scott Turow describes “Brownian Movement,” the apparently random collision of particles in the air, resulting in a hum that children can sometimes hear before the bones of the inner-ear harden in puberty. Turow’s character, a married man, describes the allure of other women as something akin to Brownian Movement before meeting the woman in his office who becomes his love interest and is already murdered as the story begins. When he meets her, that movement rises to a fever pitch.

The fact of evil in the world is something I’ve often related to Turow’s view of Brownian Movement. The circumstances of my professional life assure me that it is there. I accept it. On streets and in train cars, passing houses, farms and city blocks, I am aware of its presence. It hums, usually just above or below the surface of my thoughts. I can, thankfully, usually tune it out when I’m with my toddler nephew or in the festive company of my parents and other loved ones.

But then sometimes, as it did to the tortured character of Rusty Sabich, it hums louder. It sings.

That is the Penn State sex abuse scandal. Many fans and members of the university community would prefer that it be called the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal, but I won’t (even the word “scandal,” frankly, trivializes this horror as if it was a torrid affair between celebrities). That’s because Sandusky is, as happens when institutions inadvertently protect predators, almost a minor character in the volcanic ugliness that is this situation. Of course, Sandusky allegedly represents the center of the pathos that stalked the Penn State community and now threatens to scar it forever. But Sandusky is not the embodiment of it. Rather, he is ultimately a trigger in the larger, full horror of the situation. The cover-ups, the rug sweeping, the second-guessing and rationalization, all in service to a 70 million dollar a year enterprise, represent the true scope of the evil that is Penn State.

And the cancer grows.

A young man mercifully cloaked- for now- as “Victim 1” has left his high school, about 30 miles from Penn State, because of bullying. He has apparently been blamed by fellow students for the unearthing of the truth surrounding the revered and local behemoth. This is an excruciating multiplication- in numbers at least- of the type of incomprehensible betrayal child sex abuse victims often feel within their own families when the abuse is uncovered. Victims are usually never more alone than after the abuse is discovered, whether they purposely revealed it or not. Siblings, non-offending parents, even grandparents are suddenly distant or much worse. The victim, after all, has “torn the family apart,” interrupted possible financial support, brought shame upon the family because of a ‘splash effect’ that will surely color the whole clan, etc, etc. The fact of the perpetrator’s utter and sole guilt for all of these depredations simply gets lost as younger siblings grapple innocently but cruelly with the separation, the shame, and the doubt. Older members who should know better still often fail with wildly differing degrees of willfulness to shield the child from blame. And of course, in many cases, this is exactly what the perpetrator warned the child would happen if s/he dared reveal anything.

This is perhaps the farthest reach of the anguish that is child sexual abuse. When perpetrators warn children not to tell, they are not always bluffing. In fact, when they warn of betrayal, anger, collapsing support and utter isolation, they are more often than not right on target. The system can only react one way, which generally confirms fears related to a separation of the family, time in foster care, police presence and judicial appearances. This is terrifying beyond words for most adults, let alone children. But when the second shoe falls, when family members disbelieve, equivocate, or flat out resent despite believing, the suffering blooms like blood in water. The child is forever changed. Recantation is typical, and valid cases more often than not go nowhere.

Sandusky, according to statements, demanded secrecy and seems to have leaned on his alleged victims actively, calling them repeatedly and appearing even needy and clingy at times. I have no idea if or how he warned them of other consequences for revealing what he was doing, but frankly it would have been superfluous. He was Jerry Sandusky, and they were in or near State College. He allegedly hunted through his own charity and perpetrated in athletic facilities. He was figuratively at God’s right hand.

And there’s the rub. If that phrase- God’s right hand- offends religious readers, I apologize. But the point needs to be made. Penn State football became, through a confluence of circumstances surrounding an iconic and otherwise honorable coach, a deity to be worshiped rather than a college team to be rooted for. The resulting millions in revenue silenced anything that might have tainted or challenged this entity. If reports are true, then Sandusky allowed a beast inside of him to run free in the permissive environment that the god-thing allowed. That’s what happens when institutions become godlike: Predators either seek to infiltrate them, or blossom within them once it becomes obvious they can.

