Wymore man sues after false rape accusation

A follow up to yesterdays story:

A Wymore man wrongfully accused of sexual assault is asking for a jury trial to assess damages done by Gage County and several sheriff’s deputies.

Elliot Hawkins filed the suit in Gage County District Court on Wednesday, the same day Jennifer Valenta was sentenced to 32 to 60 months in prison for attempted prostitution, false reporting and tampering with evidence.

The suit names Deputy Brandon Schley, Investigator John Chavez, Investigator Rob Sandersfeld and Sgt. Tony Shepardson for their role in the “conscious-shocking reckless investigation” that Hawkins claims violated his constitutional right to due process.

According to the suit, Schley initiated the investigation on Nov. 24, 2011, after interviewing Valenta at Beatrice Community Hospital.

The complaint alleges that Valenta initially refused to speak with authorities or complete a rape kit to provide DNA for the investigation.

Schley got an arrest warrant for Hawkins four days later, and Hawkins was arrested the next day on his way home from work.

Hawkins claims he told investigators Valenta called him numerous times after the incident and that his phone would reflect that statement. He also says Chavez submitted an affidavit for the phone, claiming Hawkins “might have taken a picture of his ‘prize.’”

Valenta provided photographs of her injuries, which later were determined to be self-inflicted.
The Hawkins suit says investigators failed to follow up on reports Valenta joined him and others at the Barneston Grand Ave Bar and Grill following the alleged sexual assault.

And he claims that paper towels recovered at the Big Indian Recreation Area did not have blood on them, contradicting Valenta’s story about the assault.

Hawkins spent 23 days in jail before bonding out.

Investigators examined Valenta’s clothing on Jan. 11, 2012, and on Jan. 19, Valenta admitted to a Nebraska State Patrol investigator that she made up the story.

Charges against Hawkins were dropped the next day.

Still, Hawkins claims in the lawsuit that Gage County Chief Deputy Sheriff Doug Klaus called him that same day and urged him to plead guilty to solicitation of prostitution and make a statement about “what a good job the sheriff’s office had done to clear his name.”

Two weeks later, he said, Chief Deputy Attorney Rick Schreiner told him he would not be charged and asked him to commend the sheriff’s office on its investigation.
Hawkins denied both requests.

Hawkins says in the lawsuit that he asked Chavez if he wanted to apologize to him and Chavez replied: “I’m not done with you yet.”

Joy Shiffermiller, Hawkins’ attorney, said he is asking for compensation for lost earnings capacity, damage to his reputation, emotional distress and humiliation and for punitive damages.

The suit also asks for Hawkins’ attorney fees to be paid and that the jury trial take place in Beatrice.
Gage County Sheriff Millard "Gus" Gustafson declined to comment.

Link: http://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/wymore-man-sues-after-false-rape-accusation/article_b68b895f-d3c1-5911-99b8-8d793c418616.html

Baby P father's £75,000 libel damages for teen rape claim is cut by Court of Appeal

The natural father of Baby P who was falsely accused of having been convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl has had a libel award of £75,000 cut to £50,000.




Lawyers for the father, who can only be referred to as "KC", told High Court judge Mr Justice Bean in March that MGN Ltd, publisher of The People, was guilty of "one of the gravest libels imaginable".

Three judges in the Court of Appeal, headed by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, said it was hard to exaggerate the seriousness of the publication of a false assertion that a man of good character had been convicted of the rape of a child.

But, for as long as the libel remained uncorrected, KC remained anonymous, as he still is, and the falsity of the allegation was recognised and publicly corrected at a very early stage.

Given the limited number of those who might have read or heard of the false allegation, and appreciate that it referred to KC, the starting point of £150,000 taken by the judge - before a 50% discount to reflect mitigating factors - was excessive.

"We propose to reduce it to a level which, consistently with the limited publication and early apology, would nevertheless adequately reflect the abhorrent nature of the crime falsely alleged against KC and the damage done to and its impact on him. A proportionate figure for this purpose is £100,000."

