-- On 17 Dec 2001, at 14:46, A. Melon wrote:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49141,00.html
Incredible. Abso-fucking-lutely incredible. After telling us all about the poor little child pornographer, Larry Benedict, and how the mean old police are out to get him, Declan finally lets the other shoe drop in part 5 of this 5-part series.
Benedict pled guilty.
He pled guilty, agreeing to a plea bargain calling for 37 months in prison.
This "innocent" man agreed to spend 3 years in prison for something he didn't do.
The alternative being a likelyhood of spending twenty years in prison for something he did not do. The fact that he could plea bargain it down to three years is pretty good evidence that the prosecution had no real case.
He agreed to brand himself for life as a child pornographer, setting himself up for 3 years of hell in prison where child pornographers are the lowest of the low.
During the recovered memory hysteria, lots of clearly innocent people confessed to raping their children. The prosecution in those cases was prepared to agree to almost anything that involved a confession, rather than actually go to court, and use any measures, including horrific criminal threats against people's children, to force a confession. Once a few cases actually did go to court, the scam was exposed, and suddenly people stopped recovering memories. As the prosecutor's fear of trials became more and more obvious, the plea bargains became more and more absurd. Typically someone would admit to extraordinary and hideous crimes against their own children, retain custody, and have to pay a large sum to the "therapists" who had obtained the evidence. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Nnl4bHhk68kyJ8MRgkd6XhgfwHK9RX9+GNHkGXA7 4K6yCjdTmj6MMMd1SW0BmniXLS1SrtLVkrdf5hJt/