So, this alleged college sexual predator, Preston Wido, will probably serve no time because his attorney decided to trot out the "hey, it's like Duke!" line. No, actually, it's not at all like Duke. Jeez. We have four victims here with a defense attorney undermining their credibility and yelling "Mistrial!" like Al Pacino in "And Justice For All"; I sincerely doubt all four young woman are "making this up" as his attorney states.
This occured at Hobart & William Smith College and I am frankly surprised he didn't plea this out and it's at trial. Talk about confidence! Oh, he says it was "consensual" with all four of them. That is the usual defense. Actually, apart from having an alibi and not being there, consensual is all you have when you are on trial for rape.
This is what precisely what I meant when I said Nifong and Ms. Mangum created trauma, not for the Duke three so much as for the system in general. Any green public defender can use this line and a stupid jury will buy it.
In addition, what a horrible story! I hope for swift and fair justice, healing and peace for the survivors. What do you think?
7 comments:
Liz,
I am trying to contact you because we share a strikingly similar past and story. Do you have a private e-mail I can contact you through?
Hello, Anon:
Obviously, it can't be posted here, but if you go to the Foundation website, www.starssurvivors.org, go to the "contact" page and send an email, someone will be sure to get me the email. Please reference your blog post so I can look out for it!
Be well,
Liz
Liz,
This is indeed a horrible story. I agree with you that it is just horrible he did this to these girls, and that the Duke case really did royally screw things up for people who were telling the truth.
I don't think it's right at all to falsely accuse someone of rape, but I also don't those three lacross players were exactly choir boys. They didn't deserve to go through what they went through, but I know the rich kid type who think they can just run wild and Mommy and Daddy's check book can get them out of any disaster all too well.
I highly doubt that four girls could be making this up. In fact, I remember Mickey Sherman's commentary in the Alex Kelly documentary saying that juries really don't take these kinds of accusations lightly. That if you have one person making a claim of sexual assualt, that's one thing- 2 people who don't know each other from a hole in the wall... that's trouble.
I still don't get how Puccio got him off the first time, but they won the 2nd time, so with four people making these allegations, I can only pray that there is hope.
Sadly, I am not surprised at this defense attorney's tactics. I remember some pretty sleazy outrageous reaches made by the one in my case.
My most favorite of all time was how he dug through my medical records and discovered I was allergic to nickel and made an abesolutely ridiculous argument that the hand imprints on my wrists from my rapist grabbing me so hard was an allergic reaction to coming into contact with his client's watch that contained nickel during consensual sexual activity. For the love of crud- PLEASE.
Let's keep our fingers crossed justice will prevail here.
Michele
From what I hear, the jury just could not comprehend how Mr. Kelly could use one hand to lower the Jeep seat and one hand to strangle Ms. Bak. Um, he was a wrestling champion? That is how he got off. Sadly, they needed a smarter jury and Hilary on the stand before they got Kelly convicted.
Defense attorneys will use anything they can possibly get on the victim and that is actually their job. It may seem outlandish, but they have some straws to grasp at. Sometimes it even works.
I think this guy may be going away. My fear is not how long, but how little.
Liz,
I read this story last night and couldn't put my head around it long enough to comment. The part about the defense attorney yelling for a mistrial every five seconds and claiming all four of these women are lying. Call me crazy here, but, in my opinion, falsely accusing someone of rape is just as bad as falsely accusing someone of lying about being raped.
Erin
Erin:
I totally agree. Did I mistakenly imply otherwise? I take false accusers to task regularly. They make it soooo hard for those telling the truth to get justice. See my post from today about the woman sentenced for her husband's killing of her lover as she cried "rape". xx
Liz,
Oh, no, of course you didn't imply that. I was just saying that both situations make me absolutely insane.
Best,
Erin
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