Woman plans to recant sex-torture testimony, former prosecutor says it's irrelevant to convictions

Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2009-10-21 15:36

Story here. Excerpt:

'CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Seven people pleaded guilty for their part in abusing Megan Williams -- but now Williams says that abuse never happened.

She will hold a press conference Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, to recant her claims of abuse, attorney Byron L. Potts, who represents Williams, told The Charleston Gazette on Tuesday night.

"She has decided she has been living this lie for approximately two years and she has decided to tell the truth," Potts said. "She fabricated the story and she did this in retaliation because she was having a relationship with one of them."

But former Logan County prosecutor Brian Abraham, who was in charge of the case, said no one ever went to jail because of Williams' statements.
...

According to the admissions of those eventually convicted, Williams was physically and sexually abused. She was beaten repeatedly, held against her will, burned with hot wax, stabbed in the leg, and forced to perform oral sex on at least two defendants.

"Each of them made statements incriminating themselves and others. When you sat back and looked at it in its entirety, there was a pretty clear picture of what had taken place," Abraham said.

"As she got hooked up with her family and with additional handlers joined in, she continued to embellish. But we had her original statements that she gave. For the most part, they were consistent with what the co-defendants said happened."'

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Comments

....are false and were attained under duress ("your friend told us this, you're cooked, rat on him and we'll let you go" type interrogations), then a recantation out of the blue with no pressure two years after the fact. Unless some one can prove that she is being pressured by some one connected to one of the men in prison to say what she is saying, then she should be taken at her word and the men freed immediately and their records cleared.

But, personally I believe justice for ANY crime should be about the victim of that particular crime and the harm done to them, not 'potential' harm to society bullshit. When crimes start attaining the status of being harmful to society as a whole, justice seems to derail and persecution begins. When we start sentencing people for the harm they MAY do or the harm that society MAY have suffered we start speculating on immeasurable factors and start down a slippery slope.

Sex crimes are currently the worst, because they are rarely about the victims these days.

If the VICTIM says it never happened, the justice system should be forced to release these men. After all, who knows what really happened to her better then her?

Free these men.

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Submitted by Paragon on Thu, 2009-10-22 11:10

If everyone thinks the woman is full of sh*t and the evidence is terrible, feminists and manginas say, "we have to believe the woman".

If the woman says it never happened, they say "we have to not believe the woman".

Whatever leads to putting men in jail is their answer.

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Submitted by ActaNonVerba on Thu, 2009-10-22 15:41