ADRIAN, Mich. — A Clinton woman was arraigned Monday on a charge of making up a sexual assault complaint that landed her husband in jail for a day.
Jeri Lynn Parker, 24, was scheduled for a May 9 preliminary examination in Lenawee County District Court on a charge of false report of a felony.
The husband, a border patrol officer stationed in Arizona, was arrested after she told Clinton police he sexually assaulted her on April 13. He was arraigned the next day, but a third-degree criminal sexual conduct charge was later dismissed after Jeri Parker changed her story.
She sent a letter saying things did not happen the way she first told the investigating officer, said Clinton Police Chief Mike Randolph. She and her husband were interviewed again, Randolph said, and a felony charge ended up being authorized against the wife by the Lenawee County Prosecutor’s Office.
Randolph said the case involves a complicated domestic situation that turned into a serious legal matter because of what was reported to police.
“There were a lot of man hours put into the investigation,” Randolph said. “We just need everybody to tell us the truth. We can get to the bottom of it a lot faster that way.”
Jeri Parker is free after posting a $10,000 bond.
Link:
http://www.lenconnect.com/news/courts/x528727375/Clinton-woman-accused-of-lying-about-sexual-assault
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4 comments:
"Randolph said the case involves a complicated domestic situation that turned into a serious legal matter because of what was reported to police."
Gee, and what would that "situation" be? She wouldn't have made this claim to somehow leverage herself in say... divorce... now would she? Or maybe child custody? Nawwwww, Women don't do that sort of stuff.
TMOTS
would we be reading about this women being arraigned (vs. let off free of even a wrist slap) if her husband wasn't a LE officer?
atlas
Anonymous - ”I am willing to be(t) that if it is BS they won't even arrest the maid much less charge her.”
Since this title of the main piece is A crime against a woman is a crime against all women; a crime against a man is . . . who cares? , I’m going to interject something here that’s been eating at me for a while.
We often wish aloud on this forum for women to be (more consistently) charged for their crimes when they make false allegations. But, what isn’t always clear, and, in fact, openly defies common sense, is that the “crime” that they can be charged with is that of false reporting – in most cases, only a misdemeanor level charge. I’ve often stated that what is needed is a felony level charge that could be applied, such as they have in the UK under the Perversion of Justice statute.
But, what I’d like to focus on herein is the matter of just who is seen as the victim of false reports.
Of course, we would all instinctively view the men who are either named, or who are merely “swept up” in an FRA as being “the victims”. Pierce and Steven have duly made note of how infrequently even the courts acknowledge the harms done to those innocent men.
But, the hard cold reality is that when the charge being leveled is that of making a false report to police, the official “victim” of that particular crime is the police to who the false report was made. It might as well be term “wasting police time/resources”.
Under the laws in most jurisdictions there is on the books no other statutorily defined criminal act that can be charged. There simply is no criminal statute against “causing harm to a person via a false allegation against them”. That is considered Libel (http://www.enotes.com/everyday-law-encyclopedia/libel-and-slander), and places it in the purview of the civil courts.
From a practical standpoint, what this means is that the man falsely accused of rape (no matter how great the harms that come to befall him) is NOT considered the victim of a crime in legally definable terms.
This, IMHO, is a serious over-sight in the laws. It denies the falsely accused of the rights afforded to other crime victims under state statues regarding “victims rights” [in Colorado, the is an amendment to the state constitution known as the “Victims Rights Act”], such as the right to be notified of any impending legal actions against the perpetrator, the right to be consulted on the disposition of the case by prosecutors, victims (financial) assistance and counseling, etc. The man who’s been falsely accused is simply shut-out of the process, and left uncompensated in the least. If police or prosecutors chose not to pursue charges, he has no standing to complain about it. The harm done to him has been classified as not being criminal in nature. His only recourse is through the civil courts (which isn’t an easy road to take).
I’m starting to think that what is needed are legal statues which define a false accusation against a person, either directly, or by inference, as a crime committed against that person, defining that falsely accused person as the named victim.
It would be nice to have a felony charge for false reporting, but it would be far better to have a defined criminal act which officially recognizes the targeted victim as being just that – the victim.
Further, given the fairly unique circumstances of rape charges, I’d like to see laws under which those making allegations of rape are advised of the seriousness of those allegations, the possible consequences to anyone named in such an allegations, and advised of all the steps which might be taken in response to that allegation; and, going a step further, I would like to see them put under oath in making the allegation, so that any lies they tell would be equivalent to perjury in court, making it automatically a felony if it can be proven that they lied under that oath.
Well, that’s just another two cents of mine. Anyone one for some feedback or debate?
The charges in this case against the wife were dropped. The rape kit concluded the event took place as well as bruising consistent with an assault that occurred earlier in the day. A leniency letter was written to the DA's office so Mr. Parker could keep his new job as a border patrol agent in AZ. Jeri feared for her safety if Alex were to lose his job which was taking him far away from MI and thankfully from her. She never recanted the events that happened, only wished she never called the police placing herself in danger. I have copies of the police report, i am her immediate relative.
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