Author: buffalopundit

Waltergate

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scandal

On Tuesday – on the eve of the WNED debate between incumbent Democrat Mark Poloncarz and his Republican challenger Ray Walter, City & State published this article:

That was it. Multiple sources were telling City & State that there was an ongoing investigation involving your typical western New York brand of petty corruption – bid rigging for road work projects. The article as it first appeared – reproduced above – didn’t go into many details, except to pre-emptively exonerate Poloncarz and his administration of any misdeeds.

The Republicans, however, pounced so quickly and so heartily, you’d almost suspect they knew it was coming.

Frantically trying to gin this up a bit more? Yep. But also giddy. They were giddy. Can you blame them? Whether you like or hate Poloncarz, his honesty as a political leader is his stock in trade. If he’s not likeable, he’s competent, and to poke holes in that perception would certainly help the Republican candidate, who is running to be County Executive of WBEN’s listenership (which is, on a good day, around 10% of all people listening to the radio at any given time). 

Literally within minutes of the City & State story being published, Ray Walter’s campaign was busy readying the hay, complete with an allusion to Watergate!

Ringing alarm bells isn’t serious leadership. It’s grasping for headlines and an effort to manufacture controversy and relevance. The meme was carefully crafted within moments of the City and State article’s appearance. Poloncarz is a crook! Poloncarz’s administration is under investigation! Why is Poloncarz covering up this investigation into his administration? Why won’t Poloncarz speak publicly about an investigation being conducted by the Attorney General’s office? Why all the secrecy? Why the cover-up? What is he hiding? 

City and State later updated its original story several times, resulting in this newer, more complete version that includes quotes from various and sundry people, including Poloncarz and a spokesman for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. 

Getting Schneiderman’s office to respond must have been quite the feat, you’d think at first blush. After all, it has a policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations. The trick here is that there is no ongoing investigation. It’s over. So, knowing what we know now, let’s examine the Republican quick-memes, and judge how well they’ve held up in under 24 hours’ worth of factual scrutiny: 

 

Poloncarz is a crook!

No, he’s not. 

 

This administration runs a clean administration,” Poloncarz said. “We became aware of certain potential improper actions leveled during the final years of the Chris Collins administration. We performed an internal investigation and we turned that information over to the state attorney general’s office for them to perform a more definitive investigation to determine whether inappropriate actions were taken in the Department of Public Works in 2010 and 2011.

 

 

Poloncarz’s administration is under investigation!

No, it’s not. 

 

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz on Tuesday responded to a report of an ongoing probe, saying that the only investigation into the county Department of Public Works he was aware of stems from actions during 2010 and 2011, which predate his administration.

 

 

Why is Poloncarz covering up this investigation into his administration?

He’s not. It’s not. 

 

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office has confirmed that it investigated alleged bidding irregularities at the Erie County Department of Public Works, but Schneiderman’s office also said that its probe of the county agency is now closed. 

 

 

Why won’t Poloncarz speak publicly about an investigation being conducted by the Attorney General’s office?

Easy! Because (a) the investigation didn’t involve anything that happened during Poloncarz’s administration; (b) because Poloncarz is not the Attorney General and has no business commenting on or publicizing an ongoing investigation being conducted by a state agency; and (c) it’s not being conducted because it’s closed. 

 

Why all the secrecy?

 

Poloncarz, reached by phone, said his office began its investigation into bid processing shortly after he took office in 2012 and turned over the results of the probe to Schneiderman’s office in January 2013.

 

 

Why the cover-up?

 

On Tuesday afternoon after this story was published, the attorney general’s office said it had investigated the matter but had closed the case.

 

“In January 2013, County Executive Mark Poloncarz requested that our office look into alleged past issues related to competitive bidding for projects at the Erie County Department of Public Works,” the Schneiderman spokesman said in an email. “After a thorough review, and with the full support and cooperation of County Executive Poloncarz, our office closed the case with no further action.”

 

 

What is he hiding? 

