Charlie Rogers, former basketball star, now accused of faking hate crimes.
Posted on 08/23/2012 3:13:13 PM PDT by NYer
LINCOLN, NE, August 22, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Charlie Rogers’ story about crawling at 4 a.m. on a Monday morning – bound, bloodied, and baying – across the street to her neighbor’s house after being brutally attacked by three men seemed too horrific to be true. Yesterday, police in Lincoln, Nebraska, concluded it was just that.
The 33-year-old lesbian, a former University of Nebraska women’s basketball star, arrived on the front door of her neighbor Linda Rappl’s house on July 22, with a story out of a horror movie. Three masked men had broken into her home, tied her up with plastic zip ties, carved a cross into her chest and anti-gay slurs into her arms and stomach, spray painted hateful words onto her walls, then tried to set her home on fire.
“All I could see was a cut across her forehead and blood running down,” Rappl said.
Rogers said the men held her down on her bed, cut her from her thighs to shins, then turned her over and sliced her from her buttocks to her right calf. Rappl described the wounds as “superficial” but signs of “torture.”
Lincoln police found Rogers’ wall covered in messages including “We found U D-ke,” and “Leave kids alone.” They also found traces of gasoline, and the door she said she busted through.
“When she was standing at my door, I believed everything,” Rappl said. “I had no reason to doubt that what she said happened had happened.”
The town and surrounding area believed her story, too, as her tale ricocheted around the internet.
Omaha-based Heartland Pride held a rally last month outside the Lincoln capitol, attracting 1,000 people and raising $1,800, which Heartland President Beth Rigatuso deposited in a bank account for Rogers. First Plymouth Congregational Church held a second event in her honor. Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler, a Democrat. issued a statement declaring, “We stand united with our gay and lesbian citizens in denouncing violence directed at any group.”
But Rogers’ story quickly unraveled.
Police say her story changed markedly during the four times they questioned her.
LPD investigator Lynette Russell said she found the bedspread, where three men had purportedly restrained and tortured her, “evenly placed on the bed and no apparent sign of a struggle,” and without a spot of blood.
Then there were the wounds themselves. Russell said they “appeared superficial and symmetrical, [and] avoided sensitive areas of the body.” They appeared to be consistent with someone writing on themselves, she said.
At the scene, police found a pair of white knit gloves. “She had told the investigators initially that the gloves were the only things that were left behind by her assailants and that they were not hers,” said Lincoln Police Chief Jim Peschong. But the only DNA the University of Nebraska Medical Center found inside them “matched Miss Rogers.”
Police soon found that she had purchased a pair of white gloves, zip ties, a utility knife, and blades at the local Ace Hardware store on July 17. They matched the bar codes to those sold at the store, and an employee identified Rogers as having shopped there.
The day after shopping at Ace – four days before the alleged assault – Rogers posted on Facebook: “So maybe I am too idealistic, but I believe way deep inside me that we can make things better for everyone. I will be a catalyst. I will do what it takes. I will. Watch me.”
The shocking incident took place as the city debated a gay rights measure, the “Fairness Ordinance.” Lincoln police say Rogers staged the attack to gain support for the homosexual political agenda.
As the investigation began to implicate her, Rogers came forward for an interview with KETV. Her lawyer at the time, Megan Mikolajczyk, had been prepared to go to the media, as well, but canceled saying, “Things have changed.” Soon, she was off the case.
“I start to feel like a pawn in a game that isn’t my game. I didn’t ask for this,” Rogers said while sobbing. “What matters is the story.”
She said a shocking event like this “ignites fires – and that’s a good thing, in some ways. It can also be a very bad thing.”
“There is fear, but there is resilience,” she said. In what may have been a reference to President Obama’s re-election slogan, she concluded, “There is Forward.”
Police took her before a Lancaster County judge on Tuesday, charging her with reporting an event “she knew to be false,” as part of a plot to cause police to “instigate an investigation of an alleged criminal matter.”
