Crying Rape
“Go back in any news archive and look at the men who have been freed from prison, look at the men that have been taken off death row. Mistakes happen. Bad directions are taken by district attorneys; police make mistakes. It happens all the time: False accusation is commonplace.” – Kerry Sutton
Have you read about the rape accusation and subsequent guilty verdict and six year prison sentence of up and coming soccer star Eric Frimpong?
This is not a new story but it is new to me. By every account I have read, (Here, Here, Here and Here) this “case” appears to be…and this is a major understatement….an utter joke of an investigation and trial, with no compelling evidence and a complete travesty of justice. It’s not only a heartbreaking story about an apparently innocent man being sentenced to prison in the prime of his life but also an embarrassing reminder of the flaws in the American criminal justice system. How a non-existent police investigation and one inept attorney combined with a judge that can either only be “phoning it in” or downright corrupt, can ruin the life of a promising young man with virtually no evidence is beyond comprehension.
I have never experienced rape. I can only guess at the physical and emotional scars left by such a traumatizing event. When an actual rape has occurred, I believe the perpetrator deserves severe punishment. That is not what this post is about.
This post is about how this woman accused this man of rape even though she was too drunk to remember any details. This post is about how the defendant’s DNA was nowhere to be found on the victim. This post is about how her jealous ex-boyfriend’s DNA was found on the victim but he was never even investigated. This post is about how the accused had no scars, scratches or marks despite the victim’s claims that she fought back hard.
This all concerns me for two reasons. The first one is the overall failures that seem to occur more and more frequently in both our criminal and civil court systems. The second one is much more personal. I have two boys who will (hopefully) someday be in college and attending parties along with inebriated women with jealous ex-boyfriends. This could happen to them. This could happen to anyone. In America. Unbelievable.
Thanks for stopping by!
I read a book once, a true story, about how a guy went to prison for the rape of a girl. He didn’t do it. She admitted that after her ex-boyfriend raped and beat her to seconds of her life for the second time…. years later. The controlling ex ‘forced’ her to give a false statement and blame this guy she had been on a few dates with. In America, no evidence other than they knew each other. The guy who was accused and prisoned spent 9 years in prison, he was 19 or so at the time … the book was written years later and he never got over it. His life spiraled out of control, he turned to drink and later drugs. He never got over the stimga of being a rapist. It was harrowing. I so wish I could remember what the book was called. It’s scary. I am not surprised you worry for your sons.
If you do remember the name of the book, please let me know. I just can’t believe this goes on in this day and age with all the advanced evidence collection techniches that are available to law enforcement.
Circumstances in my life have lead me to know more than my fair share of stories in this area. It absolutely disgusts me to the highest degree. The justice system needs some serious work IMHO, b/c this happens far too often than anybody would like to wrap their heads around.
Wow. This is awful. No DNA evidence? No bruising? What kind of asshole lawyer did he have? I hope that justice is served–one way or another.
I will … It will come back to me. I read it recently on Holiday (it was in the hotel bookshelf). It’s shocking, but seems to me to be a small town mentality problem where they decide who did it, and then fit the “evidence” around it.
since there is no dna evidence, the conviction will likely get thrown out on appeal. my guess would be that since the jury convicted him there may have been a lot of circumstantial evidence tying him to it somehow.
i’m not debating whether or not he did it or not. i haven’t studied the case. i agree that a lot of people were convicted of crimes they did not commit in the past due to the fact that we didn’t have the tools to process the dna evidence. i’m sure it still happens today in select cases.
on the flip side of things, there are people like OJ Simpson who still get off for murder even today despite obvious evidence. most rape survivors that go to the police department do not get their day in court. a friend of mine was raped by a coworker. she is a lesbian – he was a male. Despite the dna evidence and the bruising on her arms, they said there was not enough evidence to prosecute him.
i think these things depend on where you live, who your prosecutor is, who your lawyer is, etc. there is no one way that things are dealt with in today’s society.
as a side note – i was drugged and raped, but there was no dna present. he still raped me.
I have never experienced rape. I can only guess at the physical and emotional scars left by such a traumatizing event. When an actual rape has occurred, I believe the perpetrator deserves severe punishment. That is not what this post is about.
This post is about how this woman accused this man of rape even though she was too drunk to remember any details. This post is about how the defendant’s DNA was nowhere to be found on the victim. This post is about how her jealous ex-boyfriend’s DNA was found on the victim but he was never even investigated. This post is about how the accused had no scars, scratches or marks despite the victim’s claims that she fought back hard.
oh, i know. i read that much of it. i love your site & the topics you post about by the way! i’m a newish reader.
Thanks! I just want to be clear that I don’t somehow condone rapists getting away with their crimes. This one just struck me because all the evidence points away from him and yet he was convicted.
The problem I have with this post as a rape survivor is that you are basing your assumptions on the stories about this case which have as the main source the defense team alleging a false conviction. They of course won’t mention anything about the case which supports the rightness of this conviction.