 

Poloncarz, reached by phone, said his office began its investigation into bid processing shortly after he took office in 2012 and turned over the results of the probe to Schneiderman’s office in January 2013…

…On Tuesday afternoon after this story was published, the attorney general’s office said it had investigated the matter but had closed the case.

“In January 2013, County Executive Mark Poloncarz requested that our office look into alleged past issues related to competitive bidding for projects at the Erie County Department of Public Works,” the Schneiderman spokesman said in an email. “After a thorough review, and with the full support and cooperation of County Executive Poloncarz, our office closed the case with no further action.”

 

What did Poloncarz know and when did he know it? He knew that a Collins appointee had acted improperly when it came to roadwork contracts, and he knew in 2012. He then contacted the proper authorities – the Attorney General’s office. Not just because it was a matter for law enforcement, but because it would be unseemly for Collins’ successor and rival to investigate these specific allegations. 

Every single allegation – every attempted smear – turned out to have been completely false. But not only was it all false, but the overheated, reflexive over-reaction from Walter and his surrogates seems nothing less than childish now. In less than 24 hours it went from them screaming bloody murder to Bob McCarthy explaining that it was a Democratic-led probe into misdeeds under the previous Republican administration, with which Walter was closely aligned. 

 

The attorney general’s statement contradicted the Walter claim that a state investigation was currently in progress, which he based on a Tuesday report in City and State magazine.

“We know an investigation is going on; it’s been reported,” Walter claimed at a hastily called news conference Tuesday afternoon in Erie County Republican Headquarters.

When asked if he knew for sure an investigation was ongoing, he replied: “I know what I read in the article.”

Walter also suggested Schneiderman was working with Poloncarz to cover up a probe he said had been kept “secret.”“Is he protecting a political ally?” Walter said. “He very well may be.”

 

and 

 

Poloncarz said he didn’t further pursue the investigation himself, or publicize it, because he didn’t want to influence or compromise the Attorney General’s investigation, he said, and he didn’t want it to appear as if he was “kicking dirt” on defeated Republican incumbent Chris Collins.

Poloncarz noted that he changed the top leadership of the Department of Public Works after he took over, though the change was not precipitated by the probe.

To his knowledge, he said, no one in the department has been disciplined or fired for improprieties related to the Eden Evans Center Road project because the Attorney General’s Office has issued no finding of criminal conduct, and the county did not have definitive proof of wrongdoing.

 

It is a palpable testament to the competence and professionalism of the current administration that the best Walter can do is jump the gun and falsely accuse Poloncarz of a Watergate scandal before the facts are in; to reflexively try and make up a controversy where none exists.

 

It’s not so much Watergate as it is Waltergate – a scandal only in his mind. Sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The Republicans Push-Poll

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propaganda

Households throughout western New York have received calls from area code 315 purporting to be an opinion poll from an organization that has “Liberty” in its name. The first question had to do with whom you would vote for if the Presidential election was held today: Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton?

An easy way to identify your voter, I suppose, and the choice of Rubio over, say, Trump, is notable.

A push poll is defined as “is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of voters under the guise of conducting a poll.” In other words, it’s a campaign advertisement masquerading as an opinion poll.

It would appear that desperate times call for desperate measures.

Opinion polling is a valuable tool for campaigns, politicians, and the general electorate. It’s a tough and competitive business that oftentimes comes under exquisite scrutiny and partisan condemnation. Push-polling, on the other hand, is little more than propaganda; rumor-mongering.

The push-poll that countless Erie County voters have received in recent weeks is Republican propaganda generally, and more specifically a negative campaign tactic against incumbent Democratic County Executive Mark Poloncarz, and in support of his challenger, Republican Assemblyman Ray Walter. Walter denied to me that his campaign had anything to do with it, and Nick Langworthy says his committee knows nothing about it. Some people on Twitter speculate that this might be the work of the Casale Group, a pro-Republican campaign communications firm, which is located in the 315 area code. DIsclosure reports reveal that Walter hasn’t paid Casale yet this cycle, but he’s spent $60,000 on their services in his 2011 Assembly race. but there’s no confirmation yet that it did the call. If Walter and Langworthy are telling the truth, the culprit may be some right-wing political committee; perhaps the state Republican committee.

