Friday - February 24, 2012

when rape isn’t rape but only sexual assault

This is going to take a wee bit of doing.  I started out on Feb. 6.

I came across this story while searching for something totally unrelated. In fact, it’s been a few weeks since I discovered it, and I’ve been trying to get more info and figure out if a story that’s at least three yrs old is worth posting. I discovered while searching that while the story isn’t new, there’s still quite a bit of interest in it. 

Either rape was committed or it wasn’t.  Do we assume it didn’t happen because the guys were not found guilty of rape?  Wasn’t there any DNA testing, assuming the girl reported it quickly enough?  Why isn’t sexual assault, with the emphasis on the word ‘assault,’ seen as seriously as rape itself?  Surely the intent is there even if the act of rape did not happen.  But there’s some evidence it did, depending on who you read perhaps.  One thing seems clear though.
Sports are very important in the great state of Texas and especially in the town this sorry story takes place in. Because reading all I have read and there are million links it seems, rape takes a back seat to sports and a lesson for girls in Tx.  Don’t go accusing sports heroes of sexual assault.

The story in a nutshell is, a cheerleader refused to cheer on a player who she claimed raped her. She was 16 at the time.  So she was thrown off the cheer squad, of which she was captain.  Her alleged rapist admitted sexual assault but not rape, at least that was how it ended.  The girl’s parents now must pay out $45,000 as you will read.  The courts say her dad brought frivolous claims.
I suppose not many men get raped often enough to impress law courts.

Wouldn’t you think that the school authorities could have used some common sense and shown a bit of humanity (gasp) toward the young lady and allowed her to remain silent rather then cheer the sub human who assaulted her?  There were four, we are told but only one rape with the others holding and or groping.  Two are unnamed due to their tender age.

It was reported that she was seen kissing someone and that she’d been drinking.
If we choose to accept that she was a bit high, and I doubt it but then that’s just me, is it any less rape?  Is it okay to assault a woman if she’s drunk? 
Of course it isn’t.  Well, unless you’re a high profile athlete.  Then rape is downgraded to assault.  ????

This article is one of very many.  I first found the story while surfing and landed on a newspaper web site. The story wasn’t a long one but what I read lead to much more. In fact, I got in touch with the writer of the article which dated to last year, and have found more since he wrote of the episode.

The town the girl lives in has turned against her in the most frightful fashion. I could hardly believe what I was reading. She’s been verbally abused and those who have come forward to defend her, have themselves been abused. You can read all of it but I’m just venting here. And I repeat, there is evidence of rape.

In between reading the above and reading the local papers here in the UK, I came across a story of a 13 year old rape victim. Not a case of he said she said at all. In fact, her 14 year old rapist bastard was free after doing the same to another girl only recently.  But the girl was horribly bullied on line by people who for whatever reason, seemed to believe the damned rapist was the victim. Or they wanted to.  The girl’s mom had to drive her to school, and the car was pelted with,, I forget what it was. Threats were made to attack the home etc. Names called, you can imagine. Girl gets raped so she becomes the slut.
What a rotten totally empty headed and cruel place this advanced planet has become.

Oh, and in yet another rape case here in the UK, a rapist was finally deported back to the land of monkeys and apes, and it only took NINE YEARS! Ah. Progress.

Forced to Cheer for Her Attacker

A Texas girl accused her school’s star athlete of rape—and was kicked off her squad for refusing to cheer for him. Jessica Bennett reports from a town still divided three years later.

She was blonde and blue-eyed, captain of her high-school cheer squad, headstrong, but shy at times, too: she made a point not to call undue attention to herself. He was tall and strapping, an outgoing African-American kid, a church-going boy with the swagger of a star athlete. Their paths crossed mostly on the football field where she rooted for him every week, but that changed one night in October 2008 when, Hillaire says, Rakheem Bolton raped her.

The accusation dropped like a bomb in Silsbee, Texas. Rumors flew that Hillaire made up the story, ashamed of a consensual act because Rakheem was black. The footballer insisted the sex was consensual and was cleared of rape—only to plead guilty to simple assault. His lawyer suggested that Hillaire (whose name Newsweek and The Daily Beast has published with her parents’ permission) had been “asking for it.” Hillaire was kicked off the cheer squad for refusing to cheer for Rakheem on the field. A petition was started in her favor, and former NFL cheerleaders spoke out.

The small town became a cauldron of racial and sexual hysteria.

Three years on, the case remains unresolved, the wounds not yet cauterized, the bitterness still palpable. Yes, most of the protagonists have moved on: Rakheem to a local college, according to his lawyer; the school principal out of the district; Hillaire, now 19 and living at home, no longer speaking to the press. (She spoke only through her parents for this article.) Her mother, Christena Soignet, continues to work—albeit somewhat awkwardly, as a teacher in the school district that her family has now sued.

Craig Soignet has not moved on. Hillaire’s father has filed a seemingly endless raft of lawsuits, some of which have been dismissed as “frivilous” actions. He’s even appealed the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. He seeks justice, vindication, peace of mind. But there will be no harmony in Silsbee—population 6,600—anytime soon.

