Posted on 04/29/2004 2:29:12 PM PDT by Ben Chad
POMONA, Calif. (AP) - A Claremont McKenna College psychology professor who claimed someone vandalized her car with racist and anti-Semitic slurs was charged with filing a false police report and insurance fraud. Kerri Dunn's claim of being the victim of a hate crime shocked Claremont and associated colleges 30 miles east of Los Angeles, leading to rallies against intolerance last month.
Police and the FBI began investigating, but within days police reported there were witness accounts of Dunn vandalizing the car herself.
Dunn, 39, was charged Monday and will be arraigned May 19 on one count of filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, and two felony counts of insurance fraud. If convicted on all counts, she faces a sentence ranging from probation to six years in prison.
Dunn's attorney, Gary Lincenberg, said his client "maintains her innocence and hopes that this case will not divert attention from the racism problems" at the Claremont colleges.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said in a statement, "False accusations that imply hate crimes prey on the legitimate concerns of the public who truly abhor violence based on race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. And those who make false claims should realize there is a penalty for doing so."
Dunn, a visiting professor, remains on leave from Claremont McKenna College, university President Pamela Gann said in a statement Monday. Dunn's contract ends June 30, Gann said, adding that university officials "continue to believe that the best resolution of these events will be determined through a prosecution of the individual or individuals responsible for the vandalism."
University officials declined to further discuss Dunn's employment.
Dunn claimed that she discovered the vandalism of her car on the night of March 9 while she was on campus preparing a lecture for a forum on racism.
The next day, she called her insurance company about the vandalism and theft of items from the car, prosecutors allege.
Also that day, faculty canceled classes and thousands of students staged sit-ins to protest what was believed to be the latest in a series of racial incidents at the Claremont colleges. Dunn told students at a nighttime rally she was heartened by their support.
Claremont McKenna College is part of a consortium of seven independent institutions. The others are Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, Pomona College, Scripps College, Claremont Graduate University and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences.
Well they are the same species at least.
Whoops I think I just committed a hate crime. Can I get a ruling on this?
If I remember rightly, she was about to get married to a Jew and that's what the anti-Semitic "slurs" were supposed to be about.
Kerri sounds like a potential Dem candidate!
This case has interested me ever since it popped-up on various FreeRepublic threads. Do a search on "Professor" or "Dunn" or "Claremont" and you'll see a boatload of articles out of California.
"...I vote for the 6 year sentence..."
What is fascinating about this case is that the police haven't uncovered any hard evidence. According to the Google news reports, the only thing they have is two people parked nearby (who aren't even students at the college) who saw her kneeling near her car and say she damaged the tires. Jeez, anyone could say that. It will be interesting to see the background of the two "witnesses" when that information becomes available.
This lady sounds like a hardcore lefty lib, but nobody deserves to go to prison for vandalism they probably didn't commit. The notion raised on other threads is that the economics really doesn't make sense. Would a non-tenured professor (who don't make sh!t $$$) trash their own wheels for the cause?
As far as insurance fraud, I think the only way they'll make that stick is if she took out a policy just before the damage occured. If this professor doesn't have a policy on that jalopy, it is going to be darn near impossible to charge her with fraud.
~ Blue Jays ~
"...Two witnessess and she made to false statements during interviews to two different LE agencies. The only thing left missing was spray paint on her finger she pressed the spray can nozzle with..."
From a practical sense, two witnesses sitting in a car is really going to count as a single witness in court. If they were two people who didn't know each other and they were standing at different vantage points, that would boost their credibility.
The only thing we know about the LE interviews is that there were some sort of inconsistencies. Who knows what was going through her head if she was all razzled with what happened. Google said she later found her bag at home, so it wasn't missing after all. That could be simple forgetfulness. Heck, I can't remember what I had for dinner two nights ago without really thinking about it...and I'm not being interviewed by the FBI! ;-)
The only thing I'm saying is this case seems to be built on some pretty shaky circumstantial evidence. If she did it, she deserves to be punished -- but I don't see too much presumption of innocence on most Internet sources. Does anyone know anything about this attorney Gary S. Lincenberg and the cases he has tried? This is going to be interesting to watch unfold.
~ Blue Jays ~
Even funnier. Somehow this professor is so self-centered that she thinks the whole world knows the religion of her fiance. BTW, has her fiance dumped her yet? She definitely looks like a bad prospect at this point.
The Kerri Dunn Hate Crime Center.
True. Younger people don't use that word. It is something out of a Liberal Hate Crime Playbook. I'm almost surprised that Dunn didn't spraypaint "Sheeny" (a favorite slur by Joe Kennedy Sr.) on her car.
Thx...
She's already been charged with fraud. And the reason is that her carrier swore out a criminal complaint. The police and DA don't have standing for that, only her insurer does. And her insurer would not have done that if they couldn't prove that she knowingly made false representations on a claim.
Concerning the witnesses, it doesn't matter that they're not students at the college. I'm frequently on campus to do research or attend a lecture series or visit faculty. Does that reflect on my credibility as a witness in court?
You also suggest that her income is low and that she would therefore not trash her car.
How do you know what her income is and how do you know that her teaching position is her only source of income? Further, why wouldn't a zealot like Dunn go ahead and vandalize her (10-year-old) car for the "cause" -- especially if she believed she could make good on her insurance claim?
