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It wasn't rape after all

Remember the guy charged with raping an unconscious woman in a men's room at Felt in January? Seems the evidence against Nicholas Chiaraluce didn't hold up. The Suffolk County District Attorney's office today announced it's dropping the charge:

In the course of the Grand Jury investigation that followed, prosecutors obtained the sworn testimony of individuals present in the club and its men's room during the early morning hours of Jan. 19, including individuals with no connection to the 21-year-old victim or the defendant. In light of that testimony, and after a review of all relevant Massachusetts law, prosecutors determined would not be able to meet their burden of proving the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

Attorney: ’These charges were outrageous’.

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Comments

...it's the crime with the highest rate of false accusations.

""Every year since 1989, in about 25 percent of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI where results could be obtained, the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing. Specifically, FBI officials report that out of roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases since 1989, about 2,000 tests have been inconclusive, about 2,000 tests have excluded the primary suspect, and about 6,000 have "matched" or included the primary suspect."

Source.

Read that again: out of 10k cases, only 6k matched or included the primary suspect. Ie, 25% is a floor- there's a ceiling of almost 40%!

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There is a difference between mistaken identity and false accusation. Just because they got the wrong guy does NOT mean there was not a rape! DNA evidence has exhonerated the innocent, but it has also nailed a large number of guilty parties in unsolved cases.

Take your MRA "all women lie" bullcrap elsewhere, please.

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Based on some of your blog comments, I can imagine that you're an intelligent and emotionally aware individual. Why is it so difficult to summon up some of those qualities when an idea pushes a "feminist" button?

I mean, look at the facts:
- this guy was having sex with a drunk girl in a bar bathroom
- she was on no drugs except alcohol
- witnesses unknown to either party described her consenting behavior

Had the witness situation not been as clear cut, this man could easily be, no DEFINITELY would be facing prison time, for having sex with a drunk girl who came on to him in a bar. Those are the facts, right?

The comment you responded to simply posted facts: that according to FBI statistics, out of 10K rape accusations since 1999, 2K were excluded on DNA basis. That means 20% right out without even considering consent.

Now you come in:

There is a difference between mistaken identity and false accusation. Just because they got the wrong guy does NOT mean there was not a rape! DNA evidence has exhonerated the innocent, but it has also nailed a large number of guilty parties in unsolved cases.

Take your MRA "all women lie" bullcrap elsewhere, please.

How do you get there from the context of this event, the article, and the one comment?

There was no mistaken identity involved in the case at hand, and nobody said anything about all women lying. But the point at hand was that a shockingly large number of rape allegations are false!!! Seems to me you're looking for a man-woman fight about rape, and that's it.

I'm calling "Sexist Shenanigans" on you.

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This was not a case of mistaken identity.

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Did he call his buddy downstairs in the Club and tell
him to come up to the bathroom because he had a passed out
girl on his hands?

I thought that was in the original story.

Fishy, no pun intended.

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Doesn't look like he's changed his story too much. Here's the Herald from the other day:

Chiaraluce told the Herald this afternoon he was "involved in a consensual act" and the woman "took ill." He said he attempted to help her, but "in the midst of me trying to get help, I got arrested," he said.

He attempted to help her... What kind of help is this again? Oh, the poor dear passed out in her vomit when he was having "consensual" sex with her in the men's room? So nice of him to help...

And here's the Globe from Jan. 23:

“I did everything I could to make sure she was OK,” Chiaraluce said. “I was trying to do the right thing, and I ended up getting charged.”

I was trying to do the right thing...

I guess we went to different schools or something, because I was brought up to think that when a woman is drunk to the point of unconscious and puking (or if you like, taking ill,) that having sex with her in a men's room is not the right thing to do, even if she said yes at some point.

Apparently the DA can't demonstrate he's guilty of rape, but Mr. Chiaraluce himself demonstrates he's guilty of being a scoundrel.

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Gareth,

I guess we went to different schools or something, because I was brought up to think that when a woman is drunk to the point of unconscious and puking (or if you like, taking ill,) that having sex with her in a men's room is not the right thing to do, even if she said yes at some point.

Apparently the DA can't demonstrate he's guilty of rape, but Mr. Chiaraluce himself demonstrates he's guilty of being a scoundrel.

Are you going to tell me that, based on your life experiences, you find it shocking or inconceivable to think that this woman might have been in the driver's seat in this course of events, and simply gotten too drunk?

Seriously? You won't even consider that possibility?

So the ONLY way you can imagine this course of events is that this slimeball, this scoundrel, got this poor innocent virgin girl drunk (heavens! at a bar!), and then carried her confused and inebriated body into the bathroom without her informed consent, her having only a vague passing awareness of events, whereupon he began vigorously having sex with her near comatose body... until she threw up and passed out, with no memory of any of these events afterwards...

This, my friend, is no way to think about women in 2008! In this case, it looks like a little less damsel in distress, a little more equal-opportunity bar sex. Especially at Felt's! My dear fiancee was shocked when she saw girls doing drugs, fooling around with each other, and physically fighting each other, in those very bathrooms. Not to mention throwing up. Is that shocking to you? Have you never known a woman, whether as a lover or a friend, who got off on risky/public sexual situations, especially when drunk?

What about this: picture the scene in the movie "The 40 Year Old Virgin", where the drunk woman at the bar aggressively pursued getting the protagonist into her bed, but failed due to crashing her car and throwing up seafood all over him. You going to charge HIM for drunk driving there?

I'll leave you with some humourously relevant news stories:
http://www.local6.com/news/13567201/detail.html
http://badgerherald.com/news/2007/09/25/couple_get...
seattletimes.nwsource.com/..._webbathroom25.html
http://gridskipper.com/travel/boston/bathroom-sex...php
menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth...

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My response to a come-on from a woman obviously not in full possession of her faculties has always been "I'm flattered, and I like you very much too. Let's talk about this when we're sober." To do otherwise would be ungentlemanly, not to mention unmanly.

I'm sure it's lost me some memorable puke-stained public bathroom sex opportunities, but somehow I don't feel too left out. I've always been handsome enough to attract women when they're stone cold sober.

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Gareth, a man was accused of rape, and not prosecuted.
You declared him a scoundrel.

My response to a come-on from a woman obviously not in full possession of her faculties has always been "I'm flattered, and I like you very much too. Let's talk about this when we're sober." To do otherwise would be ungentlemanly, not to mention unmanly.

Well, I'm not 100% in agreement with you, but I'm with you on most of that. But what does it have to do with the poor bastard who is now marked for life by people like yourself as a scoundrel?

I've always been handsome enough to attract women when they're stone cold sober.

Why is this about your self-esteem or self-image?
The guy is not guilty of rape. Period.

Out of curiosity, what do you think of young women who voluntarily go into bar bathrooms with men they've just met to have hot drunk bathroom sex (occasionally ending in hot drunk bathroom vomiting or blackouts)? Are they scoundrels as well?

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There's a lot of diversity in this world in how people develop their self-esteem. A very important portion of my self-esteem has to do with exercising good judgement and acting morally and correctly. I think that's entirely salutory and should be more common.

If you want to base your self-esteem on your proficiency in chasing drunk women into toilets, then that's your choice. I won't think well of you, and neither will most decent people.

This guy made a bad choice. Whether or not he can be convicted for it, his actions were reprehensible. I hope that he learns from his mistakes and develops better judgement. I hope he doesn't grow up so twisted as to jump in and be an apologist every time the word rape comes up on a blog.

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