Hate Crime Victim Says She Made It Up

Hate Crime Victim Says She Made It Up

What makes this especially weird is that the guys she accused of raping and torturing her--and at least one of them supposedly did these horrible crimes because she was black--pleaded guilty. From the October 20, 2009 Charleston (W.V.) Gazette:

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.

Instead, Abraham said Tuesday night, he decided early in the case not to rely on Williams' statements, but on the physical evidence and the statements of the co-defendants.

My first reaction was, "Well, maybe she made it all up. And these guys decided that since there was no way that they would get justice with Rev. Al Sharpton screaming 'racism,' they should take a plea bargain." It is certainly the case that our justice system has almost gone topsy-turvy--from a society where a white person could get away with horrible crimes against black victims to travesties like the Duke lacrosse rape case--where the prosecutor pursued innocent (although sleazy) white defendants even when he know that the "victim" was lying.

Still, there are aspects of this that don't make sense. Did Williams stab herself in the leg and burn herself with hot wax? Was this some sort of S&M thing? All quite mystifying. As I have pointed out in the past, there are a surprising number of "hate crimes" that turn out to be completely faked by the "victims," and some "hate crimes" that turn out to have no bias component at all--such as Matthew Shepard's murder.

Fake Hate Crimes

Fake Hate Crimes

This AP account appeared in the February 13, 2009 Idaho Statesman:

ZURICH — The Brazilian woman who claimed to lose her unborn twins in a skinhead attack was not pregnant and probably carved the initials of Switzerland's main right-wing party into her own skin, investigators said Friday.

Police said in a statement that 26-year-old Paula Oliveira was not three months pregnant Monday, when she claimed that an attack by three skinheads, one with a Nazi symbol tattooed on the back of his head, caused her to miscarry twins.

Zurich University forensic medicine chief Walter Baer said "any experienced forensic doctor would not hesitate to assume that this was a case of self-infliction."

...

The woman's father has blamed Swiss police for dragging their feet on a potentially embarrassing investigation and criticized those who suggested his daughter had lied.

"They're trying to transform the victim into a criminal. This is the tactic of a Nazi militia," Paulo Oliveira told the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.

Hmmm. So she lied about having been pregnant. And we're supposed to believe her about everything else? If you click on the "fake hate crimes" label, you will see that we've had a bunch of these fakes in America, too.

Another Fake Hate Crime

Another Fake Hate Crime

From December 1, 2007 WJZ channel 13 in Baltimore:

BALTIMORE (AP) ― The Baltimore Fire Department has suspended a paramedic apprentice who admitted placing a threatening note and a rope shaped like a noose inside a firehouse.

Fire officials say the paramedic, Gary Maynard, is the one who initially reported finding the note and the rope. Fire department spokesman Kevin Cartwright says Maynard confessed to city police that he left the note and the rope.

A statement from Fire Chief William Goodwin says Maynard's scheme was "meant to create the perception that members within our department were acting in a discriminatory and unprofessional manner."

There are so many of these hate crimes that turn out to be fakes--it makes you wonder how many of the rest are just better done fakes.

More Fake Hate Crimes

More Fake Hate Crimes

From November 8, 2007 WTNH channel 8:

Windsor (AP)_ Windsor police say a student who reported a racial slur scrawled on a door at the Loomis Chaffee boarding school last month has agreed to leave after admitting she wrote it herself.

Windsor police had been investigating what appeared to be the second racially charged incident in a month at the exclusive boarding school.

Now they say a black student has admitted to writing the slur on the door of another black student.

Another Fake Hate Crime

Apparently, one George Washington University student was drawing swastikas on dorm room doors--and was punished for it. But another one turned out to be drawing swastikas on her own dorm room door, and claiming to be a victim. From November 6, 2007 Washington, DC Fox channel 5:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Officials at George Washington University say a student who complained of swastikas being drawn on a dorm room door has admitted responsibility for them.

