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| Alan Dershwoitz (Breitbart) |
Ordinarily someone accused of sexual misconduct will do
that. Has there ever been a sex offender that admitted his crime? If he wasn’t
caught, he will deny it. So when Dershowitz denied it, skepticism prevailed.
After all the vast majority of sex abuse accusations are valid. So denial by the accused is standard operating
procedure. For me that tainted the reputation of someone I admired. Mostly for
his principled stand supporting Israel.
When a man of his stature does that, it means a lot more
than if I do it. Especially when a liberal like Dershowitz does the defending.
But after he was accused, I saw him more as a liability than an asset. Who wan’t
an accused sex offender defending anything I believe in?
Well here is what was reported in
Breitbart:
“(Jane Doe #3’s attorneys Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell) acknowledge that it was a mistake to have filed sexual misconduct accusations against Dershowitz and the sexual misconduct accusations made in all public filings (including all exhibits) are hereby withdrawn.”
This was after Dershowitz filed
papers proving that he couldn’t have been where the misconduct took place at
the time it was reported to have happened.
I guess that’s the kind of proof
you need when you are accused of a sex crime.
I have not been reticent to call
out our own religious community about its slow uptake in how sex abuse should
be treated. Far too often the accused is believed over the victim. Especially when
the accused is a respected member of the community with no known history of abuse. That
it might have gone on for years in secret does not occur to his defenders. Denials by
the accused are not only believed, but often result in further victimization of the victim. And if a family members gets involved –
like when a father believes his son and reports the abuse to the police - he can be accused of the actual abuse. This happened in at least one case I know
about in Lakewood. Fortunately that family has survived and to the best of my knowledge is doing well. Some (but not all)
of the father's accusers have apologized to him.
But every once in awhile the
accuser gets it wrong. And sometimes it is an outright lie that was made for personal
gain. I don’t know that this was he case with Jane Doe #3. But if I had to
guess, I would say that there was probably either a financial motive… or that
she is just plain mentally disturbed. After all she also accused Britain’s Prince
Andrew and former President Bill Clinton.
But her lawyers believed her
nonetheless. And they were going to extract justice. Probably in financial terms.
I guess what I’m trying to say is
that even in a climate where victims are usually right and often mistreated by a
community that defends an accused abuser that is likely guilty… even though life-long struggles
that occur to people that were abused (hence their preference to be called
survivors) when these things happen to people… there is still the very real possibility
that someone was falsely accused… and when that happens not always can he
disprove those allegations the way Dershowitz did. And that will result in
devastating consequences - not only for the accused but for his family as well. Not to mention that when things like this happen, it can hurt the credibility of future victims of abuse.
