Private Pyle had a striking resemblance to Marxist meat-head Alan Grayson:
Posted on 12/23/2009 5:17:20 AM PST by markomalley
Some were openly crying and wiping their tears as they wished Danny Foley well just minutes before he was due to be sentenced, while others shook his hand and literally patted him on the back
IT was something that had to be seen to be believed. Fifty or so Listowel locals filing past the broken victim of a sexual assault to shake hands with and embrace the man who broke her.
Some were openly crying and wiping their tears as they wished Danny Foley well just minutes before he was due to be sentenced, while others shook his hand and literally patted him on the back in a show of solidarity.
All the while, the woman he left bruised, scratched and semi naked beside a skip in a local car park in June 2008 cut a lonely figure in the front row of the public gallery as Foley's supporters piled into seats behind her.
With her head bowed, the mother-of-one gripped the hand of her counsellor from the Kerry Rape Crisis Centre, her other hand clutching her stomach.
It was a show of support for a convicted sex offender, that was at best extremely misguided and misjudged, and at worst gave two fingers to the man's victim.
But apparently, according to Foley's brother Tim, it wasn't orchestrated. It was, he said, a coincidence that all these people came to court the exact day Foley was due to be sentenced and all decided to go and shake his hand. None of those people however, (apart from immediate family) were in court when Foley was giving his evidence, or more importantly when details of the assault and its impact on his victim were being painfully detailed by the 24 year old.
To add insult to injury, this woman had to endure what she described as dirty looks and disapproving glances from some of the men and women who came to court, of their own volition, before then having to deliver an emotional victim impact statement that was greeted by sighs and tuts from some.
"I felt intimidated. When I went to the stand and started reading some of them looked away and paid no attention," she told the media at a press conderence on Saturday. "I heard mumbling and talking. They didn't want to hear my statement."
Then this woman had to wipe tears away as she heard a chip shop owner and local priest praise the character of the man in the dock. The man who was convicted of sexually assaulting her.
He was a man with the highest respect for women who didn't have an abusive bone in his body, family friend Fr Sean Sheehy told the court. Foley's former boss, Dermot O'Mahony, meanwhile, spoke of a polite, inoffensive, curteous man who was honest, reliable and whom he held in the highest esteem.
The actions of these people on Wednesday last, December 16, left Foley's victim feeling numb, she said. She likened the scene to a funeral home. Unfortunately, no one was sympathising with her.
"I have no words to describe how that made me feel. Even though my counsellor and sister were there with me I felt as low as possible," she said. "Some of them stared at me and gave me dirty looks as they walked past. It felt like a funeral home more than a court room.
"I was hurt and upset by this. I felt really low. I felt like crying. It felt like I was being told that I was in the wrong and I was not believed, even though he had been found guilty and I knew that he was the guilty person. I felt like the court room was full of people who supported him and were against me, as if I was on trial and I was the guilty person."
A few flaws:
I’ve read this as a tale of two distinct communities, where she was going out of her circle into his. As such, your notion that everyone in such a small town would have known of his behavior is a little questionable.
It could be that since he was well-known to be engaged, suddenly the well of women to have sex with dried up quickly, prompting him to change his behavior a little towards the audacious.
Suppose he’s previously gotten women to his apartment and then hit them with roofies. Such women might spread the word that he’s a jerk, but perhaps not that he’s a rapist. Now, he’s more desperate and taking bigger chances... For every event, there’s a first time.
There’s also strong evidence it wasn’t consensual: wounds consistent with having been dragged, the fact that the video shows him CARRYING her out, and, oh, yes... her testimony. Since he is impeached as a witness, and as evidence emerged, it supported her side, her testimony is more valid than simply a “scorned lover.”
At any rate, even if he is innocent, he is certainly a disgusting piece of human filth who hardly seems deserving of such condolences. Consider his side of the story: that he lied to his fiance’ about having sex with someone accusing him of sexual assault. I can see why his character witnesses didn’t sway the jury. I’m sure the jury thought the priest might have well thought, “Well, you have to understand, a man has his needs; just ask little Timmy, my altar boy.”
And what a crappy lawyer! How could you possibly let your client tell such lies without first ascertaining what physical evidence could contradict him?
Do you know that his fiancee still promises to marry him?
Michelle O’Sullivan (32) made the comments after her fiance, Danny Foley (35), was jailed on Wednesday for five years for sexually assaulting a woman in Listowel, Co Kerry, in June 2008.
She visited him in Cork prison yesterday and said he is in “good spirits” and added that she plans to marry the former bouncer as soon as he is released from prison.
