Brian Banks was a former high school football star when he was accused of rape by Wanetta Gibson. Gibson’s name was sealed as a rape victim while Banks was publicly accused as a rapist despite his insistence that it was consensual sex. It was his word against hers and prosecutors threatened him with life imprisonment if he went to trial, so he pleaded guilty to a rape that he did not commit. He spent five years in jail. When he was released he was surprised when his “victim” asked to befriend him on Facebook. She later admitted that she made the whole thing up but did not want to give back the $1.5 million that she won in a judgment against the school district for her alleged rape. She retains the money despite admitting to lying about the rape.
Banks was 16 and a student at Long Beach Poly High School when he said that he made out with Gibson but did not go beyond groping and kissing. He was a talented football star being scouted by colleges for possible scholarships. The ended the same day when Gibson accused him of rape. Prosecutors pushed forward with the case despite an absence of critical forensic evidence and the fact that Gibson’s account changed over time. Banks’ mother sold her condo and her car to pay for his defense.
After his release, Gibson met Banks and agreed to speak in front of an investigator. She is quoted as saying “I will go through with helping you but it’s like at the same time all that money they gave us, I mean gave me, I don’t want to have to pay it back.”
Since this case occurred ten years ago, it is not clear if Gibson will even be investigated, let alone charged for her false statements. In the meantime, she is keeping the money . . . what she has not already spent.
There is also no response from prosecutors on why they pushed forward with the case given the conflicts in the account of the alleged victim and absence of forensic evidence establishing guilt.
A judge has finally expunged the conviction of Banks so that he does not have to remain on parole. He already served the jail time.
Source: ABA Journal
Regarding my error, bettykath…
It should have read:
Who will be “the deciders”, kittyantonikwakfer? You? Your neighbors?
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Thanks for pointing it out. (I’m doing my annual, “let’s shed a few” cleanse/fast and have been feeling a little lightheaded, from time to time. I was thinking about you because of some of your spot on comments.
@bettykath
“anon, thanks for taking on the use of bitch. It’s in several posts here (including yours) and I find it offensive.”
Once upon a time, I had an anthropology minor.
I find it interesting how much the word “bitch” is hated.
Actually in my non anon blog life, I really and truly never use the word because I find it mostly offensive and bullshit. I don’t even describe my ex wife has a bitch. When I have described my ex wife’s actions to many people, and mostly to women (including therapists), they almost all universally call her a bitch (including therapists.)
So I question why, when so many women are happy to use the word bitch, and believe it accurately describes my ex’s behavior and that of other women, why should I find it so unreasonable to use the word bitch myself?
One of the first women I heard use “bitch” in reference to other women was an engineer, and also a dog trainer. Needless to say, considering when this woman had gone to school to be an engineer, (in the old fields nonetheless) that she was fairly liberated. But she used it and explained specifically the traits she saw in some women and how that related to the traits she saw in some of the female dogs she trained.
So it does make me curious in an anthropological, cross cultural sort of way, have other cultures had this word or a similar word, especially matriarchal societies.
Perhaps it would actually inform us more about nature vs. nurture, about the genetic heritage of women, or the cultural baggage, or the poisons of western society, or perhaps whether we (including feminists) are wrong to find the word itself objectionable. Maybe it’s a fine word to describe certain female behaviors, and it’s just specific instances of it that are used in an objectionable manner.
ObClassicAlienClip:
anon, thank you for pointing out the obvious below. Well put. And true. Malisha we should hold Human Kind to a higer standard not ethnicity, religion or sexes. I do.
Malisha,
Thank you for your words,
The problem though is a survey of feminists sites brings out the “false rapes are so low as to be ignorable” meme time and time again.
http://www.safercampus.org/blog/2009/09/apparently-we-need-to-discuss-false-reporting-again/
That’s a typical example of a feminist site that says:
1. Oh yes, false rapes are bad and damaging and of course we care about them of course we do, we do of course, and we shouldn’t ignore them, except, in fact,
2. They occur so rarely we really should ignore them because only women haters bring up the problem of false rape accusations, and
3. In fact, whenever we examine why a woman makes a false rape accusation, it really is the patriarchy that is to blame.
Any form of false imprisonment is unconsionable and in my opinon one of the greatest injustices which some treat as colateral damage. One of the reasons, I’m opposed to capital punishment. Just think of murdering an innocent person. I’m not opposed to killing a murders if he’s guilty. I just can’t trust the State to work without error.
Kind of a problem when society and even those within the justice system are afraid to go up against those in positions of legal power.
Once again, isn’t it the responsibility of our law enforcement officials for prosecuting known criminal acts when they become knowledgably of them? Should “We the People” have a system to input a grand jury at our request when our officials fail to act?
anon, thanks for taking on the use of bitch. It’s in several posts here (including yours) and I find it offensive. The young woman certainly did something for which she should be held accountable, but name calling just doesn’t help anyone’s argument with me. In fact, I’m more likely to discount the argument.
anon nurse, “Who will be “the deciders”, bettykath? You? Your neighbors?” I’m not sure why I’m included here. Maybe you think I’m too judgmental?