Allegations at Syracuse’s equally revered and powerful basketball program and the Boston Redsox organization now follow. There will be more, as sure as Catholic dioceses the world over exploded in fire-cracker sequence, breaking my heart around the time I entered this field. Skeptics and die-hard fans will cry foul and insist there is money and fame to be gained in jumping on the bandwagon Penn State has started with false allegations. In almost all cases, they’ll be wrong. And God help the victims who will come forward despite the scorn, the bullying, and the dull, mean hate that coming forward will win them against these institutions.

By all appearances, the wide world of sports must now endure a bloodletting. For the sake of the many good things athletics brings to players and fans alike, I hope its leaders stand tall and its fans prove gentle and open-hearted. But regardless, the world of sports is cracking, opening, splitting. That high, insistent hum is rising yet again.

© 2011, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.

He called it “The Stranger” and titled a 1977 masterpiece after it.   In my business we sometimes refer to it as the “third persona” with a nod to Jungian psychology.  A persona is simply a mask, the figurative one we [...]]]> “Though we share so many secrets, there are some we never tell.” William Martin (Billy) Joel

He called it “The Stranger” and titled a 1977 masterpiece after it.   In my business we sometimes refer to it as the “third persona” with a nod to Jungian psychology.  A persona is simply a mask, the figurative one we put on to interact with others as we go about our lives.  Most of us wear several of them. Our first persona, generally, is what we show to the viewing world. A second may be what we show a lover or a trusted friend, sometimes intermittently and whether we want to or not.  But the third is a dark animal indeed. It’s the face we show to no one. It’s the side of ourselves we seek to conceal at all costs.  We all have these shadows of ourselves, these Strangers, inside of us.  As the song says, they are not always evil, and they are not always wrong.  But whether our third persona is harmless or not, a wicked trick of the mind is that we almost always to fail to recognize that it exists in others. We assume, tragically at times, that we can fully know people around us because of the personas they reveal to us. We tell ourselves that we can sense, we can see, we can discern.

We can’t. The Stranger remains, hidden and invisible.

Jerry Sandusky is no exception. He was charitable. He was hard working. He was skilled, admired, and accomplished. He was also, according to eye-witness testimony, a child rapist.  His third persona was apparently demonic, and regardless of how ugly and evil, his closest relatives, his wife, his co-workers and his legendary boss would not have detected it based on what he chose to show them. Thus reveals the one merciful thing that can perhaps be said about the group of men who, from all appearances at this point, conspired to protect Jerry Sandusky at the expense of so much. They didn’t understand the third persona, and believed they knew a man because of accomplishments and attributes that say nothing about what he is capable of otherwise.

But mercy for men like Paterno, Curley, Schultz and others in the Institution that is Penn State evaporates with the reality that Sandusky’s persona was exposed at crucial times.  There were revelations- a smaller word will not suffice- that vomited a glimpse of it to the great Institution and to its “sainted” mastodon at different points on a long timeline.  These revelations are sometimes the only indications an otherwise decent community will receive that a predator stalks its children. The child victims themselves, God bless them, are often the last who will reveal the Stranger in the man; it’s just a bridge too far most of the time.

Those without faith will call these revelations nothing more than dumb luck, inattention on Sandusky’s part, or the blind weight of circumstances.  But my own framework of faith suggests to me that these brief flashes of light in the darkness- the anal rape Mike McQueary saw in 2002, for instance, or the oral rape the janitor before him saw in 2000- represent the extremities of desperate and semi-potent angels, using whatever cosmic power they can summon to poke momentary holes in the darkness, thereby alerting the powerful to what the powerless cannot utter.

When these extremities reached Joseph Paterno in March of 2002, the angels must have shouted with joy.  A more powerful man, one with more credibility, perceived decency and moral authority, could not possibly have been reached in the community in which Sandusky apparently hunted.  Ironically enough, a recognized origin of the name Paterno is a shortening of the Latin Pater Noster, or Our Father, the first two words of the only prayer Jesus allegedly taught his disciples.  The great man, the father figure, “St. Joe” himself now knew, and the Stranger in Sandusky would be exposed.