FBI pathologist Michelle Elieff, who had been called in to investigate the presumed hate crime, wrote in the arrest warrant that the wounds were self-inflicted or caused by permission. “The FBI, the Bureau of Fire Prevention and the Lincoln Police Department have spent an exorbitant amount of time and personnel resources investigating this,” Peschong said.
Rogers pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to one count of making a false police report, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail. The judge released her on her own recognizance, setting a trial for September 14.
The fact that her story was another in a string of apparent hate crime hoaxes did not cause local LGBT lobbying organizations to rethink their political lobbying activities.
“Even if she did it, we still live in a culture of homophobia,” said the First Plymouth Congregational Church’s associate pastor, Nancy Erickson.
Star City Pride, PFLAG Cornhusker, and two other LGBT organizations released a joint statement in reaction to Rogers’ arrest, stating, “The false reports received by law enforcement every year do not invalidate the actual crimes that are committed.”
One of the organizers of the Lincoln rally, Beth Rigatuso, said, “If in fact she did do this to herself, it points to a much larger issue of self-hatred.”
Linda Rappl, the neighbor who came to Rogers’ aid, said, “This whole thing has really shaken my faith in humanity.”
She and Lincoln police have suggested Rogers get counseling.
The alleged hoax arrest comes shortly after a Montana man, Joseph Baken, claimed he was beaten up on his 22nd birthday for being homosexual. After his story went viral, police discovered he had simply botched a backflip and slammed his face into the pavement.
Baken capped off a series of faux hate crimes allegedly directed against gays and lesbians, as well as other minorities.
Earlier this year, Central Connecticut State University held a “solidarity rally” on behalf of 19-year-old Alexandra Pennell, a lesbian allegedly receiving hate notes, which officials later discovered she had planted herself.
In May, police charged a lesbian couple in Colorado with writing “Kill the Gay” on their own garage.
A substantial number of hate crimes hoaxes take place each year, whether on sexual or racial grounds.
Jeff Laszloffy, president of the Montana Family Foundation, told LifeSiteNews.com earlier this month there is a dearth of real violence against homosexuals, “so they’re having to gin up excuses to get these laws passed.”
I'll confess that I feel some pity for people whose lives are so barren that they are compelled to define their entire human identity in terms of their most primitive hormonal impulses.
So much for the concept of "reaching for the stars". --Instead, they advocate that you "reach for your crotch".
Paging Mr. Rather, Mr. Dan Rather . . .
If the attempt to commit a “hate” crime is a felony, why isn’t the attempt to create the appearance of a hate crime a felony?
This is incredibly UNEXPECTED! Nobody on FreeRepublic saw this coming! Nobody!
Obviously deranged
I have to disagree. She is now regaled as a hero to the LGBT community.
Since First Plymouth Congregational Church is mentioned twice in the article I thought I’d go check out their statement of faith. Here ya go:
Who We Are
First-Plymouth strives to blend tradition and innovation, the historical and the contemporary. Our worship services have a quality that echoes through the ages and yet, speaks to the present and points to the future. Our religious life is shaped by five guiding principles: We are Christian, Open-minded, Spiritual, Evolving and Diverse.
We are Christian
“Christian” means we perceive in Jesus the divine qualities of love, peace, joy, and justice. It does not mean we think Jesus is the only path to God.
“Christian” means we eagerly explore the Bible for its spiritual wisdom contained in symbol, metaphor, and history. It does not mean a literal or heavy-handed approach that uses the Bible to prove we are right or righteous.
We are Open-minded
“Open-minded” means we understand faith as a quest, not a clutched certainty. “Open-minded” flies above the tired distinction between conservative and liberal, and does not refer to one’s specific beliefs, but how one relates to those beliefs. It means we do not assume a defensive posture, but rather enter appreciatively into different points of view with the expectation of learning and growing.
