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Allison Leotta, novelist, former sex-crimes prosecutor, tv critic

Author of A Good Killing, Speak of the Devil, and others.

I Did Not Report…

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Sexual assaults are the most under-reported crimes in America.  Kudos to the survivors who are speaking out about it for the first time on Twitter.  Check out the hashtag #ididnotreport to view survivors who’ve  posted (in 140 characters or less) their experience with sexual assault or street harassment that they didn’t report.  Men and women all over the world have been sharing personal stories.  You can post too.  Here’s a sampling of #ididnotreport tweets:

 

Debbie Chiang@debbiechiang: #ididnotreport that I was asleep when I lost my virginity, because I was dating him at the time.

AlexandraGoldstein@mokuska: #Ididnotreport the guy who ran up to my best friend & me as we walked along, shoved his hands into our crotches and ran away laughing.

Martha Martha@CornishCalzone: #ididnotreport the boy in my class who repeatedly put his hand up my skirt. I was embarrassed that I’d “made it happen”. I was 11.

Katharine@rockon_musegirl: #ididnotreport because the first time I tried telling someone they asked what I was wearing. It was an orange bikini. I was 12.

BeckyB@MrsBeBe_#ididnotreport systematic sexual abuse over a 2 yr period by boys at my school because teachers didn’t believe me so why would anyone else?

cate cate@birdgehrl: #ididnotreport the man who would not listen to me when I said no, even though I was drunk.

Vicky Kapoor@hrsyofgrmnghst: #ididnotreport because I have no faith in our justice system where so few rapists are jailed + victims are treated like perpetrators.

Nicole Sullivan@stubbornella: #ididnotreport because I was too little to know I had any right to my own body… to say no.

TimChevalier@eassumption: I’ve seen firsthand how much shaming and ridicule is directed at people who report harassment. #ididnotreport is an understandable reaction.

aimee@moewytchdog: #ididnotreport because he was a police officer.

RaeLeaver@raethepain: So much respect for those contributing to the #ididnotreport tag. I can’t, because I *did* report it and the police told me I had no case.

RopesToInfinity@RopesToInfinity: The #ididnotreport hashtag makes for some pretty sobering reading. We have a depressingly long way to go.

DavidAaronovitch@DAaronovitch: #ididnotreport is an extraordinary hashtag. Saddening. Enraging.

witchoAngmar@gwrthryfel: If you want to understand why feminism and feminist movements are still vitally important–> #ididnotreport

JohnAllsopp@JAScarb: #Ididnotreport the 3 people in my school class (35yrs ago) who got girl unconscious at party & screwed her & denied when she visited in the morning

EmilyKoehlerLemaire@eklemaire: I am in awe of the courageous disclosures on the #ididnotreport hashtag. #breakthesilence #vaw #sheparty

Jodie@MsJodieLW: If you are disclosing on the #ididnotreport and #webelieveyouhashtags make sure you look after yourself, whatever that might involve.

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Thanks to my wonderful self-defense course teachers at IMPACT-DC for sharing this story with me.

If you like this blog, please follow me on Twitter.

 

Tragic real-life stories SVU should take up

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This week brought two tragic real-life cases that should work their way into upcoming SVU episodes.

First is the unconscionable death of Amina Filali.  The 16-year-old Moroccan rape victim killed herself by eating rat poison after a Moroccan court forced her to marry her rapist.  Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code allows for the “kidnapper” of a minor to marry his victim to escape prosecution.  There is a long and barbaric practice in Morocco of forcing rape victims to marry their assailants in order to preserve her family’s honor.  One of the great things about SVU is its ability to get people talking about important issues. I hope the show will take this one up soon, and shine a light on this dark corner of human rights.

Second, was the murder of domestic-violence victim Heather McGuire by her husband, a few days after she’d obtained a restraining order against him.  (This happened in Kensington, Maryland, a mile from where I live.)  Although the husband had assaulted her several times in the days before, and was arrested for it, the judge released him on bail.  The husband killed her the next day.  After the police launched a massive manhunt, he killed himself.

