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Vermont Lawmaker Releases Spy Cam Video of Rival Lawmaker Dumping Water in his Bag | Seven Days Vermont (m.sevendaysvt.com)

submitted 5 months ago by oleorun@real.lemmy.fan to c/weirdnews@real.lemmy.fan

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[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

She could have just denied it was her in the video. It is impossible to prove if someone denies it.

In Australia my friend identified a woman appearing clearly in a TV news bulletin being arrested at an anti-lockdown rally and complaining loudly. In fact it was official supplementary extended footage from the TV station uploaded to youtube: about 20 seconds of just her.

She is denying it was her though and is suing him for defamation. It has cost him over ~~US$100~~ US$100k so far and the hearing day has not even arrived.

[–] gila@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

We have pretty strong courts though and if she loses the judgement she'll likely be ordered to pay your friends' costs.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I meant $100k (not $100). I doubt he will get costs even if he wins. She also got an AVO out against him based on this. Claims it has ruined her business (she wants $100k for lost revenue despite not showing tax returns) and that she fears for her life complete with waterworks in the hearing (despite him living interstate).

The current political climate is biased in her favour. After the Higgins trial win Larissa Waters tweeted "I believe women".

He subpoenaed mug shots of the women arrested at the rally but none are of her. Seems the police are in on it, using her as a honeypot to attract the extremists. Courts protect police.

[–] gila@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Dodgy tactics like that are why it matters that our courts are strong: it's not going to matter that she got an AVO out because if they didn't have a history of conflict prior to his genuine identification of her in the video, it's not relevant to the defamation case and won't hold up in court.

Whether it's technically possible to prove it's her in the video isn't materially relevant to a defamation case if it's obvious to the average observer that it's her. If she prove it wasn't her, she'd need to prove his identification of her was intentionally malicious to win a defamation claim against him.

The idea that the Lehrmann trial indicates the courts are generally biased toward women is a couple bridges too far. Larissa Waters believes women in regards to their allegations of sexual assault against them where alleged male perpetrator denies it and where there isn't a sufficient body of contradictory evidence. She isn't saying she generally believes women about any and every grievance they may have, especially not having awareness spread about a crime they genuinely committed.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The AVO matters because the court tacked on a new condition a few months later in a hearing he wasn't even invited to: He was not to mention her publicly even indirectly (eg "one of the people running group X").

Identifying her in the video isn't resulting just in her seeking civil defamation against him but also pushing for criminal contempt of court (despite due process being ignored by the court).

Meanwhile she was allowed to continue defaming him. In fact him suing her for defamation is how it all started: she posted publicly that he is a sexual predator and stalker. So there are two opposing defamation cases in the pipeline and the one criminal case against my friend.

The successful AVO was intended by her to demonstrate to her thousands of followers that her accusations were valid, even though she had no relevant evidence for the rubber stamp AVO. The add-on was to gag him so that he could not deny the allegations she was publicly making against him.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I interpret Larissa Waters' tweet as you did and am shocked by it. That you seem to consider it reasonable is disturbing.

While it is unfortunate that women without rape evidence cannot get justice, there are just as many evil women in the world as there are evil men. If they automatically get believed without evidence in rape allegations (or predator/stalker allegations like my friend's case) then of course the evil ones will exploit that to put in jail the men they simply don't like.

I have it on good authority that she has me next in her sights because I am co-admin of what she sees as a rival activist group. This is the right-wing hijacking well intentioned but naive left-wing sentiment.

[–] gila@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They aren't, though. That's not an accurate preposition to associate with the courts from the circumstances given (about the case already determined), especially given Lehrmann's trial was abandoned. The more recent findings against him were to do with a civil matter that he brought to the court. Any conclusion about the validity of his legal arguments is undermined by the fact he was under no obligation to make them.

There aren't any actual cases where a false rape claim has been manufactured to exploit lack of evidence about the alleged perp's alibi, because obviously real legal and non-legal risk remains about that, regardless of any standing prejudgement about belief. Consider even in the example you're giving to justify prejudice of the court, there was no court-determined penalty imposed upon the accused to speak of. In that case you're just asking for legal redress for the court not arbitrating public opinion about details of a truth defense that was forced by the complainant.

At best your position is against a perceived gender inequality whose legitimate purpose serves to address a real documented problem for many generations in Australia, over the imaginary problem you're highlighting. I doubt your friend's case will turn out as a better example of it. At least on the divorce court side of things you could find real bias towards women that is consistent with public opinion about those matters.

It's probably a better example of a problem we do have, which is abuse of legal resources that she likely happens to have laying around to arbitrarily sue over nothing & try to force out-of-court settlement. That's gender-neutral, though, and more a product of litigation as an industry than anything else.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I wasn't complaining about the Lerhrman-Higgins outcome, only Larissa Waters' asinine comment.

There aren't any actual cases where a false rape claim has been manufactured to exploit lack of evidence about the alleged perp's alibi

Any? You are very confidently wrong. Just Google it. eg here and here and here and here.

My friend wasn't even allowed to publicly defend himself against defamatory allegations of sexual misconduct which continued to be made with impunity. When he tried to raise her behavior at the IVO hearing he was told to shut up by the (female) magistrate because the hearing was about him not her.

I should have mentioned that this was in Victoria which has recently changed to new laws which allow such abuse of process.