We are Spiritual
“Spiritual” means we believe God is a spirit of love that can be felt and known by each one of us. It means Christianity is as much about the heart as the head, as much about the body as the mind.
“Spiritual” means not merely hoping for a better world or pining after justice, but rolling up one’s sleeves and starting to feed the hungry, care for the sick and anguished, house the homeless and advocate for a more just society.
We are Evolving
“Evolving” means rather than resisting change or innovation, we eagerly experiment with new ways of being faithful and new understandings. We strive to be rooted but not stuck.
We are Diverse
“Diverse” means we celebrate the differences among us such as sexual orientation, ethnicity, class, mental abilities, physical capabilities, personalities, and backgrounds.
“Diverse” means we trust that these differences inform and strengthen community. A diverse spiritual community welcomes conventional believers, curious agnostics, and questioning skeptics.
And, finally, “diverse” means you are free to seek your own guiding principles in our midst. These principles are not a creed to which one must ascribe. Rather, they are one attempt to describe the spirit and nature of our congregation.
She is a lib hater. She hates men because she isn’t like them. She hates women because she is too much like them. She hates gays because she isn’t enough like them and she hates lezzies because she is too much like them.
Mental. Disorder. End. Of. Story.
Another lo IQ Obama voter, we are swamped with such non-productive dolts. And in her case she had the police running around...the bill for taxpayers must be at least 100-200 thousand
file this one under MORON!
Also, that important work, The Pink Swastika, also has a section on a phony lesbian, so-called hate crime.
And there it is!
Thanks for that info. Sounds like this “church” believes whatever they want so they can feel good about themselves.
I blame it on the Runzas
(Hubby is a cornhusker. When ever we visit his folks we have to eat these foul things, hence, the reference here. Last night’s rally to support the crazy lesbian was right around the corner from the Runza Hut we ate at last time we were in Lincoln)
There have been a couple threads on this. She should be arrested and tried for the equivalent sentence of what she attempted to induce.
I don’t expect the DI or KOS communities will be talking much about this, but that’s their choice. It’s all blame, no culpability...
Germans before WWII would blame Jews for crimes they had committed.
This woman - in the grand tradition of evil - is doing the same thing to conservatives. And is the press outraged? No
The press wasn't outraged when it was done to blacks because newspapers of that time were tacitly in on it. Just like the New York Times is ‘in’ on this crime against consevatives.
Just like German newspapers were in on it when the SS lied about Jew committing crimes.
Evil - - the faces of the victims change ... this woman? She needs serious jail time. This is not a prank.
Ummmm, all of us have the right to be afraid of people who commit crimes and try to pin those crimes on us. These folks are evil... no different than the KKK pinning a crime on an innocent black. Evil.
It’s so richly ironic that this sick bitch will spend the rest of her life with a cross on her chest.
How many people were killed in Chicago during the time this major investigation was going on?
Why is this investigation sooooo important? So much MORE important than 20 or 30 deaths in Chicago?
The reason the FBI and all the rest were brought in was because murder in Chicago isn't 'political' and the FBI and Southern Poverty Law Center and Homeland Paranoid Insecurity have one and ONLY one enemy. Conservatives. Republicans.
We are the people they hate - they hate us just as much as the lesbian who tried to pin a hate crime on us. Pin a crime on people who never came near her - never existed beyond her own hatred of white middle class men.
That's why they're willing to spend massive resources investigating... they WANT to prove the lie they tell each other. The lie that Republicans are violent toward gays and blacks. We're not. The blacks in Chicago are killing each other. Most 'hate' crimes are faked by liberals.
How long until some FBI guy decides to go along with one of these corrupt lying liberal victim groups? And under pressure from the SPLC or Jenet - decides to believe one of these liberal liars? How soon until we get blame for carving crosses in gays? Isn't that the kind of hate the SPLC accuses us of? Isn't that how they gin up hatred of conservatives? Is this lying lesbian really any different than the paranoid haters of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the 'hate lists" they create that are all Republicans?
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