Sex, Lies and Prison

[Controlled Chaos]

I found these two articles very interesting.

 

Discuss

 

Sex, lies and prison

May 3, 2006

by Kathleen Parker

 

For the past six months, I've been staring at a 30-pound box filled with court documents and what's left of a young man's life following one college night and a 5- to 15-second disputed sex act.

 

That is, 5 to 15 seconds into the act of sexual intercourse, she said, "Stop."

 

He stopped immediately.

 

 

She claimed rape.

 

Thus, before his 23rd birthday, Rich Gorman of Orlando, Fla., was locked behind bars in the Liberty Correctional Institute near Tallahassee, serving a five-year sentence for sexual battery.

 

One minute a junior at Florida State University majoring in business/computer systems, the next a prison inmate labeled a sex offender.

 

I've hesitated to write about the case because all such cases are complex, as we've been reminded the past several weeks by the rape case at Duke University. Gorman's case bears little resemblance to the Duke episode, except that both involve youth and alcohol, a toxic combination in the sexual arena of he said/she said.

 

The moral of Gorman's story, which can't be proved or disproved in this limited space, is that boys and men accused of rape have little hope of reclaiming the life they once knew, regardless of whether they're guilty or innocent.

 

Any objective person reading through the testimony and depositions from Gorman's case would wonder how he landed in prison.

 

The "victim," whom we'll call Chastity, contradicted herself and changed her story several times - all documented in the box at my feet. She was drinking and making out with Gorman earlier in the evening.

 

She also went willingly into his apartment on the night in question, and this is key. She initially told police that she was pulled struggling from the car and dragged into his apartment, where she was raped. When she was told that parking lot cameras might have captured her going into the apartment, she changed her story, admitted that she wasn't forced, and that she walked voluntarily into the apartment.

 

My suspension of skepticism ends right there, but there's much more, including a prior rape claim by the "victim" at another college a few years earlier. Same victim, same scenario, except that she recanted in that case, saying she wasn't sure it was a rape because she was drunk. All the preceding was ruled inadmissible during Gorman's trial thanks to rape shield laws.

 

Again, I'm unable to do justice to the many questionable details of this case. Instead, let's focus on Gorman's nightmare, and what potentially can happen to any male who has sex with a female in the current sexual climate of virgins and demons.

 

After the sexual encounter - that is, after Gorman stopped when Chastity said, "Stop" - Gorman drove her back to campus and dropped her near her dorm. Chastity immediately called a male friend, who urged her to file a police report. In those next few hours, Rich Gorman's life was being unraveled while he slept.

 

He awoke to police at the door. Within hours, Gorman was charged with sexual battery and locked up. Within days, he was suspended from his college and his fraternity. Within weeks, his family was devastated, financially strapped, and hell was waiting around the corner.

 

Gorman went to trial twice in Tallahassee. The first, in February 2005, ended with a hung jury. The second, in June 2005, went so badly for the prosecution that Chastity's lawyers offered Gorman a plea bargain the night before the verdict: 12 months probation, no prison.

 

But Gorman, his parents and attorneys were so convinced of a not-guilty verdict that they passed on the plea bargain. When the jury issued a guilty verdict, the judge ordered lawyers for both sides to come up with a new plea agreement less than the mandatory 8.9 years.

 

To his great regret, Gorman signed off on the agreement, which also included waivers prohibiting his seeking any post-conviction relief, including raising claims of ineffective counsel.

 

Thus, until Gorman is 37 years old, he will be on probation, possibly under curfew, and will have to live under sex offender restrictions until he's at least 47.

 

Postscript:

 

Before going to trial, Gorman reconnected with his high school sweetheart. They have a 9-month-old baby girl and hope to marry under more normal circumstances.

 

Before going to sleep the same night she allegedly was raped, Chastity spent the night and every night thereafter for several months with the male friend she called that night, according to depositions. Within a week of the alleged rape, she was back out partying with friends.

 

Two lives, two very different outcomes.

 

Gorman, a regular college Joe, a good student and a good son, lives behind bars for having sex with a gal he thought was willing.

 

Chastity, whom I only know through her testimony and depositions, may have been a regular college Jane. But she also had a record of finding herself in situations she later regretted. She also apparently had a drug problem.

