[airspirit]

Publicity can be a wonderful thing.

I have a brother-in-law that is now being charged with 2nd degree rape of a minor. Let me give you the whole story before you jump to any conclusions.

He is 18. She is 16 (almost 17). Believe it or not, these relationships are legal in WA because she is both over the age of consent (16) and there is less than a five year age difference between them. They've been dating for a long time until she broke it off three weeks ago. During the course of this relationship they went at it like bunnies. She had two "pregnancy scares" during this time that both turned out to be a case of her being neurotic. Over a week ago he bought her some jewelry and asked her to reconsider ... she ended up screwing his brains out. There were four others who knew both of them very well in the mobile home at the time, and being a mobile everyone could hear what was going on. A week later she went to one of her teachers (who I know very well) and said she thought she was raped. Being required by law he reported it to the police, but also was not very convinced that any such thing had taken place. She was known to be a pathological liar.

Yes, he is very fscking stupid, but that was besides the point by then.

He was arrested later that day and booked into the county jail. He never was told what he was being charged with ... just held. The next morning he was released into his parent's custody and the phone calls and visits started: it turns out that ever since their breakup she had been telling damn near everyone that she was going to screw him over as bad as possible and that she thought she was pregnant (again ... very neurotic ... she couldn't tell yet if she WAS) again.

Here is where motive comes into play. She has a college fund that is being held by her parents. They knew about her relationship (in every way) with my BIL, and told her that if she got pregnant that she wouldn't get the college money. If she got pregnant and cried rape, however ... you get the picture. She was also sleeping with at least four other people at the time of this encounter (those are the ones that have come forward), so perhaps she used my BIL to cover her ass since she wanted to screw him over anyway (pun not intended).

Armed with the four people who "witnessed" the event (and her coming out cheerfully afterwards), the four other guys she was screwing, the large group of people who reported what she was saying prior to the event, and the fact that there is no evidence that things went as she reported (that she was forced and manhandled during the event), there is no case. Now, with this contradicting evidence in hand, the prosecutor's dept still charged him as earlier described. Since then, my ILs have been getting the story out EVERYWHERE (minus the girl's name since she is underage and that would be extremely illegal in WA) about what was happening. Since then, the community has completely withdrew from her family and her (how could you not figure out who it was?), and the prosecutor's office is BEGGING him to cop a plea to minor assault charges.

Instead, my BIL will be fighting this and the charges will probably be dismissed at the fact-finding hearing (there is NO basis for prosecution except for the word of a pathological liar who had already promised to destroy his life prior to this happening), and they will be suing the piss out of her family. They are already also hinting at the prosecutor's office that a suit for malicious prosecution and defamation of character may come into play if they decide to spread my BIL's name around and continue their harassment of him (he has been bombarded by calls from the prosecutor's office to ensure he hasn't fled and to demand that he plead guilty, though it is not their place to do so especially since he has a lawyer). They are also pushing the prosecutor's office to pursue the girl and her family for providing false criminal reports and perjury. The prosecutors don't want to do that even if they do lose, though that seems to be a definite outcome.

The world can be a fscked up place sometimes. They just want to rake some poor kid over the coals to keep their names in the paper for the next election ... at least the judge has given indications that SHE thinks the whole thing is BS. Hopefully she does the right thing at the next court hearing.