The latest anti-black hate crime to be exposed as a hoax

Two years ago, I asked: “At last—a true Tawana Brawley / Duke lacrosse players story?” It had to do with the claimed abduction and horrible mistreatment of a young black woman, Megan Williams, by a group of six whites. About these whites, I said that far from being the Great White Defendant of liberal wish fulfillment fantasy, they were low-status, backward looking folk from the hills of West Virginia. The defendants are currently serving in prison, but, according to the AP:

Woman in W.Va. torture case now says she lied

COLUMBUS, Ohio—An attorney for a black woman who claimed torture by a white group in West Virginia says his client fabricated the story to get back at a boyfriend who had beaten her up.

Megan Williams’ attorney, Byron Potts, said at a news conference Wednesday that Williams came forward because she no longer wants to live a lie. Potts encouraged West Virginia authorities to re-evaluate the case.

Williams told authorities in 2007 that she had been beaten, raped, forced to eat animal feces and taunted with racial slurs for days. She now lives in Columbus.

Seven white men and women were convicted in the case, and most are serving long prison terms.

Prosecutors in West Virginia have dismissed Williams’ new claim, and lawyers for the defendants aren’t discussing their plans.

Michelle Malkin informs us that Malik Shabazz was legal advisor to Megan Williams.

However, there’s still a mystery here: the defendants all pleaded guilty. If they didn’t do it, why did they plead guilty? And if they did do it, why is Williams saying she concocted the crime?
October 22

Exegesis writes:

I’m a semi-regular reader of your blog, and I’d like to respond on the hate crime hoax.

Why might the men have plead guilty? It’s simple if you are at all familiar with the criminal justice system. A friend of mine, years ago, scorned a woman who wanted to sleep with him (he was engaged to another woman at the time). The scorned woman, in revenge, told the police he’d raped her. There was zero evidence, no witnesses, and yet the court case was not dismissed but instead dragged on for months. In a meeting with the DA on the case, the DA told that he knew my friend was almost certainly innocent, but would continue to prosecute him anyway and that he would probably do jail time. The DA than offered him a deal: plead guilty, you’ll do no jail time, and we’ll leave you alone.

This is how district attorneys advance themselves. They corner somebody who is poor and young, and either embellish an existing crime or manufacture one from whole cloth to advance their careers. Sometimes it is simply raw case numbers they need.

My guess is that the defendants got threatened with much greater prison time.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 21, 2009 08:13 PM | Send