Calif: Close enough for government work [says FR & KFI retaliated against Arnold accuser]

Pittsburg Post-Gazette ^ | October 12, 2003 | Dennis Roddy

[John Jorsett]

Shortly after she became the 16th woman to say Arnold Schwarzenegger had groped, fondled or otherwise sexually harried her, Rhonda Miller was gang raped by politics.

Lawyer Gloria Allred tells the story this way. She got a call from Miller, a 53-year-old stunt double who worked on two of Schwarzenegger's films. Miller told Allred that Schwarzenegger had pulled up her shirt and snapped a photo of her breasts and had groped her during the filming of two of his movies.

[John Jorsett]

Through it all, there was a plaintive refrain from a single person on the FreeRepublic site: "Are we sure this is the same Rhonda Miller?"

At a minimum, there were two. I know because I made a reply to that post saying we ought to be careful and that there must be lots of Rhonda Millers in LA. (Can anyone find that thread again? I tried, but didn't succeed.) So Mr. Roddy either didn't read the thread in its entirety, or ignored my post because it makes a better accusation.

I think the article has at least one valid point: FR was a hasty in labeling the woman a criminal. Let's leave that kind of tactic to Democrats. It was good enough to note that her story fell apart when witnesses who had seen the incidents she tried to smear Arnold with said they either never occured, or happened when Arnold wasn't present (and she apparently was a willing participant besides).

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[goldstategop]

Let's see - we're hasty in digging up background on Arnold's accusers. Fine, at least we tried to do our homework before we went public. By all accounts Bob Muholland the Democrat-LAT Slime Machine didn't even bother to verify mostly unsourced and unverified charges and just threw out whatever they thought might stick. And their defense to all this? "The dog ate my homework." Gotcha!

[socal_parrot]

I checked DoctorZIn's recall archive and it seems that the thread, ARNOLD ACCUSER IS DRUGGIE, PROSTITUTE, FORGERER! was pulled.

The reference to it on the Daily Recall Thread was here.

[Post Toasties]

I missed this one, probably because I'm still waiting for the LA Times, the California DNC and Grayout to apologize to Schwarzenegger for slinging their unverified allegations against him.

[Khurkris]

Allreds/Rhonda Millers' story was blown apart when the make-up man on the film set came forward and verified that HE, not Arnold, took the pictures. And they remained on the make-up room wall for 2 WEEKS with no complaint from Ms Miller.

Move along Folks..Nothing to See here...

[Post Toasties]

Oops. The California Democrat Party....

[concerned about politics]

Expect every liberal NOW activist to "come forward" from now until the next election. It's the new liberal "groovy thing to do, man."
I wonder how long it will be before the gays want in on the act. There's a lot of "inspiring actors" around California looking for that big break or Playboy/Gay Today centerfold position!

[sticker]

No media spin here. This reporter took all this time to check out the "facts" about the supposed smear job. Where was this fine upstateing member of the fourth estate when the clinton Whitehouse was attacking and smearing anyone that accused them of anything? Where was this person when Billy Dale and the rest of the travel office were called crooks and liars, so that the clintosn could payoff their friends? Where they when Linda Tripp was made a laughing stock by the clinton lapdogs?

The only time the "mainstream"(left of Marx)gets upset about attacks on a person is if the person is claiming a Republic did something "wrong", not prove it just claim it and people do not automactically believe that person or fightback.

[Fitzcarraldo]

  
California Recall Live Thread
 
      Posted by Fitzcarraldo to Weimdog 
On News/Activism 10/07/2003 3:03 PM PDT #1,071 of 4,193

Schwarzenegger Accuser Rhonda Miller is a convicted
 prostitute, drug user, and has multiple forgery convictions
 
Has this been confirmed? I mean, where are mugshots?

[hflynn]

It was not.

The Rhonda Miller who accused Schwarzenegger was born in 1950. I entered her birthday into the same LA court computers and found her clean, at least in the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles.

Whow!!!!!! This guy is one hell of an awesome reporter. He actually found 1 of the 3 women in Hollywood who isn't lying about her age.