It all began on a cool weekend night in October 2008, when, police documents state, 16-year-old Hillaire got drunk at a house party with some classmates—buzzed on Bud Light and vodka shots. According to police reports, Hillaire had kissed a different boy that night, and had been captured on a cellphone camera kissing another girl. Sometime in the early morning hours, records state, she ended up in a dark room with four boys: Bolton, a 17-year-old running back, his wide-receiver teammate, and two minors. The minors told police they fondled Hillaire while she kissed Bolton. They claim she helped them take off her clothes.

From outside the door, a friend heard Hillaire yell “stop!” and “no!” With the help of two others, he kicked in the locked door, finding Hillaire curled up under a pool table crying, naked from the waist down. Police documents state there was a condom wrapper on the floor, and a broken window: three of the four boys had fled, one leaving behind his pants and cellphone. “They raped me,” Hillaire cried, as the owner of the house—the mother of a student--called 911. Hillaire had never had sex before.

But the most humiliating moment for the teen came not on the night of the alleged assault, or even on her first day back to school, where shrieks of “slut!” ricocheted in the halls. It came four months later, as she stood on the sidelines of a tournament basketball game, clutching a pompon in each hand.

Rakheem Bolton, charged with sexual assault after the attack but no-billed by a grand jury, headed to the free-throw line—he was a two-sport athlete. The cheer squad began its usual chant: “Two, four, six-eight-ten!” they yelled, bouncing in maroon and white. “Come on, Rakheem, put it in!” Hillaire winced, and stepped quietly out of the cheer line. She couldn’t bring herself to cheer for the person she regarded as her attacker. “As a team, I cheered for them as a whole,” she said later. But “when he stepped up to the line, it didn’t feel right.”

At half time, her coach berated her, and a shouting match erupted. She was told she had to cheer “for everyone,” or go home. She chose the latter. The following Monday, she was kicked off the squad. An irate Craig Soignet appealed to the superintendent; 11 days later, she was reinstated. But a war had begun.

The boys, though, dispute that Hillaire went through anything. They say it was she who pursued Bolton; that he and his friends fled out the window because they were scared—“the only blacks,” as Bolton’s lawyer puts it, “in a house of all whites.” When Bolton returned that night to retrieve his clothes, police documents say, he shouted that, “I didn’t rape no white girl!”

Hillaire spent the early morning hours of that night at a clinic with her mother, having a rape kit administered. The nurse who treated Hillaire, Brenda Garrison, says she found trauma to the vaginal area and bruising to the girl’s hymen—all consistent, according to Silsbee Chief of Police David Allen, with sexual assault. Hillaire’s mother says a bruise in the shape of a handprint would later form on the girl’s upper thigh.

Even so, when Hillaire returned to school the following Tuesday—determined to keep her life as normal as possible—it was amid whispers that she “didn’t look like a girl who’d been raped.” “He could have any girl he wanted,” one commenter wrote of Bolton on a local blog. “He didn’t need to rape no white girl.” Craig Soignet says the school told Hillaire to “keep a low profile,” and she spent more time at home than usual. She went to see a rape counselor weekly.

Under Texas law, a minor can’t legally consent to sex—nor can a person who is intoxicated. But for a jury to believe that, says David Barlow, the special prosecutor on the case, a woman “practically has to be unconscious.” According to police reports, Hillaire was sober enough to recount to officers what she said had happened, and Rakheem was within two years of her age. He would later tell the local press the whole thing was a big “misunderstanding.” He has not spoken publicly since then, and did not respond to requests for comment.

YOU CAN READ MUCH MORE AT THIS LINK:
THE DAILY BEAST

The Cheerleader Rape Case Ends Horribly in Texas
A high school student who refused to cheer on her “rapist” has been ordered to pay $45,000 for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit. Where’s the justice in this?
By Cord Jefferson
Posted: 05/05/2011 02:54 PM EDT

The story begins in 2008, when a 16-year-old high school cheerleader called only “HS” was gang-raped at a party. Three young men ended up arrested for the assault, one of whom was Rakheem Bolton. Bolton ended up pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault, for which he was given two years probation and a fine, avoiding jail time.

Because the felony charges were dropped, Bolton was able to return to school and participate in all the regular school activities, including varsity basketball. As if the awkwardness of seeing her attacker at school everyday wasn’t bad enough, HS was a cheerleader, meaning that when Bolton played basketball, she was expected to cheer for him. One day, HS had had enough.

“I didn’t want to have to say his name and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” she told reporters in 2009. “I just didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”

To that end, HS refused to cheer for Bolton when he stepped up to take some free throws during a game in January 2009, four months after he had pleaded guilty to the attack. When she folded her arms and stood silently, however, her school’s superintendent, Richard Bain, ordered her outside and told her she had to cheer for Bolton. When she refused again, HS was kicked off the cheerleading squad.

MORE

Here’s something to munch on.

From another link.

KFDM

The girl says she was pushed into a room and sexually assaulted while the door was locked.
“I believe they’re innocent,” Morrison told KFDM News, in reference to Bolton and Rountree. “I believe they’re not guilty of sexually assaulting the young lady. I don’t believe it occurred the way I heard it on the news.