In light of the murder/suicide, many people have asked me whether protective orders are really useful.  It’s true that a piece of paper can’t stop a bullet.  But studies show that victims who seek help from the courts are far safer than those who don’t.  Of course, the safest thing in a case of repeated violence and stalking is to keep the perpetrator locked in jail pending trial.  Judges need to take domestic violence seriously, and protect victims with the tools available.  When they don’t, this kind of tragedy is too often the result.

SVU Episode #13-15: Hunting Ground

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Recap: This episode provided an intense mashup of some fictional and real serial killers, including Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, General Zaroff from “The Most Dangerous Game,” the Craiglist Killer, and the Long Island Serial Killer.
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We open with Olivia and Harry Connick coming out of a movie theater.  They banter about how many memos they’ll have to write in order to have this relationship, but seem to be having a great time on their date.  Enjoy the moment, folks, because things are about to get decidedly more disturbing.
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SVU Episode #15: Flight

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Summary: A billionaire with a penchant for 13-year-old girls forces them to give him massages with happy endings. He pays most of them off. But one French girl finally reports it, and the SVU detectives find his semen inside the girl. The billionaire shows up at the police station (with an expensive lawyer) and claims the girl raped him. He says he was sleeping in his massage room at home when the girl walked in and started fondling him. When he woke up, she threatened to cry rape if he didn’t finish, so he had sex with her. But the police soon find more girls he molested, as well as videos he made of his sex assaults. They arrest him and mock him for having a small penis.

Verdict: B+

What they got right:  Some child molesters do try to get out of rape charges by claiming the child did the dirty work while they slept through it. It’s the sex-offender version of “The dog ate my homework.” Convenient, easy, and pretty damn unlikely. Defense experts have coined a term to try make it sound scientific: “sexsomnia” – having sex while you’re sleeping. I think this theory became popular in recent years because DNA testing shuts down every other defense for child molesters. It’s hard to say you didn’t touch a child when your semen is found inside her. If the victim was an adult, the guy could claim that his semen got there during a consensual encounter. But consent isn’t a defense to statutory rape. It doesn’t matter if a naked 15-year-old hands you a can of Redi-Whip and begs you to lick it off her – if you have sex with her, you’re on the hook. And so “sexsomnia” became an excuse for desperate defendants who need to explain how their semen ended up inside a child.
                       I had a defendant who made a similar claim. He was 55 years old, and had raped and impregnated his 13-year-old stepdaughter. At first, he denied ever touching her. But DNA testing proved the baby was his. So then he claimed that he was passed out drunk on the couch one night, and the girl (who was a virgin) climbed on top of him, had her way with him, and impregnated herself while he remained mostly unconscious. Right. She raped him. Because every 13-year-old girl dreams that her first sexual experience will be with her smelly, drunk, passed-out stepfather. (That guy is now serving 20 years.)

What they got wrong:  Okay, let me get this off my chest (no pun intended): the DA’s cleavage. Was she applying for a search warrant or a job at Hooters? Real female sex-crime prosecutors are a conservatively dressed bunch. We’re in court all day talking about sex (and not the nice variety). We say words like “vagina,” “breast,” “penis,” and “ejaculate” hundreds of times a week. To each other. To witnesses. To judges and jurors and thugs and rapists. We’re immune to talking dirty, but we don’t want our lovely lady lumps bouncing around as demonstrative aids. You’re more likely to find a male lawyer in a kilt than a female sex-crime prosecutor showcasing her cleavage in court. 
                  A more technical nit: will these defendants never stop talking to the detectives without their lawyers present? This billionaire’s lawyer probably charged him close to $1000 an hour. Seriously. So I’d expect that he’d advise his client not to talk to the police without him. That’s bare-bones first-year-law stuff. Yet the billionaire invited the NYPD into his mansion and showed them the massage room and the TV where he taped all his sexual assaults – giving them grounds for the search warrant that finally sunk him. 
               And what about that scene after the billionaire was arrested, and he was put in a holding cell in the middle of the police precinct, where he could watch and comment on the detectives as they reviewed his sex tapes and strategized about their investigation? That was some seriously bad feng shui. Our poor SVU detectives should be able to work without the defendant watching their every move. That setup was akin to handing Nixon the key to the Watergate and inviting him to make himself at home.

*The views expressed on this blog are mine alone and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Justice.