I would be curious to know, how many other languages, what other cultures have words like bitch, used for one, to define the certain sociopathic behaviors of many women, as well as seemingly deriving from a term used to define the behaviors of female animals.
How does bitch translate into Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Elvish, or Kiingoni?
Did these languages have words like bitch prior to introduction to English speakers?
Do matriarchal societies have words like bitch?
Do any of these languages or cultures have similar words that would refer to the sociopathic behaviors of men (like asshole, bastard, …)
Depending on the results, perhaps it would help us understand a bit more about nature versus nurture.
a) Do most societies recognize that some women are bitches?
b) Is it just mostly western women that have turned into bitches?
c) What are the societies in which the fewest women are bitches?
Perhaps lottakatz, we could work together on this.
His lawyer at the time of his plea is getting some degree of adverse discourse here. Let us dig into this and see if he was a public defender or what his income approach to the law was. The last tidbit just before the plea could be true of any plea. The defendant could still be making up his mind in the last five minutes. Maybe the offer was on the table for five minutes only. The judge is culpable for this plea too. He/she should inquire how long the plea had been on the table; how competent is the counsel for defendant; how credible is the so called victim. Yes the judge can be in a hurray to move his/her docket. For what purpose? To get to lunch?
When there is no forensic evidence to support a rape allegation then there should be some forensic evidence to support the so called victim’s Word. Here she is giving the world the finger. The Bird Is The Word. What is wrong with a forensic psychiatric examination and a lie detector examination in this situation? A series of interviews with her siblings, school mates from grade school and high school to get the low down would help. Oh, that takes up precious county resources you might say. Well, the one million five was precious and so was the money spent to keep this victim in jail for five years and pay all of his beepers, handlers, probation schmucks, ankle bracelet monitors, knee jerk parole officers…..
I would wager that this accuser is already a known perp and skunk in the neighborhood where she resides as far as the local dog pack is concerned. Someone should report in if they are neighbors to detect how much dog poop is in her yard. The cops should employ one of their police dogs to interview so called victims like this bitch. Hey, bitch is a dog word and I have cultural privilege.
kittyantonikwakfer,
“Shunning?” You’ve got to be kidding me!
So, she’s not tried or convicted? No due process” Just “shunned?”
Your definition: “Shun means NO voluntary association – no sales, no service, no camaraderie, no anything including violence: ostracism from society.”
Who will be “the deciders”, bettykath? You? Your neighbors?
From the dailymail article (bettykath):
Judge Lanny Moriarty ordered the exhausted student to pay a $100 fine and spend 24 hours in jail as a lesson.
Parents of children who miss excessive amounts of school may also be prosecuted.
‘If you let one [truant student] run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ’em? Let them go too?’ asked Judge Moriarty.
He had warned her last month to stop missing her classes.
========
Thanks for posting that article, bettykath. The judge is a …. (well, I’ll leave it up to the imagination).
I know of a similar situation, but the high school senior’s absences were “excused” because her guardian believed that there were extreme, extenuating circumstances, which I’ll omit. Furthermore, the young person to whom I’m referring was enrolled in AP classes, and maintained an A average, wiht a smattering of A pluses. She was also active in numerous extracurricular activities. She missed at least 60 days of school her senior year.
The young girl about whom I’m speaking is now a third-year medical student and teaches martial arts (which she “took up” during her undergrad years.)
The moral of the story is that sometimes “you’ve just gotta break (or bend) the rules.” This judge is an authoritarian prick. There. I said it.
This ‘BITCH’ needs to spend an equal amount of time in prison…. with a steel bottle brush shoved up her snatch!
Thanks for that one bettykath, I missed that one since I am fairly busy, but that is one judge I can do something about this coming election. I look forward to voting and speaking against this fool.
I don’t know what else to do with this but I need to share it. It’s injustice in TX, Can you handle it? (Nobody died.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150123/Exhausted-honour-student-shown-mercy-jailed-truancy–Works-jobs-support-family.html
Brooks got shafted. He had an attorney who gave him 10 minutes to make up his mind to plead “no contest” for 3 years or face a jury that would assume he was guilty and get 41 years. He got 5 or 6 years.
This sounds like a public defender who meets the client as they enter the court room and, for the first time, reads the complaint. I’ve seen it. The public defenders that I’ve seen tend to be right out school and overloaded with cases that they’re ill-equipped to handle on the fly. Brooks isn’t the first innocent person to be railroaded by a plea deal pushed by a public defender who hasn’t the time or interest in taking on a real defense.
—————
His accuser is Black as well.
I hope that USC will renew their offer of a scholarship.
Rape is serious and many victims are not believed. However, a woman crying rape when there isn’t one, does all other real rape victims a serious disservice. Seems that there is reason for charges of filing a false report and fraud.
Malisha has been talking about a corrupt and broken system. Here’s another example.
“Anon – yet another line of objection to Gibson’s punishment is that “prosecuting Gibson would discourage other false accusers from confessing””
Puzzling, that’s true, and yet I’m curious, are there any other crimes apart from when some bitch falsely accuses a man of a crime that we use this logic for?