How do we tell a push poll from a legitimate opinion poll?

For starters, this one was a dead giveaway because it refered to Poloncarz as the “Democrat Party” candidate, rather than “Democratic Party”. After asking me about my Rubio/Clinton preference, it went on to set up a question about Walter’s city vs. suburbs tax proposal by lavishing praise and slathering it with a schmear of undeserved equity before asking me if I agreed.

Here’s how it sounded, using a hypothetical example: “Ray Walter believes that kale is a disgusting, malodorous plant that tastes like poison, causes cancer, and should be eaten by no one. Do you support or oppose the eating of cancer kale? Press 1 for yes, 2 for no.”

Another question asked whether I supported a spending cap for Erie County. Another accused Poloncarz of personally transporting hundreds of Syrian refugees to basically live next door to you, go directly on welfare, and pose a “security threat” by throwing Sharia Law firecrackers at your head or something. It asked if the county does a good job maintaining roads, and whether I support towns getting more sales tax revenue, thus lowering my town taxes. It asked me my opinion of common core and testing of students.

The people or committee(s) behind this push-poll was not disclosed at the end; state law doesn’t require it.

In 2000, John McCain was the victim of vicious push-polls that George W. Bush and Karl Rove set up in South Carolina after McCain shellacked Bush in New Hampshire.

The rumors [about McCain] were spread through push polls—“really not polls” at all, according to Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion and president of the National Council on Public Polls, but “more of a telemarketing device, where you’re actually calling people in the guise of a poll and you’re not gathering information as much as you’re disseminating it.” A push poll is further defined as solely intended to spread false, damning information; a pollster who asks your opinion about something negative but true in a candidate’s record is not push-polling. Tige Watts, a Columbia consultant and pollster who considers push polls unfair and doesn’t do them, said he understood some of the calls went like this: “They’d ask who you’re voting for. If you said Bush, they’d say, ‘That’s great. Be sure to vote.’ ” You’d hang up thinking it was just a normal get-out-the-vote (G.O.T.V.) call. “But if you said McCain, they’d ask a litany of questions: ‘Would you vote for McCain if you knew … ?’ Basically, they just threw the book at him.” Watts could tell when the calls peaked—about a week before the vote—“because everybody started talking about it. It was like a waterfall.”

Push-polling is cheap and easy to get away with. Watts estimated it runs “about a 10th of the price of a truly scientific” poll—as little as 25 to 30 cents a call—since what the voter says isn’t recorded or tabulated. “I doubt they even train the interviewers,” added Warren Mitofsky of the highly respected Mitofsky International polling firm. “They give them a script and tell them to read it.” Some states have laws regulating push-polling, but to little effect, and the American Association for Public Opinion Research investigates public complaints but can rarely trace who’s behind it. People who get push-polled seldom ask who’s calling or get a call-back number, and, Mitofsky says, “none of the campaigns ever admit” to push-polling.

All of this highlights one of the many problems with New York State election law – that campaign propaganda can be released anonymously. That’s a shame, because people have a right to know who’s trolling them. The fact that I don’t know who was behind that push-poll is a problem, in and of itself.

If we want transparency in campaigns and how they’re financed, we need to not only strictly enforce the laws we already have on the books, but also begin treating the whole issue as a consumer protection issue. If I have a right to know whether something posing as health food is actually packed with high fructose corn syrup, or whether a product actually accomplished the task it’s advertised for, then I deserve to know who is funding campaign propaganda, how that organization got its funding, and from whom and in what amount. Anything less than that serves to protect malfeasors and harm the electorate.

One way to combat poor name recognition and a popular incumbent opponent is to lay the propaganda on thick. Question now is: who’s behind it?

As it turns out, it appears from my social media timelines that people know when they’re being push-polled, and they don’t like it. I sure hope this year’s Erie County Executive campaign can be run on issues rather than negativity and subterfuge.

America’s Mass Shooting Leitmotif

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okwiththis

Active shooter drills are to my kids what “duck and cover” was to boomers.

