You are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged. – Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Usually, if I miss an item while it’s current and only hear about it months later, I’ll leave it alone. But since this has been such a banner year for sexual misbehavior by cops, I want to feature every one I can find. So when Tits & Sass featured this roundup of such items recently, I just couldn’t leave the one item I had missed behind: “[After being entrapped in a sting Houston cop] Tony James Sellers…was charged with prostitution. He was [given a paid vacation while officials bloviated about ‘ending demand’ and sex rays]…”
Once again, actual figures disprove the hysteria:
A new Department of Justice study shows that the crime parents obsess about the most—the abduction and murder of a child by stranger—is less likely than ever…in…2011…105…occurred, but only 8% ended in murder. In 1997, by contrast, 40% did. Today, children kidnapped by a stranger have a 92% chance of making it home…thanks to cell phones, GPSing and security cameras. So what of the other big fears of our age, like the fear of children being abducted by strangers they meet on the internet? The study found only one victim of such a crime. Okay, well how about all the sex trafficking? The study found that 16-18 girls were kidnapped for that purpose…Well, are kids at least being stolen by pedophile rings? The DOJ found zero cases of this happening. How about stolen by Satanists? Zero again. What’s more, the report also found that the victim profile most of us have in our heads—young moppets on their way to school—does not match with reality…The most common victims are girls aged 12 to 17, with sexual assault being the biggest motive…
Saving Them From Themselves
Once in a while an insanely-broad law is defeated:
The Minnesota Court of Appeals just struck down a key part of the state’s law concerning sexual communication with minors…[which] criminalized conduct that falls far short of solicitation. For example, the court noted, “a music video producer [who] creates a video with sexually explicit depictions or lyrics” could be found guilty under the law if he or she uploads the video to YouTube and someone under age 16 sees it. So too could the producer of a film depicting sexual content or the writer of young-adult fiction that includes a sex scene…any communication with a child “relating to or describing sexual conduct,” even without trying to solicit them for real-world activity, is also a felony if it is done with “the intent to arouse”…”distributing any material, language, or communication, including a photographic or video image, that relates to or describes sexual conduct to a child or someone the person reasonably believes is a child” is a felony…
Note that the last provision criminalizes sex education.
The Schizoid State
So he’s a “pimp” because male, but a “chid” because 17, and his same-age “victim” is obviously helpless because she’s female and therefore a moral imbecile even though they’re the same age. Got all that?
A [Las Vegas] High School dropout is now an accused pimp…The 17-year-old is accused of running a prostitution ring…with two accomplices. The victims — girls ages 15, 16 and 17 — were delivered to houses and hotels to sell sex for $100 or $200…The teen’s identity is not being revealed because his case is currently being handled in juvenile court…[but] Judge Frank Sullivan…[decided]…to charge the teen as an adult…[because] the district attorney’s office [said] the case is as serious as it gets…[despite] the teen’s history of…psychiatric and drug abuse issues…if convicted [he] could face life in prison…
Having sex is “as serious as it gets”. Much worse than, say, murder, torture or kidnapping.
Standard Operating Procedure
Three high-ranking officers in the NYPD acted as “cops on call” for two deep-pocketed de Blasio donors — as long as their “elves” plied them with gifts and bankrolled a highflying lifestyle that included hookers, free hotels and expensive meals. Deputy Chief Michael Harrington, Deputy Inspector James Grant and Sgt. David Villanueva were arrested…in a far-reaching bribery scandal that has also snared longtime correction officers union leader Norman Seabrook…the cops acted as a “private police force” in exchange for gifts, bribes and perks worth more than $100,000…
The sex worker connection is described in more detail here:
A high-ranking NYPD official and another cop had sex with a prostitute…dressed as a flight attendant on…[a] 2014 excursion to Las Vegas…on a private plane…paid for by Jona Rechnitz, a real-estate investor being investigated by the FBI for allegedly providing gifts to police in exchange for favors…one of the officers [was] Deputy Inspector James Grant…Michael Milici, the other cop, is on modified duty…
Backwards Into the Future (#137)
These are the people prohibitionists think should be in charge of “protecting” sex workers:
Once, when I was meeting with a sex workers’ group in a brothel in Kenya, the women there got a call that one of their members had been found, dumped near a river with deep cuts on her face, hands, and thighs. The woman had been [arrested] the night before…Her fellow sex workers had gone to the police station to bail her out but couldn’t find her. When they picked her up…they learned she had been gang raped by the police, who then left her in the woods where she was accosted by street boys, who raped and beat her again. The sex workers attempted to report the incident but were threatened with arrests of their own…
Shame, Shame
After a brief lull, politicians are once again trying to impose even more broad and mindlessly-draconian “revenge porn” laws on unsuspecting internet users:
The…ACLU…and [other free speech groups urged]…Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo to veto a new measure meant to deal with “revenge porn” and “sextortion”…”unlike the laws of virtually every other state on this subject,” the Rhode Island measure does “not require a photo’s dissemination to cause harm to any person or even be intended to cause harm in order to violate the law”…The new legislation, passed earlier this month, prohibits posting sexually explicit photos without the subject’s [direct] permission…The legislation also bans “sextortion”…Rhode Island already criminalizes extortion. But…the new “sextortion” charge…could…be added to regular extortion and/or revenge porn charges to give prosecutors an extra carceral edge…
Amazingly, the governor actually vetoed the law for its blatant unconstitutionality.
