Tag Archives: norm mcallister

McAllister Loses One

local/regional, , , , , ,

My confidence in Vermont jurisprudence has been somewhat bolstered by the news that Judge Michael Kupersmith has denied attorney Robert Katims’ motion on behalf of Norm McAllister to dismiss prostitution charges against him, “in the interest of justice.”  Pul-lease!

The disgraced ex-senator’s second trial on the same charges is expected to proceed in April.

You may recall that  three women accused him of sexual crimes ranging from soliciting for prostitution all the way to rape. All of his accusers were epically unlucky and poor. They had been forced by their circumstances to rely on McAllister, a landed farmer and politician, for housing or employment. One of his accusers died before her complaint could be heard.  

A second accuser, who was a teenager at the time of her alleged assault, was persuaded to come forward despite the fact that she was mortified by the prospect of testifying in public. After a grueling cross-examination in which she was further victimized, she perjured herself on an irrelevant detail which she feared would damage her relationship with her then boyfriend.

The state’s attorney dropped her complaint like a hot rock and she was allowed to sink back into the woodwork, alone with her humiliating memories.

The remaining complainant was herself put through the brutal experience of testimony and cross-examination, but the state was not allowed to share any of the other allegations against Mr. McAllister; nor even audio recordings, made under police supervision, of Mr. McAllister admitting he had engaged in coercive sexual behaviors with his accuser.

Without ever having to, himself, testify,  Mr. McAllister was convicted on only the least punitive of the prostitution related charges against him.  

Not content with that lenient outcome, McAllister insisted his attorney challenge the verdict on a technicality.  The attorney’s arguments were successful in getting the judge to void the conviction and tentatively schedule a new trial.  

Mr. McAllister’s next move was to request a full dismissal.  If all had gone as he had learned to expect from his prior experiences with the justice system, he was undoubtedly expecting to get off, scott-free.

Thank goodness Judge Kupersmith has a stronger instinct for justice than does Mr. McAllister:

“(McAllister) was a member of the Vermont Senate,” the judge wrote. “The Court must infer that he had a measure of political experience and power by reason of his attaining that office…It would significantly erode public confidence in the judicial system if the public could infer that the Court dismissed the charge as an act of political favor.”

A lot has happened in the interim since the first case against McAllister was brought to trial in 2016.  Donald Trump was elected, Bill Cosby was convicted and the “Me Too” movement elevated public awareness and indignation over sexual abuse which had, until recently, been enabled by misogynistic tropes and cultural apathy.

Here’s hoping Mr. McAllister will finally feel compelled to take the stand.  If he wants us to believe he is so blameless, let’s hear how he answers questions under cross-examination.

 

Vermont Justice Fails Our Values; Over-and-Over Again

local/regional, , , , , , , ,

Like many other folks, ’outrage fatigue’ has distracted me from the everyday injustices that are happening right here in Vermont.  That is one of the collateral costs of the Trump circus playing out like a bad soap opera in Washington.

It’s easy to assume that, in our tiny, generally progressive state, overtly threatening racist acts and sexual exploitation are both infrequent and met with swift justice.  Would that it were so.

I am learning that Vermont justice seems ill-equipped to address these threats, even in the twenty-first century.

Case in point is the sorry tale of Kiah Morris, formerly our lone black female legislator, who was successfully felled by a self-entitled white nationalist by the name of Max Misch, who got his fondest wish when, in order to protect her family, Rep. Morris abandoned her reelection bid.

Sounds like AG TJ Donovan, who recently ran a strong campaign for Attorney General, caved like a cheap suit when Ms. Morris appealed to him for relief from Misch’s harassment.

Who buys his argument that Misch’s threatening behavior is nothing more than ‘free speech’, protected under Article one of the Bill of Rights?  I don’t.  

There is real harm in Misch’s menacing words and presence, not just to Ms. Morris and her family, but to her constituents who, it could be argued, were unjustly deprived of Ms. Morris’ future representation by a single bigot and not the electorate as a whole.  That sounds like election tampering to me.

I don’t believe that Mr. Misch should be allowed to succeed by hiding behind a key provision of our Bill of Rights, which was, after all, intended to protect the individual from abuse; not to open them up to intimidation.

AG Donovan has a lot to answer for if he fails to make a better case than this.

And while we are at it, what about the shabby job done by the Franklin County States Attorney’s office in prosecuting accused serial sexual abuser and former state senator Norm McAllister?

