A follow-up to this story. Perhaps when empowered women must pay for FRAs they will stop. Bravo to Ventura County Superior Court Judge John R. Smiley for a just result. Let's keep an eye on the custody battle and the victim's malicious prosecution suit:
False accusation will cost woman $55,000
By Raul Hernandez
A Ventura County judge has ordered a woman to pay her former boyfriend more than $55,000 after she falsely accused him of raping and brutalizing her in Simi Valley in 2008 during a child-custody dispute.
The money is for attorney’s fees and travel expenses after Tracy West requested a permanent restraining order against Louis Gonzalez and then dismissed the allegations just before the matter was set for trial.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge John R. Smiley in December ordered West to pay Gonzalez $55,872. She had filed the civil court action in May 2008, requesting the court order and claiming he “perpetrated a horrific physical attack” against her.
West filed the paperwork seeking the restraining order a month after criminal charges against Gonzalez were dismissed. He was arrested on Feb. 1, 2008, and was held in jail without bail until a judge dismissed the charges on April 23, 2008.
West was Gonzalez’s former girlfriend. West and Gonzalez, senior vice president of a Las Vegas bank, had a child together.
West told Simi Valley Police Department detectives that Gonzalez ran up to her at her home on Feb. 1, 2008, hit her on the head and knocked her unconscious, then dragged her in the house. She told detectives Gonzalez sexually assaulted her, burned her with matches and committed other violence.
The criminal case against him fell apart after his private investigator found 10 witnesses who were ready to testify that they saw Gonzalez in other locations at the time of the alleged attack.
The witnesses included workers at a car-rental agency, three teachers at a school Gonzalez’s son attends, a deli owner, a Simi Valley bank executive and a business acquaintance of Gonzalez. Video recordings showing Gonzalez at a Las Vegas airport and a bank also cast doubt on West’s claims.
In January 2009, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Patricia Murphy found Gonzalez “factually innocent” of the alleged crimes. The judge found no “reasonable cause exists” to believe he committed the actions.
Gonzalez’s lawyer, Denise Placencio, argued that West staged the entire incident because of a bitter child-custody dispute.
In an interview, Placencio said the recent December court decision that ordered West to pay Gonzalez should serve as a “cautionary tale” to anyone tempted to make false allegations.
“The truth will come out and there will be consequences, consequences in the custody courtroom and consequences to the wallet,” Placencio said.
She said her client faced the possibility of five life sentences in prison as a result of West’s criminal complaint. Gonzalez couldn’t see or speak to his son until October 2008 because of the criminal charges and West’s filing of the request for a permanent restraining order against him.
Gonzalez is now in a Las Vegas court seeking sole custody of the couple’s 8-year-old son. A custody hearing is set for February.
West’s lawyer, Marvin Longabaugh of Las Vegas, declined to comment.
The Star obtained court records indicating that Longabaugh filed a motion last month and withdrew as West’s lawyer, citing several reasons in a nine-page petition to the court. Longabaugh claimed that West prolonged the legal proceedings by “consistently having difficulties attending dispositions and hearings.”
In addition, Longabaugh stated: “Ms. West insists upon taking actions that Mr. Longabaugh considers repugnant and with which there exists a fundamental disagreement between Ms. West and Mr. Longabaugh.”
Longabaugh said he could not disclose those actions because of attorney-client privilege but would do so in court to refute any objections raised by West.
West’s new lawyer, Michelle Lobello of Las Vegas, didn’t return a reporter’s phone calls.
West also faces a malicious prosecution lawsuit filed by Gonzalez in Ventura County Superior Court.
The lawsuit names West and her husband, Timothy Geiges, who is accused of helping her concoct the false story of rape and brutality. Gonzalez alleges false imprisonment, abuse of process and infliction of emotional distress and seeks an unspecified amount in damages.
Gonzalez’s other lawyer, Jay Leiderman, said both sides are still exchanging information, and a trial is pending.
West’s other lawyer in the case, Alan Nishimura of El Segundo, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Placencio said she was disappointed that the Ventura County District Attorney didn’t prosecute West. Placencio said she wrote a letter in October 2008 to the District Attorney’s Office, saying she had evidence that West committed perjury.
West had accused Gonzalez of breaking her shoulder in the alleged attack, but “her medical records reveal that she broke her shoulder diving into the shallow end of a swimming pool,” Placencio said.
The district attorney declined to prosecute West and closed the case against Gonzalez, an official said.
Meanwhile, the couple’s 8-year-old son is doing fine, said Placencio.
“The boy is thriving in Nevada. He is doing well in his new school,” the attorney said.
“West is allowed unsupervised weekend visits.”
Link: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/jan/02/55000-ordered-paid-for-false-accusation/
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24 comments:
Good that she is being punished, but my first reaction was: not nearly enough.
Not even the minimum which would satisfy justice.
The minimum which would satisfy justice would be:
1. A fine which covers all the legal fees of the other side, plus substantial compensation for the falsely accused, to increase for each day he spent incarcerated;
2. A mandatory prison sentence, of the same length of time that the falsely accused would have received, if her story had been believed;
3. Her name on the sex offenders register for life.
To me, that is the absolute minimum standard of justice that false accusers should receive.
Snark, I agree with you. But note this motion was only for counsel fees -- as awful as it sounds, most of the time, falsely accused men have to pay their own fees. Still to come is the malicious prosecution suit and the custody battle.
props to Mr Gonzalez, a man after my own heart...
AfOR
Let's hope this is the start fo a trend!
Notice how it is still perfectly legal though from a criminal standpoint.
No jail time.