 

In February 2004, a year before Gorman's first trial, her father took her out of school and installed her in rehab for a cocaine addiction, according to the father's deposition. Chastity refused to stay longer than three days.

 

One life goes on. The other is ruined.

 

Five seconds - or 15 - is all it takes.

 

 

When date rape is a life sentence

May 10, 2006

by Kathleen Parker

 

When most of us hear the words "sex offender," we imagine a beast who kidnaps little girls from their bedrooms and rapes and murders them before dumping their bodies in a remote ravine.

 

We see the adorable faces of Polly Klaas, Samantha Runnion or Jessica Lunsford and can think of no punishment cruel enough for their killers.

 

But what I've just described is, in fact, a "sex predator" - one who commits a sex offense that is either a capital, life or first-degree felony - not merely a "sex offender," which relates to a less serious offense.

 

 

More to the point of this column, "sex offender" also refers to those convicted of "date rape," which is invariably a case of "he said/she said" and often involves young people caught in the throes of a debatable moment.

 

She was drunk, he was confused. She said "stop," he didn't stop fast enough. Sometimes he's a brute justifiably accused of rape. But sometimes she's not the victim she claims to be. Sometimes, alas, morning-after remorse morphs into a defensive claim of rape that sends college boys to prison for an offense that falls somewhat short of what most of us think of as rape.

 

I opened the floodgates recently with a column about Rich Gorman, a former Florida State University student who is serving a five-year prison sentence for a "rape" that involved a 5- to 15-second sex act. He stopped immediately when she said "stop," and asked, "What's wrong?" - not the usual query of a rapist - and then gave his soon-to-be accuser a ride home.

 

Rather than rehash the details, suffice it to say that Gorman's case raises questions about how we prosecute date rape, questions that I intend to explore in future columns. I've learned, meanwhile, that Gorman is not unique. I've heard from dozens of parents around the country whose college-age sons have wound up in prison because their dates decided that what he understood as consensual, she understood as rape.

 

I have no idea how many of these claims are valid. Most parents naturally believe the best of their own children, while few prisoners admit to guilt. But the special circumstances of "date rape" - especially among college students immersed in a permissive culture of drinking, drugs and "casual" sex - raise concerns about how we label those accused and convicted.

 

Should a young man like Gorman, for example, be treated the same way as Alejandro Avila, the sexual predator who kidnapped and murdered 5-year-old Samantha Runnion?

 

I suspect the answer to most fair-minded people is "no." Obviously, there's a difference. Yet, under current Florida law - and under similar laws in other states - Gorman is treated largely the same as those who brutalize children.

 

Indeed, upon his release from prison, Gorman faces the same lifetime sentence as a predator. He'll have to register as a sex offender, checking in with local sheriffs twice a year, and suffer the stigma of being identified to neighbors as a sex offender.

 

But, critically, will neighbors also learn that Gorman earned his label in college for a questionable date rape, not for molesting a child? The question doesn't minimize the seriousness of true date rape, but given the clear differences between a Gorman and an Avila we should ask it.

 

It is worth noting that society seems to worry more about alleged date rapists moving next door than it does about new neighbors who might be murderers, drug dealers or violent offenders, for which there are no comparable registries.

 

In our justifiable repulsion in the face of monsters like Avila - and in our efforts to make the world safer for children - we have used too broad a brush.

 

Thus, Gorman's Tallahassee attorney, Michael Ufferman, plans to challenge Florida's sex offender registration statute as unconstitutional. His position is that the law fails to meet the due process clause of the state's constitution because the law includes no requirement to find that the offender is a future risk.

 

The same challenge has been made - and failed - regarding sex predators, but predators tend to be pedophiles, who have a high recidivism rate. Men such as Gorman inarguably fit another category and surely deserve a different dispensation.

 

Ufferman plans to file his challenge July 1 - near the one-year anniversary of Gorman's imprisonment. If he succeeds, Gorman and others like him could get a fair shot at becoming the citizens, husbands and fathers they hope to be, a second chance at life following a single bad judgment way back when.

 

If he fails, we should lock away our sons and daughters until saner winds prevail.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I saw that first article when it was published, but hadn't seen the followup.