No thunderous “Me too” challenge here!  Instead, having outlived one of his accusers and gotten the benefit of another accuser’s unjust shame, his attorneys only had to answer for accusations from the third woman, who was a crushingly poor victim of marital abuse, low on self-esteem and easily intimidated under questioning.  The attorney for the state only managed to get the least of the counts against McAllister to stick.

After pleading guilty to the one charge of procuring and receiving a laughably light sentence, considering the predatory nature of his still-alleged history; McAllister, all-lawyered up, has now managed to get a mistrial called on even that procurement charge and is scheduled for a new trial in March.  None of McAllister’s other history of accusations from other women will be allowed to be heard at the new trial.  The poor woman who must now repeat her grueling trial experience, was first encouraged by the state’s attorney to pursue her complaint against McAllister under the belief that she would not have to stand alone.  Having witnessed her humiliating testimony first hand, it is difficult for me to believe that she will be willing to go through that again.

My guess is that the whole thing will be dismissed, a quiet footnote in the evening paper.

In other words, McAllister will, like Misch, get off scott-free.

Vermont justice, it would seem, is not just blind, but sclerotic and decidedly white-male.

Norm McAllister Reappears in the #Me too Moment

local/regional, , , , ,

Apparently, Norm McAllister is back in the dock, pursuant to a civil case brought by one of the three women who accused him of sexual assault and procurement.

You may recall that one of the women passed away before the states attorney’s office could bring her case against McAllister to trial.

A second woman, who was a minor when McAllister allegedly attacked her repeatedly, was extremely reluctant to be dragged into public testimony.  When she was finally forced to testify, the sordid details and public humiliation proved too great for her.  In a classic “blame the victim” moment, she was confronted with her own behavior, and fibbed about kissing another young employee at the McAllister farm.   

I suspect no one had warned her that she, the victim, would stand trial rather than the alleged perpetrator who was never required to utter a word.

Her allegations were abruptly abandoned by the prosecution and McAllister faced a sole accuser who was also a poor farmhand with a sketchy past. The jury chose to believe the denials of Senator McAllister over her extremely credible testimony about multiple instances of sexual exploitation and abuse.  Perhaps unable to completely exonerate McAllister in their collective mind, the jurors did convict on a single count of procurement.

Mr. McAllister is now seeking to reverse even that single count as he awaits a brief incarceration. but because the deal he agreed to had him admitting guilt in that single count of procurement, the accuser’s civil cases for damages against him was allowed to proceed.

It is that civil case that is now before the court, citing nine counts, per the following:

.sexual harassment in the workplace

.unfair housing practices

.abuse of power and authority by a public figure

.assault

.battery

.negligent infliction of emotional harm

.breach of warrant of habitability

Naturally, McAllister’s attorney, Bob Katims, seeks to have the civil case stayed pending the outcome of his appeal of the criminal conviction; but the plaintiff’s attorney,  Evan Barquist makes the case that Mr. McAllister points out that the plaintiff has been awaiting justice since 2016.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Evan Barquist, argued the case should move forward. Barquist said McAllister waived his right to avoid self-incrimination by testifying during his criminal trial. Barquist said, “He can’t unwaive them now.”

One can only reflect that, with former senator, Norm McAllister, Franklin County met and failed it’s “Me too” moment, two years ahead of the rest of the country. 

The whole experience has highlighted prevailing winds of misogyny and cowardice that buffet even tiny Franklin County’s Republican delegation. 

To quote our Abuser-in-Chief:  “Sad.”

The Enigma of GOP outrage

local/regional, , , , , , ,

A campaign flunky for Don Turner has turned his righteous indignation toward the least likely senate candidate from Franklin County. Talk about choosing a soft target!

Isn’t it interesting that, attached as he is to the campaign of proud Donald Trump supporter and candidate for Lieut. Gov, Don Turner, Shayne Spence somehow managed to muster outrage over a tasteless joke made several years ago by Franklin County senate candidate Dustin Tanner. The fact that Mr. Spence proudly boasts of going to great lengths to ferret out a questionable tidbit speaks volumes about Mr. Spence’s own rather icky character, but that is beside the point.

What surprises me is that Mr. Turner’s prospects apparently are so dim that his campaign staff has nothing better to do than waste time “getting something” on a Franklin County novice who hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell against the Franklin County Republican Machine, oiled as it is with outside donations from the likes of “hate donors” like Carol and Tom Breuer and the bashful Ms. Lenore Broughton.