Fine. Then why was she found cowering under a pool table half dressed while others heard her screams and had to break into the room.

Whereupon the three guys jumped out a window, and Bolton minus any cloths, swearing and threatening the home owner with violence if she didn’t toss his cloths out to him.

And will someone please tell me why sexual assault is treated so lightly? If it wasn’t rape but short of it, and rape wasn’t intended, and come on people.

Take a good look at this girl. Gonna tell me intent wasn’t there? Uh huh.  And another thing.

If Mr. Morrison believes those guys were innocent, well that is his right and opinion.  But I have thoughts and opinions and rights as well.  And here’s my raaaaacist thought on the subject.

I can not bring myself to believe that this beautiful young girl, tipsy or not tipsy, would have been tempted to kiss JUMBO LIPS. In his dreams maybe. But not hers. No way. 

Oh, and then of course the naacp had to get in on the act with a fat spokesman who could barely speak English.  Take a look at this.

Rakheem Bolton’s great uncle.  The video of the Reverend’s criticism of the indictment ends with appeals to God and Jesus.

I can’t embed the video but take a look at this and let me know if you can make out most if any of what he’s saying. I didn’t know they still spoke like this.
I mean, I thought since forced integration and all, they’d have learned a little more by now. Many have but apparently some were left in the trees.

NAACP VIDEO

And there is this edited bit which you can read in full

Did Hardin County District Attorney David Sheffield do a good job there?  The victim and her parents thought not.  Neither do I.  Neither should you.  The victim was told that preliminary results from the rape kit showed some DNA evidence that could inculpate the defendants.  Yet the victim kept hearing that due to case backlogs, the full rape kit analysis results wouldn’t be ready for four months, five months, one year – depends which report you read.  There is an appearance that the can kept getting kicked down the road for the date the victim was being given for when the rape kit results would be ready.  The victim now says she wants to study forensic science, motivated in part by the delay in the processing of her rape kit.
Does it sound right, that a community taking in $35K, $40K per home game football match can’t get a rape kit processed any faster than that?  I called the public information department of the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory DNA Section.  I asked “Is it possible for somebody to get expedited rape kit results from the DNA Section of your Crime Lab?” They told me “Yes.  If a prosecutor or investigator says they have a case coming up and need results promptly, we can have the complete rape kit results for them within three weeks.”

Ignoring Sheffield’s warning that retaliation against the victim could result in felony prosecutions, the Silsbee schools community started retaliating against the victim for daring to make an accusation against a football hero.  If there was any effort to educate the school community about Retaliation, how serious it is, and how it would not be tolerated, there is no documentation of such an effort available online.  Online, in fact, you can find the most outrageous, vicious and ugly gossip, spread by members of the Silsbee community against the victim, seeking in every possible way to undermine her account of the crime, to drag her name through the mud.  Much of that gossip centered on how drunk she allegedly had been.  The vicious gossips should remember to send D.A. David Sheffield a tip at Christmasfor tacitly authorizing them to demean the victim on that basis.  At the school, fellow students would yell “Slut!” and “Bitch!” at her, but nobody would report them to school administration.  She was repeatedly harassed in the school cafeteria — but instead of disciplining those who were retaliating against her, the school administration told her to stay away from the cafeteria.  For good measure, they told her not to attend homecoming.  (She had apparently received threats saying that if she attended the homecoming, she would be shot with a gun).  This is to say, the school administration itself retaliated against her but was never held legally accountable, despite that previous statement from David Sheffield, the prize-winning District Attorney who didn’t bother to get an expedited rape kit result.  Various students claim Bolton threatened to shoot them.  The implication is that if they as witnesses said anything to incriminate him, they would be killed.  Silsbee schools never investigated these allegations.

SOURCE AND MUCH MORE

Above and below I should warn bmews readers are from liberal blogs. But that doesn’t mean their arguments are not valid in this case.

Hillaire is no longer the carefree livewire she was once was. She is still harassed by some in town, including students who recently threw ice at her car as she dropped her younger sister off at school. She went from A/B grades to barely passing high school. She received counseling until her therapist passed away from breast cancer last year. In remembrance, she got a tattoo on her right hip of two ribbons–one for sexual-assault prevention and the other for breast-cancer awareness–along with a Bible quotation she heard from her therapist: “Perfect love casts out fear.”
“She’s broken,” says her father.  “I think she’s still fighting on some levels, but I don’t think she has the determination that she used to have. Just don’t see that fire, that ambition in her anymore.”
Craig lost his refinery job last year and spends his time building the family business and working on the case. Larry Watts is working pro bono on the case because Craig can no longer able to afford legal fees. Nonetheless, Craig insists that the case “hasn’t destroyed our business, It hasn’t destroyed the family. We’ve gotten closer as a family.”
The family is divided about whether to leave Silsbee, but, despite everything, Craig and Hillaire both want to stay.

read more

Posted by peiper     on 02/24/2012 at 07:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Justice - LACK OF • Sex • USA •  
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