Man's life in ruins by wife's false rape claim

Submitted by anthony on Thu, 2009-10-01 22:16

Story here. Excerpt:

'He was made out to be a rampaging "Rambo," an armed and dangerous beast who raped his wife and later tried to kidnap her.

But it turned out that it was all wrong. Stephen Vaughn was innocent.

When the gavel finally came down, it was clear that Vaughn was not much more than a hapless character in an existential nightmare caused, in part, by his own poor judgment.

According to his attorney, Vaughn was primarily a victim of a prosecutorial process that operates under the assumption that the husband must always be guilty in domestic disputes in which violence is alleged.

A passing glance suggests that the system actually worked in the end. After all, an Orange County grand jury threw out the 2008 rape charge. Last month, a Westchester County found Vaughn not guilty of attempted kidnapping and a host of lesser charges.'

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Comments

I'll agree that police and prosecutors are overzealous to put it mildly when it comes to prosecuting rape and domestic violence.

This guy got off lucky that some one gave a shit that she said he raped her on a date that she was out of the country.

What I was falsely charged with was raping a girl as part of a gang rape at a party (yeah, it was popular for young men to be charged with that YEARS before the DUKE case came about). The fun part of the charges against me - and ultimately part of why they fell apart, amongst other crazy things the girl said - was that she alleged that the rape in question happened 10 years prior to when she decided to bring charges (there are no statutes of limitation in Canada for those in States wondering how a person can bring charges after 10 years) and had taken place sometime between the beginning of August and end of December of the year in question. Could you account for you whereabouts for a 5 month period 10 years ago? Good thing she claimed the party was at my house in a town I never lived in. Good thing she remembered going to the beach earlier in the day in question in one story but remembers snow on the ground at the house in another (thus the end of summer to the end of the year period given in the charges). That, and NO ONE REMEMBERS ANYTHING with much detail after 10 years and for charges to even be allowed after such a period of time is a miscarriage of justice because it is IMPOSSIBLE to obtain real facts. Our lives today change how we remember things in the past. Memory is not reliable over time. I am 100% in favor of statutes of limitation. Even in cases where something may have happened, after that long, what is remembered is not what occurred and it is better left to therapists then the justice system after long periods.

Long story short, facts and utter impossibilities do not matter when rape is claimed. Sure, you might beat the charge two years down the road as I did, but that's after you sit in jail waiting to post bail and lose your fiance, career, and most of your friends in the process.

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Submitted by Paragon on Sat, 2009-10-03 18:42