The County Courier, predictably a water carrier for the GOP, leapt on the meager “scandal” like a starving dog on a rubber chicken, gleefully embroidering the story with feigned outrage. I can’t share a link to the mighty Courier’s two full pages of coverage, because there is none, but we’re talking molehill-to-mountain proportions. Slow news days can stretch into months for the Courier.

This leads me inevitably to ask, where was the outrage when disgraced Senator Norm McAllister stood credibly accused of multiple acts of sexual assault, including violation of a minor? Surely The VGOP and the County Courier could have mustered a little more sensitivity for the victims, all of whom were not only dependent on him for their economic survival, but also politically dependent on him as his constituents. Surely the weak exploited by the powerful makes for greater indignation than a sophmoric standup routine.

Republicans try desperately to avoid responsibility for their own all too frequent acts of gross misogyny, but whenever someone from the other side of the aisle transgresses, they are all over the outrage even as Democrats are manning up and taking their medicine.

Now repeat after me, Mr. Spence:

“Hey-hey. Ho-ho. Kavanaugh has got to go!”

Too Little, Too Late?

local/regional, Uncategorized, ,

Will 2018 be the session in which the Vermont senate finally takes meaningful action toward addressing sexual harassment?  We’ll see.

‘“There’s a different weight to it this year in light of all that’s been going on around us,” (Senator Tim) Ashe said of the new policies, referring to national stories of sexual harassment.’

It’s too little too late to help one young girl who, reluctantly and under oath, provided compelling testimony of her alleged sexual exploitation by then-senator Norm McAllister. The victim had the misfortune of stepping forward just a couple of years before our porcine president and the “Me too!” movement catapulted the dirty secret of sexual assault by powerful men to national attention.

We’re talking about a slip of a girl, just a teenager at the time she served as Mr. McAllister’s unofficial intern at the statehouse, who came from a low-income rural background, asking for a state senator to be held accountable for abusing her.

She relied on law enforcement and the states attorney who persuaded her to testify, to provide the credibility for her complaint that her own social inferiority denied her. Had she hailed from the hill section of St. Albans with gold-plated parentage, I rather doubt her case would have been dropped by the state’s attorney after she fibbed, out of shame and the growing realization that her behavior, not McAllister’s was on trial, about a kiss with a lad who was not her boyfriend.

She left that courtroom completely broken, and we haven’t heard from her since.

The next female who dared complain about the sexual mistreatment she received from McAllister once again sat alone in the courtroom as her own past relationships and financial hardships were used as a cudgel to reduce her credibility before the jury who accepted the argument that a decent family man and senator like McAllister simply wouldn’t do the things of which she accused him. If he had, it must have been consensual; as if any woman can actually “consent” to sexual exploitation by a man who wields the power to deprive her of heat and a place to live.

A third accuser conveniently died before the alleged assaults were brought to trial.

After it was all over but the weeping, McAllister faced conviction on only one count of procurement for the purpose of prostitution, and as far as I know has yet to be sentenced.

I have serious doubts that the procedures now in place for dealing with sexual harassment in the senate would have prevented that teenager’s secret exploitation in Montpelier; or any of the other brutalities Mr. McAllister actually discussed in recorded conversations with the other two complainants.

I suppose it’s pointless to wonder if the outcome of Mr. McAllister’s brush with justice might have been different had it taken place now; but I would urge the legislature to consider well that persons of low status usually suffer the greatest indignities, and a sexual harassment policy that is ineffective at protecting the very young and the timid
won’t be worth the paper its printed on.

Norm McAllister plays the world’s smallest violin…again.

local/regional, , ,

Just in case anyone still cares, you should know that, according to the Messenger, perennial victim of unfair antipathy toward serial sexual assaulters, Norm McAllister wants to have his conviction on one count of “prohibited acts” overturned.That’s right: following one aborted trial concerning accuser #1, a teenager at the time of the alleged assaults; the untimely death of accuser #2, and the defense’s successful end-run against all but one of the lesser charges concerning accuser #3, Mr. McAllister wants another bite at the apple of complete exoneration.

Nevermind the fact that he has twice put the state through the costs of preparation and jury selection to hear the case concerning accuser #3. You may recall that Mr. McAllister abruptly entered a plea of guilt after the first day of the first trial, because the audio evidence was judged so damning by his defense team. The next morning he demanded that he be allowed to revoke his plea and stand trial all over again, claiming his defense team had bullied him into the plea.  (whimper, whimper...)