University spokeswoman Tracy Schario says campus police found out what happened at Mitchell Hall by using a hidden camera. The student admitted responsibility Monday.

Another student was arrested over the weekend and charged with drawing the Nazi symbols and racial slurs on the doors of different dorm rooms at New Hall. That suspect has been barred from campus.

When In Doubt: Lie!

I've mentioned before fake hate crimes here--cases where someone claimed to have been a victim because their sexual orientation (and much more rarely, because of race) where it turned out that not only was the crime not based on bias--but the only crime was when the "victim" lied to the police about it. Here's another case where it isn't clear who told the lie, but the medical examiner and police concluded that he died of natural causes:

DETROIT (AP) — Police said Wednesday that an elderly gay man whose death became a national focus for gay rights advocates based on reports he had been fatally attacked because of his sexual orientation actually died of natural causes.

"There's no evidence that an assault occurred," police spokesman James Tate said Wednesday.

The death of Andrew Anthos, 72, last month drew wide attention, and was cited on the floor of Congress by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., as evidence of the need to extend hate crime legislation to gays.

But the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office concluded that Anthos fell because he had an arthritic neck, and detectives were unable to find witnesses to a beating, police said.

"They determined that he died of natural causes," Tate told The Detroit News.

"So the case will be closed," homicide unit supervisor Lt. Linda Vertin told the Detroit Free Press.

Another False Gay-Bashing

From Florida:

BARTOW - On July 25, 2005, when Christopher Robertson reported that the mobile home he shared with his partner at Kings Manor Mobile Home Park in Lakeland had been set on fire and the words "Die Fag" were spray-painted on the front steps, it sparked widespread outrage.

Sympathizers set up an account for donations for the couple and Web sites and blogs decried the anti-gay bigotry and hatred the couple faced.

But Robertson, 24, later admitted to investigators that he set the fire himself to collect insurance money and that he had falsely reported that items were stolen from the mobile home after the fire, although he had actually put them into a storage unit.

On Thursday, Circuit Court Judge Donald Jacobsen sentenced Robertson to 18 months in state prison, to be followed by six years' probation, as part of a plea agreement with the State Attorney's Office. Robertson pleaded guilty in November to filing a false or fraudulent insurance claim, burning to defraud an insurance company and first-degree arson.

If the Uniform Crime Reports bias crime system works the same way that the rest of the Uniform Crime Reports system works, this was reported as an anti-homosexual bias crime in 2005--but won't be corrected, now that the actual nature of the crime is known. There are enough of these hate crimes against homosexuals that are reported--and later demonstrated to be made up--that it probably significantly inflates the FBI's figures for this category.

A bit more disturbing:

Robertson's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Renee Reid, asked Jacobsen to delay the sentencing hearing for several months. Robertson has a job coming up that would last about six weeks and his employer needed him, she told Jacobsen.

Reid said Robertson also had recently been given custody of a teenager who will not turn 18 until October, and he needed time to make arrangements for the boy to have a place to live.

What is this, foster care? Why would you allow someone to be a foster parent with a serious criminal charge hanging over them?

Faking Hate Crimes

I mentioned a while back that a "hate crime" against a homosexual student at Boise State, upon more investigation, turned out to be a fraud. The student attacked himself, punching himself, and beating himself with a stick, so that he could claim that Idaho's passage of a "one man, one woman" constitutional amendment was promoting violence against homosexuals. Not surprisingly, Boise State had a grand mal seizure of guilt about how "homophobic" it and the rest of Idaho is--but precious few words when they realized that this "hate crime" didn't happen.

