False Accusers / Wrongly Accused

Original Article09/02/2013 A woman was awarded a sentence of four years and a fine of Rs 11,000 for levelling false rape charges against her landlord, after a dispute over the payment of rent due to which the landlord committed suicide. The senten...

Police are considering what action to take against a woman who admitted making a false allegation of sexual assault. Officers were called to the Cox Lane area of Ewell on Sunday (June 30) following a report by a third party about an incident which was alleged to have taken place between 6am and 6.30am that day. The call as made after a woman in her late teens was found in a distressed state at around 6.45am. Following house-to-house enquiries and other investigations carried out by officers, an 18-year-old woman from London admitted making the false claim.. Detective Inspector Antony Archibald said: "Surrey Police takes all allegations of this nature extremely seriously and it is deeply frustrating when reports like this are falsely made. "A lot of officers's time was put into this investigation and due to the serious nature of the allegation it was fast-tracked and taken to the highest level which took vital resources away from other people which may have needed them. "We are carefully considering what action may be taken again against the woman who made the allegation." He also thanked Ewell residents for their assistance and urged genuine victims of sexual assault to still come forward.

Charges against a Galway man who pleaded guilty to raping his niece have been withdrawn after the girl later admitted she was lying. The girl, who is now aged 18, told gardaí that her mother made her file a complaint to gardaí and social services when she was about ten years old, claiming her uncle had abused her. The 41-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had maintained his innocence until the trial but pleaded guilty on the day because he said he was "completely terrified" of going to prison. He believed a guilty plea offered the best chance of avoiding a jail sentence. He had pleaded guilty to rape and serious sexual assault, including penetrating the girl's anus with his penis, at a house in Galway city between September 1st, 2004 and February 28th, 2005.

Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on death row, just months before DNA exonerated him of raping and murdering an 8-year-old girl in Fort Lauderdale. Now, more than 13 years later, his family's civil lawsuit against the Broward Sheriff's Office and two detectives accused of framing him has finally been settled. Smith's death made him a national symbol because it was the first case in the U.S. that scientifically proved an innocent man had died in prison for a crime he didn't commit. But the financial settlement reached with the Sheriff's Office - on behalf of the agency and retired detectives Richard Scheff and Philip Amabile - is much less than the millions awarded in Broward's other notorious wrongful conviction cases. The civil suit was recently settled for just $340,000 - including attorney fees and legal costs, lawyers Michael Wrubel and James Green told the Sun Sentinel. They filed the lawsuit on behalf of Smith's closest surviving relative, his half-sister Virginia Smith, of Sunrise.

In 1982, Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson were convicted of a brutal rape and murder in a small town in Oklahoma. The victim was 21-year-old Debra Sue Carter, a waitress at the Coachlight Club. Williamson and Fritz each spent more than 11 years in prison for a crime that DNA evidence later proved they did not commit. Before he went to prison, Fritz was raising his then-12-year-old daughter Elizabeth, alone. He decided she shouldn't visit him in prison, because he sensed she was scared. But, Fritz says, he knew his daughter loved him, and believed in his innocence. Elizabeth was 24 when Fritz got out, and he remembers the moment they saw each other in the visiting room of the county jail, where he'd been transferred prior to his release.

It was a frighteningly close call for Charles Tubbins. The 23-year-old Buffalo man was already charged with murder and indicted by a grand jury for a crime he did not commit. All that was required for a wholesale miscarriage of justice was for the plea negotiations to begin, presenting Tubbins with the horrifying options of standing trial or admitting to a crime he didn't commit in hopes of a lesser sentence. It didn't come to that because DNA evidence found at the crime scene exonerated Tubbins and implicated another man, Ahkeem R. Huffman. To his credit, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita moved quickly to dismiss the charges, but the case raises the same issues that have led to lengthy prison sentences for other innocent people in Erie County - issues of which law enforcement and the State Legislature are fully aware, but haven't seen fit to address. Tubbins was ensnared by the same human error that put Anthony Capozzi in prison for rapes he did not commit: witness misidentification. Eyewitness testimony was the only evidence against Tubbins, who, his lawyer noted, has no prior criminal convictions, no history of violence, no prior felony or misdemeanor.

On July 12, when he walked out of the Winnebago County Jail a free man for the first time in more than 20 years, Joseph Frey had no money, no identification and nowhere to live. Frey, 54, was wrongfully convicted in 1994 of sexual assault and kidnapping, crimes for which he was serving a 102-year sentence. When he was released earlier this month, Frey had less than a week's supply of the dozen or so drugs he needs for a degenerative bone disease, blood clots and other health problems. He can't afford more medication nor the required follow-up visits to the doctor. "I'm transient," said Frey, who is staying at the homeless shelter at Grace Episcopal Church in Madison. "I have no health coverage. Nothing."

