Crime victims should not have to pay their abusers!
For two days now I’ve listened to morning talk jock Chip Franklin’s incessant rant and “outrage” over the Chrystal Harris spousal rape case.
Her husband was unemployed, losing it mentally, it was a horrible time, I didn’t know what to do, she said. He threatened to kill her. He choked her, slapped her, raped her, sodomized her, and forced her to perform oral sex. She was able to tape record the attack which was truly horrific.
Chrystal had a six figure job. San Diego Superior Court Judge Gregory Pollock ordered her to pay spousal support to her husband when released from prison in 2014. The judge also ordered her to pay for his attorney’s legal fees.
Franklin started a scorched earth campaign against Judge Pollock, demeaned him, vilified him, and encouraged listeners to barrage him with protests. After all, Franklin was rightly “outraged” that victim Chrystal was being re victimized by being ordered to pay her abuser, the criminal, the perpetrator, her rapist…
Franklin was also incensed that Chrystal’s husband would immediately upon his release from prison have joint custody of their children.
Now San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis is proposing long overdue legislative reforms to ensure violent crime victims do not have to compensate their abusers. But why now? Such injustices are hardly new. Many individuals and organizations have been advocating for similar legislative reforms for years. Now Johnny-come-latlies rise from the ashes like a born again Phoenix.
Were Chrystal a similarly victimized man the story would not have triggered Franklin’s sensationalism sensor and Dumanis would not be proposing reform legislation. A man’s victimization would have been a non event, understandable, perfectly fine, no big deal, nothing to get excited about.
So why have earlier pleas for crime victims reforms been ignored?
Franklin wondered if “the old school guys” in Sacramento were the culprit. He thought “this was” an issue feminists should really get behind. He railed against the court and criminal justice systems for being unfair by re victimizing abused women. He praised the courage of the four or five women who called to tell him they had been raped but got no justice. Apparently he knew for a fact the callers were indeed rape victims, no other evidence required. If they had been male rape victims would Franklin’s outrage been the same?
Franklin often mentions how he was raised by his mother and older sisters, which may explain his deference to women issues and superficial treatment of issues adversely impacting men and boys. Like the rest of us Franklin is a product of his environment. While understandable, though harmful, he, like millions of others, is chivalrous at the general expense and injury of males.
For example, Frankin gave cursory lip service to Mariah Yeater’s claim that she had sex with heart throb pop star Justin Bieber.
As many of you now know, Yeater later gave birth to a son and wants a paternity test. Yeater was legally an adult and Bieber legally a child when they allegedly had sex. If the sex occurred, Yeater probably will not be arrested, not be tried, and not be imprisoned. Yeater will be shown to be a poor, misguided, and desperate young woman scheming to survive the best way should could contrive. She may even be portrayed as victimized like real crime victims. If she lied, falsely accused, jeopardized the life of another, she won’t be arrested, tried, or imprisoned for that either; not even fined.
If true however, Yeater is by law a rapist. Even so, victim Bieber may be ordered to pay millions in child support to Yeater, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover Yeater’s attorney’s legal bills.
What if Yeater were the 15-year-old pop star and Bieber the 19-year-old rapist? Then, should Yeater, a young girl, be required to pay child support to Bieber and his legal bills? Never happen; and, Bieber would probably do some time behind bars.
Why should rapist Yeater retain custody of “their” purported child? Shouldn’t Bieber, the rape victim, be given custody, receive child support, and have his legal fees paid by Yeater?  Or, should that apply only when the victim is female?
Let’s consider the case of Omaima Nelson. Last month, in Orange County, California, her bid for parole was denied, thank God.
Omaima murdered her husband, chopped him up bite-size, cooked his body parts, ate him and chased her dinner down with a bit of white wine. Police found her husband’s head in the refrigerator, hands in a fry cooker, and entrails in his Corvette. Apparently Omaima sat at the kitchen table with her husband’s cooked remains and said out loud: “It’s so sweet, it’s so delicious…. I like mine tender.”
