For YEARS I felt SO alone after being falsely accused. Some tidbits of knowledge that I learned along the way:

1) Don't tell people about it, more than you HAVE to. Trust me: they don't hear "falsely accused" they just hear "rape" and then they tell people all about you as you are the most interesting piece of gossip of the day. Even if they believe you and mean well ... people tend to hear "rape" and not the "falsely accused" or "she was found guilty" part.

2) Find some online groups to talk to about it. When I found them I had been stewing and angry for YEARS. And my first posts reflected it. Now that I am a men's and fathers (I was denied my dad for 20 years due to a bitter divorce) advocate I am still having people toss up my early posts (from like YEARS ago) when I try to make resonable arguments about balance in the system.

3) Most of the falsely accused (of whatever crime, greater or lesser) feel the need to explain THEIR side to people - LOTS of people. Brother, you don't owe anyone anything. No one expects (no fair minded person) you to rehash the pain or justify your innocence.

Many online men's groups can a be a blessing as you will find others like you or others who have had friends go through what you went through. It cuts through a lot of the garbage and baggage of having to explain yourself, to defend that you dated a psycho, or that you are not a threat.

Have faith and know that you are not alone.

Steven

Notice that no one denigrated the ones who said they were raped, so this whole "stigma" thing is overblown - or can you show me ONE anonymous (as the internet is) person who blamed them for it?

And ... lol, many men accused of rape don't want to talk about it or are in prison where internet access, shall we say, is limited.

Another prosecutor, possibly at the behest of a detective's hunch, or possibly with political pressure being applied from somewhere (the latter speculative) chose to prosecute the young woman.

Now, Beaverton Muni is not designated as 'a court of record' (an oddity I'm not previously familiar with) but as near as I can tell the appeal will NOT be about process, but simply a retrial in a court of record (County Court).

Also, for years, many folks in Portland have held the bias that there's a fair amount of corruption in the Beaverton PD. Some theorize this is merely further evidence of it. Frankly, I don't know; I'm just passing on the word on the street.

But I am firmly convinced that the victim would not commit perjury and would not lie about anything that could put others in legal jeopardy. My bias was mentioned at the outset and will remain steadfast.

For others, who don't know her, speculative points about the percentage of false reporters indicates a range so broad that it suffices to say that nobody knows how much false reporting occurs. And missing in those stats as well is the percentage of convictions that result from false reports. Maybe most false reporters are not believable at the outset, or recant along the way. Again, I/we don't know, do we?

As a side matter, I'd say further progress is needed in the way our justice system deals with rape. Many commenters on many blogs have reported being raped and further traumatized or not helped by the criminal justice system. I've only seen one commenter mention that he was falsely accused.

Based on that, it's tempting to presume that improperly prosecuted rapes are the bigger problem by far. I believe that, even without mathematical substantiation.

Still, none of it's germane to my reason for raising the story, which is not about percentages, comparatives or fixing society. It's about a woman I'm convinced was wronged, several times and my fervent hope that justice comes for her. There's nothing speculative about any of that; there's just outrage at what's occurred.

Cute. Do you also refer to the president's wife as "Vehicular Homicide Bush"?

"My only response to your lauding of what you call ‘a more even approach’ is this: you obviously have very little empathy for women – "

I must have missed you at the "Not In Our Name" anti-rad-fem rally where you decried false accusations that imprison men, subject THEM to rape, and destroy who sections of their lives.

Just because a person says a system must have balance and not cater to ONE gender does not mean the person is without empathy.

But, this is a typical rad-feminist response: put the person asking for balance and fairness on the defensive.

Sorry, didn't you get the memo? The P.C. 90's are over and the USA is more sophisticated as to rape.

She continues in her one sided argument:
" you automatically do what you chide Shakes Sis and Arthur Silber for; concluding the rape was bogus, because the ‘justice’ system said so."

Ahhh, and when a man is pronounced guilty you are the FIRST one to stand up and say: "just because he was pronounced guilty doesn't mean he did it ... there is a lot of questions to this case" - right?

She seems to conveniently forget women who molest boys in this part:
" You also seem to indicate the girl (girl – not woman. No matter how much a certain class of men would like it to be – 17 is still a child) would only get a slap on the wrist, so who cares – right?"

You mean how Mary Kay LeTourneau was only sent away for SEVEN years after repeatedly sleeping with her 12 year old student?

Or how Debra LaFave was given NO jail time.

Plz DO post links to where you were up in arms about this ....

Showing your blatant sexism is EASY when you wear it on your sleeve.