Fifty years ago, we feared Soviet nuclear armageddon, now we don’t have to be wary of expansionist Leninist communism, but random assholes who can arm themselves to the teeth if they have a working PayPal account.

Yesterday, it was a mass shooting at an Oregon Community College. Before that it was Charleston, Fort Hood, D.C., Newtown. It’s constant. It’s chronic.

The United States is unique in the developed world: it guarantees its citizens a right to own and possess firearms. It is also unique insofar as we don’t have one uniform rule across all 50 states, so the ease with which one lunatic can amass his arsenal varies from state to state. So, it’s very difficult to point to the experience of the UK or Australia in order to do something about the public health scourge of gun violence.

I wrote a piece around the time that New York’s SAFE Act – “Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement” Act – a gun control measure passed in response and in the wake of the Sandy Hook mass murder of 20 innocent first graders. I saw gun enthusiasts and 2nd Amendment absolutists declare the SAFE Act to be the most horrible and egregious infringement on Consitutional rights, ever. I called the piece “Fuck Your Gun” to be provocative.

The SAFE Act limited gun magazines and implemented universal background checks for any gun transfer in any context. The 2nd Amendment absolutists declared it to be the end of everyone’s Constitutional rights. Meanwhile, here’s a chart of mass shootings in the US since Sandy Hook. Since Sandy Hook, the US has tolerated one school shooting just about every single week.

That is a nothing short of a scandal. Thoughts and prayers aren’t working.

The second amendment. The one that helps enshrine perpetual violence and revolution. Its purpose – clearly stated – was to make sure that our new country, which at the time had no standing army, could protect itself from attacks by Britons, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and whatever Indian tribe or nation from which we were trying wrest control of land.

You want a gun for hunting? Target practice? Skeet? To ward off robbers or burglars? That’s fine. You should not, however, get to keep a military arsenal.

Those on the deepest fringes of the right wing – the people who think lunatic Alex Jones is an influential and sane voice about guns – love to bring up the notion that the 2nd Amendment exists to protect you from “tyranny”. No one gets too worked up trying to define what “tyranny” is, or who gets to decide when “tyranny” becomes a clear and present danger. The anti-government Oathkeepers group threatened to murder federal officials executing a lawful court order against anti-gay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. This crowd loves to cite the Declaration of Independence – a document that was a declaration of war against a monarch who brutally exploited his American colonies. The Declaration, however, ceased to have any legal effect the moment that Britain lost the war and recognized American Independence.

So, no, proud patriot, you don’t have a right to take up arms against the government. Indeed, Article III, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution makes that sort of thing a very serious crime.

One more gun control effort, and one more gun fetishist makes some broken, semi-informed analogy about how if the Jews were armed in the 30s, they could have somehow halted their own genocide in the face of a German war machine. One more gun debate, and one more person suggests that our representative democracy – flawed though it might be – is or could oh-so-easily-be the equivalent of Pol Pot’s Cambodia. One more effort to limit the firepower we so casually make available to lunatics, and one more person expresses his idiot fever-dream of single-handedly taking on the FBI or One World Government or ZOG, notwithstanding the fact that the government could – if it wanted to – easily take out your entire neighborhood with an unmanned drone operated by a teenager nursing a Monster Energy Drink in a dank, smelly basement in Northern Virginia.

One more gun fetishist, one more clumsy analogy made to some other object with a large capacity or capability of doing harm that we are allowed to own, but the primary purpose for which is not “putting holes in things at breakneck speed”. Gas tanks, fast cars, pencils. False arguments backed by the tyranny of the gun lobby.

And what of tyranny? We’ve had plenty of tyranny in this country, but when the Black Panthers agitated for blacks to arm themselves during the civil rights struggles of the 60s, the NRA was happy to support the Mulford Act, which limited the Panthers’ ability to carry arms and inform black citizens of their Constitutional rights. The NRA supports your right to bear arms, so long as you’re of European descent and not too uppity.

