| UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,450 Views) | |
| LTC8K6 | Mar 23 2015, 02:53 PM Post #796 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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The media will not see it your way, though. Neither will Jackie's supporters. Those words at the presser will be used to keep up the idea that Jackie was raped. I did like the part about getting the police involved immediately. He was clearly criticizing the idea of a rape case being handled by a college committee. |
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| abb | Mar 23 2015, 02:57 PM Post #797 |
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The "victims" in this case are the innocent people who were accused of rape. Where do they go to get their reputations back? |
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| abb | Mar 23 2015, 02:58 PM Post #798 |
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http://reason.com/blog/2015/03/23/charlottesville-pd-find-zero-evidence-to Charlottesville PD Find Zero Evidence to Support UVA Rape Claims Jackie was uncooperative, will not face charges for making false statements. Robby Soave|Mar. 23, 2015 3:05 pm Timothy LongoNBCCharlottseville Chief of Police Timothy Longo told reporters that a lengthy and comprehensive investigation of the sexual assault claims made in a groundbreaking Rolling Stone story last November yielded no evidence that could corroborate any aspect of Jackie's story. The police have suspended the sexual assault investigation, but will not close it—leaving open the possibility that evidence could be brought forward at some point in the future. Longo displayed considerable sensitivity and declined to brand Jackie's charge a false accusation. Nevertheless, that's the undeniable conclusion one reaches after hearing everything the cops did to try to verify it. Longo revealed that Jackie came to the police about a non-sexual act of violence that was perpetrated against her in the spring of 2014. (She claimed someone threw a bottle at her on the street, though even some of the details of that story were disputed by her roommate.) That was when she first mentioned her 2012 assault to police. According to Longo, the details of the 2012 assault were very different from the ones that ultimately appeared in Sabrina Rubin Erdely's story in November. Jackie ultimately declined to pursue either the 2012 or the 2014 matter with the police at that time. After the Rolling Stone story broke several months later, the detectives who had spoken with Jackie previously in the spring attempted to reach her again. Jackie agreed to meet with the police but declined to give a statement or provide documents and was generally uncooperative. She stopped responding to police requests as of December 10, 2014. The police did interview Erdely; she was cooperative, according to Longo. Phi Kappa Psi, the accused fraternity, also cooperated. Police interviewed most of the members who lived at the house at the time of the alleged assault, and established conclusively that no party could have taken place on the night Jackie claimed. Police also interviewed members of other fraternities and could turn up no evidence that "Haven Monahan," Jackie's alleged date, existed. Longo provided no additional thoughts on text messages allegedly sent by Monahan that are thought by many reporters (including this one) to actually have been sent by Jackie herself. Several reporters at the press conference asked whether Jackie would be prosecuted for making false statements; she will not face charges, according to Longo. The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is also investigating the story; its report is due out in April. Hopefully, it will shed additional light on how this travesty of journalism came to be. But for now, we will have to make do with this: An exhausting (and likely expensive) police investigation concluded that there is no evidence the accusations as detailed in Rolling Stone are true. Read my initial reporting about the UVA fiasco—among the first news stories to cast doubt on Jackie's assertions and Rolling Stone's reporting—here. Edit: Fixed misspelling of Chief Longo's name. |
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| abb | Mar 23 2015, 03:15 PM Post #799 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/03/23/charlottesville-police-to-issue-report-on-u-va-sex-assault-investigation/?hpid=z1 Charlottesville police find no evidence in U-Va. sexual assault case By T. Rees Shapiro March 23 at 3:15 PM CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. — Police here say they have found no evidence to support claims in a Rolling Stone article that a University of Virginia student was gang raped at a campus fraternity in September 2012, noting that months of investigation led detectives to discredit several claims about the alleged assault. Police Chief Timothy J. Longo on Monday afternoon said the police department had multiple meetings with “Jackie” — the woman who claimed she was gang raped at a fraternity party — and that she declined to speak about the alleged incident or provide any information about it. Numerous lines of inquiry yielded evidence that the