Many people are using very flimsy evidence to assume this woman’s guilt while declaring that they are against wrongly assuming anyone’s guilt. It’s one thing to wonder about a case it’s another to make specific accusations.
You seem to have no concern for the impact of your words if you are wrong and this man was rightfully convicted and is using the media to try to convince the public that he is a victim when he is no such thing. If this woman was raped as the jury believed was proven beyond a reasonable doubt then repeated false allegations against her compound her trauma.
Men who have claimed to be wrongfully convicted of rape have had their convictions confirmed when the DNA evidence they claimed would exonerate them was processed. If men will lie about their guilt when they know unprocessed DNA can reconfirm their guilt then men will lie when there is no DNA evidence.
At this point Frimpong has nothing to lose if he was rightfully convicted and is lying now. I also believe there are no sanctions when criminals and their lawyers make false criminal allegations against crime victims so again they have nothing to lose if they are deliberately deceiving the public.
The claim of wrongful conviction is evidence of nothing. In one batch of cases where old DNA was processed at the request of a group who believed they were representing only wrongfully convicted men the number of men excluded as the source of the DNA was about the same as the number of men reconfirmed guilty.
Actually, the author of the ESPN article sites as his sources police reports, interview transcripts, court proceedings and comments from trial observers, not the defense.
I don’t know who the many people are that you say are using very flimsy evidence to assume this woman’s guilt or what flimsy evidence you are referring to, or even what they are saying she is guilty of.
When I read the ESPN article, I was horrified by the complete lack of evidence against Eric Frimpong, and I was disgusted with our criminal justice system. I have no idea if the victim is guilty of anything, nor did I accuse her of being guilty of anything except being too drunk to remember anything, which she admitted herself. For all I know she actually believes it was Eric Frimpong.
My problem is with the joke of an investigation and trial. My problem is with the criminal justice system. In more detail, here’s why:
1. The victim’s description of her attacker is extremely vague: “a black male who spoke with an island accent and had big lips and short hair. His name? ‘Eric, I think.’”
2. Eric Frimpong’s DNA was nowhere on the victim but her ex-boyfriend’s semen, who admitted to being jealous and upset that night after seeing her walking with Eric Frimpong, was found on her underwear. She claimed she’d had sex with him 4 days prior to the rape, he claimed it was 7 days prior to the rape. She told a nurse they’d used a condom. Despite his semen being found on the underwear she wore the night of the rape, the inconsistencies in their stories and his admission to being jealous and upset, he was never even investigated.
3. The victim was so drunk (blood alcohol level of .20 several hours after the attack) that she admittedly remembered virtually nothing after playing beer pong with Eric, which was before she was attacked.
4. The victim had teeth marks on her face but didn’t recall being bitten. The police illegally supressed evidence by failing to inform the defense that the original dentist they consulted said the teeth marks were, “vague”. The prosecution instead chose a different dentist to testify who said he couldn’t rule out Frimpong for causing the bite mark. Their reason for using the second dentist was that he didn’t charge for his services whereas the first dentist did. This was a blatant lie. The second dentist admittedly charged for his services, and always had. The jury was not made aware of any of this and the judge denied the defense motion for a mistrial. The defense dentist testified that he could rule out Frimpong for causing the bite mark, but could not rule out the ex-boyfriend. However, he was sick during the trial so his testimony came after the verdict when the defense filed the motion for mistrial and the judge completely disregarded it.
5. The victim said she was wearing a large ring and fought hard but Frimpong had no scratches, bruises, scrapes or even torn clothing.
6. After the guilty verdict, but before sentencing, one of the jurors made a written declaration to the court stating that she regretted finding him guilty. Among her reasons for regretting the guilty verdict was the court’s refusal to provide the jury with evidence they had requested for review, including the victim’s testimony and Frimpong’s interview with police. Some jurors stated that they wanted “the opportunity to hear Mr. Frimpong’s side of the story.” They were read only the victim’s direct testimony, without cross-examination, because Judge Hill said “it would take some time to gather the additional information,”. She felt that the jurors rushed through deliberations so they could conclude the case before Christmas. “I felt pressure from the judge and other jurors to reach a verdict by Dec. 18,”.
I have no doubt that many rapists have claimed they were innocent. I have no doubt that many were proven guilty by their own DNA. Of course he has nothing to lose. He’s already lost everything.
I don’t know what batch of cases you are referring to (or what they have to do with this case and my post about it) where DNA was tested to exclude men wrongfully convicted of rape and half were, but how many men wrongfully convicted is acceptable? To me, that answer is none.
Cyndi,
Omitted from your list of evidence is that her DNA was found on him. This contradicts your claim that there was a complete lack of evidence against Frimpong. In response to this DNA evidence Frimpong’s defense team claimed that she tried to sexually assault him but that he used his hands to fight her off him. As far as I can tell this claim wasn’t made until the forensic testing was complete. Before that the claimed seemed to be that there was no contact at all.
Her DNA on him does not equal enough evidence for a conviction of sexual assault but does seem to back up his claim that she stuck her hand down his pants.