[hchutch]

To be honest, I have little sympathy for her. She tried to smear Arnold - and got a little back in return.

Sometimes karma gets paid off VERY quickly.

[John Jorsett]

Fine, at least we tried to do our homework before we went public.

Doing homework involves more than just throwing up the rap sheet for the first Rhonda Miller we can find. A little followup to make sure it was the right Rhonda Miller would have avoided this. Mistakes like this make it easy for people like Roddy to label us partisan kooks. (I'll plead guilty to partisanism, but not to kookiness.)

[goldstategop]

I don't think we're kooks. Besides that was a matter of public record and the public had a right to know about it in judging the credibility of said accuser.

[lady lawyer]

You are precisely right about media spin. The bad information about the criminal charges was far less relevant than the fact that two men quickly stood up to refute the precise charge she was making against Arnold. The reporter doesn't even mention that.

It is a tactic used by biased people or advocates all the time. Someone makes 10 allegations. Nine of them are true, but a mistake is made on the tenth. So you focus on the mistake, hoping everybody forgets about the 90 percent accuracy rate. Trouble is, reporters aren't supposed to be advocates. You can forgive Gloria Allred for using this tactic. She is an advocate. But a reporter is supposed to be smart and unbiased enough to see past it and report the whole story.

[D-fendr]

"We are checking that out," he said. Ordinarily, that is what someone does before calling a woman a check-forging hooker,

I see. But not ordinarily what one does before calling a man a sexual harrasser.

[LexBaird]

On Tuesday night, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California. Barring a legal challenge, he will be sworn in by Nov. 25. Possibly, by then Rhonda Miller will have her apology from John and Ken or maybe even one from Gov. Schwarzenegger. When she gets her reputation back we can only guess

KFI's John retracted and apologized the next day. Now, when are Allred and Rhonda Miller going to apologize for bringing a false accusation, discredited by two eye witnesses?

[calcowgirl]

Sean Walsh must be taking lessons from the Bob Mulholland School of Ethics.
Stunts like that only reinforce 'kookiness' and other labels.

[heleny]

"We are checking that out," he said. Ordinarily, that is what someone does before calling a woman a check-forging hooker,

I see. But not ordinarily what one does before calling a man a sexual harrasser.

Exactly. The Davis machine waited until the last minute to release unverified claims, so obviously there wasn't enough time for KFI to check all their facts before the election.

[LexBaird]

You can forgive Gloria Allred for using this tactic. She is an advocate.

No I can't. Allred may be an advocate in the courtroom, but that is no excuse to her typical media-whore tactic of pretrying her cases on the air, then using negative publicity to force settlement.

She is exactly the reason your profession has such a negative reputation, and until her collegues, such as you, condemn her and her ilk, you will be seen as supporting them and their sleezeball ways.

I say down with the Cochran/Allred/Garragos school of "advocacy".

[DoctorZIn]

This post has been added to the… California In Transition- Must read Threads!

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[isthisnickcool]

At a minimum, there were two.

I posted on that thread making the point that it's always possible to have "false positives" regarding criminal history records. Especially with a common name. I also mused that KFI was a Clear Channel company and that I doubted that they would release this information on this woman unless they had someone due a real background check. If the information these Ken and Charles guys were pushing out was totally bogus then this woman has some legal recourse. Big time!

[ambrose]

If you go to the Superior Court criminal index and enter the name "Rhonda Miller", only one entry is spit back. I am sure John & Ken would have been more careful about reporting this had the woman not made her accusations the day before the election.

I mean, she gave a presser and vanished without answering any questions. Her allegations were being splashed all over the news with voting just hours away. What do you think should have been the appropriate response when the woman in question isn't taking any questions, and someone with the same name shows up on a criminal index?

[John Jorsett]

That's one Rhonda Miller with a police record out of how many Rhonda Millers in LA? My point was that there's likely to be more than one Rhonda Miller in a city the size of Los Angeles, and how do we know the one who happens to be the one with the record is the one making the accusation? Before throwing up a charge like that on FR or anywhere else, we ought to be sure it's true, or we look sloppy at best or like liars at worst.