The student--whose name hasn't been published until now because he was a "victim"--is now identified:

Authorities announced today that Alex "A.J." McGillis, 20, of Boise must appear in court on charges of resisting and obstructing officers. The charge specifically relates to a false report McGillis made to police Nov. 9. in connection with what was initially reported to police as a battery on the greenbelt somewhere between Taylor Hall and Friendship Bridge. According to police reports, McGillis initially claimed a white male struck him from behind with an object while using anti-gay expletives and proceeded to hit him in the face several times, causing him to lose consciousness. McGillis later admitted to authorities he used a stick and his own fists to self-inflict his injuries. The falsified attack quickly prompted student and administrative organizations around Boise State to sponsor the "No Oppression Tolerated, Not On Our Campus," rally and a candlelight vigil in the Quad. Several student representatives and BSU administrators stressed tolerance and the need for civility on campus at the rallies and for several days after. Hundreds attended the rallies. The prosecutor's summons orders McGillis to appear in Magistrate Court no later than Jan. 10th on the charge. Filing a false police report is a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of $1,000 fine and one year in jail.

Now, I'm sure that liberals everywhere will be full of excuses for what McGillis did, minimizing its importance, and saying that he has suffered enough.

Imagine how they would have responded, however, if this had happened?

1. A man reports being grabbed by a group of homosexuals, raped, and taunted, "You'll want to come back for of this, won't you?"

2. Social conservatives organize rallies demanding that "something be done" to make it safe for straight men, and decrying the tolerance of homosexual rape.

3. After police find inconsistencies in his story, and failures to match the physical evidence, the man admits that he faked the whole thing, and there was no homosexual rape.

Do you think that conservatives would be sitting around making analogous excuses such as, "Well, there are homosexuals who rape straight men--maybe it didn't happen in this case, but it could have!" Do you think liberals would be making excuses for why this inflammatory false crime report shouldn't be punished severely?

If Reality Is Inconvenient, Liberal Idaho Just Ignores It

I mentioned yesterday that the supposed gay-bashing of a Boise State student turned out to be...done by himself. ("This just shows you how oppressively homophobic our society is! Why, homosexuals so internalize the hatred that they even bash themselves!")

Liberal Idaho, of course, made a big deal about the initial report, as evidence of what happens when a state passes a marriage definition:

When the public passes laws deeming some citizens note [sic] as equal as other citizens this is bound to happen:

Unlike other Idaho liberals, such as Red State Rebel, who believed the initial report but reported the correction, Liberal Idaho just can't get around to reporting that his overheated rhetoric was based on a lie. Not a mistake; not an overzealous reading of intelligence reports; but by the admission of the victim, a lie. And yet Liberal Idaho is so intent on keeping his hate-filled rhetoric going, that he can't admit it.

One of the commenters over at Red State Rebel expresses amazement that anyone would fake something like this:

So many hate crimes, and someone feels the need to fabricate one?! That's insane....

So many hate crimes? Not against homosexuals. You know, the FBI gathers statistics on hate crimes based on sexual orientation. While I agree that not every hate crime gets reported, I think it is a good bet, because of the zealous concern that homosexual activists have for publicizing their victimization, that most hate crimes against homosexuals get reported to the police, who pass them to the FBI. As I mentioned here, the 2004 report showed a total of 1,406 offenses reported where the bias was based on sexual orientation--and some of those (about 2.5%) were hate crimes based on the victim being straight.

Remember: a lot of these aren't even violent crimes against a person--they include incidents such as one I saw reported on the local news over in tolerant, liberal Oregon when I was there about ten days ago, where someone has spray-painted "lesbos" on a lesbian couple's garage. Don't get me wrong when I point this out: I am not saying that this is okay, or nothing to be concerned about. These are a form of intimidation, just like burning a cross on a black person's lawn, because there is a clear implication that violence could follow. But in a nation of 300,000,000 people (and about nine million homosexuals or bisexuals), 1,406 incidents is actually surprisingly low.

On the other hand, there's no shortage of frauds like the one mentioned here, and this one. There are many others that have happened over the last few years, as a shortage of real hate crimes against homosexuals has created so much demand that homosexual activists have to fake them.

Another Gay Hate Crime

Whoops! Actually another hoax:

A 17-year-old top female wrestler at a local high school faked a series of gay-bashing incidents that prompted a police investigation, authorities said.

