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Friday, March 18, 2005

Boys will be boys
Posted by Jill | 3:31 PM

Or scumbag assholes will be scumbag assholes. Or rapists will be rapists. Take yer pick.

But the title of this post seems to be the attitude in certain parts of Illinois:

A Brookfield man was acquitted Wednesday of sexually assaulting a Naperville teenager in an incident videotaped at a party in a Burr Ridge home in 2002.

Christopher Robbins, 20, was one of four males charged with sex crimes against a girl, then 16, on Dec. 7, 2002, after police discovered the videotape.

The Cook County jury deliberated for two hours in the Bridgeview courthouse before returning not-guilty verdicts on two counts of criminal sexual assault.

"I have a new life, I feel great," Robbins said after the verdict. "I have my life back together. I'll be fine."

He did not testify, nor did the defense call any witnesses on his behalf.

Robbins' friends Burim Bezeri, 19, of Lyons, and Adrian Missbrenner, 19, of Burr Ridge left the area in August and have been charged with numerous sex crimes and fleeing to avoid prosecution. The incident occurred in Missbrenner's home.

"When they get back, they will be found not guilty too," Robbins said.

His mother, Cynthia Robbins, was overcome with emotion at the verdict, saying: "I have always believed in him. He told me what happened, and it was the truth."

The 20-minute videotape was the centerpiece of the prosecution's case against Robbins. The jury saw the whole tape at the two-day trial and saw portions of it in closing arguments Wednesday. Jurors asked to see parts of it a third time in their deliberations.

The tape never has been made public, and only the jury was able to view it at the trial. Prosecutors said it showed Bezeri and Missbrenner having sex with the girl and several of the young men writing derogatory terms for females on her and performing other degrading acts.

Robbins is seen on the tape appearing to do something that prosecutors said was a sexual act, but defense attorney Robert Kuzas said it was unclear what actually happened.

Robbins said he had sex with the girl, but in a locked bedroom and not on tape.

"The tape outright shows that she wasn't raped," Kuzas said. "My argument all along was that it was consensual."

Kuzas said the tape is "disgusting, but what happened is an insult, not an assault."


The story comes to us via Feministe, which cites someone who's been following the story in the local media:

"It is convenient that she doesn’t remember anything," [Defense Attorney] Kuzas told the jury. "She initiated drinking games, was chugging vodka from a bottle, and went to a party at 2 a.m."


This is code for "She asked for it."

Last time I looked, initiating drinking games, even getting drunk and passing out, weren't synomymous with "fuck me." And what kind of guy wants to have sex with someone who's passed out, anyway? And what kind of guy scrawls abusive slogans on the body of someone who's passed out?

You want to talk about people who regard women as subhuman, as merely vessels? Here they are. 10 bucks say these boys are opposed to abortion rights, too.

Now I'm not one of these people who thinks we're ever going to live in an idealized world in which you can say "No" right up to the moment of penetration, and beyond. Like it or not, there's a certain amount of judgment that a woman has to use, and she certainly has to know whether she means "Yes" or "No". However, it's a fact of young life that people are going to drink, and sometimes they're going to pass out. That doesn't mean they're giving consent to rape.
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