Imer Gashi
Posted on 03/29/2008 1:01:32 PM PDT by joan
KENTWOOD -- Two families escaped the turmoil of war in post-Communist Eastern Europe to seek a free and peaceful life in West Michigan.
Now, they see three of their teen sons facing a different kind of life -- in a Michigan prison -- if rape accusations are proven in court.
Imer Gashi, 17, faces first-degree criminal sexual conduct charges for allegedly raping a 17-year-old at her Kentwood home on two occasions in August.
His 19-year-old brother, Nesret Gashi, faces one count for aiding in the second alleged attack.
A third youth, Armin Puskar, 17, is charged with first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct in both cases.
The Gashis came to the U.S. in the late 1990s from Kosovo.
Puskar's family also settled in Kentwood around the same time as the Gashis, building their home after leaving Bosnia.
Last week, the now-18-year-old alleged victim testified at a hearing to determine whether there was enough evidence for the youths to stand trial.
The teen said Puskar and Imer Gashi were at her home watching TV while the rest of her family was on a camping trip when the first attack occurred.
A few days later, she said, her alleged attackers returned to her home and apologized.
She said she had been friends with the teens since middle school and decided not to report the incident.
Within days, the teens were back at her house, watching movies again, joined by Nesret Gashi and a female friend of the alleged victim, the girl testified.
After the friend left, another attack occurred, the accuser testified.
Months would pass until word finally got around to the girl's boyfriend, who attended East Kentwood High School with the girl and the Gashis. She said her boyfriend persuaded her to alert police and her parents.
Lawyers for the defendants pointed out inconsistencies between the police report in November and the girl's testimony four months later.
She admitted she watched pornographic movies with some of the defendants but steadfastly denied consenting to have sex with any of the accused.
"There was definitely no rape here," said Kelly Lambert, attorney for Puskar. "There's far more here than meets the eye."
Prosecutors offered Nesret Gashi a chance to plead guilty to attempted sexual assault -- a maximum five-year felony -- if he testified against the other two. He turned the deal down.
The lawyers contend the alleged victim's allegations only occurred after her 17-year-old boyfriend questioned her about the incident.
For the former refugees and their families, the process has been frightening, according to the lawyers.
"They are scared to death," said Robert German, lawyer for Imer Gashi. "Every time they have to go to court, they are convinced that they are going to jail."
He said the families have worked hard to make a life in America.
"I wouldn't have known they were Bosnian, but for their manner of speaking," said Lambert, Puskar's lawyer.
Kevin Megley, the lawyer for Nesret Gashi, said the families distrusted authorities when they first arrived, because they were often instruments of terror in Kosovo. In America, he said, they came to trust law enforcement, resulting in them talking to Kentwood detectives without an attorney.
"We have to remind them they are presumed innocent, and there is a system of justice that works and no one is going to pick them up in the middle of the night and take them to jail," German said.
The teens remain free after their parents posted bonds.
In 1999, The Press ran a series of articles tracing the lives of the Gashi family as they made their way in West Michigan -- among 150 families who did so that year.
The boys' mother, Vahide Gashi, talked of her children's fearful nights remembering the horrors of war and ethnic cleansing they witnessed or heard about in their homeland.
"The children come to our bed, I tell them go back to bed," said Vahide Gashi back when her sons were 9 and 11. "They tell me they are too scared."
Now, for three families -- the victim's and that of the accused -- the nightmare will be played out in an American courtroom.
The judge found there was enough evidence to order the three teens to stand trial in Kent County Circuit Court.
A date has not been set.
Imer Gashi
Nesret Gashi
Armin Puskar
ping
You get raped by a guy, you say nothing, you have the same guy over to your house again, just few days later, and you watch porno movies with him, well ...
What did she think was going to happen?
And we wonder why the Serbs didn’t like these characters?
Bump that. This girl may be a victim of rape, but she’s also a victim of her own egregious stupidity. What’cha bet there was alcohol involved, too?
Why, oh, why do I not think they're Orthodox, Catholic, Presbytarian or even Jehovah's Witnesses??
Have you noticed how the media almost always refer to criminals (sorry, “alleged” criminals) from “Yugoslavia” as being “non nationality/ethnicity specific” from “former Yugoslavia” or some other “vague” term when they are NON-Serbs (i.e. Moslems) and when they are referring to “Serbs” they specify them being “Serbian” and really pound it in? (Their favorite is “Serbian nationalists”)
Anyone who is familiar with “Yugoslavian” names, will recognize the names of these “alleged rapists” as being Muslim. But, of course, the media chooses not to specify that.
If these three were Serbian, the headline would read:
SERBS FROM FORMER YUGOSLAVIA CHARGED WITH RAPING KENTWOOD GIRL.
Wow. Good observation.
I know that this is going to be horrifically politically incorrect, but...
I’d love to see a detailed survey done of the ratio of ‘Native’ American criminals (and I don’t mean American Indians, I mean Americans born in America) to criminals in America who came from somewhere else.
“Give us your poor, your tired, and your murderers, thieves and rapists.”
SCARFACE keeps coming back to haunt us. That’s a movie (Al Pacino - I’ll bury doz kokroches version) that never gets old.
Yeah, I have to agree. I’m not going to get too incensed about this case unless I read that the prosecutor has irrefutable evidence that a non-consensual assault took place. On the face of it, just based on what’s reported in this article, the alleged victim’s story defies all belief.
Could they be Michiganistani?
And by installing a "moderate" Muslim regime in Kosovo can I logically assume that this will become more common in that benighted land?
It seems impossible, from the article, that there could be any evidence that any sexual encounter took place - unless the boys have confessed or the girl is pregnant. It was months before the alleged crimes were reported.
Ugh! Ugly! Guilty! LOL!
Not to my taste, either, but maybe they look better to a teenaged girl. After all, she did invite them in while the rest of her family was away and watch pornographic movies with them.
Look at the complexion of #1 and #3, are these meth heads
Yes, I have noticed. I’m betting a lot of others have too. Hence the falling audiences for the nightly news, NYSlimes, etc.
They’re not fooling folks nearly as well as they used to.
I’m just doing what Freeper guys always do when they see a female mug shot.
I know. But my reasoning applies to those cases, too: our FR guys may not think the 40-year-old woman with a 1980's hairdo is hot, but the 14-year-old boy she was having sex with obviously did.
This current thread is getting interesting results. You'd expect a whole "Wimmin 'R Eeevil" pile-on, because of the case facts presented, but the fact that the accused are Moslem immigrants is overriding that.
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