If you want a gun to “protect yourself” (a statistically, epidemiologically false notion) knock yourself out. But you don’t need to keep a Kalashnikov under your pillow.  Gabby Giffords’ would-be assassin had a 33-round magazine in his possession. He was subdued only as he tried to reload; by that time, six people had been killed.

I get that violence is an integral part of American society and history. We’re not like Japan, where the society and infrastructure are such that little kids are still free to travel independently and safely. But I also recognize that you don’t get to own an F-15 or a nuclear missile just because it makes you feel safe or helps you ward off “tyranny”.

The United States is also exceptional and unique in its willingness to tolerate us being inhuman to each other. Another mass shooting and we simply shrug.

I am of the controversial opinion that homicidal lunatics shouldn’t have access to military weapons and equipment; shouldn’t be able to waltz around your town with enough firepower to put 11 holes in a first grader. Shouldn’t be able to get so many rounds off in so little time that the first grader’s jaw and hand are disappeared.

If you like guns, good for you. I don’t want to confiscate your gun. After all, it’s legally impossible to do so unless you commit some crime or threaten violence.

But the United States is exceptional and unique not only in how tolerant it is of mass shootings, but because homicidal maniacs have the easy ability – if not the right – to amass small arsenals and commit unspeakable horrors. Other countries also have homicidal lunatics, but they can’t easily obtain firearms; a Belgian can’t just pop down to Luxembourg to buy all the guns and ammo he needs to take out a 1st grade classroom.

Our easy access to guns and our gun culture make our society a particularly violent one; not video games or TV shows – those are safe avenues of expressing the reality of warfare. We love war and conflict. We can’t get enough of it. Somehow, other societies are able to function without it.

New York now limits your ability to transfer your guns to the angry and insane, and you have to reload more frequently while you’re shooting up whatever it is you’re pointing your gun at. The 2nd Amendment, however, is not absolute. The 1st Amendment isn’t absolute, either. You can’t defame someone or incite riot with your words. Likewise, the 2nd Amendment may guarantee your right to own a firearm, but government can put restrictions on that right.

And what rights to the victims of gun violence have? Did the Sandy Hook parents have a right to have their kids come home from school? Did the victims in Oregon have a right to go to school and then go home? How are those rights less valuable than the right to arm oneself to the teeth?

We could maybe aspire to be like Honduras, Jamaica or El Salvador – third world nations with massive income inequality where the building blocks of civil society are inept, corrupt, or both. More guns lead to more violence and killings. More guns don’t make a polite society, they simply make an arrogant and armed society – a society where it becomes much easier to bring about permanent retribution for even perceived slights.

“A society that is relying on guys with guns to stop violence is a sign of a society where institutions have broken down.”

What law would prevent these mass shootings? After all, criminals don’t obey the law. I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure that we have a great country filled with smart people who could put something together. But we first have to decide – as a society, as a people – that these mass shootings of innocent people are simply no longer to be tolerated.

Right?

Last night, President Obama challenged the press to publish the statistics comparing American deaths from terrorism – a threat at which we’ve thrown lives and treasure – and gun violence. Here it is:

American deaths from terrorism are fewer than 100 for every year but 2001.

“We spent over a trillion dollars, and passed countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so” Obama said. “And yet we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?”

More guns means more killing – factually and statistically. This is doubtlessly terrorism, but it’s the kind we have, as a society, decided we can live with.

We have decided to live with it because we have decided that the right of people to bear unlimited arms without restriction is greater than the right of average people not to be shot.

The Planned Parenthood Witch Trial

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richards

Under the guise of a congressional “investigation”, Republican seat-moisteners lawmakers are trying to do to Planned Parenthood what they did to ACORN some seven years ago. This time, though, it isn’t working. This is mostly because Planned Parenthood has a broader and politically stronger constituency than ACORN ever did, and because the videos that anti-abortion activists have circulated that purport to show Planned Parenthood executives bartering for fetal body parts were so obviously doctored and unfairly edited.

It is true that fetal tissue from aborted fetuses is sometimes donated for scientific research. Research using fetal tissue has resulted in incredible scientific achievements.

