Why Some Women Lie About Rape by Linda Fairstein

Author:Linda Fairstein [Fairstein, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-7331-9
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-10-28T16:04:00+00:00

The White Lie That Grows

Slightly less common than those seeking revenge—though much easier to spot—are women who have themselves misbehaved and are afraid of being caught. Often the rape story is meant to be an excuse for not being home at an appointed hour when a parent or boyfriend expects her when a parent or boyfriend expects her to be there. There is no intention of making an actual complain to the authorities, but the lie grows bit by bit—like Pinocchio’s nose—until the witness is standing before a desk sergeant filing a report.

Case in point: Angelique, who was on a business trip to New York with a group of coworkers from a West Coast dot-com company. A generous expense account allowed 10 of them to dine at a terrific steakhouse and order a selection of wines. Later, Angelique wound up in a male coworker’s hotel room. They indulged in more drinks from the minibar and ordered a porn movie through the video system. When her boyfriend called repeatedly until four in the morning, there was no sign of Angelique. He was worried about her and eventually rang the room of one of the other women on the trip.

By 7 A.M., when Angelique made her way back to her room, her coworkers were frantically searching for her. She started making excuses to them and to her boyfriend back in Seattle. “Henry made me stay in the room,” she said. “I tried to leave, but he wouldn’t let me.” When her boyfriend asked her why she didn’t get up and walk out, the self-protective lies became bolder. Eventually Angelique was telling everyone that Henry had blocked the door, thrown her onto the bed, and forcibly attacked her. One of her colleagues called the police, and detectives responded and took Henry into custody for first-degree rape, despite his protestations that the sex had been consensual.

It was not until many weeks later, as my colleague and I were preparing Angelique for trial testimony, that the motive for her story became glaringly obvious. By then, we had the hotel receipts and the telephone records that revealed her boyfriend’s repeated efforts to find her, as well as the drinks from the minibar and the porn film in Henry’s room. After pressing Angelique, she admitted that she had lied to save face. As with Louisa, we wound up not penalizing her. When her therapist told us she was suffering from severe depression she had created, it seemed most appropriate to demand that she get psychiatric help in exchange for not pressing false-report charges.

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