fraternity did not have a party the night of the alleged attack, and police were unable to find anyone matching the description of the alleged attacker. “We’re not able to conclude to any substantive degree that an incident occurred at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house or any other fraternity house, for that matter,” Longo said at a news conference. “That doesn’t mean something terrible didn’t happen to Jackie … we’re just not able to gather sufficient facts to determine what that is.” The announcement came after a five-month investigation spurred by allegations of a brutal fraternity house gang-rape described in a 9,000-word magazine account that went viral online in November. The Rolling Stone report unraveled under scrutiny, as the accuser’s version of events was publicly challenged by her friends, members of the fraternity and sexual assault advocates on campus. After Washington Post reports revealed flaws in the account, Rolling Stone’s editors backed away from it. Longo’s statement was the first official discrediting of the account, but he said he would keep the investigation open in case witnesses wanted to come forward with anything that might lead police to any information about an attack. The Rolling Stone article examined allegations of sexual assault at U-Va. and what it characterized as the administration’s apparent lackluster response; the article fueled an ongoing national debate about the prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses. The article focused on a junior named Jackie who told the pop culture magazine that she was attacked by seven men during a party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in 2012 after she went on a date with one of the men. In interviews with The Post, Jackie said that she stood by the account she provided to Rolling Stone. “I never asked for this” attention, she said in an interview. “What bothers me is that so many people act like it didn’t happen. It’s my life. I have had to live with the fact that it happened — every day for the last two years.” Jackie also told The Post that she never expected that a police investigation would be fruitful, saying numerous times that she did not expect any charges in her case. She said she knew there was little, if any, forensic evidence that could prove the allegations two years afterward. A Post investigation into the claims found significant inconsistencies in the account. Phi Psi fraternity members strongly rebutted the allegations, saying they did not have a party on the night in question and did not have a member fitting the description of the alleged attacker; an alleged attacker — who Jackie told friends she was on a date with that night — turned out not to be a U-Va. student, had not been in Charlottesville in years, attends another school in another state, and said he barely knew Jackie; and Jackie’s friends told The Post that her version of events to the magazine did not match what they saw on the night she claims she was assaulted. Police said they confirmed these same findings. They also said that an alleged physical assault Jackie reported — when she told police that four men followed her and then threw a bottle at her face — had significant inconsistencies. It was at that time — in spring 2014 — that police twice asked Jackie about the alleged sexual assault at the urging of a university officials, and Jackie declined to talk to police about it. After the Rolling Stone article published, Longo’s force began investigating the claims at the behest of University President Teresa A. Sullivan. He said they were “horrific allegations,” and police immediately went to work. He said Jackie agreed to an interview with police after Thanksgiving break, but on Dec. 2 went to the department with a lawyer and declined to give police a statement, answer any questions, or give police access to her university records. Detectives interviewed numerous Phi Kappa Psi members, including most of those who lived in the house in September 2012, at the time of the alleged attack. Longo said they found photographs of the house the night in question that show it empty and reviewed other records that indicate the house had no party on the night Jackie said she went to a party there, was lured upstairs and was attacked. Longo also said police interviewed Jackie’s friends who met with her the night she said she left the fraternity bloody and shaken; they told police what they told The Post, that she was not physically injured and met them in a different location than was described in the Rolling Stone account. Police also investigated the name for an alleged attacker — Haven Monahan – a name that Jackie gave her friends as the person she was going on a date with that night. That name that did not match anyone at the fraternity or at the University of Virginia, and police were unable to determine if such a person exists. Late last year, The Post pursued information about that same name, which ultimately appeared to be a combination of names belonging to people Jackie interacted with while in high school in Northern Virginia, both of them swimmers. Both of those people – who attend different colleges and bear no resemblance to the description Jackie gave of her attacker – said in interviews that they knew of Jackie but did not know her well and certainly did not have contact with her after she left for U-Va. The Post also obtained a photograph that was purportedly of Monahan and determined that that photograph was of a third person, a student who attended high school with Jackie. That other person – also a swimmer – is a student at a different college out of state and was competing in an athletic event on the date of the alleged attack. He said he had not been in Charlottesville for at least six years and never had any sort of a relationship with Jackie. He expressed shock that his photograph was used in connection with the allegations and asked not to be identified for his safety. Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner announced in December that Columbia University would examine the magazine’s reporting of the U-Va. story. Columbia journalism school dean Stephen Coll told The Post that the school’s investigation will be published in Rolling Stone in the next two weeks. T. Rees Shapiro is an education reporter. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/full-text-charlottesville-police-statement-in-u-va-sex-assault-case/2015/03/23/ec4485bc-d193-11e4-8fce-3941fc548f1c_story.html |
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| cks | Mar 23 2015, 03:21 PM Post #800 |
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Sullivan looks more and more the fool......notice that she has been noticeably silent. What is irritating and so harmful is that Jackie can keep claiming that something happened and that this is the reason why she did not go to the police because they would not do anything about it............she is able to have her cake and eat it too. |
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| abb | Mar 23 2015, 03:29 PM Post #801 |
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As long as she doesn't file a complaint or make a statement to police, she can't be charged with filing a false report. She knows what she's doing. Or rather her attorney does. |
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| abb | Mar 23 2015, 03:30 PM Post #802 |
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http://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-uva-fraternity-exploring-legal-options-address-extensive/story?id=29848573 Exclusive: UVA Fraternity Exploring Legal Options to Address 'Extensive Damage Caused by Rolling Stone' By KATHERINE FAULDERS and EMILY SHAPIRO — Phi Kappa Psi at the University of Virginia told ABC News today that the fraternity feels vindicated after Charlottesville, Virginia, police said their investigation found "no evidence" of an alleged rape at the fraternity house. Stephen Scipione, president of the Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, said in a statement, "These false accusations have been extremely damaging to our entire organization, but we can only begin to imagine the setback this must have dealt to survivors of sexual assault.??? He continued, ???We hope that Rolling Stone???s actions do not discourage any survivors from coming forward to seek the justice they deserve.??? Phi Psi has been working with the Charlottesville police throughout the investigation, the statement said. "Following the publication of the defamatory article, the chapter launched an extensive internal investigation, which quickly confirmed that the horrific events described in the Rolling Stone article did not occur," the statement said. "Both the Virginia Alpha chapter and Phi Psi???s national organization adhere to a strict zero tolerance policy in regards to sexual assault." Phi Psi said it is "exploring its legal options to address the extensive damage caused by Rolling Stone." The woman, identified as "Jackie," alleged in a Rolling Stone article that she was gang-raped by seven men at a UVA Phi Psi fraternity party on Sept. 28, 2012. But police said today they were not able to conclude that an incident occurred at Phi Psi that night. Police said "we can't say something didn't happen" to her, but they have "no basis" to conclude anything happened at Phi Psi. During the investigation, police talked to about 70 people, including Jackie's friends and fraternity members, Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo said. Investigators talked to nine of the 11 Phi Psi members living in the house at the time, and none of them knew Jackie or had any knowledge of the alleged assault, Longo said. Police also found no evidence that a party or event took place at Phi Psi on Sept. 28, 2012, noting that a time-stamped photo from that night shows the house practically empty, Longo said. In January, a police investigation cleared Phi Psi of any involvement in the alleged rape and the fraternity was reinstated on campus. Longo noted today that the case is not closed, but is suspended until they are able to gather more information. ABC News' Cleopatra Georghiou contributed to this report. |
