The New Witch Hunt - Rape Hunters of Maine
Dusty
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http://mensnewsdaily.com/2009/10/23/false-rape-witch-hunts-gone-wild/
False Rape Witch Hunts Gone Wild
Friday, October 23, 2009
By John Lucas
Since last year, we have been following another interesting false rape
charge in an area of Maine which has an exorbitant amount of rape charges
for its population (60,000). They are averaging 4 rape charges per month.
The shameless tactics of Mary Kellett, and Michael Povich continue in the
state of Maine. It makes one wonder what they are really doing in their
capacities if they feel it necessary to prosecute every false allegation
this vigorously.
Here is what they've been up to lately. These cases should be dismissed with
prejudice. Instead, they enable the behaviors of this sick woman. Her name
is Ligia Filler, and she is a man's worst nightmare. Here is a sample of
evidence that Ms. Kellett has been fighting hard to suppress.
The state of Maine, Michael Povich, and Mary Kellett are guilty of trying to
block this evidence and the Filler's continue to run out of money to help
this poor man. This must stop and stop soon.
According to victims of prosecutions in Maine's Bar Harbor region, what is
taking place is a modern day Witch Hunt. Court documents suggest that
numerous men are currently facing charges of sexual misconduct in a small
county of little more than 50,000 people.
At the center of these prosecutions is a 44 year old Assistant District
Attorney Mary N. Kellett, who has a reputation for prosecuting men on
questionable evidence and questionable probable cause. As in the Salem
Witch Trials, these prosecutions are often based solely on accusations with
no physical or corroborating evidence.
Accusations against men in the county are widely publicized along with their
pictures, identities, and details of their private lives. Members of this
small community, who make up the jury pool, are presented with the notion
that when a prosecutor files numerous charges of sexual abuse that there
exist a solid, or at lease a reasonable, basis in evidence to justify the
arrest, detention, and a public prosecution of these men.
But the evidence presented in courts very often shows that any accusation
made regardless of the evidence was used to prosecute the accused men. Some
local attorneys have asserted that county prosecutor Mary Kellett ignores
evidence and the search for truth, but instead focuses on getting men
convicted for the allegations made by women. Kellett has made statements
that she does not believe women lie about rape. And even when some trials
illustrate that the accuser engaged in consensual sexual activity, Kellett
herself later characterizes the activities as punishment, done out of anger,
and rationalizes why they were not consensual.
These beliefs are shared by the most extreme feminists who for years have
asserted that all sex between men and women is rape, and that women just don't
realize that they are being raped even by their partners. In Hancock County
Maine, this extreme feminist philosophy is being put to practice by the
District Attorney's office. The prosecutor treats female accusations as
evidence and absolute truth. A team of sex offense responders at the DA's
office immediately embrace female's accusations and coach them through the
process. In the name of public safety, men are immediately stripped of
numerous Constitutional rights and effectively forced to disprove the
accusations against them in a public criminal trial.
The public's notions that prosecutors are faithful guardians of civil rights
and conservative discretion prove to be false in Hancock County. In
practice, the prosecutor's credibility is publicly re-enforced solely
through wide publicity of rare convictions. The line between justifiable
and unjustifiable prosecutions of men is blurred by selective media
coverage.
Little if any publicity is given to the bulk of the cases involving men who
were criminally charged and prosecuted with little evidence beyond
accusations, sometimes made by their girlfriends, wives, troubled step
children, or occasional sex partners. These men may remain in jail for
months, lose everything they have, sometimes can't see their children, and
never repair their reputations or the damage done to their lives. No
articles are written about how these men manage to put their lives back
together, get employment after being falsely arrested and prosecuted for
rape, or how vulnerable they become to future false allegations by other
abusive females in their lives.
The prosecutors like Mary Kellett act with full immunity for their actions
against men.
And it's not just for alleged sex crimes for which men are systematically
punished by the District Attorneys office in Hancock County. Men in the
community have been criminally charged for such alleged crimes as splashing
water on their wives, spitting, for "terrorism" due to offensive song
lyrics, visual aggression, and for what often can be viewed as any action
against a female. But at least those "crimes" don't carry the stigma and a
30 year prison sentence which comes with each class "A" gross sexual assault
charge, which is a frequent charge against men in Hancock County, and one of
the easiest and most profitable for a prosecutor to undertake.
Dr. Demosthenes Lorandos, who is a psychologist and an attorney, states that
"the crime of Rape has been known as the easiest criminal allegation to make
by an alleged victim, and the hardest to disprove by the defendant." And
that "a series of bias laws has made it easier to obtain convictions".