The rash of gay-bashing incidents at Tamalpais High School, dating to November, was the work of a student who claimed she was the victim of hate crimes, said police Capt. James Wickham.

The teen, who was not identified by police, admitted that she was the perpetrator of the incidents, which included defacing her own car, authorities said.

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.)

I remember a few years ago seeing the claim that the San Francisco Bay Area had a much higher rate of hate crimes against homosexuals than many other parts of the country. My first thought was, "Well, there are a lot more homosexuals in the Bay Area per capita than most other parts of the U.S." Then I thought, "Well, the Bay Area has a pretty high crime rate--it shouldn't be surprising that hate crimes are happening at a higher rate, too." But now I wonder, based on how many of anti-homosexual hate crimes turn out to be hoaxes, if the high rate of these incidents in the Bay Area is because there are a lot of homosexuals prepared to claim that they were victims of such crimes.

More On Hate Crime Hoaxes

Interesting article about the prevalence of hate crime hoaxes on college campuses:

More than 20 hate crime hoaxes have been suspected or confirmed at college campuses nationwide in the past seven years as students draw on the socially conscious atmosphere of a college campus to perpetrate their fraud.


"A person who is a victim of a hate crime can probably expect to get almost universal sympathy on a college campus. Out in the world at large, that's not necessarily true," said Mark Potok, who has researched hate crime for the Southern Poverty Law Center.


"But on a college campus, you are very likely to get the support of the administration, the faculty and virtually all the students. It tends to put you in the limelight very quickly."


...


At least 20 cases of suspected or confirmed hoaxes have occurred since 1997 nationwide -- and many may go unnoticed, the Los Angeles Times reported.


...

At Miami University in Ohio, a display of racist and homophobic fliers six years ago -- a suspected hoax that was never solved -- still bothers President James C. Garland. People come away believing that "racial incidents and race relations are really not an issue, that it's all a trumped-up hoax or manufactured to make political points," he said.

Obviously, these aren't all manufactured for political reasons--some people just want a new roommate--but it does make people understandably skeptical.

Teaching As Therapy

The experience of my wife and I attending Sonoma State University was that there seemed to be a number of professors for whom class was a form of therapy--a way for them to deal with their demons. Not surprisingly, these were among the more wasteful classes (at least for the students). I had an ethnic studies class where the professor insisted quite frequently that attitudes about race in America hadn't changed since the 1950s--and here he was, a black guy who was a tenured professor and an elected member of the school board in an overwhelmingly white city. He told us that in the 1950s, he and a white girl that he knew would respond to apartment rental ads just for the reaction of the landlord. (He told us that they stopped doing this when one landlord's response was to have a heart attack.)


My wife had a professor for a Women's Studies class whose notion of scholarship could be deduced from the fact that much of the reading for the class was 10-15 year old articles from Time and Newsweek. She handed out a fairly silly paper written by some overprivileged undergraduate about how white privilege and male privilege are very similar institutions, and then asked students to critically analyze the paper.


My wife's paper pointed out the many flaws in this analogy, not just the obvious one that females aren't disproportionately raised in impoverished homes. I sat outside the professor's office while this "professor" ranted and raved at my wife for writing such a negative paper; it was pretty obvious that my wife had made a serious mistake: she actually analyzed the paper's flaws, instead of gushing over it. From then on in class, whenever my wife would raise her hand, the professor would look around, look right at her, and say, "No questions? Okay, we'll move on."


You will notice that the examples that I have given are from two of the joke departments: American Multi-Cultural Studies and Women's Studies. I don't think that either of these has to be a joke--but in practice, ethnic studies departments at many schools came into existence as a way of getting the Administration Building back in one piece, and Women's Studies were started because, "Well, blacks have an ethnic studies department...."


