Posted on 02/23/2010 11:29:52 AM PST by nickcarraway
A woman due to be sentenced Tuesday for fabricating a gang rape accusation that sent an innocent man to prison was too drunk to remember much of the night she met him and believed her allegation was true, according to legal papers filed by her defense team.
Biurny Peguero started "to believe that her lie was the true story as she was intoxicated with alcohol and could not recall all the details of that night," a psychiatrist wrote in a report accompanying a defense pre-sentencing memorandum obtained by The Associated Press.
Peguero, 27, approached authorities last year to say she had made up the 2005 incident. She faces up to seven years in prison after pleading guilty in December to perjury. Her lawyer, Paul F. Callan, is asking a judge to sentence the mother of two young children only to probation, noting that her recantation was key to exonerating William McCaffrey.
"Had Ms. Peguero not stepped forward to right this wrong, Mr. McCaffrey might have spent most of the next 20 years in prison," wrote Callan, who said she was riven with remorse over the false accusation.
The Manhattan District Attorney's office didn't immediately return a phone call about the defense memo.
A judge overturned McCaffrey's rape conviction in December, after he had spent nearly four years behind bars in jail and prison. He was released on bail a few months before he was officially cleared, with DNA testing also playing a part in establishing his innocence.
Peguero, then 22, originally said McCaffrey was the ringleader among three men who raped her at knifepoint after luring her into their car after she went to a Manhattan nightclub with female friends.
McCaffrey, now 32, said she had agreed to go with them to a party, and they dropped her off
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
But NOW tells me that women would never lie about being raped, whom should I believe?
If she hadn't made up a lie then this man might not have been in there in the first place occupying the low end of the prison caste system as a raper.
Beyotch
Horse manure. If a man gets drunk and rapes a girl, “I was too drunk to know what I was doing” is not a defense. If a woman gets drunk and accuses a man of rape, I have exactly the same reaction. Send her to prison, where she belongs for trying to send a (more or less) innocent man.
Had she not falsely accued him to start with he would not have spent the last 4 years in prison. According to my idea of justice she should spend four years in prison and pay him the equivalent of what he would have earned plus interest plus punative damages for the four years.
I hope Reese Hopkins has this recourse!
So yeah, don't punish her for recanting now...
But NOW tells me that women would never lie about being raped, whom should I believe?
Well, men lie and women lie, so you don't necessarily believe that either one is telling the truth, based solely on their sex-category... LOL...
That's why we have juries ...
She "did the right thing" after being caught in her lie.
Unfortunately, in this case, the jury believed her lies. I just wonder if they thought a woman would never lie about rape? I am sure we will never know.
I am glad she has turned her life around and think it is wonderful that she has friends and family who will support her while in prison and after she gets out.
If that shows anything to everyone, it should show that it’s entirely possible to end up convicting innocent people (even by juries), so people should have a very high threshold for convicting someone.
Of course, that would mean that “others” would criticize such a system of giving as much benefit of the doubt as possible to the “accused” — as being “too soft on criminals”... doncha know... :-) [as we can all see on some of these FReeper threads, too...]
Call Gloria Allred!! She’ll defend this lying skank.
The ones who should serve the rest of the victim's sentence are the prosecutors and investigators who seemed to have taken this twit at her word without much checking up on it.
Well, what about the jury? Should they serve some of that sentence, too?
It is worse than that. If a man and a woman willingly get drunk together and then both consent to sex, and then if the next day the woman decides she regrets the sex and concludes she would probably not have consented had she not been drunk, then the man can be convicted of rape. Her consent is voided because of her diminished capacity yet he is still fully liable for both of their actions despite his equivalent state. Of course if the man regrets the sex then the woman is not liable for rape.
No, just the prosecutors and the investigators.
Well, from my understanding of our system, the prosecutors are supposed to be pushing for a conviction if there’s an indictment handed down. The grand jury will be the first step — of “citizens” deciding whether something should be prosecuted or not. And if it should be (according to a grand jury, of citizens) then the prosecutor is supposed to be doing all he can to convict.
That’s once it’s decided, by an indictment, that one should proceed to convict in the first place. The “other side” (the defense) is then supposed to be doing all it can to defend the accused.
Each side is supposed to be doing their part, the prosecution to convict and the defense to acquit.
But, the process doesn’t even start unless a grand jury — of citizens — hands down the indictment in the first place. And then one doesn’t get convicted unless a jury — of citizens — convicts.
Thus, the greater responsibility — from the way I see it — is with the citizens of the grand jury and the citizens of the jury.
That’s where the main responsibility lies...
She sould do 20 years rather than 7 since that is what he was facing. She’ll probably get probation, or, knowing how the legal system “works” these days, she’ll probably get a medal.
Why didn’t DNA evidence exonerate him at the time?? Were tests not done? Was he sentenced on her word alone? This broad deserves MORE than 7 years. And he should file one BEAUTY of a suit against her and the state!
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