The Congressional inquiry was chaired yesterday by Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, who, along with his right-wing colleagues, spent a great deal of time hurling insults and accusations but not at all a lot of time allowing the affiant, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, to testify.

The entire charade can be summed up in a chart that Chaffetz sprung on Richards at the end of his “inquiry”.  He hadn’t had the decency to show her in advance the chart he was going to use, so she was barely able to respond to it. But it was an especially – intentionally – dishonest piece of propaganda.

Chaffetz was trying to accuse Planned Parenthood of abdicating its role as a major women’s health care provider and instead making all kinds of money off of abortion. Here is the chart he showed:

The source is “Americans United for Life”, a radical anti-abortion lobbying group. Is this how these Republicans science and math? 

Notice that the vertical axes are not labeled. That’s because the two lines use different scaling. On the left side, cancer screening has a value of about 2,000,000; abortions, about 290,000. As you might expect, 2,000,000 is above 290,000. On the right, cancer screenings has a value of 936,000, and that is somehow below the number of abortions at 327,000. It’s also somehow below 290,000!

So, the chart is falsely designed to imply that Planned Parenthood now performs far more abortions than breast screenings, but that’s quite obviously untrue.

Kevin Drum went a step further in Mother Jones, showing how the charts should look:

He adds,

And why has the line for cancer screenings gone down? According to Cecile Richards, it’s because “some of the services, like pap smears, dropped in frequency because of changing medical standards about who should be screened and how often.”

More importantly, Drum adds that the suite of women’s health services that Planned Parenthood offers goes beyond mere breast cancer screenings, but includes things like STD testing and pap smears. If you include all of the non-abortion services that Planned Parenthood offers, the chart looks more like this:

This is standard Republican playbook stuff, but because of the sheer power and broad reach of the target, it’s not working out. The government isn’t going to be shut down over federal funding of Planned Parenthood, and the vast majority of Americans can see beyond the propaganda and value the important services that Planned Parenthood offers. It remains true that abortion services are never federally funded, and only make up 3% of what Planned Parenthood does. About 41% of the organization’s budget – just over $500 million – comes from federal funding for women’s health and contraception services.

The ACORN entrapment videos – all of which were deceptively edited, and none of which resulted in any illegality – targeted a group that worked to register mostly poor, mostly minority voters. This was supposed to be the sequel.

When Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina lies about a scene that doesn’t exist in any of the Planned Parenthood videos – a scene, incidentally, shot clandestinely without the mother’s permission or consent of a fetus that hadn’t been aborted, but was the victim of a miscarriage – it underscores that this Republican effort to destroy Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortion or “sale” of fetal body parts, but everything to do with interfering with women’s health and their ability to enjoy a safe and disease-free sex life. They’ve tried it before, and they won’t be satisfied until they completely alienate the female vote.

In the end, it’s about puritanism and denying to women their basic human rights. Here’s what that looks like:

Thankfully, there were reasonable people present:

It’s ok to be anti-abortion, and it would be great if abortions never happened. However, Planned Parenthood offers contraceptive services, the expansion of which would lower the number of abortions performed in this country. It’s ok to be anti-abortion, but it’s not ok to legislate a woman’s right to make that choice. But most importantly, because federal funds do not and cannot be used to finance abortion services, all of this is a lie. It is all a manufactured show-trial by men who cannot tolerate the idea that women be allowed control over their bodies and their reproductive rights.

Patrick Kane Case: The Morning After

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cambria

The dust is still settling from a shocking, raucous week for the Patrick Kane rape case. Let’s consider what’s left of it.

Last Sunday, the Buffalo News published information obtained through anonyms about the results of DNA testing done on the alleged victim. It was reportedly negative for Patrick Kane’s DNA, at least below the waist. This information is exculpatory for Kane, but not definitively so.

By Wednesday, the alleged victim’s attorney, Thomas Eoannou, held a blockbuster press conference to accuse someone of tampering with evidence, having left what Eoannou called the “rape kit bag” on the mother’s doorstep. But within minutes, all the relevant law enforcement agencies had denied that there was any irregularity in the chain of evidentiary custody. Something fishy was going on. Thursday morning, I wrote this:

Eoannou’s bag almost certainly at one point contained some piece of evidence that was obtained at ECMC on the morning the rape kit was administered. It’s feasible, for instance, that an item was stored in there but the police took it away in a different bag. What’s clear is that everyone with no stake in the outcome of the underlying rape case agrees that the rape kit hasn’t been tampered with.

