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October 12, 2018
Is This The Beginning Of The End Of #MeToo? As Author Of 'Sh*tty Media Men' List Gets Sued, Sexual Assault Charge Against Weinstein Dropped Over Accuser's Credibility
- Good Riddance To A Movement That Causally Destroyed Careers Without Due Process
Nearly a year after the much talked about and dangerous #MeToo movement began, the country watched as Democratic politicians, along with their media cohorts, attempted to destroy the life, career and reputation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in a failed attempt to prevent him from being confirmed to the Supreme Court, based on allegations, with no proof and no corroboration.
#METOO MOVEMENT BEGAN WITH WEINSTEIN
In order to come around full circle to the spectacle we just witnessed regarding the Kavanaugh conformation, we have to look back a year to where the whole #MeToo movement began, which was with the accusations against Harvey Weinstein.
The #MeToo movement began after movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was accused as having sexually assaulted multiple actresses, exposed by Ronan Farrow over at the New Yorker. Women on Twitter started using the hashtag #MeToo, to claim sexual misconduct on the part of dozens of men, in different industries. Some of the claims were valid, but others were simply thrown out there without any type of evidence, or proof, no police reports, no formal complaints.
At the time we noted that while some of the accusations against Weinstein included creepy behavior, of his attempts to get women naked, to massage him, etc.... others were serious claims of rape and sexual assault, but they were all being conflated as all those making the claims were being put on to one "accusers list," yet some of those listed as an "accuser" were never even touched, they simply described disgusting behavior.
Weinstein was a creep, used his position to utilize the infamous "casting couch," offering acting opportunities to those that were willing to trade sexual favors for plum jobs. That is disgusting behavior, but not criminal. The criminal accusations should have been what was focused on, rather than parading high profile celebrities out and including them all, even those that turned him down and went on the merry way.
One of those women was Lucia Evans, who claimed Weinstein forced her to to perform oral sex on him in 2004, and the other accuser is unnamed, but accuses him of raping her in a Manhattan hotel in 2013.
Lucia Evans was one of the first accusers named in the New Yorker story that blew the whole thing wide open, which is what began the #MeToo movement.
The sexual assault charge against Weinstein that related to Lucia Evans' allegation has now been dropped by prosecutors after exculpatory evidence emerged indicating she may have consented to performing oral sex on Weinstein.
On October 10, 2018, the website Page Six described how the case against Weinstein, in relation to Evans, was unraveling:
But a prior employer of Evans turned over the personal writings she’d left on the company computer, which appear to contradict her grand jury testimony, a law enforcement source said.
“The writings indicate it was consensual, friendly,” a source told The Post. “It has caused a split [in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office], some believe the charges should be dropped and that there’s a problem [with this complainant].”
As of October 10, prosecutors still had not dropped the Evans' related charge, but by October 12th that changed.
But in a letter to the defense unsealed on Thursday, Manhattan prosecutors disclosed that a friend of Evans told an NYPD detective in February that Evans agreed to perform oral sex on Weinstein in exchange for the promise of an "acting job." The detective acknowledges he "failed to inform" the district attorney's office of "important details" of the interview. But Goldberg says Evans' friend changed her story.
On Feb. 2, Det. Nicholas DiGaudio interviewed a friend of Weinstein accuser Lucia Evans by telephone but told prosecutors she didn’t want to cooperate, according to the filing.
About six months later, prosecutors interviewed the pal, who said that she was with Evans at a Manhattan bar in the summer of 2004 when Weinstein offered the women “cash if they exposed their breasts to him.”
Evans told her friend when they walked home that night that she had flashed her breasts to Weinstein in the restaurant’s hallway.
Sometime later, Evans told the pal that she had gone to Weinstein’s office “where the Defendant told her, in substance, that he would arrange for the Complainant to receive an acting job if she agreed to perform oral sex upon him.”
The friend told prosecutors that Evans admitted she performed the sex act and during the conversation was “upset, embarrassed and shaking.”
In a shocking disclosure, the pal said that she gave the same account to the detective during the Feb. 2 phone interview while her attorney was present — adding that she had also told him that a fact checker from the New Yorker had called to confirm Evans’ assault claims.
The charges regarding the other women are still viable and Weinstein will be prosecuted on them, and if he is found guilty, may he rot in jail, but the Evans' saga should show us all that allegations alone should not be enough to convict anyone in the "court of public approval," even a scumbag like Weinstein, is guaranteed "due process."
AUTHOR OF 'SH*TTY MEDIA MEN' LIST IS BEING SUED
In the midst of the Weinstein scandal and the beginning of the "empowered" women of the newly formed #MeToo movement, who thought nothing about destroying careers on nothing more than an allegation of "sexual misconduct," Buzzfeed reported on the existence of a list going around the internet, titled "Sh*tty Media Men."
The list was put onto a Google spreadsheet, where other women could anonymously list a man's name, his alleged "sexual misconduct," and spread rumors and warnings for women in the journalism industry.
Buzzfeed described the list in the following manner:
The allegations on the spreadsheet range from “flirting” and “weird lunch dates“ to accusations of rape, assault, stalking, harassment, and physical violence.
Much like the Weinstein reporting, the person that authored the list, who later revealed herself to be Moira Donegan, created the list, emailed it, and allowed anonymous women to add to the document with their own warnings of alleged sexual misconduct.