The discount applied by the judge was appropriate, bringing the award down to £50,000.

The completely untrue allegation, made as a result of a "blunder", was in a September 2010 crime supplement featuring Baby P's mother, Tracey Connelly, who had separated from KC.

Baby P, later named as Peter Connelly, was 17 months old when he was found with more than 50 injuries in his cot at her home in Tottenham, north London, in August 2007.

Tracey Connelly was jailed in 2009 after admitting causing or allowing his death, while her boyfriend, Steven Barker, and their lodger, Jason Owens, Barker's brother, were found guilty at the Old Bailey of the same charge.

Link:
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/uk-news/baby-p-fathers-75000-libel-277480

Va. Supreme Court rules in favor of family

A follow up to our story HERE. My only question is, why is it necessary to file suit to have the conviction overturned, and his name removed, on a proven false accusation? Shouldn't that be an automatic process? One would like to think that in the interest of fairness and justice, this would happen as soon as the individual was determined to be innocent.

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday that a Virginia man falsely accused of rape in 2007 can sue to have his original conviction overturned and his name removed from the state’s sex offender registry.

The ruling represents a major victory for Edgar Coker, Jr. and his family. The family has fought for four years to have his initial rape conviction set aside. Coker, then 15, spent 17 months in a state juvenile facility after he plead guilty to raping a 14-year-old friend. His attorney recommended the plea rather than risk adult charges and a lengthy term. Soon after he went to prison, his accuser recanted.

In its opinion, the court said that the Stafford Court erred in 2009 when it said that it did not have jurisdiction to hear Coker’s claim that he received ineffective counsel.

On behalf of the Stafford Court, the state attorney general’s office argued in January that the Stafford Court was correct because when Coker’s lawyers filed the claim, Coker was on parole but had been released from prison. They argued that the court no longer had jurisdiction to hear his claim.

The court saw it differently. “Jurisdiction did not end because [Coker] was released from detention during the course of the proceeding,” the court wrote. The court also agreed with Coker’s attorneys that Coker still is impacted by the effects of the false accusal and conviction: He remains on the sex offender registry. As a result, he was arrested last year for attending a Friday night football game at his high school alma mater.

Friday’s decision clears the way for Coker, now 20, to have another day in court in Stafford. The family has long contended that Coker’s attorney, Denise Rafferty, failed to investigate the case fully and then advised him to plead guilty because, she said, there was DNA evidence linking him to the crime. But a lab report shows a DNA test was never conducted. Rafferty has said she did everything she could to help the family mount a defense.

Coker’s mother, Cherri Dulaney, said that after so much hard work she and her family were relieved that they will have another chance to help their son. “I was speechless, ecstatic in fact,” she said after hearing the news Friday morning. “We had a good feeling about [their case] but...it seems that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting a little brighter.”


We here at the FRS wish Mr. Coker the best of luck, and Godspeed.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/va-supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-family/2012/03/02/gIQA7NDCnR_blog.html

Va. Supreme Court rules in favor of family

A follow up to our story HERE. My only question is, why is it necessary to file suit to have the conviction overturned, and his name removed, on a proven false accusation? Shouldn't that be an automatic process? One would like to think that in the interest of fairness and justice, this would happen as soon as the individual was determined to be innocent.

Baby P dad sues People over 'gravest libel imaginable'

The natural father of Baby P is suing the publishers of a Sunday newspaper for £130,000 damages for printing "one of the gravest libels imaginable".

A judge was told the father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was wrongly accused in The People of being a sex offender convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl.

The newspaper's publishers, MGN Ltd, later apologised and offered to pay damages.

However the offer came late and was not enough to compensate the father, referred to as "KC", for the suffering and distress the "completely false" reports had caused, said his QC James Dingemans.

The allegations were contained in two paragraphs in a crime supplement about Baby P's mother, who had separated from KC. They appeared in The People on 19 September 2010 in an article entitled "Tortured to death as mum turned a blind eye".

