Pinko Feminist Hellcat has two must-read posts on the OC Rape Trial that recently sent three men to jail for raping a girl and videotaping the act.
The first post details the low, low places the defense went to try and get the (young, rich, entitled) men acquitted. For one, Robbie Ruiz, a 28-year-old mortgage banker and the trial’s jury foreman, was intimidated by defense cronies:
Married and a fourth-generation Mexican-American from El Toro, Ruiz can look physically intimidating. If you passed him on the street, you’d see a husky guy with a shaved head, a goatee, big dark eyes and a right arm full of tattoos. But in a three-hour interview, he was also articulate, perceptive and easygoing.
But the case provided startling moments for Ruiz even outside the courtroom. During the latter part of the trial, he says, he was clumsily tailed by Haidl PI Warren to the Costa Mesa Inca Grill for dinner. One night, after the trial, two jurors from the first trial knocked on his front door. They wanted information to discredit the guilty verdicts. He says those ex-jurors, who were on the Haidl payroll, insisted the defendants are “really good boys.”
Some of the defense witnesses, former friends of Doe, were tempted by intership offers, and one admitted changing her statement to help the defense because of her sympathy for the men. They were later dismissed as witnesses and/or the judge found their statements to be provably false. Who needs enemies with frenemies like this?
Jane Doe, the rape victim, was intimidated as well. And harassed. And slandered. In PFH’s second post, a reader provides Doe’s full statement to the judge. I warn you, it will rend the heartstrings and turn your stomach. Triggers aplenty.
That is why we are here today, your honor. I haven’t been able to truly live since these men sexually assaulted me. I wouldn’t be able to until I feel safe and secure that they are behind bars for numerous years. When you make a decision on the amount of time you’re going to sentence these men to, I would like to tell you a little bit the about the harassment, intimidation and torture these men have done to me these last three years. I guess assaulting me and videotaping it wasn’t enough for them. They had to continue to make my life and my family’s life a living hell since. I feel that instead of showing remorse for their crimes, they have continued to assault me since every day since July Fourth.
The harassment and torture started immediately after the assault became known to the public. It started with private investigators sitting in front of our house day in and day out, watching our every move. Our family’s privacy was completely eliminated. The private investigators got worse when they began watching my parents at their places of work. One day I was driving home and a private investigator began following me. I panicked. I did not know what to do. I called my mom on her cell phone for help. All she could do was tell me to drive to the police station and try to calm down. In the parking of the police station the private investigator cornered me and began taking pictures of me.
I was still on the phone, hysterically crying for my mother’s help. I will never forget the terror and helplessness I heard in her voice. It tore me to pieces. These men have ruined me and my life, but now they are also ruining the lives of people that I loved the most. I had to stop driving alone because I was always being followed. I had to live a life in which I had to have permission to move, and my every move had to be observed for my safety. I didn’t understand – “Why were they still torturing me? Wasn’t that one night enough for them?”
Read the rest — and don’t let the sun set on your female ass.
UPDATE: Amanda has more on the story.