But alas, there was an Institution to protect as well, and in the end it won out.  An all-too human Paterno responded as feebly as he legally could.  The two officials he went to responded by restricting Sandusky’s  access to facilities and his ability to bring boys onto campus.  The Institution was protected. The community that surrounded it, and its wide-eyed, star struck boys, could be damned.

Perhaps these men can be forgiven for not knowing what I know; that the eight victims Sandusky is alleged to have abused is probably more like 80 or even much, much more than that.  That the after-effects of child sexual abuse result in a panoply of emotional, psychological and physical disorders that literally truncate lives, poison future relationships, stunt potential and shred hope itself like shrapnel.  That the “loss of innocence” suffered by boys abused in the way Sandusky is believed to have done so is almost trivial compared to the bleak, mental torture that follows. That the only way out is through, and that many simply never make it through.  That the morally bankrupt and cynical decisions made in 1998, 2000, and 2002, as well as before and after, allowed a man to further manufacture misery, betrayal and violence that will haunt lifetimes in its wake.

Perhaps.  But at the end of the day, in 2002 and God only knows how many times before and after, these men bet an Institution and its football program over their community and the tender lives of its children.  While the victims themselves have paid most dearly for this terrible wager, their fate is tied inextricably to that of the community.  Now the suffering of both will echo louder than the joyful sound of the throngs in the stadium, and longer than the legacy of victories under fall skies.

And the angels wept bitterly.

© 2011, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.

I stole this theme from the senior ACA’s in Alexandria, Virginia who trained me. Smart prosecutors have [...]]]> Review the closing arguments of the sex assault cases I prosecuted over the years and here’s the most oft-used quote you’ll find: “We don’t get our victims from Central Casting. We get them from life. Gritty, unrehearsed, unvarnished life.”

I stole this theme from the senior ACA’s in Alexandria, Virginia who trained me. Smart prosecutors have been using it for decades to remind jurors that, indeed, law reflects life and not the other way around. Victims of crime are not perfect, angelic beings whose mistake-free lives are marred by the offense like a wedding gown hit with a tumbling glass of Merlot.

Except that in sexual violence cases, it appears they have to be.

Two things noteworthy have occurred in the DSK case this week: One is the apparent fact that the victim has lied to investigators about her past, the circumstances of her life, and some details of what she did immediately after the incident.  The other is that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office did not oppose DSK’s release from house arrest. Both things signal trouble for the case, meaning whether the elements of a crime can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. But neither has a thing to do with whether an offense actually occurred.

Regardless, many in the media (the Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker among them) are now conflating the undeniable weaknesses in the legal case and the DA’s reaction to them with the sure-fire notion that, in fact, it’s just another false allegation and we all rushed to judgment way too quickly. We must, after all, remember Duke Lacrosse.

Remember Duke Lacrosse: A rallying cry that will do more to shelter rapists for the next generation than any force on earth could hope to accomplish.

I’m not saying there isn’t a chance that the allegations are untrue. I’ve never held that opinion and wouldn’t unless I was an eye-witness to the crime itself.  I have said, and still maintain, that there is no compelling reason to disbelieve what the victim has asserted (at its core) and still asserts. This is not simply because of who I am and what I do. It’s because of what I know about the dynamics involved, DSK’s past and well established reputation, and what the victim stood to lose (and now has lost) by reporting in the first place. She’s now fully exposed and will likely endure intense legal scrutiny for the measures she took to get to this country, and then to get by while she’s been here. Such is the continuing tragedy of being poor, displaced and desperate. It doesn’t excuse wrongdoing, but it’s a cold-hearted person indeed who rejects that it at least explains it.

She memorized a cassette tape someone else gave her depicting a gang rape in order to make an application for asylum more attractive. Yes, I imagine she did. People the world over have done far worse for political sanctuary, sometimes for highly sympathetic reasons.  She lied on a tax return in order to secure a larger refund. Wrong? Yes. Common? Remarkably. Inexcusable? For a widowed single mother working as a hotel maid in one of the world’s most expensive cities?  You decide. The association she might have with drug dealers and money launderers is certainly worse, but again- what does any of it have to do with whether she was actually assaulted?

