I previously wrote a column about the ongoing controversy over statutory rape prosecutions, the subject of prior blogs. Now, Grant County District Attorney Lisa Riniker appears intent on outdoing other prosecutors by charging a 6-year-old boy with first-degree sexual assault for what the family says was playing doctor with a 5-year-old girl.
The toddler is charged with a Class B felony and Riniker rejects criticism that she failed to apply not just discretion but reason. Instead she says “the legislature could have put an age restriction in the statute if it wanted to. The legislature did no such thing.” That apparently is license for Riniker to charge anyone who has progressed beyond the fetus stage (and earlier in those states giving fetuses the status of person — and potential rapists).
Notably, the girl (and her brother who was involved in the game) are the children of a powerful political figure in the county and was not charged.
The boy will be forced to register as a sex offender wen he is 18 and spend the rest of his life under the restrictions imposed on rapists and child molesters. What is astonishing is that Riniker appears to have maintained a willful blindness to the fact that she was prosecuting a toddler. The complaint below states:
Until last week, the District Attorney (DA), Defendant Riniker, was (or caused the) addressing and sending mail to 6 year- old D, rather than to the parents, and that the DA refers to the 6 year-old not by his first name but as “Mr._____” (last name redacted because of the child’s age). Furthermore, she sends or causes to be sent to the 6 year-old paperwork that tells him that he could go to jail if he does not show-up for court.
The boy suffers from ADHD, but neither his disability or his age appears to have relevance to Riniker.
Also named in the lawsuit below are Jan Moravits, a social worker with Grant County Social Services, and Sgt. James Kopp, who recently retired from the Grant County Sheriff’s Department.
The lawsuit alleges 1983 claims for loss of first amendment and due process protections. It also includes an allegation of the negligent infliction of emotional distress. Wisconsin has historically been somewhat skeptical of these claims — only recognizing intentional infliction of emotional distress in 1963. A court explained the continuing unease over the claims in Bowen v. Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Company, 183 Wis. 2d 627 (Wis. 1994):
On the other hand, courts have struggled with the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress, concerned that the negligent conduct did not adequately assure the authenticity of the plaintiff’s claim of severe emotional harm. Courts have historically been apprehensive that psychological injuries would be easy to feign and that suits would be brought for trivial emotional distress more dependent on the peculiar emotional sensitivities of the plaintiff than upon the nature of the tortfeasor’s conduct. People should not, courts reasoned, be able to sue for everyday minor disturbances. Furthermore courts feared that opening the courts to claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress would open the floodgates of litigation and lead to unlimited liability for a negligent tortfeasor.
The difficulty with such claims (despite the compelling facts) is that courts heavily favor government officials in their use of discretionary powers. It is an ironic twist. Most attorneys view this as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion while Riniker will likely argue that the protection of discretionary powers includes the alleged abuse or lack of exercised discretion.
In Brach v. City of Wausau, 0617 F. Supp. 2d 796 (W.D. Wis.2009), a court dismissed a case against officers for excessive force and forcing the plaintiffs into public wearing only his underwear. The court still found it was privilege for purposes of an 1983 action.
Faced with overwhelming criticism from lawyers and non-lawyers alike, Riniker went to Judge Bill Dyke in Iowa County and demanded a gag order. Dyke gave it to her but the order does not silence the growing number of people denouncing the case as an abusive of power. Ironically, I just spoke with David Bois as part of the ABA conference about the growing misuse of gag orders in courts around the country in high-profile cases.
Perhaps there was something that made Riniker feel that the boy was culpable in this incident. However, to charge a toddler with felony sexual assault defies reason. The use of a felony charge to force a child into supervision is an abuse of the criminal code in my view.
Here is the complaint: 261455600-18135628
Source: Journal Sentinel
Malisha, I am a professional at working with this problem. I have a comprehensive checklist, which works somewhat in the same way a criminal profiler works. I have seen all kinds of accusations, ranging from totally off the wall and not believable on the face of it, to some that were subtle and sounded reasonable until one starts digging deep.
My friend the private detective is a master of the art of smoking out the bogus claims. My favorite cases are the ones where there is video evidence of the calumnious plot. That does not happen often, but it does happen.
But coming back to the case at hand, I have to wonder just what the prosecutor’s psychological problems might be. This does not come even close to passing the smell test.
David, Frankly, both: Thanks!
I like “here here” because it sounds like somebody’s giving me something, as in, “Let’s give it to the drummer!”
And I like, “hear hear” because it sounds like people are listening to me, and if everybody listened to me, there would be (a) peace in the world and (b) the life interest.