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| LTC8K6 | Mar 23 2015, 03:42 PM Post #803 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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I don't understand why any university wants to be involved in any sexual assault/rape case. Why not report it to the police and stay out of it other than offering counseling? Act after the police have investigated and you have solid footing. It seems like nothing good can happen for the university in getting involved in criminal cases. |
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| abb | Mar 23 2015, 03:46 PM Post #804 |
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Because the Dept of Education is clubbing them over the head with that "Dear Colleague" letter, and threatening to pull funding. |
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| LTC8K6 | Mar 23 2015, 03:49 PM Post #805 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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How much funding are they losing with these years long shenanigans? But you are right. They don't want to be involved. As that ADT security commercial says: "this can only end badly for you." |
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| Baldo | Mar 23 2015, 03:52 PM Post #806 |
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Bingo! That is the reason wouldn't file a Police Report or refused to work with the Police. In an interview with an attorney on Fox it was said Jacki told the Rolling Stone Reporter to not talk to the alleged "rapists!" She didn't want it to happened, She did not want her to talk with the fraternity. This way long before the RS article ever came out. So we find out she still refuses to talk or work with the Police and the one time she did she go to the Police she had her attorney with her & refused to talk to them. So Shep on Fox actually said a smart thing. Jacki came to the Rolling Stone Reporter and the first thing she warned them was not to talk to anyone about it. Both Shep & the guest both admitted that one of the first things you learn in journalism school is to be wary of someone who comes to you will a story. They usually have an agenda.Then the fact that Jacki said don't talk should have had Bells, Whistles, & Sirens going off with the RS "reporter" and the management at Rolling Stone. I hope that fraternity sues the pants off Rolling Stone & that UV President Edited by Baldo, Mar 23 2015, 03:53 PM.
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| MikeZPU | Mar 23 2015, 05:25 PM Post #807 |
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I think the fraternity should sue Rolling Stone. I hope they took pictures of the vandalism that their frat house was hit with. I think they could name Sullivan as well, for all that she did to convey an impression that the Rolling Stine article was factual AND for all the things she did NOT do, like punishing the vandals or even just condemning the vandalism. |
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| MikeKell | Mar 23 2015, 05:44 PM Post #808 |
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Still a Newbie
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Why shouldn't so many people act like "it" didn't happen when there is no evidence that "it" happened and plenty of evidence that "it" as described by Jackie couldn't have happened as described? And that bothers her. Edited by MikeKell, Mar 23 2015, 05:45 PM.
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| MikeZPU | Mar 23 2015, 05:46 PM Post #809 |
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http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/23/us/rolling-stone-jackie-rape-article-uva/index.html Check out both the 2nd paragraph and the video that CNN posted. Sure enough, they are playing up Longo's comments that "something may have happened" to Jackie. Chief Longo is pandering. He knows full well that she made it all up. |
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| abb | Mar 24 2015, 04:26 AM Post #810 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/24/why-some-think-it-would-be-a-colossal-mistake-for-the-uva-frat-to-sue-rolling-stone/ Why some think it would be a ‘colossal mistake’ for the U-Va. frat to sue Rolling Stone By Terrence McCoy March 24 at 4:26 AM On Nov. 20, the day after Rolling Stone published an account filled with allegations so lurid they ignited a national controversy, a college woman’s phone rang. It was the Charlottesville police calling. They wanted to talk to an allegedly traumatized woman named “Jackie.” The University of Virginia student agreed to discuss her story that multiple Phi Kappa Psi frat brothers raped her. But two weeks later, she clammed up, declining through a lawyer to answer any questions. That was the last time the cops had any real contact with Jackie. So for the next five months, they did their investigation the hard way, checking bank accounts, phone records and photographs. It ultimately produced a report that methodically undermined every one of Jackie’s allegations. Released Monday, it said there wasn’t anything to suggest anything had occurred inside Phi Kappa’s Psi Fraternity house the night Jackie said she had been raped. “We find no substantive basis of fact” to support “the facts as described in the November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone Magazine article,” it said. The police report represents the first official undermining