Philadelphia has a judge who thinks it's just fine for men to gang rape a working girl at gunpoint. Because the 20-year-old single mom agreed to certain sexual acts for money, it's only "theft of service" when the home she agreed to go to turned out to be an abandoned building where she was held at gunpoint and raped by 4 men, says Judge Teresa Carr Deni. Deni dropped, for no legal reason, all the sexual and assault charges, including assault with a deadly weapon. Feministe has the story.
When some of the same guys did the same thing a few days later in a completely separate case with another woman, prosecutor Rich DeSipio didn't even bring the case because he "wouldn’t demean her that way,” calling the earlier case "a farce." And did he try to prosecute any of them on prostitution charges? Apparently, Philadelphia officially condones that.
Shame on both of them. It's open season on women in Philadelphia.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Too close for comfort
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2 comments:
Another unfair post, another response to it:
It was wrong for an individual to publish a personal opinion, unfairly trashing Judge Deni, the week before the election, and doing it as if she were speaking for, and representing, the Philadelphia Bar Association. She had no right and no legitimate authority to do that.
The part of this story trashing Judge Deni that you don’t know is that this was a manipulation of public opinion and the press by political operatives, who purposely fabricated a twisted version of the facts right before an election, to smear Judge Deni’s reputation for political reasons that have nothing to do with the case they used to launch the campaign against her.
Once they got one paper to print their twisted version of the facts, the other papers piled on, repeating the false facts from the first story.
What you think happened is not what happened, and her political opponents knew they had her over a barrel, because the rules of judicial conduct prevent her from arguing the facts of a pending case in the press.
The operatives accomplished their goal, which was to create a public outrage to fan the flames of a public drum beat to remove Judge Deni from office.
Some people will not find it easy to accept that they were played.
Others who know how politics are played in Philly will acknowledge that what I am saying has a certain familiar ring of truth to it.
I have known Judge Deni for better than 30 years, and know her to be a woman of honor and integrity.
I am telling you that what you read in the papers, and the firestorm that was created out of it, was a calculated political manipulation that had nothing to do with the truth.
Outrageous and spine chilling and not at all surprising. Vulnerable women have never found protection under a patriarchal system.
Kathy, if this isn't the way it happened, do clarify.
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