Claremont McKenna College psychology Professor Kerri Dunn gave a fiery speech March 10, a day after she reported to police that her car had been vandalized - the tires slashed, windows broken and racial epithets spray painted on the body. Police have since determined that Dunn vandalized her own car. Her words, transcribed from a recording of her speech during the March 10 rally against hate crime:
Thank you so very much. Thank you, um, and thank you so much for being here. Um, I don't have anything prepared so what I say is probably (inaudible) I don't have anything prepared so what I, what I'll probably wind up saying will be sort of disconnected, although all of the thoughts that I have are true to my heart. I spoke today at the faculty meeting and, um, mentioned that I was scared, but that I felt very proud and somewhat empowered by knowing that the people at that meeting were standing beside me. And I can't tell you how it makes me feel to look out into the sea of you and know that you are here to support me and rather the larger issues of civil rights and equality for men, women, people of color, um, people of all sexual orientations, um, etc. Um.
(Applause)
There were, there are a couple things I wanted to touch on because I think that, um, this whole thing kind of started, and snowballed, and how I wound up in the midst of it is really just basically a lark. Um, I read about the cross burning, and I read about the, uh, word [racial epithet] being written on calendars and I was appalled. I just couldn't believe in 2004 this was happening. As a psychologist, I teach on a regular basis about the nature of prejudice. And we talk about how prejudice nowadays is supposed to be modern, and covert, and based on ignorance, and stereotyping. And I thought these acts aren't ignorant. This isn't the result of some covert thought. This was a well planned out act of terrorism.
(Applause)
And I don't believe for one second it was one person. I think that there's a group here, a small group, but I do believe that there is a group here that perpetuates this in all different kinds of ways. And I think if you confronted those people they would deny it because they're cowards.
(Applause)
They are not looking for open dialogue. They are not looking for discussing whether the word [racial epithet] is an appropriate word to use with people of color. They're sneaking around at nighttime writin' this [expletive] on walls.
(Applause)
So as I said at the faculty meeting and as I've said before I think that calling these acts acts of ignorance is a dangerous misnomer.
(Applause)
What I do think is that (inaudible) the espousal of a certain ideology and being in a free country I certainly believe these people have a right to their ideology, but we have a right to ours as well.
(Applause)
And what I did that pissed people off so much and made them ruin my beautiful 1992 beater Honda Civic was that I said let's get together and say our ideology is more popular than yours.
(Applause)
Diversity is more popular than segregation. Love is more popular than hate.
(Applause)
That's what I did to wind up in as much trouble as I wound up in. The other thing that I, I also wanted to address, um, was in my class when I talked to people about - what are you gonna do, I said, I kept saying what are you gonna do, these are your friends under attack, these are my friends under attack, these are your colleagues, these are your peers, you're my students who are being attacked. What are we gonna do? Many people responded with, well you know Professor Dunn, we've always been taught that we should be racially blind, and that by not paying attention to it and not calling attention to differences we would minimize them. You know, that's a beautiful, beautiful, explanation - or should I say, um, all right, piece of [expletive] -
(Applause)
It has absolutely no substance and no utility in society wherein we are founded on diversity. The Statue of Liberty stands every day of all of our lives theoretically welcoming people to this land to become part of us. So to say that we should act like we're colorblind I really believe is an excuse. I believe it's an excuse to remain lazy, it's an excuse to turn your head. And it's an excuse to allow these idiots to continue with their agenda.
(Applause)
Last thing and I'll shut up, for real, for a little while anyway -
(Crowd chants: "Don't shut up"; applause)
Thank you. Um, I want to address one last thing that I think it's really important for us to pay attention to. Um, it also has come to my attention, you guys know I'm an attorney, that many, many people don't understand that the initial acts that took place on campus were not legally hate crimes. Whether you agree with that or not that's something we deal with the Legislature about.
But I heard people bad-mouthing the administration for not taking a more harsh stance against these acts when in fact there was nothing more that the administration could do. And what I want to say is from my position, and from the position of me feeling like a victim, I can't say thank you enough to the administration. They have been there supportive of me. Um, Pam Gann is here at a rally, as president of CMC. Torry Sun is here as well, and many many other administrators are here, and I have to say they're doing not just what they have to do administratively, but they're doing what they should be doing as human beings. And I think the message -
(Applause)
I think that the message that we need to take from this is that social change comes about on different levels and through different means. Some ways social change takes place is in the box office, um, is in the voting office, when you vote. Other ways - maybe it takes place in the box office, um, it definitely changes our attitudes. Um, it takes place on individual levels, it takes place on group levels, but it's, for things like this, when these events that were going on were beyond the reach of the police, but they were offensive and terrorizing to our friends, us individually, um, our peers, our colleagues, the action that need to take place is exactly what you are doing right here. And I just, you know, I want to end this by saying as a group, we stand here, and we say we're pro-diversity and anti-hate -
(applause)
- and that the people who espouse these hateful ideologies, really, I said earlier today should go underground. What I meant is that they should go to hell.
[End of Recording]
......................................
What a psycho. Anyone who would send their kids to a Clarremont College deserves "professors" like Kerri Dunn.
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