I rarely post on this kind of thing Archived Message Posted by Raskolnikov on May 7, 2019, 8:11 am but this story seems to be an incredible inversion of the truth. The subject is rape and false accusations thereof which is obviously a hot topic and this is only a TV review but those pages are quite high profile at the fraud so it certainly counts as far as reaching their readers goes. I hadn't heard of the case, nor have I yet watched the programme reviews, but after reading this article I did some (admittedly brief) web searching and so far I've found that this review gives a completely false impression of what happened. In the US, the average conviction rate for reported rapes (already the tip of a despicably large iceberg) is about 3%. By the end of Sex on Trial, Channel 4’s documentary about the Nikki Yovino case, you could be forgiven for marvelling that it is even that high. It is a study in competing narratives, shifting perspectives and power relations and it begins in December 2016, when Yovino, an 18-year-old Connecticut university student, reported to the police that she had been raped by two student football players after they pulled her into the bathroom at a Christmas party. Her statement was taken by sex crime investigator of nearly 30 years’ standing, Walberto Cotto, who spent the next few weeks talking to Yovino’s friends, people at the party and combing through her social media posts. At the end of it, he says, “events didn’t make sense to me”. He didn’t interview the alleged assailants. Asked in the documentary why not, he replied: “They didn’t want to. They didn’t trust law enforcement. And I understand that.” It was at this point that I found myself thinking suddenly of Ely – the name given in Douglas Adams and John Lloyd’s The Meaning of Liff to mean “that first tiny inkling that something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong.” Cotto did reinterview Yovino, though. He and another officer went to her house, separated her from her parents and began insisting that she tell them “the truth”. The programme played the interview audiotapes at length. Some viewers will doubtless side with the accused men’s defence lawyer Frank Riccio and hear, in the repeated questions and refusal to accept various answers and in the officers’ (perfectly legal) pretence that videos of the entire event exist (contradicting, he insinuates, everything she claimed in her first interview), law enforcement robustly testing the reliability of their main witness. Others will as surely side with Professor Lisa Avalos, an expert on sexual violence, who sees an interview shaped entirely round Cotto’s desire to prove Yovino is lying, rather than a desire to seek the truth, and her eventual reluctant agreement with him as a result of bewilderment and intimidation. I personally can hear disorientation set in for Yovino, followed by her casting around for ways to appease this man who is denying her reality at every turn. I can practically feel every people-pleasing sinew in my body – trained over decades – strain with hers to find a way out of this interview that keeps us both happy. I can imagine myself in her shoes – just as I, like most of my age and sex, could picture exactly the scene when she described “giving my friend big eyes to say ‘let’s go’”, when the men came on to her on the dancefloor beforehand. In the Instagram exchanges with one of the alleged rapists, Cotto sees proof that she lied about knowing them. I see attempted pick-up lines politely rebuffed by a girl, just as I would have done it 20-odd years ago. Does this grant me valuable insight, or simply make me dangerously inclined to believe her? Should I stand with Riccio’s assertion that if you ask an honest person the same question a hundred times, they will stand by the same answer, or allow that human nature is irreducibly more complex than this? Yovino is charged and convicted of making a false rape claim, serving six months in prison. There is much she would like to say, she explains now, but cannot as she is being sued by the two men. The programme was admirably dispassionate, but the simple act of juxtaposing participants’ opposing viewpoints painted a horrifying portrait of the shortcomings of the system and the proliferating extrajudicial factors at play when dealing with sexual assault. From a less dispassionate viewer’s perspective, it was a dizzying demonstration of the way the life experiences, unchallenged world views and internalised prejudices of those in power can enable mistakes (at best) and the wilful abuse of that power (at worst). Yovino’s was a story whose nightmarish twists and turns you are tempted to label Kafkaesque until you realised that there is, in fact, a sound logic underpinning it all. It’s the remorseless, brutal logic of misogyny, which knows that the more women you define as liars, the stronger your hold on power becomes. That is the value in not believing victims. It would all make perfect sense. The results could form the basis for an infinite number of documentaries, a fury-making evolution of the “true crime re-investigation trend. That is, after all, where we best look for justice now. https://www.dumptheguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/06/sex-on-trial-review-a-story-of-nightmarish-twists-and-turns After reading that, I started searching for information on the case and found this: Nikki Yovino, a Long Island woman who admitted making up a rape accusation against two Sacred Heart University football players, will be spending a year in jail as part of a plea agreement that spared her the six-year sentence she had faced. The former Sacred Heart University student agreed to the plea deal Tuesday, the Connecticut Post reported. Instead of the felony charges she faced, and the six-year sentence that went along with them, Yovino pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree falsely reporting an incident and one count of interfering with police. All of the charges are misdemeanors. According to the deal, Yovino will be sentenced on Aug. 23 to three years in prison, which will be suspended after the first year, followed by three additional years of probation. “We were prepared to go to trial on the original felony charge, but after lengthy discussions with all parties involved and considering all outside factors, this was an appropriate disposition that will hopefully set a precedent about how serious the state takes this conduct,” Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Tatiana Messina said in court. “The important thing is that the victims are happy with the disposition,” Assistant State’s Attorney Emily Trudeau said. Yovino, of South Setauket, New York, had originally claimed she was raped during an off-campus party in October 2016. Sacred Heart University is located in Fairfield, Connecticut. The alleged incident took place in Bridgeport. According to the affidavit for Yovino’s arrest, she changed her story three months later when questioned by Detective Walberto Cotto Jr. “She admitted that she made up the allegation of sexual assault against (the football players) because it was the first thing that came to mind and she didn’t want to lose (another male student) as a friend and potential boyfriend,” according to the affidavit. “She stated that she believed when (the other male student) heard the allegation it would make him angry and sympathetic to her.” The two men falsely accused may sue Yovino, said Frank Riccio II, who represents them. “While this disposition does not replace that which the boys lost, it does send a powerful message that lying about a serious incident carries serious consequences,” Riccio said. The names of those accused of rape were never released. Nikki Yovino’s actions “seriously affected” the two men, Riccio said. “They’re no longer in school,” Riccio said. “The loss of their education and the college experience has certainly affected them greatly. And this is all because of a very serious lie.” https://www.westernjournal.com/female-college-student-jail-rape/ Does that even sound like the two pieces are actually about the same case? I'm aware of how the police can manufacture false confessions, even in murder cases, and "talking the victim down" is a common complaint in the investigation of these crimes, which for the record I think aren't investigated well at all, especially the on campus/sports stars situation, but is anything helped by making out this was a miscarriage of justice when it seems fairly clear it was a false accusation? I realise the police could be doing their usual "over-charge and they'll take a plea" routine here but even so, from the little I've found so far, this seems like a case of false accusation of rape and the twisting of the facts in the TV review is dishonest and counter productive. Everything in the fraudian article is biased towards Yovino; for example: Yovino is charged and convicted of making a false rape claim, serving six months in prison. There is much she would like to say, she explains now, but cannot as she is being sued by the two men. She PLEAD GUILTY and was sentenced to ONE YEAR, reduced with time served. These are just basic facts and yet the author has to twist an spin it so a completely false impression is given, but one that is more favourable to the guilty party. I'll watch the programme inquestion and do more research on the case but any input and correction would be welcome. Message Thread: I rarely post on this kind of thing - Raskolnikov May 7, 2019, 8:11 am TV is a fiction medium now - Keith-264 May 7, 2019, 8:38 am   Searching