Yeah, if we throw bank robbers in jail it will keep other bank robbers from confessing.
embezzlement? No.
lying on resume? No.
robbery? No.
Actual rape? No.
FALSELY ACCUSING A MAN OF RAPE: Yes
speeding? No.
mail fraud? No.
Actual domestic violence? No.
FALSELY ACCUSING A MAN OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Yes
murder? No.
terrorism? No.
Actual sexual harassment? No.
FALSELY ACCUSING A MAN OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT: Yes
My suggestion is we promote a culture where both rape and making false accusations of rape are detestable, jailable offenses. And that we work to stop both rape and false accusations of rape before they occur.
But I am kind of crazy and far out (and apparently a right winger) for suggesting such nonsense.
Anon – yet another line of objection to Gibson’s punishment is that “prosecuting Gibson would discourage other false accusers from confessing”
On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B
http://www.ou.edu/russell/UGcomp/Kerr.pdf
“Nobody encouraged “this sort of bitch behavior” unless there is some evidence that someone actually encouraged this woman to behave as she did. Where did you come up with that? That’s just nonsense!”
Yeah, so a famous management essay was entitled, “On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B” and micro-economicists and dog trainers would agree. If your incentives reward for bitchy behavior then you’re silly to expect non bitchy behavior even if you expect it.
So when LK, and so many feminist sites state over and over that false rape accusations are trivial and ignorable and demand that anything and everything be called rape and then never can actually come out and condemn false accusers and demand they be jailed and have to pay restorations, when these people commonly insist (as happened during the Duke case) that the falsely accused are actually bettered by the false accusations, or that the penalties should be trivial because SHE’S A MOTHER and THINK OF THE CHILDREN, then yeah, what that really is is encouragement of false rape accusations. You’re soaking in it.
If a Jew in Germany was NOT abused in 1933 but he believed others were, he would not have been “encouraged” to make false allegations by the fact that he believed his coreligionists had been victimized, either.
If I said Sergeant Schultz had gassed Jews, I would be a terrible person because Sergeant Schultz was a guard at a prisoner of war camp where almost everyone and even Major Hochstetter was Jewish!
Sorry, I didn’t actually understand your paragraph about Germany, but I loved Hogan’s Heroes.
More horrible yet by far are cases in which children are molested and then not only disbelieved, but handed over to their molesters. From that there is no escape and it is not uncommon and not remediable.
That is sad isn’t it.
Statistics show though that young children are most endanger from the mother then the father….
#7: Most child abuse and parental murder of children is committed by mothers, not� fathers.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Child Maltreatment 1997: Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (Washington DC, :GPO, 1999). See: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/ncands97/s7.htm. Child abuse perpetrators are 62.3% female.� Child fatality perpetrators are 62.8% female. The mother/father ratio is actually greater than this, because many of the male abusers counted are not the biological fathers but instead step?fathers, boyfriends, etc.
Source on murders of children by single parents: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Third National Incidence Study Of Child Abuse and Neglect: Final Report Appendices (Washington D.C., U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1997, pp. A?63?A?64.� The estimated total is 264 parental murders of children committed by single custodial mothers and 11 by single custodial fathers.� There are roughly five times as many single custodial mothers as single custodial fathers.
Source: Warren Farrell, Father and Child Reunion: How to Bring the Dads We Need to the Children We Love, Penguin Putnam Inc, 2001, pp 75-77.
and
#13: Children are 88% more likely to be seriously injured from abuse or neglect by their mothers than by their fathers.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Child Maltreatment 1997: Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (Washington DC, :GPO, 1999).� It is discussed in Father and Child Reunion by Warren Farrell, page 76.
What is the statute of limitations for perjury and fraud in California?
Anon: “As I said, some bitch making a false rape accusation is not news (nor is noting it bigotry). What is news is when feminists like Lottakatz and kittyantonikwakfer stop defending and encouraging this sort of bitch behavior.”
First of all, I don’t know that what this woman did was bigotry — maybe it was just lying for profit. She sounds to me like an opportunistic psychopath. (Remember Idealist didn’t think he’d met any female psychopaths? There are plenty of them!)
Nobody encouraged “this sort of bitch behavior” unless there is some evidence that someone actually encouraged this woman to behave as she did. Where did you come up with that? That’s just nonsense!
Someone believing that there are a lot of men who get off when they should be charged with rape, assault and other crimes is not “encouraging” someone to falsely accuse an innocent man of these crimes.
Someone pointing out rightfully that false allegations of rape that make it to successful prosecution and false conviction are rare is not “encouraging” anyone to falsely accuse an innocent man of these crimes.
If a Jew in Germany was NOT abused in 1933 but he believed others were, he would not have been “encouraged” to make false allegations by the fact that he believed his coreligionists had been victimized, either.
Do you want people to stop believing what is proven, studied, confirmed, obvious and true because there are such things as liars in the world who will occasionally masquerade as people who were really harmed?
The reality is that what this woman lied about, and what this man never did, DOES HAPPEN and we must never prevent people from either defending themselves against rape or from trying to get rapists punished because of a horrible atrocity miscarriage of justice like this.