Baby P, later named as Peter Connelly, was just 17 months old when he was found in a blood-splattered cot at his mother's home in Tottenham, north London, in August 2007. He had more than 50 injuries.

Tracey Connelly was jailed in 2009 after admitting causing or allowing his death. Her boyfriend Steven Barker and their lodger, Jason Owens, who was Barker's brother, were found guilty at the Old Bailey of the same charge.

Dingemans said the allegations about the natural father in the wake of the Baby P tragedy were "shocking and appalling". However MGN treated him "as if he didn't really matter".

Heather Rogers QC, appearing for MGN, told the High Court: "This was a mistake that MGN regrets and it has apologised to the claimant, and I repeat that apology on its behalf in this court."

However she denied KC had been badly treated, or that MGN had conducted any kind of "campaign" against him, or dismissed his legitimate complaint.

'Shocked beyond words'

KC himself said in a statement before the court: "I was shocked and upset beyond words. "I thought that the whole world would think that I was a really awful man.

"I could not believe that such an appalling, untrue statement had been published about me to the whole country, I feel that the defendant's whole approach has been to pretend I do not exist, because they did not contact me about the story, to treat me and correspondence on my behalf as an annoyance as not worth their time, and to belittle me and my feelings."

Dingemans said of KC: "He is a man of good character, with no previous convictions living with the fall-out (of Baby P's death) day-by-day, and never a sex offender - never guilty of rape."
The rape conviction had been imposed on Baby P's maternal grandfather, the QC told Mr Justice Bean.

The first offending paragraph in The People article read: "At just 16 she [Tracey Connelly] met the father of Peter - 17 years her senior - and the two were married in Haringey Civic Centre. Her new husband was a sex offender".

The second, further down in the story, read: "Peter's real father had also reappeared and had begun making frequent visits - something that would have set off alarm bells at social services as he had been convicted in the 1970s in Leicester for raping a 14-year-old girl.

The inaccurate reports appeared in the middle of care proceedings relating to KC's other children and, as a result, he was put in fear of losing them, said Dingemans. He added: "It is not sustainable to try and suggest this was a narrow publication."

The newspaper had a circulation of about 500,000 and a readership of about 1.2 million persons throughout the UK. The QC said: "This was a publication to the whole world that the father of Baby P was a sex offender and rapist. They were the gravest allegations one could possibly make."

An appropriate award was the sum of £130,000, Dingemans told the judge.

No deliberate delays

Dingemans said at the time the rape allegations appeared, the family court proceedings in relation to KC's other children were ongoing and it was "one of the most pressurised times" of his life.

The court-appointed guardian looking after the children's interests became aware of The People reports.

"KC did not know how she became aware of them or what the effect would be, which caused our client great concern and anxiety", said Dingemans.

Rogers said on behalf of MGN that the publishers had done nothing other than promptly acknowledge the error that had been made. There were no deliberate delays, and MGN was motivated by the wish to put the error right.

The words KC complained of were not published prominently but were in the eighth and 24th paragraphs of a crime supplement that focused plainly on Tracey Connelly. There was no repetition online or elsewhere.

MGN had given the published apology greater prominence in the newspaper than the article and set the record straight "beyond any doubt", argued Ms Rogers. The apology and correction vindicated KC's reputation.

He had been offered "a substantial sum of damages" over the publication, but he had refused it. KC was not named in the article, and, as his anonymity remained protected, there was no photograph or other image enabling people in the street "to point the finger" at him, said Rogers.

His uncle had been the first to telephone him about the article, but KC did not suggest that his uncle thought it other than a mistake.

It was to be expected that his family and friends would know that he had no criminal convictions.

The case was "nowhere near the top of the range" where very serious allegations had been made, repeated and unsuccessfully defended.

Reserving judgment, Mr Justice Bean said he would hand down his decision "as soon as I can".

