Posted 4/2/2012 9:46 pm
She told detectives this year that she wanted to talk about her father's conviction, according to investigative reports.
Kennedy told police her father never touched her. For nearly a decade, she said, he had been sitting in prison based on her lies.
Kennedy said she got the idea of setting up her father from a friend whose stepfather was sent to prison for a child sex crime.
"I thought that is what I would do to make my dad go away," she told police.
Thomas Kennedy and his wife divorced around 1991, and their daughters, Cassandra and her older sister, began spending one weekend a month with their father, according to court documents. The girls slept on foam mattresses in the living room of Kennedy's home.
"I wanted him to love me, and I didn't think he did at that time," she told the detectives.
Kennedy said she made up the rape story largely because her father disappointed her. "I took my own vengeance," she told police
The jury convicted Thomas Kennedy of three counts of first-degree rape of a child and the conviction had been upheld on appeal.
Posted 4/2/2012 10:09 pm
it was a stupid girl who made the accusation, but it was a grown prosecutor who chose to believe her, who chose to take the case with obviously no serious investigation, and it was 12 adults on the jury who chose to believe the prosecutor. Those are the people who ruined that guy's life, not the 11-year-old girl.
Posted 4/2/2012 10:10 pm
Rape cases shouldn't even go to court without physical evidence. How can you convict a person based solely on another person's word?
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But but but rape is a uniquely serious crime. Ruining the lives of a few innocent men is a price worth paying if it gives more victims the courage they need to come forwards.
Posted 4/2/2012 10:17 pm
Agreed, no physical evidence and no conviction if I'm on the jury. An 11-years word does not replace physical evidence, just not enough to lock a man up for 12 years.
Posted 4/2/2012 10:20 pm
But, if the state did prosecute now, wouldn't that prevent other people from eventually admitting they lied as a child?
The decision not to prosecute for something someone did as an 11 y/o isn't just proper, it is good policy. We don't want to discourage people from correcting the mistakes they made as a child. Particularly when a persons life depends on the truth.
That commenter is quoting Stalin, no doubt unknowingly.
Fact is, if you're a man, and especially a white man, you're the target of an unwritten policy of genocide. Sounds like an exaggeration, doesn't it? That's what German Jews said in 1934.
Exactly. A confused, post-divorce 11 yo coached by Mommy to tell lies about Daddy, you can forgive.
But she is 23, and every day since she was at least 18 (really, about 16) shows that she has a hideous malformed character that thinks of nothing but herself. What an evil person.
She should be charged, and she should serve a day in prison for every day from her 18th birthday to the day she went and sought to officially recant, probably about 3 1/2 years. Then she can have that felony record that she gave to her father because she earned it and he did not.
I once sat on a jury in something like this where the only evidence was He said, She said, and no physial evidence or witnesses. You would not believe the vindictiveness of people and the dimbulb of people. The screeching harpies (other jurors) kept saying children don't lie about things like this - Oh yes they do - but TFB will scream and rant. Probably a jury of hate-filled TFB and a few weak-willed men.
Posted 4/2/2012 11:07 pm
apparently the chick was truly evil. She came up with a solid story. Created a journal with multiple entries that mentioned her dad molesting her.
she then convinced an adult at her school that she was molested and created a secret "word" that she would say to the teacher that meant that she had been molested again.
No one was ever able to break her story. Add to that the journal and the teacher's testimony, the dude was fucked.
At the end of the trial, the only conscience I have to sleep with at night... is my own.
Good advice for anyone serving on a jury. Every judge should be required to state that in his instructions. (No, he didn't. He was a very fair judge. The man got a mistrial for hung jury, the second in the case.)
