Uh, no, it's rape. So says the bar association in a rare rebuke of a municipal judge. The judge ruled that a woman forced by a client to have sex with three other men at gunpoint should be considered just "a robbery." Salon.com's Broadsheet quotes the Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association's condemnation of the decision: "Even though the woman is a prostitute, it doesn't mean she couldn't be a victim. Once she says 'No, it's not okay,' then to have sex with her is rape."
It's amazing the judge could have thought otherwise, but she even defended the decision later to the press. According to the original AP article:Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni heightened the furor when she defended her decision to a newspaper. ''She consented and she didn't get paid,'' Deni told the Philadelphia Daily News. ''I thought it was a robbery.''
Deni also told the newspaper that the case ''minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped.''
Some back-story on the case from the same article:The 20-year-old woman, a single mother, testified that she worked for an escort service that advertised through the Web site Craigslist.
She went to a North Philadelphia home Sept. 20 to meet Gindraw, who had agreed to pay her $150 for sex. He then said that a friend was coming with the money and that the friend would pay her another $100 to perform sex acts.
Instead, three other men arrived, and Gindraw pulled a gun and ordered the woman to have sex with all of them, she testified.
''He said that I'm going to do this for free, and I'm not going nowhere, and I better cooperate or he was going to kill me,'' she testified at a preliminary hearing.
The article also quotes Carol Tracy, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Women's Law Project, as saying the judge's comments that the case was just "theft of services" was ''a throwback to the Middle Ages, when rape was a crime against property, not against a person.''Seriously. The implication of the decision is that prostitutes are offered less protection under the law than other women. We're relieved to see that the bar association is on the case.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 10)
31. Yeah. OK Will.
Pakistan?
Whatever loser.
Sh*t happens in the business of paid sex.
As you should most likely know.
Jim at 3:44PM on Nov 1st 2007
32. Ok then....I have only twice ever submitted to a debaters exchange on this Blogsite and I rarely ever if ever will again so now I am exhausted and need to take a nap.....
Tschüss, bis nächsten mal...
Kurt
KrautKnabe at 3:44PM on Nov 1st 2007
33. I'm a woman, and I don't care if you publish my e-mail address. I'll tell you that SHE HAD IT COMING TO HER. so YES, it WAS just 'theft of services'. I mean, prostitutes are women, yes, but look at what they do, I mean, really, what do they expect! I'll publish MY OWN e-mail address: iluvje6200@hotmail.com. My name is Jenny and I'm 31 and not stupid. please!
jenny at 3:54PM on Nov 1st 2007
34. Jenny, what does printing your email address prove, other than you enjoy getting spam? It doesn't prove that you're any more intelligent, or that you're any more "real."
Nicole at 4:18PM on Nov 1st 2007
35. I see no reason to not carry on with the mens prosecution and to add more charges to them like solicitation and adding "armed" to the robbery charges, however, I also see absolutely no reason to not charge the woman with prostitution! To me the solicitation charge for the man and prostitution charge for the woman is the least that should happen before the ARMED robbery charges are looked into and then yes send those jerks to jail by all means.
Rick at 4:13PM on Nov 1st 2007
36. HOW CAN SHE PRESS ANY CHARGES WHEN ESCORT SERVICES (HOOKERS FOR HIRE) ARE ILLEGAL IN PENNSYLVANIA?
Nate A. at 4:11PM on Nov 1st 2007
37. HOW CAN SHE PRESS ANY CHARGES WHEN ESCORT SERVICES (HOOKERS FOR HIRE) ARE ILLEGAL IN PENNSYLVANIA?
Nate A. at 4:14PM on Nov 1st 2007
38. HOW CAN SHE PRESS ANY CHARGES WHEN ESCORT SERVICES (HOOKERS FOR HIRE) ARE ILLEGAL IN PENNSYLVANIA?
Nate A. at 4:13PM on Nov 1st 2007
39. HOW CAN SHE PRESS ANY CHARGES WHEN ESCORT SERVICES (HOOKERS FOR HIRE) ARE ILLEGAL IN PENNSYLVANIA?
Nate A. at 4:12PM on Nov 1st 2007
40. Kurt
Sorry I wore you out. Really I don't debate much on blogs either, but your comment were nicely put "provoking." Congrats on leaning German.
and hagoonee to you
And before I quit debating for the afternoon Jenny, your an idiot for posting your email - that is almost as dangerous as being a hooker. Don't lay yourself out there like that. "Look at what they do." Really like it is morally better to hold someone at gunpoint and force sex. Prostitution is a crime, however their act was a violent crime. Who would you rather have off the streets. If these individuals are willing to rape a prostitute it is not a far stretch to think they would do the same to any woman.
Gen at 4:12PM on Nov 1st 2007
41. I wonder if the judge would say the same that hang that been his daughter. I'm thinking no. According to the online dictionary rape means "to seize and take away by force". They forced her to have sex, so yeah that's rape. I don't know if she can but I would appeal this to a higher court. As for the judge, someone needs to get him off the bench because its obvious he's a idiot. As for this woman consenting, she consented with the first man, not the other too. I'm glad the Bar step in and saw this for what it really was.
mfernatt at 4:15PM on Nov 1st 2007
42. Anyone who speaks truthfully from a sociological stand point and opposes the only Utero Centric culture in the world is always has and will be labeled a woman hater. It makes manifest the ignorance the ignorance of most Americans with respect to this issue.
The Anglo American wing of the Anglo Saxon world is the worst part of Queen Victoria's legacy. It is slowly passing with the assimilation of other cultures and the softening of the English common law or it's hybrid as applied here in the US and with it the vestiges of her destruction and death.
KrautKnabe at 4:18PM on Nov 1st 2007
43. Well, the simple fact is, the woman WAS eganged in a criminal act, prostitution. Period, end of that discusion. Now let us move on to the second part of this discussion, GET A BRAIN PEOPLE!! pulling a firearm on someone and ordering them to do something is mala inse (wrong in its nature). It doesn't take a genius to figure this out! Everything which flows from that is chargeable then. These idiots should be locked up for life. Of course, she should still be charged with prostitution.
CoreyR at 4:20PM on Nov 1st 2007
44. When did their choice of proffession make them a second-class human?
Rick at 4:31PM on Nov 1st 2007
45. Jenny-
This is rape, a clear cut case it seems to me. Just because she chose to be a prostitute does not give men the right to have sex with her without her consent. I do not even understand how some people on this blog can say that that the first man did not rape her because she previously agreed to have sex with him. If I am with a man and consent to sex, but then change my mind and he pulls out a gun and forces me to have sex with him does that make it consensual sex? I don't think so.
Prostitution is dangerous. Everyone knows that, but if a prostitute is murdered is that not murder because she "assumed the risk." Newsflash people, assumption of risk is only a defense in the civil court system for cases involving negligence. It has no place in the criminal justice system.
If you use that argument who is to say that a woman who walks down a dark alley at night and is raped cannot seek justice because walking through dark alleys is dangerous, so what did she expect? Give me a break people.
Had the woman and man agreed to have sex and that he would pay her afterward, and then they had sex and he did not pay this would not be rape. But that is not what happened. She was held at gunpoint, and then violated by 4 men. When the gun came out and she was forced into sex it stopped being a simple case of prostitution and theft, and turned into sexual assault.
Jenny- do you really want these men left out on the streets? Men rape women for power, not sex, so it is likely that they will do it again. I pray to God that none of you women, or men who are husbands, fathers, or sons live in an area where these men you have defended will be set free. You may have to learn what this woman went through first hand.
Stephanie at 4:28PM on Nov 1st 2007