Not one of them showed mercy to the 35-year-old mother. They repeatedly violated her - vaginally, anally and orally - as she begged them to stop. She testified that each attacker who broke into her home sodomized her with an assault rifle. “Every time one is finished, the other one take his place, have sex with me in my behind,” she said in her Creole accent. “They keep calling me bitch. All of them were laughing. Some of them have sex with me three times. I was almost passed out. I couldn’t breathe. I tell them, please. When they’re having sex with me, they were holding my head, pulling my hair.”
Meanwhile, some of the assailants were across the hall beating her 12-year-old as he cried and begged for his life. Once they were through having their twisted version of fun with his mother, they forced her to have oral sex with him.
Their crimes were unspeakable. The punishment should fit them.
Robert Gershman, who represented Nathan Walker, asked the jurors to ignore morality, ignore the “hysteria” and ignore emotion. “No matter how morally reprehensible you believe the situation was, that plays no role. Who would stay, who would not report, who in their right mind would be there ... should not be in your decision. The immorality of it cannot sweep you away to a guilty verdict times 14.”
The jury chose not to ignore the evidence. Not to ignore the victim. Not to ignore the testimony of Lawson, whose version of events coincided with the victim’s. Both juries - Poindexter and Walker each had one - chose not to ignore the truth.
Still, the victim testified that 10 men assaulted her. Lawson identified six: Poindexter, Walker, Jakaris Taylor, Melvin Young, Augustus Fontaine and himself. Taylor goes on trial next month. Why haven’t West Palm Beach police arrested Young and Fontaine? Law enforcement officials say only that it’s an ongoing investigation. It had better be. For those who were there on June 18, 2007, with Poindexter, Walker and Lawson, the truth still awaits. And all of those who were there should face it.
“Robert Gershman, who represented Nathan Walker, asked the jurors to ignore morality, ignore the “hysteria” and ignore emotion...The immorality of it cannot sweep you away to a guilty verdict times 14.”
I know somebody must repreent criminals like these, but look at what our judicial system has come to: ignore the immorality of the crime.
> Robert Gershman, who represented Nathan Walker, asked the jurors to ignore morality, ignore the “hysteria” and ignore emotion. “No matter how morally reprehensible you believe the situation was, that plays no role. Who would stay, who would not report, who in their right mind would be there ... should not be in your decision. The immorality of it cannot sweep you away to a guilty verdict times 14.”
For the life of me, I cannot see why the immorality of this heinous act would not play a role in finding these 14 defendents guilty times fourteen. This was a serious crime, not a college prank.