 

Truer words were never spoken than when she refers to morning after shame morphing into a date rape accusation. It's frightening that someone can thing so little of ruining somebody's life that she would claim rape instead of admitting that she had consented to an act and later regretted it.

 

Rape, real non-consentual rape, is one of the most vicious and brutal violations one human being can commit against another. Morning-after regret that mutates into a rape allegation is something entirely different, and something that would not happen to the degree it does if people understood and accepted the importance of taking personal responsibility for their actions.

 

If anything, in my mind the regret-turned-rape allegation is way closer to rape than what the guy did when he believed he was engaging in a consentual act. When the "victim" rewrites the facts to ease her personal guilt or shame, she has violated the accused person so deeply and completely that it can ruin his life.

[Controlled Chaos]

I saw that first article when it was published, but hadn't seen the followup.

 

Truer words were never spoken than when she refers to morning after shame morphing into a date rape accusation. It's frightening that someone can thing so little of ruining somebody's life that she would claim rape instead of admitting that she had consented to an act and later regretted it.

 

Rape, real non-consentual rape, is one of the most vicious and brutal violations one human being can commit against another. Morning-after regret that mutates into a rape allegation is something entirely different, and something that would not happen to the degree it does if people understood and accepted the importance of taking personal responsibility for their actions.

 

If anything, in my mind the regret-turned-rape allegation is way closer to rape than what the guy did when he believed he was engaging in a consentual act. When the "victim" rewrites the facts to ease her personal guilt or shame, she has violated the accused person so deeply and completely that it can ruin his life.

 

 

I agree 100%...She basically raped him of leading a normal life.

I don't know the exact FACTS, but the way she tells the story it seems as if there was no arguemnt from her that he did indeed STOP when she said STOP. I feel terrible for this kid if that's the case.

[juddling]

I saw that first article when it was published, but hadn't seen the followup.

 

Truer words were never spoken than when she refers to morning after shame morphing into a date rape accusation.

 

 

Gee...i remember my after morning shame morphing into a long hot shower and an membership in the "Order of the Serpintine"

 

[FlaSoxxJim]

I agree 100%...She basically raped him of leading a normal life.

I don't know the exact FACTS, but the way she tells the story it seems as if there was no arguemnt from her that he did indeed STOP when she said STOP. I feel terrible for this kid if that's the case.

 

Yep, especially if this was the case of an overexcited rookie where she said stop and he did, but the act had been completed from a physiological standpoint. Like you, I don't have the details of the case, but a situation like that would provide DNA evidence of "the assault," and something that was entirely consentual at the outset gets twisted into date rape with the kind of forensic "evidence" that would kill him in court.

 

Did you hear her sat 'stop'?

 

Yes.

 

Did you?

 

Yes.

 

Then why is there evidence of completion of the act?

 

[LosMediasBlancas]

It's just too damn easy to do this to someone and it happens all the time.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Gee...i remember my after morning shame morphing into a long hot shower and an membership in the "Order of the Serpintine"

 

 

Well, I was unaware of the Order of the Serpentine until just now. The ritual scrubbing of the shamed is something I have familiarity with, however.

[Controlled Chaos]

It's just too damn easy to do this to someone and it happens all the time.

 

It's terrible. Pay attention here college peeps!!

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Theres nothing I despise more than a woman who makes a false rape allegation. Not only does she utterly destroy the life of the accused ( even if her story is proven to be the bulls*** story it is ) but it also makes it harder for real rape victims to make their case successfuly.

[AngelasDaddy0427]

Almost makes you wish these sluts really were raped so they'd know how the real victims feel and they'd think twice before making up s*** like this..

[FlaSoxxJim]

Almost makes you wish these sluts really were raped so they'd know how the real victims feel and they'd think twice before making up s*** like this..

 

That is a bit on the extreme side I'd say. Wishing somebody would consider consequences before making a questionable accusation and wishing rape upon somebody are entirely different matters.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

That is a bit on the extreme side I'd say. Wishing somebody would consider consequences before making a questionable accusation and wishing rape upon somebody are entirely different matters.

 

 

If you really wanted poetic justice let them get raped somewhere down the line and have nobody listen to them. Thats exactly what happens to women because of people like her. The whole cry wolf thing and all.