A former Chicago Police sergeant whose rape conviction was overturned in 2011 has filed a lawsuit against the woman who accused him. John Herman filed the suit in Cook County Circuit Court Friday, claiming that the woman falsely accused him to get money from the city. The woman had sued the city in federal court and received a $1.5 million dollar legal settlement, the Sun-Times reported at the time of the 2011 Illinois Appellate Court decision that overturned Herman's conviction. According to the suit, Herman had consensual sex with the woman in her apartment on March 9, 2004. She later accused Herman of kidnapping her, driving to her apartment and forcing her to have sex with him at gunpoint, the Sun-Times reported. Herman is claiming that the woman's accusations and the resulting prosecution caused him to lose his job, damaged his reputation and caused him to serve four years in prison. Herman was convicted of rape and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but the Illinois Appellate Court overturned the conviction on October 2, 2011, according to the suit. The three-count suit charges the woman with malicious prosecution, abuse of process and defamation and asks for more than $100,000 in damages.

A Galway man who pleaded guilty to raping his niece has been allowed to change his plea after the complainant admitted she had been lying. The girl, who is now aged 18, told gardaí that her mother made her file a complaint when she was about ten years old claiming her uncle had abused her. The 41-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had maintained his innocence until the trial but pleaded guilty on the day because he said he was "completely terrified" of going to prison. He believed a guilty plea offered the best chance of avoiding a jail sentence. He had pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape and serious sexual assault at a house in Galway city on a date between 1 September 2004 and 28 February 2005.

Morgan Triplett Original Article07/11/2013By Daniella BeccariaThe plea deal would incude work for the county, counseling and staying off social media for 60 days.Morgan Triplett, the 20-year-old UCSB student charged with faking her rape on the ...

Original ArticleDiigo Post Excerpt: The minds behind a crop of new posters displayed around the University of Alberta campus in Edmonton were undoubtedly looking for a reaction. They're bound to get it, and then some. Hold onto your hats, folks;...

Kelly M. Wilson Original Article07/10/2013By SUZANNE CARLSONSUFFIELD - A woman who police say lied about being raped by a masked intruder had actually slashed her body and choked herself with a dog collar in an effort to create "convincing" inj...

Fairfax County Police said a woman who made the charges of a sexual assault in Reston last February was charged with making a false police report. The 32-year-old woman, whose name was not released by police, had said she was walking on Pinecrest Road near the Laurel Glade Apartments about 11:20 p.m. on Feb. 25 when she was grabbed from behind, thrown into a Plymouth van, driven several blocks away and sexually assaulted by two men.

A woman who repeatedly accused her ex-boyfriends of raping her was today jailed after escaping justice for nearly a decade. Leanne Black made false rape claims against five different men over a period of eight years, but escaped justice until now. The 32-year-old used the rape allegations to get revenge on her partners after arguing with them - but a judge accused her of harming genuine rape victims with her lies. Black was sentenced to two years in prison at Newport Crown Court after pleading guilty to perverting the course of justice. In one case, she told police that her ex had drugged and raped her, and in another she claimed that a boyfriend had kidnapped her before violently abusing her. The innocent men could have faced up to five years in jail if they had been found guilty of raping her.

A 21-year-old woman, who had last month lodged a police complaint of rape against a father-son duo from Kalyan, has now retracted her allegations. The woman from Uttar Pradesh, Yasmeen Baig, has approached the Bombay high court and the police, claiming that she had lodged a false complaint against Shafique Shaikh and his 20-year-old son Aatesham alias Sonu. Yasmeen and Aatesham got married last week. On June 16, Yasmeen had accused Shafique and Aatesham - now her father-in-law and husband respectively - of having raped her over a period of time. Aatesham and Yasmeen were in love and wanted to get married. However, when his father learnt about this, he refused to grant consent to their marriage. This, said Yasmeen, had spurred her to lodge a police complaint against Shafique and Aatesham.

Original Article07/24/2013 Based on the data compiled in the NYS Wrongful Conviction Database, 35.5% of wrongful convictions since 1881 have been caused by official misconduct on the part of the prosecution and/or the police. This disregard for ...

The male summer camp student who reported a man attempted to rape him on the Iowa City pedestrian mall in the middle of the afternoon last week made up the story, police said Wednesday. The Iowa City Police Department is not filing charges against the juvenile. The department also is not releasing his name, as it doesn't identify juveniles. He was attending a summer camp at the University of Iowa, but left Iowa City after reporting the attack on July 15. The alleged victim was taken to the hospital last Monday after he reported being attacked around 1 p.m. in an alley off of the pedestrian mall. He told police his assailant was a slender white male, about six foot three inches tall.

A Norwegian woman has been sentenced to a year and a half in prison after she admitted to falsely claiming to have been raped. The 37-year-old woman's lawyer, Linda Ellefsen Eide, said that the penalty was "too high", stressing the serious impact it would have on the woman's children. But Rudolf Christoffersen, the prosecutor in the case, said it was important for the courts to deal stiffly with such false accusations.

A Magunje woman landed herself in trouble for making a false rape report against her lover in an attempt to save her marriage. She was fined US$200. Erena Kachara has up to September 30 to pay the fine or go to jail for a month. Kachara was convicted on her own plea of guilty when she was arraigned before Karoi magistrate Mr Robson Finsin last week.

On a summer day in 1980, 19-year-old Andre Davis stepped off a train 125 miles south of his native Chicago. He expected his visit would last the summer. Little did he know he wouldn't return home for more than 30 years. Andre had just graduated from high school and traveled to the central Illinois town of Rantoul, population 20,000, to learn his father's business. Richard Davis-known as "Crazy Legs" for his brilliant moves on the dance floor-was a disc jockey serving nearby Chanute Air Force Base.