One of the trends which I have noted before is the conflation of men that flirt, have some very bad "lines," hit on, or otherwise attempt to start a relationship being mixed in with men that actually abuse, rape and harass women.
A recent example of this came from the reports of the existence of the "Sh*tty Media Men" list, where women claiming that men had raped them, attacked them, physically harassed them sexually were listed on the same Google document as men "flirting" and "weird lunch dates." In other words men that had done nothing illegal, unethical, harmful or in any way wrong were being lumped in with men that physically assaulted women, yet this "whisper" network was being passed around to women in the media industry and destroying the reputation of some innocent men along with the guilty.
Many men on this list that had their behavior described as rape or actual sexual abuse, have been publicly outed, resigned or fired after claims went public where victims finally named names, but others have had their reputations damaged for simply being on the list without accusations of any actual wrongdoing and now that stigma will always hang over their heads and careers.
Now we see that one of the men who was put on the "sh*tty media men" list, Stephen Elliot, is suing the lists creator, Moira Donegan, and Jane Does 1-30 (the 30 women that anonymously added names to the spreadsheet), for no less than $1.5 million in "damages caused by Defendants' libelous communication of knowingly false statements in a publicly accessible, shared Google spreadsheet circulated via electronic mail (email) to the parties' professional colleagues, namely women in the media industry."
Elliott is asking the court to find that the "false and defamatory" information was published with "malice." The damages cited in the lawsuit embedded below, include: "damages to physical well-being, emotional and psychological damages, damages to reputation, past and future economic losses, loss of career and business opportunities, as well as loss of future career prospects, plus prejudgment interest, attorneys fees, expenses, costs and disbursements."
Unless the anonymous woman or women that accused Elliott of "Rape accusations, sexual harassment, coercion, unsolicited invitations to his apartment," are prepared to go to the police, file a report and testify in court so that he can be judged by a jury of his peers, Elliott is afforded the presumption of innocence.
Period.
If they are not prepared to do that, then they never should have added his name on the list, nor should the list have been maliciously spread around the Internet, as it is up online and public to this day, still causing men that have not been afforded any due process to be labeled a sexual assailants.
HOPEFULLY THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE ABUSED #METOO MOVEMENT
Women across the internet have abused what could have been a movement to truly help women find the courage to report sexual assaults, turning it into a movement where any man can be named, accused of vile and despicable actions, ruined career-wise and in his home life, without one shred of evidence, without due process, and without an opportunity to face their accuser and defend themselves.
Yes, women have the right to be heard, but men accused of sexual assault also have the right to defend themselves without their lives being ruined over uncorroborated allegations.
BOTTOM LINE - FULL CIRCLE
Which brings us back full circle to the Kavanaugh spectacle and specifically, Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker. Farrow first exposed Weinstein, and now the charges relating to one of the people Farrow and the New Yorker highlighted have been dropped over accuser credibility issues.
Farrow and the New Yorker also played a large part in the Kavanaugh spectacle, after Chritine Blasey Ford's allegations became public, with her own "witnesses" denying the gathering or party where she claims Brett Kavanaugh attempted to assault her 35 years ago, ever happened, Farrow published the claims of Deborah Ramirez, who claimed that 30+ years ago, while she was on the ground, slurring drunk, he exposed his genitals.
Once again, there were no corroborating witnesses, and Ramirez herself admitted to friends she couldn't even be sure it was Kavanaugh, until after she spent days with her attorneys "accessing" memories
It was later revealed that Farrow and the other writer of that irresponsible report, alleging activities that no one could prove or corroborate, did so with a specific purpose. "The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer said in a Monday interview that she and fellow writer Ronan Farrow aggressively pursued a second Kavanaugh accuser to prove that the judge had a 'pattern of misconduct'," as reported by the Daily Caller.
Mayer stated "So having watched this before, I knew that key issues would be whether the judge had a pattern of similar behavior, since that helps establish who is telling the truth when there is a standoff, and whether there were credible corroborators on either side. Knowing this is why Ronan Farrow and I were so alert to the significance of other accusers, such as Deborah Ramirez. Her allegation showed that, if true, yes, there was a pattern of misconduct, and likely another side of the judge."
Emphasis mine.
If true..... wow, Mayer admits that Farrow and she were more than willing to destroy Kavauagh's reputation, long-held career, and his chances at a life time appointment to the Supreme Court, by spreading allegations, with no firsthand witnesses to corroborate her claims, simply to give the impression that there was some sort of "pattern of misconduct."
This ladies and gentlemen is why due process is so critical. The media is pushing a political agenda without any regard to truth and they don't care how many lives they destroy in the process.
From the Lucia Evans' charge being dropped against Weinstein over her "credibility," to the sh*tty media men list lawsuit, to the failed attempt to destroy Justice Kavanaugh, we have seen a movement that could have truly helped women come forward to hold sexual predators accountable in a court of law, instead become nothing more than a weapon to destroy any man they may not like.
To the women that abused the movement for personal vendettas, for 15 minutes of fame, or just because they are feminazis that want to destroy men, shame on you because the victims of your abuse are the real sexual assault survivors that truly could have benefited from the support of the movement.
This may be the beginning of the end of the #MeToo movement, and if it is, good riddance.
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