And no matter how much they say she has to pay in damages you know he will never see a dime of it.
I agree with Snark
She deserves serious prison time and sex offender registry for life.
This is off the subject, but I just read that the Montgomery County (Texas) District Attorney is using twitter to publish the names of people arrested for DUI. He's using it to shame and embarrass criminals. The problem I see is not that they are arresting people for DUI, but convicting them on Twitter. He said it did not matter because it's out there anyway, I am assuming he is talking about the type of irresponsible, sensationalized reporting that we all know too well. What are they going to tweet next?
Mary H., you are correct. In the false rape realm, all that a woman or child needs to do is claim they've been raped, and the shame apparatus -- the police, the news media -- kicks into overdriver.
the only thing I'm wondering is, what if she doesn't have the money?
Do these kinds of things ever get payed off in 'installments', or the county pays, or what?
Nornm, she call sell a kidney forall I care, and if she does I hope that gets widley published.
Prison sentences for FRA and other forms of lying for that matter are a worthy goal, but this is a battle of inches, and this decison is one small victory.
Nornm, she call sell a kidney forall I care, and if she does I hope that gets widley published.
Prison sentences for FRA and other forms of lying for that matter are a worthy goal, but this is a battle of inches, and this decison is one small victory.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
The district attorney declined to prosecute West
Why not? It's a slam-dunk case, and I thought prosecutors love slam-dunk cases so they can get their batting average up.
Randian
No one wants to put women in jail.
In the U.S. 93%+ of all people incarcerated are MALE.
Now tell me how that is fair?
And it's not like that we are talking about a country that only jails mass murderers.
In the U. S. we have far and away the highest prison population of any country both per capita and just the total amount of prisoners.
If they started giving women jail time for perjury and lies like this the "prison gap" would be closed.
Funny you never hear about the "prison gap" in the MSM??
I guess that would be fair reporting so you can't have that on tv.
$55k for attorney's fees.
$10k for each month incarcerated.
At least in jail as long as her victim was in jail. However, I would love to see her in jail for much longer but she has to pay this restitution. She can't pay if she isn't working.
Never allowed to collect medicaid, food stamps, etc.
Loss of custody for her child she used as a weapon against her victim.
Sex offender registry for life.
Front page center headlines of her lies and HIS innocence. In fact, it should be front page center for at least 2 months to be sure EVERYONE sees it.
What about Law Enforcement here? Held without bond at all? Isn't that unconstitutional? (However $500K bond may as well be without bond- in our case)
Throw the bood at all of them!!!
CBGirl
"Throw the bood at all of them"
That should be:
Throw the book at all of them.
Sorry :)
I'd like to change the restitution to $10k for each month this man had to endure this stress, not just for the time he was incarcerated.
CBGirl
Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but as much as I deeply admire all the good work being done here, I feel disappointed that my comment to this post http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2009/12/scholar-frequency-of-false-rape.html was deleted, when I was being civil in discussing the topic at hand. I'm not so concerned about one little comment, as I am with the larger issue, which I believe is very important.
While second-wave feminists are largely united by ideology where they don't let the facts get in the way of their political agenda, I have noticed that there is often disagreement on the finer points among those of us on the other side of this issue. Which might not be a bad thing, as perhaps it's because many of us are interested in getting to the truth, which is often controversial. As much as I would like to see people join together against false rape accusations, the truth is important. It is our core value. It's very absence is what makes false accusations false. Everything that is wrong that we are against -- Rape Shield laws that exclude exculpatory evidence, VAWA funding that proscribes the use of lie detectors, the media releasing names before getting all the facts, the rush to judgment, the very assumption of guilt -- is about ignoring the importance of truth. And the only way to get to the truth is through skepticism and critical thought. Please let's not become like these feminist forums where everyone has to tow the party line and no one is allowed to question anything, as that will only weaken our position.
anon @ 12:50
I think it was just crossed wires.
I think what pierce was saying was that until and unless EVERY SINGLE rape allegation is fairly and exhaustively investigated, and the results of that made public in statistical form at least, we can not know how many were FRA.
I think, from pierce's perspective, saying "hey, it's at least 20%", is a bit like telling a mechanic you want a bolt at least this big... the mechanic wants to know do you mean 1/2, or 9/16, or 5/8, or what, he wants an exact, accurate, correct number.
The ONLY sources I know of that come anywhere even remotely close is the UK police / government numbers for 2006, which state that 12% of all rape allegations dropped by the police were classified as "false accusations", and that this represents 9.6% of all allegations made in 2006.
This is a bit like saying "1 kilo of uranium is less than a critical mass"
It doesn't help you a lot when you are given ten 500 gram lumps of uranium to carry around... how many can I put in each pocket together?
AfOR
Anonymous said...
Randian
No one wants to put women in jail.
In the U.S. 93%+ of all people incarcerated are MALE.
Now tell me how that is fair?
And it's not like that we are talking about a country that only jails mass murderers.
In the U. S. we have far and away the highest prison population of any country both per capita and just the total amount of prisoners.
If they started giving women jail time for perjury and lies like this the "prison gap" would be closed.
Funny you never hear about the "prison gap" in the MSM??
I guess that would be fair reporting so you can't have that on tv.
Jan 3, 2010 1:09:00 AM
Now that just wouldn't be "pc". (heavily spiced with sarcasm).
True justice is never truely served by the blood,suffering or, death of the truely innocent!
Hey pierce question for ya,that story you posted a few months ago where that 18 year old boy that was beat to death in his sleep over a false rape accusation; what was his birthday, and what was the day he was beat to death in his sleep.
I believe, At least one of these days should be a type memorial day for this site.
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