Free Republic

In the months since stating that someone named "Barry" raped her during her college years, Lena Dunham spoke about Michael Brown, being goth, eating entire chickens, and Planned Parenthood instead of clearing an innocent man's name. This also happened when "Barry One," the man wrongly implied to be the rapist, repeatedly contacted Dunham and her publisher to get them to clarify that he had nothing to do with the assault. Instead of helping an innocent man, on Twitter, Dunham found the time to write about inane subjects and make jokes. All the while, Barry One was being falsely accused of...

Tragically, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization survey, 17.7 million American women have been victims of attempted or completed rape. When a woman is raped, she is violated both physically and emotionally, and the road to recovery is usually fraught with difficulty. This is why accusing someone of such a crime is a very serious allegation. In Planned Parenthood spokesperson Lena Dunham’s new book, Just Not that Kind of Girl, she explains in detail how she was date raped in college by a campus conservative named Barry. She described him as a violent man who took...

In the emotionally charged conversation about rape, few topics are more fraught than that of false allegations. Consider some responses to the news that singer-songwriter Conor Oberst had been falsely accused of sexual assault. Last December a woman writing in the comments section of the website xoJane, going by the name Joanie Faircloth, claimed Oberst raped her when she was a teenager. The charge spread across the Internet; Oberst denied it and brought a libel suit against Faircloth when she refused to retract the story. In July she completely recanted, admitting that she had made it all up to get...

A 20-year-old woman who falsely claimed she was raped by three men because she regretted having sex with them has been jailed for two years. Rosie Dodd, of Nottingham, claimed the men, who were aged 21, 23 and 25, assaulted her at a home in Clifton, Nottinghamshire, in the early hours of a Saturday in June. The trio were arrested after Dodd claimed they had all raped her after she met them on a night out in the city - and they spent a total of nearly 50 hours in police custody before being released on bail.

On Kos, a Greek island in the southeast Aegean, just off the Turkish coast, at least four British men – and possibly others – have been targeted by a good-looking blonde Swede running a false rape insurance scam. One of the men, Ross Mitchell, is a teacher from Nottinghamshire, and was arrested and charged before the case fell apart when the woman fled the country after obtaining insurance money. As a teacher, Mr. Mitchell is worried about the effect such an accusation – even a false one – might have on his job. Greek news reports suggest that the woman...

A man who was falsely accused of sexual assault hanged himself after police failed to tell him they had dropped the case, an inquest heard. John Keogh, 23, was ‘very upset and angry’ after a hospital patient claimed he had indecently assaulted her. An investigation was launched but police decided to drop the case and withdraw all charges after interviewing him. However, officers did not plan to tell Mr Keogh – who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 18 - until four days later – by which time, he had hanged himself with a pair of shoelaces. His...

A former University of California, Davis, employee whom officials have accused of inflating crime statistics may have funneled university money into a private account and paid her mortgage with it, campus police said in a court document released this week. As part of their embezzlement probe of Jennifer Beeman, investigators also raised the question of whether she had appropriately paid $540,000 to a Bay Area woman and her companies over a seven-year period. Reached at home Thursday, Beeman declined to comment. Police detailed their suspicions regarding Beeman, the former director of the UC Davis Campus Violence Prevention Program, in court...

A Hofstra University student who accused a group of men of gang-raping her inside a campus dorm has recanted her tale, sources said. “She admitted it was consenual and the district attorney is dismissing the charges and releasing the suspects,” a law enforcement source told the Post. The accused men — Rondell Bedward, Jesus Ortiz, Kevin Taveras, Stalin Felipe — are expected to be released from custody as soon as tonight. The 18-year-old woman accused Ortiz of taking her cellphone around 3 a.m. Sunday at a frat party at on-campus club Hofstra USA. She claimed that she followed the man...

Victim of false rape claim must pay £12,500 for bed and board in jailA man wrongly jailed when a woman cried rape has failed to prevent being charged £12,500 for his "board and lodging" while in prison. Warren Blackwell, 38, spent three years in jail as a convicted sex attacker until his 'victim' was unmasked as a fantasist. It was revealed he has been awarded £252,500 compensation for his lost years - but minus the estimated cost of his food and accommodation while behind bars. Mr Blackwell said he had failed to stop the money being siphoned off after his...

In another twist in an already questionable criminal case, DNA testing in the infamous Duke lacrosse r*pe case found no genetic material from any of the accused males on the woman's body or on her clothing, but analysts found DNA from several unknown male on the accuser's body. This finding directly contradicts reports that she did not engage in s*x with anyone prior to or following her encounter with the three Duke students. Prosecutors reportedly ordered the DNA testing after the state crime lab failed to find a conclusive match between the 27-year-old woman and any member of the Duke...

DURHAM, N.C. -- A woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by members of Duke University's lacrosse team was described as "just passed-out drunk" by one of the first police officers to see her, according to a recording of radio traffic released by Durham police on Thursday and obtained by The Associated Press. The conversation between the officer and a police dispatcher took place about 1:30 a.m. March 14, about five minutes after a grocery store security guard called 911 to report a woman in the parking lot who would not get out of someone else's car. The officer gave...

Cheating wife jailed for rape claim 6 June 2005 An unfaithful wife was jailed for 12 months today after crying rape to cover up a one night stand with a stranger. Nerete Underwood, who abandoned her husband and young son during an evening out, thenpanicked when she realised her night of passion had resulted in a missing person's report to police. So she promptly pointed the finger of suspicion at her unfortunate lover to prevent her husband discovering the truth. The alleged rapist, a distraught interior designer, not only spent 24 hours in a cell but then had the prospect...