If you read the comments on stories about these trials, made almost entirely by men…and men who were not in attendance at the trials, I might add…you will understand why Mr. McAllister has felt emboldened to play the victim, over-and-over again. With few exceptions, these gentlemen, enlightened by nothing more than brief second-hand summaries of recordings and testimonies, all conclude that McAllister did nothing wrong; often adding a superfluous observation to the effect that “women often lie about these things.” The passion of these remarks makes one wonder about the gentlemen’s own personal histories on consent!

Statistically, nothing could be further than the truth. Not only is sexual assault drastically underreported; on the occasions when it is reported, the deeply personal nature of the crime means that it is rarely brought successfully to trial. The percentage of false accusations is around 5% or less. Few men are ever held accountable for their sexual assaults.

And what is the possible sentence that Mr. McAllister is facing for his “unfair”conviction? All of $100. or a year in jail. Tsk, tsk…how unjust.

Worlds-smallest-violin

 

McAllister guilty on only one count of “prohibited acts.”

local/regional, , ,

The verdict is in.

We all heard the same evidence that the jury did. We heard the tape recorded conversation in which Norm McAllister discussed his sexual interactions with the alleged victim in the grossest terms.

We heard her tearful and painfully detailed account of those same interactions in direct testimony from the stand.

We heard the Defense’s one scheduled witness, McAllister’s son Heath, noticeably hesitate as he responded in his father’s defense.

Then we heard Norm McAllister unexpectedly take the stand and essentially tell a tale completely opposite to that of the alleged victim, but with none of the visceral emotion betrayed in the woman’s voice.

Apparently, when the chips were down, the jury chose McAllister’s testimony as more credible, which begs the question: why?

Was it because the jury was predominantly male and societal attitudes remain in a place of denial about the legitimacy of rape complaints?

Was it because the alleged perpetrator was a “pillar of society,” a state senator, landowner and patriarch of a prominent Franklin County farm family; whereas the alleged victim was poor, powerless, and a prior victim of domestic abuse?

I have no idea; but the verdict makes no sense to me…especially since the jury did apparently believe McAllister was guilty of procurement for prostitution.

No doubt the fact that evidence of other sexual assault complaints against McAllister was excluded from the proceedings, and the fact that jury selection carefully screens for prior knowledge made a significant difference.

No one can fault the principle behind those exclusions, but justice is as often a victim of these discretions as it is a beneficiary.

In this case, justice was left crying in the dust.

I can venture that opinion because I was there at the first McAllister trial as well. I remember the emotionally scarred young woman, barely more than a girl, who had been persuaded to brave the courtroom to confront her accused assailant. It was clearly torture for her to relive her degradation in front of a courtroom full of curious listeners. Her participation was an act of greater bravery than most of us have ever been called upon to do, but, under relentless pressure and embarrassment, she told a desperate fib to preserve her current relationship…an insignificant fib about never having kissed a co-worker, and, when she confessed to her attorney her case was abandoned by the prosecutor and all that pain was for nought.

I still wonder how she is doing, having prostrated herself before the law only to be cast out into the judgmental world, never knowing the balm of justice.

The woman involved in the current case is older and more experienced in life’s cavalcade of never-ending disappointments, but still she shed real tears in her testimony, her cheeks burning with shame and degradation.

Her future is far more uncertain than that of her exploiter, even with his one conviction.

There is no true justice tonight.

Norm McAllister in the dock once again.

local/regional, Uncategorized, , ,

Ex-senator Norm McAllister is back in court, and this time it looks like the trial will play out to a jury decision. Accused of exploiting a vulnerable woman (one of three who filed related complaints) in a sex-for-rent scheme, McAllister faces one count of rape and two more for procurement.

The third alleged victim passed away before having had a chance to testify against McAllister; so this is the last opportunity for the Franklin County prosecutors to hold McAllister accountable for the violations his accusers say he has committed against them.

It took two and a half days to seat a jury, and opening arguments were presented yesterday afternoon. Having already sat through days of false starts at the courthouse in the McAllister matters, I chose to skip the first three days of the current iteration; but today I was there for the duration.

As was the case in McAllister’s first trial, just witnessing the victim’s distress on the stand was harrowing. The first trial ended, without a decision, when the prosecution withdrew charges after the victim fibbed on an incidental embarrassing fact that should have had absolutely no impact on what appeared to be a very strong case for serial sexual assault. She sat, with obvious reluctance, through hours of painful and humiliating questioning, while her ‘alleged’ abuser remained silent, stolidly safe in his seat, facing forward and avoiding the gaze of the gallery.

