Posted on 08/12/2017 7:51:32 AM PDT by ptsal
Col. David “Wil” Riggins, after a highly decorated Army career that included multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was on the verge of promotion to brigadier general in July 2013 when he got a phone call at the Pentagon from the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division to come in for a meeting. Once there, he learned that a blogger in Washington state had just accused him of raping her, when both were cadets at West Point in 1986. An investigation was underway.
Then, Riggins sued Shannon for defamation, claiming that every aspect of her rape claim on the West Point campus was “provably false,” and that she wrote two blog posts and a Facebook post “to intentionally derail [his] promotion” to brigadier general. During a six-day trial that ended Aug. 1, a jury in Fairfax County, Va., heard from both Riggins and Shannon at length. And after 2½ hours of deliberation, they sided emphatically with Riggins, awarding him $8.4 million in damages
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Are you simply trying to be a provocateur or do you actually believe what you are writing here?
Did you read the referenced article?
I believe what I wrote
she and Patreus had an affair and he told her classified info that she didn’t need
that is the colonel’s version of the truth
“Susan Shannon will hang her head in shame.”
As she poses naked in a magazine...?
If there’s no evidence of either litigants positions then there’s no grounds to bring a case to trial. On the woman’s part, it’s not hard to noodle through the scenario and figure out the low probability of success UNLESS she banked on the sociopolitical climate to stack the deck in her favor.
I’ve no doubt that part of the problem here lies in the legal professions tendency to take any case just to churn hours and hope for a lottery win. Who would encourage her to make this stand, 27 years after the fact, knowing that a loss could destroy her financially and reputationally? Hell, from a justice standpoint, if he really did rape her, she’d have spent those 27 years more productively plotting a physical revenge on him...
He sued her, she had to defend
Shannon said she had no actual recollection of the assault. Wow.
Even if we presume she tells the truth, the path traveled down beginning with her posting the accusation in public forum with little or no supporting evidence leads nowhere good.
The majority of people need to get this through their skulls. You cannot post allegations or accusations against other individuals in a public forum without great risk to ones self from a legal standpoint.
Even in non criminal issues you can be taken to task for statements you’ve made that others can construe as being a professional opinion or advice. Being a registered Professional Geologist and working in the environmental and geotechnical fields this has become pretty second nature to me. I’m very careful to couch statements such that they can’t be construed as an opinion or advise for a person or entity to rely on for taking or not taking actions.
It doesn’t matter, and the legal system definitely doesn’t care, how one “feels” about something. If you had something really happen to you horrible like this you need to consult with someone who really knows this stuff inside and out AND even get a second opinion. I can’t imagine there’s a lawyer alive who would have said “oh, this guy raped you 27 years ago? Yea, first thing let’s make sure you allege that and ruminate over it on a blog for a while”...
Because she was an idiot and posted the allegation in a public forum. That’s a “free money” libel suit without supporting evidence significant enough to sway a jury.
That is what stunned me! She, what, assumes she was raped?
He stated things like there was no free beer. That could be proven either way.
I don’t know if she did it to derail his career. I think she had read stories about sexual assault in the military and jumped on the bandwagon. She wrote about something too old and vague to be supported. It would never have come to his attention, if the promotion had not been kaboshed. She took a gamble and lost.
I bet there are many blogs out there full of misinformation. This one happened to cause a larger ripple than the norm.
jmho
But, years apart. He stated they had a consentual relationship in 1983. The supposed rape occurred in 1986.
She must have missed that part in the Bible about not bearing false witness.
“So, all of you think she just wanted to derail him for nothing? “
Yes. In case you missed it she also believes that the “government” shot the kids at Sandy Hook. One of the first things I learned during my time in the military is that some people are just nuts. I guess you think that since Col. Riggins was under consideration for promotion to General he should have been found guilty and sentenced on the word of somebody who is pretty clearly nuts? Did you notice that the article stated that nobody on the jury believed her and the only disagreement they had was the amount of damages to award? I am guessing that was probably because she comes across as a nut. I personally gave up a long time ago trying to figure out why crazy people do crazy stuff. They just do and often for no apparent reason.
How do you know she did?
I don’t see money as a factor. She put it on a blog, she didn’t sue. I doubt a colonel has much money anyway.
This is the way almost all teenage girls operate—behind the back gossip, smears, slander, shaming, and shunning. Girls have their catty cliques and gossipy ways they treat other girls. Often cruel beyond belief, enough to drive some to suicide.
Sometimes they use this technique on boys too. Most women sort of outgrow it. Some never do.
A great take on the topic, Tony Bennett sings Girl Talk
That’s the jury’s finding.
How about just flat out attention then !
She wanted people o pay attention to her. The fact they she is a Sandy Hook fantasist screams that!
Would a Christian woman make that accusation if it was untrue? So it is ether true, she believes it to be true (buyer's remorse) or she is lying. Christians lie too, being human and sinners. Most repent and try to undo the lie.
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