A judge files a false rape report against teen girl because she wasn’t traumatized enough to be credible in her testimony against her attackers.
After a day-and-a-half trial, Municipal Judge Peter A. Ackerman on Friday convicted the woman of filing a false police report, a class-C misdemeanor. Ackerman explained his decision, saying there were many inconsistencies in the stories of the four, but that he found the young men to be more credible. He also said he relied on the testimony of a Beaverton police detective and the woman’s friends who said she did not act traumatized in the days following the incident.
Kevin Hayden of The American Street, who was at the trial last week, has more on the story:
It was especially interesting that the prosecutor kept referring to the three men involved as ‘boys’, when they were fully grown men. The woman was 17.
The judge found inconsistencies in all of the stories, thus establishing reasonable doubt in every story. Yet he convicted the victim. ‘Boys’ will be ‘boys’.
The young woman’s friends were a classmate at high school and her mother. The mother a) has always been seen with an alcoholic beverage or high on prescription pills by all who know her, b) provided the 17-year old with the alcohol she’d had that evening, which she stole from the store she cashiers at and c) was awaiting her boyfriend’s return to her home within two months of the rape. That boyfriend was in prison for molesting his own daughter. That’s hardly a credible witness with any sympathy for victims of sexual assault. But none of this could be introduced into evidence. Only the 17 year old’s sexual history could be exposed.
Additionally, the two ‘friends’ were the ones who convinced the 17 year old that she should report it to the police. So if the young woman is guilty, the instigating accessories to her ‘crime’ are considered credible experts about how a rape victim should act.
This is particularly disappointing for him since he has known the girl since she was an infant.
Shakespeare’s Sister (HT) discusses false rape reporting and the notion that there is a “right” way to act after rape. There isn’t much for me to say because she and Kevin have said it all, but I, after I was raped, was not believed either. After all, I turned around from the incident, cleaned up the blood, and went back about my family vacation like nothing had happened because I thought I had done something wrong and didn’t want my parents to know. I was barely thirteen. Nevermind the promiscuity and drug addiction that followed, by god, I wasn’t traumatized and therefore was not raped.
I have a particular therapist to thank for convincing my support system not to trust me, the unqualified piece of shit. Shame, shame on this judge.