It was gut-wrenching to witness her distress at having to relive the incidents before the prying eyes of the jury, press and public; but relive it, she did.

This time, we heard graphic details of gross and humiliating acts of sexual degradation allegedly performed on the victim’s person while she wept and pleaded with her assailant to stop. At one particularly painful and degrading point in her ordeal, the perpetrator shushed her loud objections, then said “Good girl.” as if she was one of his livestock.

Her explanation for tolerating the sexual exploitation for so long centered on the fact that she was homeless when she accepted work and a place to live at the McAllister farm and was trying to satisfy the state in order to regain custody of her children. She already had a sad history of earlier abuse at the hands of her on-again/off-again husband that had contributed to the loss of custody.

Her testimony was compelling; nevertheless, the Defense asked Judge Martin Malley to dismiss all the charges on a technicality; something the judge refused to do, observing that evidence had been presented on all three charges that could support conviction, should the jury reach that conclusion.

The prosecution rested its case at the end of the day. Tomorrow morning, the trial continues, even though Mr. McAllister himself does not appear to be willing to testify.

It is anticipated that testimony will conclude by midday tomorrow, after which the jury will be allowed to deliberate at its leisure.

McAllister to stand trial (again) for sexual assault

local/regional, ,

Good news for those of us who felt Mr. McAllister’s plea deal cheated his constituents of the opportunity to hear all the details of the case, including Mr. McAllister’s defense, in open court.

He had a good thing in that plea deal, which spared him exposure to a life sentence; but now that he has chosen to withdraw from the deal, all bets are off.

It appears from news reports that McAllister’s second thoughts on the plea deal were largely due to a concern to preserve his farm from vulnerability in an upcoming civil case, filed by one of his victims. He claims that he was unaware, at the time of accepting the plea deal, that it would represent a tacit admission of guilt and could jeopardize his defense in that pending civil suit.

The need to prepare a second time for trial and to screen a second jury is a burden on the county; the county for which he served as an unyielding fiscal and social conservative voice for a number of years. Not so concerned with the people’s purse now, are we Mr. McAllister?

This of course does not address the repeated pretrial stress on the victim; still awaiting her day in court.

A trial date has not yet been announced; but once again, I sincerely hope that the women of Franklin County turn out to support the victim.

McAllister brought to blushes by his own filthy words.

local/regional, ,

Well, the sordid pageant of disgraced former Franklin County senator Norm McAllister’s legal battles continued on Friday, as Judge Martin A. Maley heard a second day of arguments concerning Mr. McAllister’s request to reverse his plea deal on sex crime charges. Mr. McAllister has said he was coerced by the defense team into accepting the plea deal, but testimony would seem to suggest that, after hearing the evidence against him, his son Heath first  urged him to accept any plea deal that was offered, then changed his mind much later after the plea commitment had been made.

I had a prior obligation that prevented me from attending yesterday’s proceedings, but the St. Albans Messenger bravely provided an outstanding account of all that was said and heard. It bears reading for the graphic lesson it provides on the sheer brutality of this kind of sexual exploitation, as well as insight into the rationalizations Mr. McAllister adopted for his behavior.

That the good people of my county repeatedly sent the perpetrator to the legislature, even while all of this was going on, makes it that much more disturbing.

Unfortunately, a paywall prevents me from sharing the Messenger story, so I am linking to a Seven Days piece instead.

The fact that Mr. McAllister at first accepted, then sought to overturn his arguably generous plea deal, is further proof that he still has not fully accepted his wrongdoing.

Unlike the little girl whose case against McAllister was dropped when she came unravelled at the end of four hours of grilling on the stand, the victim in this case was not forced to testify.

On that occasion last June, Mr. McAllister was allowed to sit undisturbed in the gallery without having to say a word or meet the appraising gaze of the curious, as the most graphic aspects of that victim’s testimony were haltingly and painfully recounted, mortifying the young woman and rendering her easy prey for defense tactics.

This time, Mr. McAllister was forced to listen to a recording of his own filthy admissions of forced sexual conduct with the victim while the entire courtroom heard them as well.

According to the Messenger story, members of the public listened with downcast eyes, some weeping for the indignity that was so painful to hear. McAllister for his part just sat there, red in the face.

The defense has been given one week to submit closing arguments, and the prosecution, another week for response. After that, Judge Maley will render a decision as to whether or not Mr. McAllister’s plea deal will remain in effect.

Mr. McAllister and his son had better hope they lose this case because a full trial on the evidence holds not just the threat of further humiliation, but a possible sentence of up to life in prison.