The fact that the Schwarzenegger campaign put out the following:

"It has come to our attention from the media that you can access court documents from the following web site: www.lasuperiorcourt.org/Criminal. You will have to pay a $4.75 online charge to access/search the site. Once you have accessed, the site, type 'Rhonda' in the 'first name' field, and 'Miller' in 'last name' field."

and didn't make the accusation directly itself looks way too cute. It looks like a way for his campaign to throw some mud without getting its own hands dirty or just not having to do the work of determining if it's the correct Rhonda Miller. That strikes me as a pretty lowdown tactic. I don't like it when the Democrats do it, nor when the side I'm on does it.

[John Jorsett]

What do you think should have been the appropriate response when the woman in question isn't taking any questions, and someone with the same name shows up on a criminal index?

Forgot to answer that part. I think what should have happened is what did: they dug up witnesses to discredit her story. That would have been sufficient without the embarrassment of having to take back an allegation of a criminal record that turned out to be untrue.

[kmiller1k]

bkmk

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Matt Drudge, the nation's slanderer general, ...

Whoopsy.

[Poohbah]

Sometimes karma gets paid off VERY quickly.

One should take care to keep one's karma from running over one's dogma.

[Southack]

"The fact that the Schwarzenegger campaign put out the following: "It has come to our attention from the media that you can access court documents from the following web site: www.lasuperiorcourt.org/Criminal. You will have to pay a $4.75 online charge to access/search the site. Once you have accessed, the site, type 'Rhonda' in the 'first name' field, and 'Miller' in 'last name' field." and didn't make the accusation directly itself looks way too cute."

I disagree. The Schwarzenegger camp *is* fighting fair by simply offering a suggestion to where reporters might consider looking in their due dilligence searches. That various reporters were more anxious to splash tabloid news than to perform their own verifications is a black spot on their behavior, not on Team Arnold's.

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmm? One of the neatest tricks for criminals to use is giving the police the wrong birthdate .. or using several different middle names along with a different birthplace, etc. They do that for a specific reason .. to keep their records from following them around.

This could be the same person (I'm not saying it is). And .. don't think for a minute that this person would not have lied to Gloria, if she is the person with the record.

[concentric circles]

Dennis Roddy, who wrote this story, has jumped into the same mud bath as every other person he points a finger at. His readers may never learn that two eye witnesses refuted Miller's version of the photo story because he's too busy spinning the rest of the tale.

[Timesink]

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[thegreatbeast]

Roddy wrote, "'We simply said that this name was available on the web site and encouraged reporters to do their research and do their due diligence,' Walsh said." Did Roddy do any investigation of the allegations against Schwarzenegger? It seems to me that he, like everyone else, is taking them at face value.

As long as I am neither jurist or juror, I can think what I will about any story. Presumption of innocence is a requirement within the courtroom solely. Were it otherwise, we might be watching OJ on Leno tonight.

And noone has shown that this Rhonda Miller-Horn is not the Miller-Horn in the LA court database as far as I know. The assertion has simply been made that they are different people. Changing a birthdate is a criminal slight of hand to obscure true identity. Mohammed Atta used it too.

[SteveH]

LOL, good one... ;-)

[ladyinred]

The LA Times didn't bother checking out if the stories were true, so why should anyone else? This hypocrisy frosts me, as I recall the very immediate and vicious trashing of any lady who accused Clinton of sexually attacking her.

[Tempest]

Did anyone else notice how the so-called "journalist" Left out the fact that the lying crack fiend, prostitute also had two eyewitness on the Ken and John show who directly contraidcted the fabrication of stupid monkey lady?!

:^D

[Heyworth]

Wow, Sean Walsh has drunk driving, hit-and-run and marijuana possession convictions? Yeah, I know the guy who wrote the piece says it wasn't Arnold's Sean Walsh, but it might be. He could have lied about his birthday. Those criminal types do it all the time.