Otteray, I agree that a false allegation is a horrible thing, and that they can come in the context of an ugly divorce. There are some things to consider, however:
1. Child-abusers are more likely to be the kind of individuals who end up in divorces in the first place, so finding more child abuse in divorce/custody battles than perhaps elsewhere is not in and of itself an unusual or inexplicable factor;
2. Children are probably more likely to reveal/disclose abuse after a divorce than before it, because after a divorce, presuming the child is living with the non-abusing parent, he might feel more “free” to discuss his uncomfortable or frightened feelings than he would have, if the other parent were still right there in the home with him. And the big one:
3. In the context of a divorce, more of the really disturbed parts of an angry spouse’s personality might become manifest, leading to abuse or to more visible abuse than previously. That is, perhaps a man could “hold it together” when he felt like his wife and children were all very much in awe of him and subservient to him, but when there is a kind of “mutiny” and everybody rejects him, his less emotionally competent, more regressed and disturbed persona could make a come-back. I have seen two cases where I believe that this happened, where a guy who was pretty much a competent husband and parent and in control of his emotions decompensated quickly after a divorce (brought about not by child abuse or parenting problems but by discovery of adultery in both cases) and abused the children on visits. In both cases, the abuse was accompanied with complaints made by the father about how mean the mother had been to him. One of the children (who was 13 at the time) actually said to me, “Daddy sounded like a kid whose mom was mean to them; he was always complaining about mom while he did that [molestation].”
So although I agree that there can be some false allegations made in many ways in the midst of divorce battles, I think they need to be assessed on their own facts and not on extraneous (marital issues) circumstances. See Rosen L. and Etlin M., HOSTAGE CHILD: Sex Abuse Allegations in Custody Disputes, Indiana University Press, 1995.
The reason I referred to the Carlton case from Harford County, Maryland, was that the whole edifice of sexual abuse by the “dangerous bad mother” was built upon the fact that the little girl touched her own genitals. When questioned by a social worker about it, she actually said that her “pee pee” itched ever since she had the chicken pox and that there were “tiny tiny bumps” in it that were very irritated. A nationally recognized forensic psychiatrist trashed the “evidence” in that case and pointed out that the child should be brought to the doctor to check on her complaint of itchy, irritated mucosa.
But no common sense and no respect for children.
Actually, common sense and respect for children is all that is NEEDED to solve all these idiotic “sexual” issues including but not limited to masturbation, “playing doctor,” sexual acting out, and allegations of sexual abuse, in or out of the nuclear family.
David – its “hear! hear!” because you are encouraging people to listen to what is being said.
Yeah, I’m a professional nit picker 🙂
A private investigator of my acquaintance has made a good living working on nothing but false allegations of child abuse. Folks, it is out there. I have worked on a number of such cases over the years, and in almost every case it has ruined the life of the accused even after it was proved the abuse never happened. Many of these cases pop up during the course of a child custody battle during an ugly divorce.
From the charges, I don’t think we know ANYTHING about what actually went on. We can assume:
(a) three kids enjoyed playing doctor but someone who caught them was horrified; or
(b) a girl whose brother ordinarily bullies her was then subjected to a kicked-up form of bullying and this was discovered and reported in a way to blame only the non-relative child; or
(c) a girl and her brother were subjected (I don’t know how, since they would outnumber the bully) to bullying and sexual imposition by a six-year-old disturbed kid; or
(d) one or more of the kids had been subjected to or had viewed some pretty disturbing sexual material and was trying to “work it through” by acting out; or
(e) come up with any number of other scenarios.
In not a single scenario I can think of would any of the three children (unless the five-year-old girl’s brother is something like 13 or more) kids be properly subjectd to any kind of criminal penalties in a rational world with decent reasonable agencies and courts involved.
Indeed, if there were a 13-year-old perp he would be in need of heavy-duty mental health care, not prosecution.
But drawing charges, and even the charging documents, are not likely to enlighten us as to the FACTS that underlay the situation. I’m going to draw from a recent case I have plenty of detail about (all confirmed in documents from agency and court proceedings): State of Maryand versus Valerie Carlton. Mother of a six-year-old is involved in a bitter custody battle, ongoing, subtype “terrible.” Mom gets pregnant by a boyfriend during this three-year litigious event (divorce was final before pregnancy was initiated).
Ex-husband custodial fathr is fundamentalist and finds the mother’s conduct to be evidence of evil wicked badness and wants her visitation with his daughter terminated; can’t get it done by ordinary means. (Mom is not all sweetness and roses to all intents and purposes but is not abusive or neglectful in any way.) So suddenly mom is accused of 28 serious crimes and arrested and held on $10 million bail. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Charges include: sexual abuse of daughter “with a rubber duckie” and “providing tainted milk to a newborn (hers). No proof her milk was “tainted” except that it came from her presumably “tainted” breast! Proof of the sexual abuse? They interviewed the daughter who said that her mother never gave her “bad tough” and who was very clear about not having been molested by either parent.
Now why were all these charges drawn? A mandated report by a teacher who caught the child masturbating!
