Lies, Damned Lies, and Sex Crimes

If you thought the case from last week was bad, here’s another one that’s worse.

This time, the supposed victim hasn’t stepped forward to admit she lied, so the man she accused of child molestation sits in prison, as he has for seventeen years, and the system seems powerless to stop it.

What happened? The jury never saw medical records in which the girl’s mom told a hospital therapist that her troubled daughter was a “pathological liar and she lives her lies.” The jury never heard about this and other details at trial because the prosecutor didn’t turn over the records. He told the judge there wasn’t anything in there to worry about.

How did it happen? The man was divorced and estranged from the mom, but he’d been in the girl’s life for ten years before that. The girl first reported the abuse three years after the divorce but only after her mom found out that she was dating a 27-year-old heroin-dealing parolee, and they got into a big fight about it. The mom reported the parolee and got him locked up. The girl flew into a rage and attempted suicide several times. It was in that context that she accused him.

But the girl’s story changed throughout the case. Initially, she said that he had touched her inappropriately but denied oral sex or intercourse of any kind. Then she claimed that he had raped her. By the time of trial, her testimony was that her stepfather had routinely raped her for years. Then, after he was convicted, she submitted a victim-impact statement in which she claimed, for the first time, that he had even shared her sexually with others.

The judge was not impressed. She had presided over the trial, and she thought the girl was lying. She asked to see her medical records, but the prosecutor refused. She threatened to throw out his conviction unless she saw the records, and he gave in.

The judge took one look at the girl’s medical records and immediately ordered a new trial. Here’s her written order. You should read it for yourself.

But the prosecutor’s office appealed the judge’s order. They got the conviction reinstated and the case reassigned to another judge, who sentenced the man to seventy years.

The man remains in prison today, serving out a death sentence. His case has cut a tortured path through state and federal appeals.

Someone should intercede.