Poor little child pornographer

[jamesd at echeque.com]

    --
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
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