The information in this post is from news accounts. No one has been convicted. But a man arrested for a sex crime has been cleared.
Heath Kirk, 22, who lost part of his leg serving in Afghanistan, said that he and Danielle Marie Gates, 19, were on a date last week that included dinner, a movie, and consensual sex.
For reasons not revealed, Gates accused him of kidnapping him her and forcing her to have sex with him near the Alamo Quarry Market, a thriving San Antonio shopping and dining center.
Kirk denied the claim and accused Gates of lying. Kirk and not Gates, of course, was arrested. He was charged with kidnapping and sexual assault.
How did the news media report it? It showed Kirk donning an orange prison jumpsuit, with the look of a young man who simply couldn't believe what was happening to him.
Here's how one news outlet reported his ordeal: "A man is locked up, accused of kidnapping and raping an ex-girlfriend. Police say Heath Kirk, 23, kidnapped a 19-year-old woman from a career college campus on Southwest Military on Tuesday. According to an affidavit, Kirk drove the woman to a field near the Quarry and sexually assaulted her. Kirk is now charged with aggravated kidnapping and sexual abuse.Man Arrested For Kidnapping and Sexual Assault."
Anyone reading that account would think that Heath Kirk committed a heinous sex crime. If the report had been accurate, it would have stated: "A man was arrested on the basis of a woman's claim that he kidnapped and rape her. The man denies the allegation and claims the woman is lying. Police are investigating."
Well, the story gets predictable from there. According to a news report: "Investigators believe that she was lying after Kirk produced explicit pictures on a cell phone that contradicted her story."
Once again, technology to the rescue. How many young men would be languishing behind bars on rape charges if it weren't for cell phone or other cameras? Why, the number we've reported on this site alone is staggering. (Remember the feminist writer blathering on about the Hofstra false rape case who declared that the young man who made the video that kept five falsely accused young men from serving 25 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit "is the most twisted" one of all. See here.) And how many innocent young men are languishing behind bars for crimes they didn't commit, only because there is no photographic evidence to prove they didn't do it?
Investigators conducted a second interview with Gates and determined she made false statements to detectives, prompting investigators to pursue a warrant for her arrest. A judge signed the warrant Saturday afternoon and Gates was arrested on charges of aggravated perjury, police said. According to the Texas Penal Code, aggravated perjury is a third degree felony, punishable by between two and 10 years in prison, and a fine of up to $10,000.
It has to be a relief to Mr. Kirk. But it's impossible to undo the damage done to him.
SOURCES:
http://www.foxsanantonio.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/vid_7630.shtml
http://www.foxsanantonio.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/vid_7642.shtml?wap=0
http://www.ksat.com/news/29367645/detail.html
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7 comments:
I was just reading a disturbing story about a rapist who was disemboweled in jail for bragging about raping a 13 year old.
The man was guilty of course, and deserved to be punished with jail, but I'm troubled by the lynch mob mentality from those who cheer this type of brutality.
It troubles me more thinking about it happening to someone who was innocent.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044410/Paedophile-Mitchell-Harrison-disembowelled-Frankland-Prison-attack.html
OMG, aggravated perjury!
This is great.
"Investigators believe that she was lying after Kirk produced explicit pictures on a cell phone that contradicted her story."
Sadly, pretty much standard fare these days…woman has consensual sex, woman regrets consensual sex, woman re-imagines it as rape, and calls the police to clear her “good name”.
To quote blogger Alcuin from his latest post,
Why Women Lie About Rape
”Basically, women want to have sex, but they don't want to take the moral responsibility for it.”
(also worth following his link to the Paul Clements piece from 2008).
Arod99k - ”OMG, aggravated perjury!
This is great.”
I’m wondering how they managed to get her with the aggravated perjury. Under the Texas Penal Code it appears that in order to have it be perjury, it has to be a statement made under oath (37.02) and in order to be “aggravated” it has to be made in connection to an official (court) proceeding (37.03).
Perhaps they brought the matter up before a Grand Jury and she made false statements while under oath. Some extra trouble and expense to go the GJ route, but it would be a way in which to hit false accusers with felony charges.
Off-topic:
While she may not have been a murder, she certainly was a false rape accuser. Amanda Knox has had her murder conviction over-turned by an Italian court. She will be returning to the US, with no-doubt, the prospects for paid TV appearances and a book deal. Even if she's not a murderess, she still tried to throw suspicion off of herself by trying to implicate the man she had worked for as the rapist/murder.
for that reason, I have submitted her to Register-her.com with the following:
On 10/01/2011 Amanda Knox had her conviction for the brutal rape/murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher.
While we may never know if she is actually innocent of that crime, the fact remains that in the aftermath of her roommates murder, Amanda Knox did a number of things that one would perhaps expect of a murder trying to throw suspicion off of themselves. Amongst those "questionable" acts she lied about having spent the night at her boyfriends, and (this is the important part) she accused an innocent man of the rape and murder. Both of these claims were proven false by indisputable evidence, and she was, in fact, convicted of the false rape accusation.
Amanda Knox's exoneration for murder may well have been due to external pressures from outside of Italy more so than due to any preponderance of the evidence in the case. At any rate, I'm not suggesting that she be register as a murderess, but as the false rape accuser she has been convicted of being. Even if she is actually an innocent victim of the Italian Criminal Justice System, she never-the-less had no right to thrown an innocent man under the bus, causing him great social and financial harms before evidence could exonerate him (and prove that he could not have been anywhere near the scene of the crime). And, since he could not have been anywhere near the scene, Amanda Knox could not possible have seen him in the vicinity, so we can know, for sure, that she simply chose him (as someone she knew) to throw the suspicion onto. For this, while she is now free from prison, she should not be free from people knowing about what she has been proven to have done.
There seem to be so many "slam dunk" rape cases that dissolve when cell phone video/pictures are produced. The question I ask is how many men are languishing in jail beacuse they did not have cell phone evidence.
These cell phone exonerations should be collated to illustrated this point.
Did those newspapers rush out to clear his name and report that she was lying and has been arrested?
My bet is they didn't or at best, gave an politically correct follow up statement, without convicting her in the press.
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