of the contested article, and would likely play a significant role in any potential litigation brought by Phi Kappa Psi against Rolling Stone or the article’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely. A lawsuit appears to be under consideration. “Phi Kappa Psi is now exploring its legal options to address the extensive damage caused by Rolling Stone — damage both to the chapter and its members and to the very cause upon which the magazine was focused,” the chapter said in a statement, calling the article “defamatory.” Indeed, the chapter, if not the wider campus, was wrongly made the focus of a heated national debate on the issue of campus rape and whether schools are doing enough to combat it. Some on the University of Virginia faculty are already calling for a lawsuit. “I have expressed the view that the fraternity ought to sue Rolling Stone (and its writer individually),” Bob Turner, a professor of national security law and the author of an op-ed calling for the same, wrote The Washington Post in an e-mail. “As I recall from law school decades ago … falsely accusing someone of committing a heinous criminal act is defamation per se, and specific harm doesn’t need to be proven … My guess is Rolling Stone is not going to want to see a drawn-out lawsuit covered by other media that they will certainly eventually lose.” This seems a reasonable conclusion. But according to other legal experts, successfully litigating a libel case against Rolling Stone would be substantially more complicated than that and could expose the fraternity to further unwanted publicity. Any libel lawsuit that doesn’t get thrown out right away on technical grounds would be accompanied by a lengthy, granular discovery and deposition process. That process would likely expose any fraternity’s “skeletons in the closet,” Rodney Smolla, a University of Georgia law professor who has worked libel cases, told the National Law Journal. “This could backfire on you,” he said. “If you’ve got things you’re not proud of that are there, then do not bring the case because all of that will come out and it will cause you more damage than good.” Charles Tobin, a Washington attorney who specializes in libel law and writes frequently on the subject, told The Post that if the fraternity sues Rolling Stone, it would be a “colossal mistake.” He said there were several reasons for that prognosis. For one, he said it has already gotten the public exoneration it was seeking. Plus, he too would be worried about the “skeletons in the closet” issue. “If they bring a lawsuit, they are opening up every young man in that fraternity to scrutiny — their drinking habits, and I’m sure some of them are underage, their sexual habits, and their overall conduct,” he told The Post. “It just seems like there’s a whole host of issues that could be there, and it would be unfair and unwise to subject these young men to that.” Then there’s another problem that could prevent such a suit from going forward at all: Large groups generally cannot sue for defamation. The Rolling Stone article doesn’t specifically name any student beyond pseudonyms and descriptions that aren’t matched by any member of the frat house. Rather, the article slams an entire fraternity, sinking any potential lawsuit into some legally murky waters. “A large group of undifferentiated people do not have a valid claim,” Tobin said. “And from my recollection of the article, it would be difficult for any one person to claim that they were defamed.” For any group to have a justifiable claim, wrote Ellyn Tracy Marcus in the California Law Review in 1983, the group needs to be small. “As group size increases, courts become skeptical that the defamation could reasonably be understood to refer to any individual group member. … Reasonable persons do not take literally statements defaming groups of people, and understand such statements only as generalizations or exaggerations.” The concept has roots in old English law, she noted, which decided the matter in King v. Alme and Nott. “Where a writing … inveighs against mankind in general, or against a particular order of men, as for instance, men of the gown, this is no libel, but it must descend to particulars and individuals to make it a libel,” the ruling said. It’s unclear how many members belong to the University of Virginia’s chapter of Phi Kappa Psi. Its Web site doesn’t say. But its membership likely numbers in the dozens, if not more, and when the chapter referred on Monday to “damage both to the chapter and its members,” it presumably meant all of the members. This would likely be considered a large group. And it “might be too large for the defamation-of-a-group theory to apply, especially since the allegation is just about nine members,” wrote the University of California at Los Angeles’s Eugene Volokh in The Post’s Volokh Conspiracy. But as Volokh pointed out, the sheer number of defamatory allegations that now seem untrue are numerous. So even if the frat decides against suing, any number of others in the article could choose otherwise. Terrence McCoy writes on foreign affairs for The Washington Post's Morning Mix. Follow him on Twitter here. |
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9:15 AM Jul 11