Of greater concern, of course, are the lies she apparently told about what she did immediately after the incident and before reporting it. Since those actions relate to the investigation, for some they are clear red flags signaling a false report.  Except that, in and of themselves, they’re not. Did she clean another room before reporting the assault? Probably- it’s remarkably common for victims of trauma to act in confusing, counter-intuitive ways following the event. Resuming normal, mundane activities is in fact a very common one. But since most people aren’t schooled in the neurobiology of trauma, might a person lie about her reaction, fearing it will be seen as nonsensical and thus indicative of a false complaint? Might a person panic and lie for a better impression?

Hell, yes.

Victims reporting truthful attacks lie all the time about peripheral details. They lie about what they drank, whether they invited an offender into a room, what they wore, who they left with, etc, etc, etc. They do it because they are terrified of being judged, having their complaint disregarded, appearing foolish, or just because they’d prefer to have done something different. And some valid victims are- perish the thought- people who simply often lie, for a million reasons from their circumstances to plain-old low character. It makes their cases harder to prosecute. It does not make them any less valid.

DA Vance has reacted appropriately given his ethical duties and the legal realities facing him. For now at least, his office continues to prosecute its case. Unless and until something else surfaces that I don’t know about, it has good reason to do so. DSK lied also; until the wonder of DNA forced his hand, he denied sexual contact with the victim. As my friend and colleague Jaclyn Friedman points out, this is deeply disturbing since DSK’s wife apparently has no issue with her husband’s penchant for “seduction.” Given this fact and many others, I am not ready to dismiss this allegation or flagellate myself for “rushing to judgment.”

What I will do is lament the ugly confusion so many people are mired in regarding legal difficulties versus actual guilt or innocence. And I’ll lament the increasingly binary distinction we’re making with women and men who report sexual violence. They come forward and dare- and I mean “dare” in every sense of the word- to report what happened to them. They then face, at very best, two fates: They are either perfect and thus (perhaps) supported, or they are revealed to be imperfect, sometimes even deeply flawed, and thus discarded as liars. Never mind that predators sometimes target people with real or perceived imperfections exactly because it renders them even more powerless.

So the message ought to be damn clear for the next hotel maid, accountant, bus driver, surgeon, prostitute, college student, barber, cop, etc, etc, who is sexually attacked: Unless you’re perfect, don’t tell anyone.

Don’t dare.

© 2011, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.

‘Hurt,’ the word itself, is ancient, and typical of the blunt, mono-syllabic terms we get from the rough German parentage of English. ‘Grace,’ as you may know, from the Latin “gratia,” is a beautiful word (hence it’s choice as [...]]]> Mr. Michael Grace, Esq, Attorney at Law

Dear Mr. Grace:

‘Hurt,’ the word itself, is ancient, and typical of the blunt, mono-syllabic terms we get from the rough German parentage of English. ‘Grace,’ as you may know, from the Latin “gratia,” is a beautiful word (hence it’s choice as a name for girls) and an even more beautiful concept. These two words are also surnames, one belonging to you and one to the young woman you have viciously smeared of late, Ms. Margaret “Maggie” Hurt.

Maggie, as you know, was a student at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem and a member of the school’s pep band.  She traveled with WFU’s men’s basketball team in 2009 to the NCAA Final Four tournament in Miami, Florida.  While on the trip, she reported being sexually assaulted by two men in concert, one who forced her to perform fellatio in a hotel bathroom while the other watched the door. Both were star players on the team. Friends and family eventually convinced her to report the incident to campus police once she was back at school. According to her, they informed her that the best course of action (and her only option) was to pursue an internal, student judicial disciplinary process against the two students.  She did so.

In a letter attributed to Maggie Hurt’s mother, she claims the two accused students brought an attorney to the internal disciplinary hearing.  If you were the one they brought, I assume you came as an advisor, although student judicial hearing procedures I found don’t seem to allow for accused students to bring non-student advisors to hearings.  Ms. Hurt, to my knowledge, had no such legal firepower with her.

