General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPerson accused of rape by mattress hauling Columbia student had a prior accusation (at least one)
http://jezebel.com/i-am-not-a-pretty-little-liar-1705996719At this point, I should be used to seeing backlash against Emma Sulkowicz, but I still wasnt fully prepared for what came this week: endless tittering of people around me in real life and in my social feeds saying they werent sure about Emmas choice to carry her mattress to Columbias graduation; the insistence that Emmas alleged assailant Paul Nungesser had been proven innocent by Columbia and exonerated by the NYPD; the posters someone put up around Columbia with Emmas picture on them, calling her a PRETTY LITTLE LIAR.
Every time I read another version of this narrativethat Nungesser merely picked the wrong friends, that the complaints against him were a calculated vendettamy stomach flopped. Dont forget: before he appealed away the conviction, Paul Nungesser was found responsible for sexually assaulting a woman at Columbia. And Im writing this because that woman was me.
When I filed the complaint against Paul, I didnt know it would turn into a national event. It was over a year before Emma started carrying that weight, months before what happened at Columbia helped sparked a national dialogue about rape on college campus. I was just trying to do the right thing.
The incident happened my junior year at Columbia, when Paul followed me upstairs at a party, came into a room with me uninvited, closed the door behind us, and grabbed me. I politely said, Hey, no, come on, lets go back downstairs. He didnt listen. He held me close to him as I said no, and continued to pull me against him. I pushed him off and left the room quickly. I told a few friends and my boyfriend at the time how creepy and weird it was. I tried to find excuses for his behavior. I did a decent job of pushing it out of my mind.
.
.
.
more at above link
TheSarcastinator
(854 posts)I mean, who needs cops and courts: if a few angry bloggers with a decently large media footprint think he's 100% guilty and should be hung by the neck until dead, who are we to insist on the rule of law and due process? And look at the event described in this "news report" -- it is so horrific and shocking that he MUST be guilty.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)who needs cops and courts..."
As wrong decisions, indictments and arrests are never made by law enforcement or the courts, I can understand the absolute faith one may in the system over that of an individual.
(six of one, half a dozen of the other-- and both as peevishly irrelevant as the other)
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Jezebel doesn't figure into it.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Channeling your inner Huckabee?
SolutionisSolidarity
(606 posts)I hope Paul bankrupts her and the school for this fiasco.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)mythology
(9,527 posts)Friendship, you would have to understand that would be something people are going to look at. Instead she charges that people who question her about Facebook messages she agrees she wrote must be anti-feminist.
I get that not every sexual assault victim responds the same way. But to say that anybody who questions her is somehow anti-feminist. I think that's especially true when she does an art project on the subject of her rape and to a degree putting herself out as the the face of campus rape.
If she can't be questioned, why should I believe her over the guy?
SolutionisSolidarity
(606 posts)But if you insist I can go over a few of the more damning texts:
1. She claimed to have never shown an interest in anal sex and yet sent him a message telling him "Fuck me in the butt".
2. She claimed to have been traumatized by the incident but Paul argued that their relationship was completely unchanged at the time. As evidence of that he's got several records of them continuing to hang out together and corresponding without any sign antagonism. For instance, two days afterward he supposedly raped her he invited her to a party and asked her to bring "cool freshmen". She responded
"lol yusss. Also I feel like we need to have some real time where we can talk about life and thingz because we still havent really had a paul-emma chill sesh since summmmerrrr".
A few weeks later she initiated contact with him this time, ending the message with
"whatever I want to see yoyououoyou respondIll get the message on ma phone"
She claimed she would provide context for these messages but never did. Is that the way you talk to a man who brutally sodomized you against your will and left without a word? She was still telling him she loved him 2 months later. When I was raped I didn't want to keep hanging out with the dude afterward, and my story isn't nearly as traumatizing as the one she described.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)The thing about "innocent until proven guilty" is that "innocent" doesn't need to be in scare quotes.
Even under the preponderance of evidence standard used the university concluded that it was more likely that Sulkowicz was lying.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/262956362/Nungesser-Filed-Complaint
As best as I can figure, the writer of the Jezebel article is "jane doe#1"
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Allegations of texts and Facebook messages can be authenticated or disproven by forensic IT specialists.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Unlike Cosby where there are a slew of women on record with their accusations, here there's only an anonymous account.
I'm not exonerating Nungessor of anything but anonymous accounts don't prove much.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)One of which is that in the case with, for example, the Univ. of VA, we had how many thousands of feminists pile on, supporting the lies on, apparently, the basis of nothing.
So I'm not prepared, personally, to buy into contemporary rape narratives that have not only no basis in fact, but narratives which have been scrutinized by authorities and dismissed as baseless.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Columbia mishandled this either way IMHO.
I thought all charges had been dropped and she'd withdrawn the complaint.
Vattel
(9,289 posts)B2G
(9,766 posts)and it will never go to court.
Vattel
(9,289 posts)of this going to court.
trumad
(41,692 posts)Vattel
(9,289 posts)The evidence doesn't support the claim that this young man is guilty of anything. Your posting this makes you party to what in all probability is a horrific campaign of defamation.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Monk06
(7,675 posts)Last edited Fri May 22, 2015, 09:26 PM - Edit history (1)
That is from anonymous AKA Jane Doe #1, the bartender.
Nungesser did not "appeal his way out of the conviction." He appealed and she refused to return to Columbia and appear before the panel.
Nungesser has a right to appeal. She has a responsibility to defend her allegations against him.
She was approached by Sulkowicz a month before her, (Jane Doe#1s) graduation and encouraged to file a claim of inappropriate sexual conduct. She claimed the incident took place a year before April 2013, a claim she could not prove but by the low standard of proof of the panel he was deemed 'responsible'
Nungesser appealed and she refused to testify at the appeal. Her excuse was that she was too busy. She lives in New York. It's a cab ride downtown.
Nungesser contests that claim in his lawsuit against Columbia, Bolinger and Kessler, her art teacher who encouraged her to start this campaign. At this point nothing more can be said until Nungesser's lawsuit runs it's course. That's unless Columbia pays a fortune to make the case go away.
I am predicting they will do just that.