Not surprising that most of the innocent men who are exonerated by the
Innocence Project through DNA evidence, sometimes after decades in prison,
were falsely accused and convicted of rape. Some studies have placed the
rate of false sexual assault reports at 50% or more. That rate jumps to
almost 80% when accusations are made during divorce or child custody
disputes with girlfriends or wives.
And yet in Maine, media coverage remain eerily silent about local false
allegations and prosecutions of innocent men whose lives and reputations are
destroyed as a result. The female accusers are never named and continue to
live in obscurity even after their accusations prove false. Instead, the
local reports graphically focus on covering the accusations against men, and
at times even imply that the acquitted men have cheated justice.
One Bangor television station aired an interview with a local rape crisis
center official who stated that even if a woman falsely accuses a man of
rape, it is most important for law enforcement to believe the woman, act on
her report, and do exactly what she wants them to do. This implies that
arresting, charging, and publicly prosecuting innocent men is less harmful
than for authorities to question the words and motives of a woman making the
accusations. This appears to be the policy adopted in the Bar Harbor region
of Maine.
Crime statistics for the region have consistently shown a low rape rate, yet
not long after becoming a prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Mary
Kellett offered her own statistic of the Bar Harbor region. Speaking to a
local newspaper she stated that it could be difficult to find jurors in the
area for sex cases because many people have been victims of sex offenses or
have been accused of committing them.
An anonymous victim of prosecution by Mary Kellett stated: "I will never
have any faith in the justice system. They aren't interested in the truth.
It's a game for them. Some day this will go down as witch hunts." "My family
just wants to put this behind them. But it will never be over. I'm still
receiving hate mail because of my support [for the accused]. [The
prosecutor] used every unfair, low trick in the book to get a conviction and
when a jury of 12 called him not guilty they then say 'just because he wasn't
found guilty doesn't mean he's innocent'. I lock my doors and windows and
turn the dogs out at night."
One case which has received some attention is that of Vladek Filler, a
husband who was accused of sexual assault by his wife during their bitter
split up and custody battle. Filler, a self employed honors graduate from
Babson College, decided to leave his wife after 16 years and get custody of
his two sons. Child Protective Services and Court investigations granted
Filler temporary custody of his children. His wife was found to be a threat
and had her supervised visits with them suspended.
Prior to being arrested and charged for his wife's accusations, Filler
sought help from a local domestic violence organization which turned him
away and chose to give assistance to his abusive wife instead. Filler
sought a protection order from court and his wife decided to drop the
"nuclear bomb" of divorce and custody battles. She accused Filler of abuse,
child molestations, and spousal rape. She demanded immediate custody of
their children. A video about the events appeared on YouTube.
Despite absence of any corroborating evidence other than his wife's
accusation, the children were taken away, and prosecutor Mary Kellett had
Filler arrested, charged, and eventually convicted. What emerged after his
January 2009 trial were revealing details of how prosecutions of men are
conducted by prosecutor Mary Kellett and the Hancock County DA's office.
Filler was apparently not allowed to present any evidence at all of the
bitter custody battle, his wife's troubled past, or her false claims of
abuse in another custody battle with another man. nKellett, in turn told the
jury "there was no evidence that the sexual assaults did not occur", and
placed the burden on Filler to prove his innocence. Kellett suggested that
if forensic and physical examinations were conducted they would impede
justice in this case and that statistically Filler was more likely to
sexually assault his wife than a stranger. Aware that Filler was prevented
from presenting evidence, Kellett repeatedly told to the jury that a child
custody dispute did not even exist and therefore could not be a motive for
false accusations by his wife.
When considering the disturbing details of the Filler case, one can't help
but to wonder how something like this could happen in our justice system.
What is taking place in Hancock County Maine is extremism based on a myth
that men are inherently bad, and are a threat to helpless and innocent
women; that the State needs to punish and control men to maintain order
within relationships and families. This is not much different from how
Puritans viewed women accused of witchcraft in their community. The way men
are being characterized in Maine has caused the public to be fearful and
suspicious of men. Maine's Attorney General Janet Mills, a former co-founder
of the Maine Women's Lobby, recently stated that her number one priority is
domestic violence, and that "We need to send the message to boys and young
men in Maine". Such views from Maine's top law enforcement official are made
despite numerous credible studies suggesting that women are just as
responsible, if not more, for domestic violence and child abuse.
Such gender biased rhetoric demonizes boys, men, and fathers and leads to
the numerous falsely accused men to face years in prison and the perpetual
skewing of domestic violence statistics.
So powerful is the myth against men, that despite difficult fiscal and
economic times, the flow of funding to the domestic violence industry
continues to be strong, as does the prosecution of men. The message of the
rhetoric being sent to the girls in Maine is "blame the boys for everything
and the State will do the rest", so maybe the message to the boys in Maine
should now be "God help you".