I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
The mother was held in solitary confinement (for her own protection as a child-molester of course) for 13 months. Finally she got a private lawyer (substituted in for the public defender who wanted her to plead!) and the charges were nolle prossed.
Are we all nuts? I want to go back to the days when the only thing that would happen to a kid who masturbated or played doctor was that they would go blind. THAT we an deal with; teach them Braille!
@Malisha. Here, here. (English call of support) and exactly why such hysterical ninnies as Lisa Rinika need to be dealt with firmly.
Oh and I agree the kind of bullying you were subjected to can affect people. It doesn’t affect people in the same way.
You think it makes you more empathic to others who suffer like you did. I think however in this instance you’re overreacting if you’re suggesting the DA did the right thing.
@Marnie. There is sympathy for the 6yo boy because what he’s gone through is massively out of proportion to the deed he and the girl’s brother committed.
I don’t believe there’s any talk of the girl being traumatised either. All reports are that it was a game of the kind many people can relate to as children. One report suggests the girl wasn’t all that upset; I expect the actions of the DA will have had more of a negative effect.
I know girls who played such games with their brothers as young kids and initiated them. Not saying it’s okay but it’s not appropriate to push such things through the criminal system.
We use to play kiss cats at school when I was about 8 where boys would chase the girls, catch them and kiss them. The girls were willing participants, sometime tormenting the boys in to playing. I guess you would say it was shocking like rape, I can assure you that those involved were not affected and I do not feel like raping girls. In fact I went through a phase of not liking girls before I hit puberty.
The kid is 6yo. He needs a good talking to. He does not need the kind of treatment he’s received. The DA Lisa Riniker showed terrible lack of judgement.
There was a female victim involved. Why all the sympathy for the male and total ignoring of the damage done to the younger child, the female? Much less leaving her in the same dangerous situation
As someone who by the time I reached Junior high was drowned, stabbed, shot with a BB gun and pellet gun, struck on the head with a boy scout hatchet, mattox,and shovel, and went through a second, attempted drowning, and being rolled up in a carpet and left to suffocate on an August day in Texas with no air conditioning, my sympathies are not with the bullying perpetrated by boys on girls.
And I grew up in a nice white collar peaceful neighborhood.
Why is the sympathy always going to the boy?
When will this type of violence ever stop as long as we allow “boys to be boys and protect them and leave the real victims defenseless.”
By all means punish the parents not the child, but don’t keep teaching the perpetrator that their actions are acceptable and even give them the positive feed back of sympathy.
What do you think is going on in that little girls head?
FYI, found at martindale.com/Lisa-A-Riniker/1991487-lawyer.htm:
Lawyer Profile
Lisa A. Riniker
Grant Co. Dist. Atty’s. Off.
130 W. Maple St.
Lancaster, Wisconsin
(Grant Co.)
Experience & Credentials
Practice Areas Personal Injury; Family Law; Divorce; Guardian Ad Litem; Guardianship; Criminal Defense
University University of Wisconsin-Madison, B.A.
Law School University of Wisconsin-Madison, J.D.
Admitted 2000
ISLN 914934224
Where is this case file? Is it available on line somewhere? If it is not in Juvenile Court, but in a criminal court, then isn’t it public? Are the parents posting the information on a web-page somewhere? This is so far off the mark that it would seem to me that there is something TV-like about it and it must be hiding something bigger than IT IS.
“Notably, the girl (and her brother who was involved in the game) are the children of a powerful political figure in the county and was not charged.” – is the DA trying to please these parents or friends of these parents? Is there a relationship in there somewhere?
One day, if there is true justice, we will see a mug shot of Lisa Riniker, just like the one I posted above of former DA Joe Crumley.
I coached the six year old boy in soccer last year.Excellent kid,confident and has excellent parents.I saw him last month and i didnt know who he was! He looks like he has lost 20lbs, very shy ,pale skin etc.This is insane! LISA RINIKER should be fired and put in prison along with STEPHEN CRANE (LANCASTER WI. CITY ADMINISTRATOR) YOU HAVE DESTROYED THIS YOUNG BOYS LIFE!
It is all too apparent that this poor prosecuter must be envious because no one is trying to play doctor with her! Her boss, the DA, must be fiercely proud of her. Looks like he needs to start monitoring her caseload and find her some cases that she can legitimately try to prosecute!
What Mespo said. Incredible lack of any common sense.
Pete, it depends on where you are. We learned recently that in Texas there is a statute of limitations on prosecution for beating your daughter soft, even with incontrovertible video evidence.
um, is there a statute of limitations on playing doctor?
Prosecutorial madness. Let’s hope the civil case against her gets somewhere useful.
That does it. The straw that broke my back and all that. Between this prosecutor, the pepper spray at UC-Davis, the pepper spray (by off duty cop) of a man who falls into a shopping display, the man-handling of a 4 year-old at the Safeway,,,,I am officially resigning myself to moving to Finland. Put a fork in it. I am done.