Link:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=48847&c=1

Baby P dad sues People over 'gravest libel imaginable'

The natural father of Baby P is suing the publishers of a Sunday newspaper for £130,000 damages for printing "one of the gravest libels imaginable".

Suit alleges Alton police sat on mountain of exculpatory evidence while 2 men went to prison for sexually assaulting children

Lawyers acting on behalf of a former local man and and his son have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the town and seven former and current police officers alleging they withheld evidence from defense lawyers during the criminal investigation and subsequent prosecution of both men for sexual assault of minors.

Both men were convicted and spent time in prison before they were freed after the missing evidence came to light.

The cause of action or claim filed in the United States District Court, District of New Hampshire on Dec. 9, 2011 alleges current Police Chief Ryan Heath (an officer at the time of the investigation)  and former Alton Police Department employees Kevin Iwans, Glenna Heath-Roberts, Edward Correia, Tracy Shattuck, Tyler Hackett and Grant M. Nichols withheld 226 pages of material and exculpatory evidence during the separate investigations and subsequent prosecution of the two.

Only Heath remains with the Alton Police Department.

The details of the suit available electronically through the federal court Website are heavily redacted and supporting documents sealed for electronic accessing by an order of United States magistrate Judge Ladya McCafferty. The names of the two plaintiffs are not revealed. This story is based on the electronically available redacted complaint.

The elder of the two men was ultimately convicted of and sentenced to serve up to 40 years in state prison for three counts of sexual misconduct with a child.

According to the suit, the elder plaintiff was convicted on Feb. 25, 2009 of three counts of sexual misconduct against one child. In December of 2009, Judge Larry Smukler granted the man a new trial and all charges against him were dropped altogether on Oct. 25, 2010.

A spokesman for the N.H. Department of Corrections said he was incarcerated from April 9, 2008 until Feb. 12, 2010.

The younger man pleaded guilty on June 9, 2007 of two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault against his stepdaughter. Judge James O'Neill vacated both his sentences on July 1, 2010.

Prison records indicate he was incarcerated in the N.H. State Prison from June 9, 2008 until July 2, 2010 when he was transferred to Belknap County. He was released on July 12, 2010.

The suit claims the exculpatory evidence was uncovered by Belknap County Attorney Office prosecutors in February of 2009 while they were preparing their second case against the elder man for allegedly assaulting a second child.

Count 16 of the suit says the prosecution found "exculpatory evidence, consisting of pages A1-199 inclusive and B1-B27, which had not previously been disclosed to either the plaintiff or his counsel, even though the documents had been in the possession of the Alton Police Department for approximately six, or more years."

The civil suit claims the withheld information included paperwork by Corriea in September of 2002 stating the alleged second victim "came to his office to complain about (a Rochester, NY man ) by stating (the man) had been angry at (initials) and had decided to make a false report of sexual assault against (initials) stepfather, with the sole purpose of making (initials) life miserable."

Alleged exculpatory materials also included statements made to Iwans that one victim was allegedly assaulted by a different man with the same first name and a similar statement made in 2005 to Nichols, and an undated report of a similar nature made by Heath-Roberts.

The civil rights suit has four components all citing the Civil Rights Act of 1871, last amended in 1983 and the rights secured by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and well as similar rights established under the New Hampshire Constitution.

There are four separate causes of action: a civil rights violation filed for the father, a civil rights violation filed for the son, a civil rights violation against the defendant the (town) of Alton and supplemental claims against all of the defendants individually including a claim of malicious prosecution.

Link:
http://www.laconiadailysun.com/node/126364/18661

Suit alleges Alton police sat on mountain of exculpatory evidence while 2 men went to prison for sexually assaulting children

Lawyers acting on behalf of a former local man and and his son have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the town and seven former and current police officers alleging they withheld evidence from defense lawyers during the criminal investigation and subsequent prosecution of both men for sexual assault of minors.

Both men were convicted and spent time in prison before they were freed after the missing evidence came to light.