If you're gonna gang up on a girl in the bathroom, make sure you film it.

[MadImmortalMan]

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/18/crimesider/entry5319636.shtml

Cell Phone Sex Video Unravels Hofstra Gang Rape Case


Posted by Ryan Smith
(CBS)


MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBS/AP) She was a Hofstra University freshman who had claimed she was raped by five men in a dormitory bathroom, but she has now changed her story after prosecutors confronted her with the revelation that a video of the encounter may have been recorded, a prosecutor said Thursday.

The recantation on Wednesday night led to the immediate release of four men, including one student at the Long Island college, who had been arrested on rape and other charges. Police had been seeking to arrest a fifth man when the charges were dropped.

The sex did occur in a bathroom but was consensual, a prosecutor said. Authorities could decide within weeks whether to charge the 18-year-old woman for making up the story.

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said Thursday that the woman, whom she would not identify, was interviewed Wednesday night by two senior prosecutors as a routine part of a follow-up investigation.

The woman first told police she was lured to the dormitory and raped early Sunday after her cell phone was stolen by a man she had met at a dance party, Rice said. She said she was bound with rope while the five men took turns sexually assaulting her in a men's bathroom stall.


Almost immediately, Rice said, the woman's story began to unravel with "significant inconsistencies," but she declined to elaborate. "The turning point was when she was confronted with the fact that there may exist a video of some or all of the incident," Rice said.

"Her actions and demeanor depict a very troubled young woman in need of much help," the prosecutor said.

An attorney for one of the accused men, 20-year-old Kevin Taveras, said he was shown a copy of the cell phone video and said it confirmed reports that the woman was not attacked.

"It looks more like a porn movie," Victor Daly-Rivera said. "It showed just the opposite of what the allegations were. There was no tying up, there was no bruising, there was no screaming."

The four young men who were falsly accused say the experience was traumatizing.

"I was really scared. I couldn't believe what was basically going through my mind. It was like a big nightmare, and I thought I was going to do time for something I didn't do," 20-year-old Kevin Taveras said on Headline News network's "Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell" on Friday, Sept. 18.

The woman who filed the accusation has been suspended from school until a disciplinary hearing is held, a Hofstra spokeswoman said. Melissa Connolly also said a suspension against Rondell Bedward, the only Hofstra student among the five men implicated, had been lifted.

Two of the men who were released said outside the Nassau County jail on Wednesday night that said they had feared the possibility of serving 25 years to life for a felony rape conviction.

"It's crazy; the system is supposed to prevent these things from happening," Taveras said outside the jail late Wednesday.

"It's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven innocent," he said. "Inside I thought I was going to do a bit for something I didn't do."

Bedward, 21, declined to comment after he was released.

On campus, students shook their heads at the latest twist in the case.

"It's definitely a shock," said Megan Michler, a junior from Penargyl, Pa. "I guess she completely lied about it and it's not fair to the guys that were involved. Everyone was shaken up by the whole thing, and now we were shaken up for nothing."

Hofstra, a private university of 12,600 students, played host to the final presidential debate of the 2008 election.

The rape report "just really gave the university a bad name," said Dani Frank, a print journalism major from Easton, Conn. "I really wish there hadn't been conclusions jumped to because it put the boys in a negative light, it put Hofstra in a negative light, and people will give her a lot less credibility in the future."

"Use protection" used to mean condoms. Now it's cell phone cameras.

[Berkut]

BB would prosecute anyway.

[Habbaku]

BB would prosecute anyway.

  Crimes against morality.

[Barrister]

BB would prosecute anyway.

  Crimes against morality.

I just recommended someone be charged with voyeurism today.



I do have to say that if some girl is willing to take you and your four buddies on in a bathroom stall you perhaps shouldn't be surprised when she turns out to be crazy...

[Habbaku]

I just recommended someone be charged with voyeurism today.

  Was it consensual for all parties, or a peeping-tom?

[Barrister]

I just recommended someone be charged with voyeurism today.

  Was it consensual for all parties, or a peeping-tom?

The definition of voyeurism in the Criminal Code requires that is be "surreptitiously", so therefore it can't be consentual and constitute voyeurism.

[Josephus]

I just recommended someone be charged with voyeurism today.

When BB and a bunch of us went to the Art Gallery of Ontario a couple months ago, there was a painting on display depicting a pre-pubescent girl getting out of the bathtub.

We were all worried that if we looked at it, BB was gonna prosecute. 

[Grey Fox]

[Barrister]

I just recommended someone be charged with voyeurism today.

When BB and a bunch of us went to the Art Gallery of Ontario a couple months ago, there was a painting on display depicting a pre-pubescent girl getting out of the bathtub.

We were all worried that if we looked at it, BB was gonna prosecute. 

It's outside my jurisdiction.  There's nothing I can do to stop filth from being displayed in Ontario.   

[DisturbedPervert]

One of the guys still should have stopped it.

[Barrister]

One of the guys still should have stopped it.

Now obviously if the video contradicts her version, and supports consentual sex, then these guys shouldn't be charged with rape.  But I don't think there's any version of events where these guys come off looking good.

[Strix]

Now obviously if the video contradicts her version, and supports consentual sex, then these guys shouldn't be charged with rape.  But I don't think there's any version of events where these guys come off looking good.

It depends on how well hung the guys were I would guess.

[Drakken]

BB would prosecute anyway.

Not automatically. The same kind of shit happened in Montreal a few years ago.

A bunch of black dudes gang-raped a young girl for days and had filmed the whole thing. She went to the police afterwards, which arrested the guys for sexual assault.

However, the parents of one of the suspects said to the press that it was consensual, basically that she was a ho and she was all into it, and that the film showed that she was loving it. Even a Montreal one-guy Black lobby group took their defence, despite the young girl adamantly protesting that she was raped.

Even with the movie in hand the DA decided not to prosecute, and the guys went scoff free.

[Malthus]

One of the guys still should have stopped it.

Now obviously if the video contradicts her version, and supports consentual sex, then these guys shouldn't be charged with rape.  But I don't think there's any version of events where these guys come off looking good.

Why?

If some people want to have group sex in a dorm, what's the harm? And why are the *guys* looking worse than *her*?

[Barrister]

If some people want to have group sex in a dorm, what's the harm? And why are the *guys* looking worse than *her*?

The harm is I'm willing to bet the girl was drunk or high at the time, even if it was consentual.  And if you see absolutely nothing wrong with a five-way in the men's bathroom, well, then you and I just don't see eye to eye on this.

If it's consentual the girl looks just as bad as the guys.  But the girl doesn't look bad if it's gang-rape.