She continues to make excuses and ignoring the double standards:
"Well, unlike you, I actually did a little research before stating my opinion. The facts of the case are in dispute – the child’s mother may have had some complicity, and the adult men involved could have been charged with statutory rape, as that is current Oregon law. But they werent – only the girl (now 19) paid any price at all. Well – I guess that’s OK by you; after all, it’s not like it was anyone you gave a damn about (assuming there are females you give a damn about). I noted many responses just like yours – men getting up on their moral high horse decrying what we pesky feminists considered an egregious miscarriage of justice."

Feminists consider justice to be giving one standard for men and another for women. It's no different than "white justice" for blacks back in the day.

You decide guilt, innocence, mitigation of circumstances or lack thereof purely based on genetics. How does that robe and hood fit by the way?

The "men cannot understand" cannard:
" Ah well – its not like you will ever have to suffer through the mind-numbing violence of rape; unless of course, through some egregious miscarriage of justice you end up in jail with the wrong cell-mate. But then – only true criminals ever get convicted of crimes – right? I mean, its not like the justice system is ever wrong?"

The Prison Rape Reform Act of 2003 was enacted due to 10% of all prisoners being raped REPEATEDLY. Consider: there are 2.5-2.7 MILLION men in prison. That's 250K-270K men raped REPEATEDLY - and the feminists are doing ... WHAT exactly to spread the word and stop it?

And as far as the justice system being wrong .. how about men spending 5, 10, 15, or 20 years in prison for rapes they didn't comnmit - being later freed by DNA.

Do the feminists think that the women who have done this should go to jail for the SAME AMOUNT OF TIME!?

Not one of those women who put men in jail is serving a DAY ... never mind that we need a National False Accuser Data Base to track these predators.

The P.C. 90's are over cupcake. Women will start going to JAIL for false accusations. No longer can your shrill cries that espouse one sided sexism be taken at face vaule.

And stomping your dainty little foot no longer works.

Well, unlike you, I actually did a little research before stating my opinion. The facts of the case are in dispute - the child's mother may have had some complicity, and the adult men involved could have been charged with statutory rape, as that is current Oregon law. But they weren’t - only the girl (now 19) paid any price at all. Well - I guess that's OK by you; after all, it's not like it was anyone you gave a damn about (assuming there are females you give a damn about). I noted many responses just like yours - men getting up on their moral high horse decrying what we pesky feminists considered an egregious miscarriage of justice. Ah well - its not like you will ever have to suffer through the mind-numbing violence of rape; unless of course, through some egregious miscarriage of justice you end up in jail with the wrong cell-mate. But then - only true criminals ever get convicted of crimes - right? I mean, it’s not like the justice system is ever wrong?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6796146/

There are so many stories about women falsely reporting crimes and they are not getting punished because society feels sorry for them. Of course they will blame a man for everything that goes wrong. People have to wake up and realize that woman sometimes can commit more heinous crimes then men.

My guess is that the number of rapes reported to the authorities is less than the number of allegations made to...who? Friends?

If we have this many false charges of rape made to the authorities, how many false allegations made to...somebody else?

The outrage is over THIS case. If another case comes up the outrage will be THAT case. Moral people don't cast universal aspersions. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and the guilty should pay.

Also, while the following statistic is a bit dated and somewhat narrow in scope, I will present it to you because I believe it is still true and that similar statistics are common throughout the United States: In 1985, HALF the reported rapes in New York City NEVER HAPPENED. Fifty percent were false accusations by angry girlfriends and angry wives to get their guys in trouble. SCARY, huh?

The problem arises when you have a 50-50 split between true allegations and false allegations. Do you believe all of these women or do you believe none of them? The humanitarian way to view this is to believe ALL accusers. Unfortunately, this puts a lot of innocent men in prison. I just hope in the future we see more women exposed as liars and more innocent men staying out of prison.

With so many bogus rape claims (anywhere between 9-60% depending on the study) juries and the public are skeptical. Discouraging false claims would keep the false claim rate lower, thereby RAISING convictions.

Rape is a unique crime? Ok, I can buy that. But the very reason the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (at best a band-aid) was passed was that 10% of prisoners REPORT being raped. And unlike our society the rape culture in prison vis a vis reporting and support is not conducive to being a "rat".

And those men are not raped ONCE, but repeatedly.

So, going to prison for rape is YEARS of sexual torture and THAT is what this woman almost did to these men.

She should be locked up for the same amount of time those men would have been.

It's why we have punishments for crimes: a deterrent.

As in most states, relative age is a defense:

(3) In any prosecution under ORS 163.445 in which the victim’s lack of consent was due solely to incapacity to consent by reason of being less than a specified age, it is a defense that the actor was less than three years older than the victim at the time of the alleged offense if the victim was at least 15 years of age at the time of the alleged offense. [1971 c.743 §108; 1991 c.386 §3; 1991 c.830 §4; 1999 c.626 §24; amendments by 1999 c.626 §45 repealed by 2001 c.884 §1]