News media won't name accuser in Santana - The Pretended Rape Society

The Johan Santana case raises, once again, verytroubling questions around the way rape claims are reported in this country. New York Mets pitcher Johan Santana was suedby a woman named Deanna Williams whoclaimsSantana sexually assaulted her in 2009 on a south Fort Myers golf course. Santanasupposedly "tore off her dress" and "assaulted her even though she begged and pleaded with him to stop.

Williams also claims that Santana impregnated her but that she afterward had a miscarriage. Santana claims the sex was consensual, and he's filed a counterclaim accusing Williams of defamation and malicious prosecution. The court papers he filed use terms such as "extortion," "blackmail" and "sham rape claim."Here isWilliams' amendedcomplaint, and hereis the court docket, which shows the event is in the discoveryphase. Santana, 31, states the woman searched terms such as "false rape," "evidence preservation" and "Johan Santana" on her home computers, which she refused to let Lee County sheriff's detectives inspect. Detectives later obtained a seek warrant to visit the computers. Note that if Ms. Williams Googled "false rape," the real first entry she would have found is this site. There is merely the civil action pending. Neither party will face criminal sanctions as a solution ofthe disposal of this case. There are no criminal charges pending. The police dropped their investigation into the supposed sexual assault for "want of evidence." They said that "the supposed victim`s statement is not coherent with other witnesses." While the criminalinvestigationwas ongoing, Santana claims that Williams demanded substantial sums of money. "She threatened to register a civil case which would expose Santana to public outrage and ridicule unless Santana paid (the woman)," the counter lawsuit states. "(The woman) knew the claims she made to the Lee County Sheriff's Office were mistaken and she maliciously misrepresented to the law that she had not consented to make sex with Santana. (Her) sole design in making up these allegations was to extort Santana to pay (her) substantial sums of money to avoid having her contrived allegations made public." Last November Lee Circuit Judge Michael McHugh ruled that Williams, who initially filed the case as "Jane Doe," would take to attach her actual key to the case in society to preserve the court action. Even though therewon't be any criminal charges, and even thoughtthe judge has arranged that Williams' name be publicly identified in court records as percentage of the case, news outlets still arenot naming her "because she might be the dupe of a sex crime." The word media has even redacted all identifying information aboutWilliams from the law report reproduced in connexion with its study of the story. Seehere. Did you get that? In a classic "he said/she said" civil lawsuit, she is granted anonymity by the word media. His report is blackened, possibly beyond repair. The news media's insistence on shielding the identities ofsex accusers in even civil matters is beyond troubling. Unlike a criminal case, a civil dispute is a secret one. Ms. Williams' claim, even if true,will not sustain a rapist off the streets or protect other women from him.It willdo nothing more thanline Ms. Williams' pockets with a lot of money.Ms. Williams has chosen to seek money from Mr. Santantaby using a publicly funded institution, as is her right.The label was absolutely right in holding that she couldn't pursue this process as "Jane Doe." Yet, the word media steadfastly refuses to study on a subject that is news, byany measure, and that is a count of world record.Why should a possible false rape accuser be afforded an advantage in a private disputeover the man who could very easily be the actual victim here? But don't mind to me. Naomi Wolf,feminist high priestess,opposes anonymity for even criminal matters:"Feminists have long argued that rape must be treated like any other crime. But in no other crime are accusers kept behind a wall of anonymity. Treating rape so differently serves merely to assert its mischaracterization as a 'different' sort of crime, loaded with cultural baggage and projections. . . . . Though children`s identities should, of course, be shielded in sex-crime allegations, women are not children. If one makes a dangerous criminal accusation, one must want to be treated - and one must treat oneself - as a moral adult." Prof. Alan Dershowitz, the sage of Harvard Law School, once said this:"People who have departed to the law and publicly invoked the criminal work and accused somebody of a serious offence such as rape must be identified. In this state there is no such matter and should not be such a thing as anonymous accusation. If your list is in court it is a logical extension that it should be printed in the media. How can you write the list of the presumptively innocent accused but not the call of the accuser?" Ms. Wolf and Prof. Dershowitz were criticizing anonymity in the setting of a criminal case. The caseto scrapanonymity is all the more compellingthe further one movesaway from the criminal arena. There is no reasoned justification for itwhere the accuser is seeking lucre as her justice in a secret civil action. And, I'd add this: I am not evensure that the word media consistently applies its policyof shielding the identities of sex offense accusers when the genders are switched. See here.