Blood on the Sand
This looks like another case in which everyone involved is awful:
A woman and her attorneys have been charged with secretly videotaping her having sex with a former CEO of Waffle House, and using the recording to try to extort millions of dollars from him…Mye Brindle, John Butters and David Cohen were indicted…in…Atlanta…Butters and Cohen tried to force [Joe] Rogers to pay millions of dollars to prevent the recording from being released…a…spokesman for Brindle’s attorneys…said the indictment sends a “chilling message” to victims of sexual abuse and those seeking help to attain justice…Brindle filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Rogers in 2012…[accusing] Rogers of forcing her to perform sex acts with him to keep her job despite her protests for nearly 10 years. Rogers has acknowledged having consensual sexual encounters with Brindle, but has accused her of making false statements against him. Court findings showed the covertly recorded video didn’t imply that Rogers forced the woman to do anything she didn’t want to…
Nice While It Lasted
The SCOTUS has more or less just demolished what little was left of the Fourth Amendment. The following is a quote from Justice Sotomayor’s scathing dissent, which would’ve been the quote of the week except for its length:
…Do not be soothed by the opinion’s technical language: This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants—even if you are doing nothing wrong…If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant…Although many Americans have been stopped for speeding or jaywalking, few may realize how degrading a stop can be when the officer is looking for more…this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights…
Broken Record (#559)
Irish iterations of the “gypsy whore” myth are the silliest and most hilarious ones:
Irish fans partying in French cities during Euro 2016 have been met by an army of sex workers brought from Eastern Europe and Africa for the month-long football tournament. Football fans…have reported being propositioned…by women who have been forced to travel to France by criminal gangs determined to cash in on the tournament…Aside from health concerns, fans have also been warned of blackmail attempts by some sex trade workers, who have been ordered by pimps to secretly take photos and videos of their clients…[which are] then sold on to criminal gangs which specialise in blackmail and extortion…
Monsters (#566)
A Kansas City man has been charged in the death of a transgender woman he intentionally ran over several times and left to die…Witnesses told the police that…they saw Tamara Dominguez got into a truck with 29-year-old Luis Sanchez. But she soon exited the vehicle and slammed the door before walking away. That’s when Sanchez reportedly gunned the engine and repeatedly ran over Dominguez, who died from injuries sustained in the attack…
A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#584)
San Diego has slowly grown into a major hotbed of “sex trafficking” hysteria, but it’s still surprising that none of these “authorities” is able to recognize this ludicrous masturbatory fantasy for what it is:
A federal report on sex trafficking in San Diego has revealed a vast underground industry worth more than $800m annually…Sex trafficking…involves some 110 gangs just in San Diego County, dubbed one of 13 hot spots for child sex trafficking in the US…“The study will provide a lot of new information to those seeking to end modern slavery,” said John Picarelli…between 3,000 and 8,000 victims enter the clutches of the sex-trafficking industry every year…The average age to begin selling sex is 15, and 50%
of women arrested for prostitution have at some point been forced into it, the study found…pimps were typically earning around $670,000 a year…
To Molest and Rape
Sometimes they feed on their own:
A parking enforcement officer has accused three Toronto police officers of raping her vaginally, orally, and possibly anally…Leslie Nyznik…Joshua Cabero…and Sameer Kara…pleaded not guilty to sexual assault…The complainant told police
she knew the three officers and was invited out for a “rookie night” by Kara in January 16, 2015…[after drinking a while] they went back to [a] hotel room…[where] she felt very drunk and laid down…she was immobilized and unable to speak. She…remembers Nyznik inserting his penis into her mouth and that one of the men took her jeans off. She recalled being penetrated vaginally…and that the two men may have switched places
…When she woke up…Kara was asleep beside her and she grabbed her clothes and went home, where she vomited and passed out in her bathroom. The following day, she had a rape kit examination at Scarborough Grace Hospital, during which a nurse found evidence of anal penetration…she didn’t remember being anally penetrated, but recalled one of the officers asking “should I fuck her in the ass?”…