When she appeared on the Today show late last month, she recounted an ordeal whereby she, and not your clients, were put on trial, and where the entire process left her not only unvindicated but humiliated. The hearing, predictably, focused on her behavior and not on the behavior of the accused students.  Your clients were found not responsible and the matter was dropped. Ms. Hurt then reported the crime officially to the police department in Miami, but the DA’s office there declined to prosecute citing a lack of corroborating evidence.

Nothing I’ve recounted so far is atypical. A woman was, by all appearances, sexually assaulted by star athletes and fellow students. For several time-honored and understandable reasons, she did not immediately report the assault where she was, on a school trip.  When she finally did report back at her home campus, the matter was considered and discarded by an internal school disciplinary process most likely unequipped to handle claims of profound sexual abuse and possibly biased in favor of the athletes. The frustrated victim then finally reached out to criminal justice authorities where the crime actually happened, only to find that the matter could not be pursued because so much time had passed and no corroborating evidence was obtainable.

Such is the typical fate of the small fraction of women who actually report sexual violence (particularly in the college context involving athletes) to authorities of any kind.

What’s stunning to me, though, are your comments, Mr. Grace, in response Ms. Hurt’s appearance on the Today show.  You are a highly respected defense attorney and have been a member of the North Carolina bar for almost 35 years. Yet you claimed to a major local newspaper last month that Ms. Hurt made “bad judgments” on the night of the incident. Specifically, you informed the media of your belief that she engaged in sex hours before the incident in question with another student band member and talked about it with others. You then clarified that this, of course, “didn’t make her promiscuous.”

Thank you, counselor, for that clarification.  But I must ask why you have exhibited, in a professional capacity, such breathtaking and needless cruelty toward the complainant in this case?  You know very well that the sexual liaisons you accuse Ms. Hurt of engaging in (assuming they are even true) would likely never have become admissible in any criminal court of law. So why did you choose to smear her with this hearsay two years after you successfully deflected any sanctions against your clients? No one faults you for zealously representing your clients, but why seek to portray her publicly this way on information that is surely hearsay at best?

Further, where exactly do you see the legal relevance of anything you claim about Ms. Hurt?  Do you really believe that, even if she did engage in sex with another student hours before the incident in question, that she therefore logically must have consented to your clients’ advances, hours later, that she denies were consensual?  Do you really draw a logical link between sexual activity in one place and time (where no complaint of assault was made) and sexual activity in another place and time simply because of what you perceive to be the character of the woman involved?  That is remarkably myopic, but believable. Or, are you simply vitiating Maggie Hurt because it somehow continues to be expedient in some effort to paint her publicly as a whore who views a sexual encounter as casually as a trip to a soda machine?

I will no doubt be criticized for taking offense to your comments, assuming you truly believe your clients were wrongly accused.  Fair enough; understanding that I know much less about the case than you do (from your clients’ perspective anyway) I believe Maggie Hurt’s allegations, and I believe them for reasons borne of common sense rather than blind zealousness or ardor. I fail to see what Maggie Hart gained by reporting this incident falsely to WFU authorities and then the criminal justice system months later. I detect nothing in her demeanor, her account or her history that would cause me to doubt what she claims to be true.

But what I know or don’t know is somewhat beside the point, sir. I write critically because I saw absolutely nothing in your comments about Maggie Hurt that would ever, in any way, advance a legal theory supporting your clients’ innocence. Instead, I see rank vindictiveness on a scale frankly unbecoming of your status as a litigator and member of the bar, Mr. Grace.

Such is the cosmic irony at play here.  Ms. Hurt, in my view, has been quite graceful.  You, counselor, have been unduly hurtful.  Given your stature, success and outstanding reputation, I’m at a loss as to why.

Respectfully,

Roger Canaff

© 2011, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.

“Does the [...]]]> A few months ago, I posted on the Start By Believing Campaign being led by an organization I serve (EVAW, Int’l).  In response, a less-than-impressed commenter asked me rhetorically “When do you stop believing, Roger?”  While I actually answered that in the post itself, a further comment of his illuminated the disconnect between us:

“Does the sympathy I feel for a victim decrease in correlation to the increase of their voluntary consumption of alcohol, flirtation, placing themselves into precarious positions, and style of dress? Yes.”