There are no issues of spousal or child support for Omaima the Cannibal, her husband is dead. However, this case is so horrendous one would think it would be a focus of talk shows like Franklin’s. Yet I cannot find anything to show he ever mentioned Omaima’s predilection for sweet meat. Regardless, I suspect Franklin could not resist reviling the man who butchered his wife, fricasseed her, and chased his dinner down with a fine wine?
Then there’s Westminster, California sweetheart Catherine Kieu. In July 2011 Kieu poisoned her 60-year-old husband, tied him to a bed after he passed out from being sick, waited until he awoke, cut off his penis with a 10-inch kitchen knife, and in their garbage disposal ground his severed organ into sewage. Police found him in great pain, terrorized and bleeding profusely. He was hospitalized in critical condition. She said, “[h]e deserved it.”
“It’s hard to believe what would motivate a person to do this sort of thing. It’s one of the worst things you could do to a person short of killing him,” said District Attorney, Susan Kang Schroeder.” I agree and such a crime has to be worse than threats, stalking, choking, and even rape?
So why wasn’t Franklin “outraged” about Kieu? Like Nelson, I couldn’t find any evidence that Franklin ever mentioned Kieu’s butchery let alone devoted considerable air time to it like he did for Chrystal’s rape.
If Kieu is released from jail, not convicted because of some “abuse excuse”, not sent to prison where she belongs, it’s possible her husband will have to pay her spousal support. Will Franklin be up in arms, albeit “outraged” about that? Doubt it. Franklin may be of the ilk that rallies with, “What did he do to piss her off.”
Consider choking. Not strangulation, but “choking”. Hands squeezing throat, thumbs deep in flesh, lungs begging for air, eyes bulging from fear, it stops, hands removed, red marks, bruising, breathing freely again, still fearful, rightfully so, now safe, nightmares, perhaps forever, not good, certainly a crime, but it’s over, those few minutes of abject terror…
Now, consider paternity fraud, a choking of a different kind, much more devastating, seldom if ever prosecuted; perpetrators are readily identifiable, always goes free, and seldom suffer sanctions. The victims, thousands of men annually, are indentured up to 20 years or more to their female perpetrators and the State which is not only complicit in the crime but, openly protects the perpetrators.
These women are rewarded with tens of thousands of dollars in child support, counties get millions in Social Security Title IV-D incentive dollars, and the victim gets the privilege of paying for being victimized, just like Chrystal being ordered to pay legal fees and spousal support.
Undue mental and emotional force is by definition “violence”. Paternity fraud certainly causes all of that and then some. Yet legislators and the agencies charged with child custody collections fight hook, line, and sinker against outlawing this perverse and debilitating thievery. All victims are fair game males.
Have you noticed a theme yet? Are you now able to answer the question why the laws were not changed earlier to protect real victims? Have you figured out why there has been no public outcry, no interest, and no political will to stop rewarding certain types of criminals by ordering their victims to support their abusers?
If not, you might want to read this article again while wondering why so many fathers with sons seem predisposed to sacrifice their lives to protect felonious women. I imagine people like Franklin find revolting the mere thought of wondering such a thing. Tomorrow, like millions of others, he’ll start pandering to women again. He still won’t get it…
It’s the good’ol “Women’s Caucus” that virtually controls or influences every piece of state legislation. Is it possible feminists have not rallied for reforms because they long ago realized that overtime such reforms may cost women more than they gain? Powerful legislative committees are often controlled by misandric female legislators who for decades have prevented meaningful paternity fraud and other reform legislation that benefit males. Courtly, if not fearful, male legislators generally acquiesce. New school feminists and “ol’school guys” drove legislation to absurdity where victims pay their abusers. Needed is common sense legislative reform absent gender politics. Needed are influential talk show hosts who “get it”, otherwise they do great harm.
