I’m pretty cynical about a lot of things. The justice system? Definitely. But every once in a while, I read a story that just leaves me speechless with disbelief.
Seriously, wtf?!.
Essentially, a woman placed an ad on Craigslist and met the guy who answered in North Philly. They negotiated a deal for an hour of oral and vaginal sex (for one hundred and fifty dollars), but then he and two friends raped her at gunpoint instead. Since she consented to have sex with the man beforehand and didn’t get paid, Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni decided that it wasn’t rape or assault, just “theft of services.”
If you change your mind and don’t buy me a Greek Lady gyro after I do your homework, that’s theft of services. Because when I did your homework, you didn’t rape anyone. Got it, Deni? It was not a physically and psychologically traumatizing event that could have given someone AIDS, syphilis, or any number of other awful diseases. No one can get pregnant by doing homework uncompensated. “Theft of services” doesn’t involve blood and tears and semen.
The contempt of the judge for this impoverished twenty-year-old single mother is absolutely despicable.
This had nothing to do with the crime itself and everything to do with the occupation of the victim. Prostitutes have sex with anyone anyway, so they can’t be raped, right? Her consent to an hour of paid sex with one person meant consent to whatever the hell they wanted to do with her, didn’t it?
No. No, it didn’t. Just as it didn’t when the same men did the same thing to another woman a few days later.
This is the judicial equivalent of saying, “Slut, you deserved it.” F*ck that. Being a judge means interpreting the laws, not projecting your own morals onto someone you don’t like. She obviously can’t fulfill her impartial duties. I hope the decision gets overturned and these poor women get some justice. It’d be nice if Deni came out of this without a job, too.
Maybe she’d be a little more sympathetic next time.
Tags: crime, Philadelphia, rape
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November 1st, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Lindsay,
You couldn’t be more right. As a ‘66 Penn grad, I applaud you. She should be fired and disbarred just like Mike Nifong. Keep telling it as it is.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
The part of this story you don’t know is that this was a manipulation of the press by political operatives, who purposely fabricated a twisted version of the facts right before an election, to smear Judge Deni’s reputation for political reasons that have nothing to do with the case they used to launch the campaign against her.
Once they got one paper to print their twisted version of the facts, the other papers piled on, repeating the false facts from the first story.
What you think happened is not what happened, and her political opponents knew they had her over a barrel, because the rules of judicial conduct prevent her from arguing the facts of a pending case in the press.
The operatives accomplished their goal, which was to create a public outrage to fan the flames of a public drum beat to remove Judge Deni from office.
Some people will not find it easy to accept that they were played.
Others who know how politics are played in Philly will acknowledge that what I am saying has a certain familiar ring of truth to it.
I have known Judge Deni for better than 30 years, and know her to be a woman of honor and integrity. I am telling you that what you read in the papers, and the firestorm that was created out of it, was a calculated political manipulation that had nothing to do with the truth.