Now I'm truly sickened

[sigma7]

Romenesko's summary: A suburban Chicago woman's refusal to watch a videotape that reputedly depicts her gang rape could end up derailing the trial of one of her accused attackers. Also, she could be held in contempt of court.

And now I just threw up a little bit.

Comments

[beeform]

My God. How horrible!

[paradisacorbasi]

...

I am so incoherently angry.

I can't even form cohesive sentences.

Properly depicting my disgust.

[bishop282]

The judge should be able to view the tape and decide if she really needs to be in the courtroom during its presentation. Sometimes though, the video tape helps the defense.You'll never convince six lucky Orange County guys that porn is bad: a single raunchy sex video is keeping them out of prison. Of course, these 20-year-olds couldn't have foreseen this fate when they filmed their wild gangbang after a night of drinking at a Fullerton bar.

This tale begins in the wee hours of June 6, 2004, when a distraught Tamara Anne Moonier entered a Fullerton police station. She said she'd been kidnapped a few hours earlier from a parking lot at Heroes Bar & Grill, hooded and driven to an unknown residence. Moonier, then 28, told police that a group of men brutally raped her at gunpoint for more than an hour, forced her to perform numerous degrading sex acts on film, demanded her silence and then released her.

[redmonster]

Having read the story, you know what I think is the most fucked up of all?

That crazy bitch got MARRIED since then. *boggles*

Shows you where my priorities are.

[bishop282]

I caught that too and that information is just thrown in as almost a throw-away line.

[redmonster]

Okay. Aside from wondering why an incident that took place in 2002 is only now at trial, I have to say I can't entirely defend this woman's refusal to see the tape. She should not have to watch the tape in front of the courtroom. She should not have to answer questions about it right away. And she should not have a legal gun pointed at her head to make her relive something that happened to her at 16.

HOWEVER.

It would, ultimately, be to her benefit to watch the tape. She says she was unconscious during the rape and doesn't remember it. That much makes sense, but there you go: she doesn't really know what happened. It may give her panic attacks, it may make her throw up a lot in her mouth, but she should find out how the attack played out, so that she can understand what was done to her. If she never understands that attack, then IMO, she'll never really recover from it. Knowledge is power, and she is currently without it.

[kateshort]

I had jaw surgery when I was in high school. I know that it happened, but I *really* wouldn't want to watch a video showing my entire face being cut apart and sewn back together.

And that's something that was done with my full knowledge and permission.

I absolutely *can* *not* *imagine* choosing to watch something in which I was physically violated without my permission.

[kateshort]

Holy FUCK.