“I would describe Danny as the gentlest soul I have ever met in my life,” she said.
“I would call him considerate, thoughtful, kind and decent and trustworthy.”
He asked for her hand in marriage just two days before his sex assault trial started – but she said she had “absolutely no doubt whatsoever” that he was the man she wanted to marry.
How does that figure into it?
Like I said, I really want to believe the prosecution's case...I really want to condemn the priest who stood up for this guy...but there are too many things that are, to me, at least, are just plain strange.
Women can really be messed up in the head. Ever watch daytime television? “He’s zho loving and caring and zhweet. Exchept that time he broke three of my ribsh. And the time he ran over my leg with the ShUV. And the time he shot my cat. And that time he beat me with a shovel sho bad I shlur all my wordsh. But I know he shtill lovesh me, and not all theshe other women he’zh been shleeping wiff.”
Not no but h3ll no.
I mean, seriously... he now claims he had sex with a random stranger he picked up at the bar, just two days after proposing. And he calls that woman a “wan” in court, in spite of the obvious effect that’ll have on the jury. And she still wants to marry him. Hardly indicative of emotional health.
Heheheheh.
I'm not saying otherwise. (There are women over here who are married to convicted murderers...and got married as the result of being pen-pals after the killers were convicted, for goodness sakes)
But that piece, combined with the other pieces (I mean, shoot, the priest involved with the case...who gave a character witness and then shook the dude's hand after he was sentenced (at the cost of his job, btw) was personally vouched for by a fellow Catholic FReeper, for goodness sakes) means that there are some discrepancies that don't add up for me.
I'm not saying that Danny Boy was innocent...I'm just saying that, based upon everything I've read up on the case, I'm not 150% certain that it's exactly the way the prosecution said it was.
Sorry, but a priest as a character witness means as much as anyone else... close to zippo, when we know what he’s admiited to. My own former pastor thinks Ted Kennedy was a living saint. Tell me, Father, did you know Danny Boy had it in him to go pick up a stranger at a bar two nights after proposing to his fiance, carry that woman out to sludge pit and f*** her in the filth? It’s situations like this that the f-word was created for, and that gave the word in old times such a crass, nasty connotation. ‘Cause we’re not talking a broken, unfulfilled heart making love to the wrong woman; we’re talking, at best, a literally filthy, dirty f***, in the crassest sense of that very crass word. Do ya think his conduct in the courtroom was very becoming of a decent man? If so, you’re a reprobate, yourself. If not, your testimony is worthless.
And, as for the Freeper, what does “vouched” mean? Who are you referring to? A witness, or just another character witness?
FReeper CTrent1564
I hold my fellow Catholic FReepers in high enough regard to accept a character reference, such as the one above, at face value.
markomally:
He was a priest that worked at the Newman center at SE. LA University in Hammond, LA, the town where my parents lived. I use to go to Mass there when I was in town as I live in Baton Rouge, LA, which is 45 miles West of Hammond. He also taught a class that Took that was offered through St. Benedict’s Abby and St. Joseph Seminary, Benedectine Monastary in Covington, LA [part of the Archdiocse of New Orleans] and is an excellent teacher [the course was Church History]. This program, a 3 year college level program consisting of 22 college credit hours, is required for Diaconate candiates for my diocese of Baton Rouge.
Fr. Sean did not care for Bishops to much, and told everyone he worked for here, he has never met one he liked. About 4 years ago he decided to retire from Baton Rouge and return home to Kerry Ireland, which is where he was from, and go back and as he stated, help with catecheses in his beloved Ireland.
Again, Fr. Sean is a solid priest, very orthodox, but also one who saw many Bishops as worried about their own careers and public image too much than what is going on at the parish level. Based on the story or the facts presented, I don’t think Fr. Sean was wrong in his support for the accused and I am not saying he was correct, although perhaps given the recent report in Ireland, his actions were seen as being “politically incorrect”.
But again, I have known Fr. Sean since the early 1990’s and can say he is a very loyal and orthodox Catholic Priest but also one who was known to but heads with Bishops over how they ran the Diocese.
Seems as if this guy go what he deserved. My father grew up in Ireland. He used to say that they’d handle rapists, wife beaters and child molesters themselves without bothering the police. Some guy would beat his wife and her cousins, brothers, and uncles would jump the guy coming out of a pub at night and teach him a lesson. If he did it again, they’d break an arm. A third time and they guy would disappear one night. Everyone would say that he’d run off when in fact he was buried out in the bog....
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