This statement encapsulates the all too common but remarkably misguided belief that victims, usually but not always women, invite victimization when behaving less than monastically. I guess my question back to this commenter should be “How much, exactly, does your sympathy decrease, and through what factors?”  But this of course begs other questions: If she wore a skirt above the knee during a “girl’s night” outing in a big city, does she still merit assistance, treatment and legal vindication, or just medical treatment, but no criminal justice response? How much does each drink she consumes ratchet down her rightful access to our system of justice?  At what exact point of flirtation she does she forfeit the right to be supported by the people she reveals the attack to later? In terms of quantification, there must be a calculus for how we measure out sympathy versus scorn when it comes to sexual violence for people who “ask for it.”

Or maybe that attitude is nonsensical and unsupported by anything that relates to the reality of how and why people are sexually assaulted.

I believe that each of us bears some responsibility for our personal safety. I readily shake my head in frustration when I see someone blithely short-cutting alone through a dark alley while wearing earphones, for instance.  Yes, there are things we can and should do to reduce our own vulnerability to crime. But first, even when we have acted in a way that (perhaps) made us more of an easy target than we would like, it’s never our fault when someone else chooses to attack and victimize us. Second, the nature of sexual assault, particularly non-stranger sexual assault, is unique. No other crime bears with it the level of scrutiny toward the victim’s actions than does non-stranger sexual assault. No other crime, through myth and mistake, shields the perpetrator as completely as does sexual violence.  And when a power differential is introduced into the mix, the odds against the victim go through the roof.

The track record of IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, punctuated by his latest apparent sexual attack in New York City, is yet another reminder of how myths surrounding sexual violence can protect a powerful man from prosecution for decades (see an excellent and balanced op-ed on this story from my colleagues at Counterquo here). The fact that a relatively powerless (to put it mildly) hotel worker reported him for it is stunning. My guess is Strauss-Kahn was stunned also. I have a strong feeling he’s relied on the relative powerlessness of his victims for years. By many reports, there has never been a shortage of them. Strauss-Kahn hasn’t always chosen hotel maids, but also journalists and other professionals. In particular, his “affair” with Hungarian former IMF economist Piroska Nagy appears to have been consummated by the relentless pressure he put on her while she reported to him.

Ben Stein, a very bright guy who nevertheless seems to be getting more and more bizarre lately, wrote perhaps the most stunningly ignorant piece defending Strauss-Kahn. In it, he wonders aloud how DSK could possibly have gotten away with sexual violence and/or sexual harassment for so long with no one coming forward. Mr. Stein must know precious little about the dynamics between the powerful and the relatively powerless if he has any doubt regarding the feasibility of a track record like DSK’s. Sadly, I think Stein keenly understands how power works and what it can suppress. But like so many others, he has a huge blind spot where sexual violence is concerned, and is willing to entertain any number of alternate theories in order to avoid seeing what is as clear as his own face in a mirror. In the very next paragraph, he suggests that “in life, events tend to follow patterns.”  Indeed, Mr. Stein, they do. And the pattern of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and sexual violence that DSK has been perpetrating is beyond obvious.

The answer is this: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, like most men who commit acts of sexual violence, is a serial predator. It is not at all unusual that his pattern involves violent acts as well as manipulative ones. There are certainly “womanizers” the world over who pursue arguably immoral sexual acts, even by the less uptight standards of the French. But this can be and often is done without creating legal victims (either criminally or civilly) with threats, work-place pressure, intimidation or physical violence. Strauss-Kahn is, by all appearances, someone who has crossed the line between what is despicable and what is actionable or criminal.

Nevertheless, there will never be a shortage of people like Ben Stein who are blind to the reality of sexual violence, or my erstwhile commenter who are more than ready to blame the victims of such violence for being insufficiently vigilant, insufficiently well-behaved, or insufficiently cloistered. It’s not necessarily evil to think this way, but it’s grossly misguided and it’s protecting perpetrators and damming victims.  In short, it’s furthering a cycle we desperately need to break.

© 2011, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.