A few weeks back, I mentioned the professor at Claremont-McKenna College whose car was vandalized in a "hate crime"--and then, it turned out, that witnesses reported that she had vandalized the car herself. Her own statement's inconsistencies soon demonstrated that she was lying. Now the Los Angeles Times reports that she has a previous criminal history--and one that reminds me of our experiences at Sonoma State, where the line between emotional problems and teaching was often invisible:

Police and court records show Dunn's other side.


On Sept. 24, 1999, she was arrested and charged with driving without a license and with fictitious license plates, said Officer Katherine Finnell, a Lincoln police spokeswoman. Dunn paid $75 in fines, said chief prosecutor John McQuinn.


On Dec. 31, 1999, Lincoln police arrested Dunn for shoplifting, Finnell said. On that day, she said, Dunn hid a $30 pink sweater in her purse while she was in the dressing room of a clothing store. A store employee called police, Finnell said.


The charges against Dunn were dismissed in exchange for her paying court costs, McQuinn said.


Less than a year later, on Sept. 29, 2000, a Dillard's department store employee saw Dunn putting a shoe box in a shopping bag, Finnell said. A police officer found Dunn's shopping bag contained a pair of red size 7 shoes and some Liz Claiborne jewelry: three bracelets, a necklace and a pair of earrings, Finnell said ? about $141 worth of merchandise from Dillard's.

...
On Tuesday, a Times reporter visited Dunn's house to ask about the shoplifting. She said she would not discuss it.



Gann, the president of Claremont McKenna, said that when college officials interviewed Dunn for her job as a visiting assistant professor, they checked references but that prospective faculty are not asked about a criminal record. Now they might be, she said.

The "Hate Crime" That Wasn't



David Bernstein blogs about a convenient "hate crime" at Claremont-McKenna College, where the new president is trying to drag a relatively middle of the road college (yes, there a few left) to the left:

It seemed an outstanding stroke of luck for the administration when, in the midst of a push for greater "tolerance" and "diversity," a visiting left-wing faculty member's car was vandalized. Windows were smashed, tires slashed, and racist and anti-homosexual slogans spray painted on the professor's car.

Except: two witnesses saw the "victim" doing the vandalism.



This isn't the first time, of course, that an anti-homosexual "hate crime" has turned out to be lies:

MORGAN HILL -- The alleged abduction and sexual assault of a gay man left bound and gagged along Highway 101 in Morgan Hill last week was a hoax, Santa Clara County sheriff's officials said yesterday.



The alleged victim was trying to cover up for a night away from home and his partner, according to investigators. The matter, which was being investigated as a hate crime, is now being forwarded to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office, which will determine whether to file charges against him for filing a false police report.

And this example:

In 2001, a gay student at the College of New Jersey confessed to sending death threats to himself and a gay student group. He was suspended from campus during the investigation and charged with a felony on suspicion of filing false police reports and harassment.

While I can't find it online, there was at least one lesbian pastor in San Francisco in the late 1990s who reported being attacked, vile things written on her face, etc.--and then, as the evidence that she had done it herself mounted, she finally recanted, and left town.



One of the reasons for these false reports is obvious: it provides political advantage to homosexuals to claim that they are the victims of such crimes. Indeed, a "hate crime" against lesbian Regan Wolf was successful in getting South Carolina to pass a "hate crimes" law--and then it turned out that she faked it:

Regan Wolf, a South Carolina woman who told police in 1998 that she had been tied up and whipped because she is a lesbian, has been fined $125 for filing a false report.

There are certainly hate crimes being committed against homosexuals. But how many? As this testimony from a Congressional committee points out, there are economic motivations as well, and there are reasons to suspect that the number charged as false reports is way too low:

One reason the arrest and conviction numbers may be suppressed is that both law enforcement and insurance companies generally are hesitant to press cases of fake hate crimes unless the evidence is overwhelming. To falsely accuse a real victim of hate would be the gravest injustice, compounding the hurt and damage already suffered. And no insurance company wants to be on the wrong side of a civil trial decision accusing it of dealing in bad faith with a hate crime victim.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a much more detailed account of the sequence of events, including the name of the "victim."