By Thursday night, Eoannou had fired the complainant and her mother as his clients, and held an extraordinary press conference recanting practically everything he had said the day before. An embarrasing spectacle had been exponentially grown into a circus. Anyone’s best guess is that the mother concocted the hoax in an effort to cast doubt on the forensic evidence – an effort that would have been substantively pointless. After all, its exculpatory effect helps Kane’s defense, but so would any manufactured, phony doubt cast upon the reliability of that DNA data; the result is the same.

On Friday, District Attorney Frank Sedita held his own press conference. Clearly, Sedita was incensed by the complainant’s former legal advisor, Thomas Eoannou’s accusations about a brown paper bag; accusations that were quickly determined to be false. For a shocking period of just over 24 hours, Erie County’s law enforcement agencies were falsely made to look like bumbling incompetents. Sedita was there to set the record straight.

The press conference had all the hallmarks of a closing argument to a jury. There was a concise and persuasive PowerPoint presentation to go along with Sedita’s dramatic and emotional statements. I think that the press conference itself went on for about 30 minutes longer than necessary, and that perhaps Sedita took too many liberties in discussing the case during his Q and A. The DA now discloses exculpatory Brady material to the parties during the investigation stage – before criminal action is commenced? Sedita needed to disclose that the complainant had retained civil legal counsel? He needed to emphasize that it wasn’t a question of “when”  but “if” the case is presented to a grand jury? Too long, and too much information.

Nevertheless, it quickly became clear that Sedita’s office has acted with utmost professionalism, and has not contributed in any palpable way to the unfortunate circus atmosphere surrounding the underlying case. They have behaved ethically and responsibly. Also, his office now finds itself chasing an extra, unnecessary inquiry: what did the complaining victim know about her mother’s brown paper bag hoax, and when did she know it?

What did we learn from D.A. Sedita? There was never a bag for the rape kit; the rape kit is sealed in a box, and taken to an evidence locker at central police services. He explained that the Eoannou’s brown paper bag was given to the alleged victim’s mother by a nurse at ECMC to hold an article of clothing that the complainant was wearing at the time of the supposed attack. The mother never used the bag; police took the clothing and placed it in their own evidence bag, and the mom held onto the hospital’s bag and took it home.

“What do we do with this new information?” Sedita said at the news conference. “Obviously, there’s been an effort to create a hoax. Obviously, there’s been an effort to manufacture a perception that forensic evidence cannot be trusted. I’ve got to figure out who was in on that, why they would do that and what it means for all of the other evidence. I will be doing that. We will be doing that over the course of the next few days.”

While I’ve argued that there exists no evidence at this stage to conclude that the alleged victim had any inkling of what mom was up to, others have pointed out that this is naive and stretches credulity. I prefer sworn testimony to anonymous allegations or declarations to the press, and I prefer proof to speculative conclusions. I take every media report about the case with a grain of salt. If the alleged victim is discovered to be incredible or a liar, how this case has been handled would likely dissuade future victims of sexual assult from coming forward. If you’ve seen on social media some of the visceral, homicidal hatred being slung the complainant’s way, you’d be appalled. Chicago reporter Julie DiCaro, who has reported fairly on this matter, couldn’t go to work on Friday thanks to death threats. Because hockey; because bro/rape culture.

After Sedita’s press conference, Patrick Kane’s lawyer, Paul Cambria, invited the media over to chat. He reiterated his belief that the bag hoax establishes conclusively that the entire thing is a fabrication, and there should not be any prosecution. Specifically,

That the actual accuser knew what that bag contained. That was a very, very important fact. If you know what it contains, you witness someone claiming that it contains something else and you know it’s introduced into the legal process and you know what the consequences can be. You’re ok with that, you’re ok with a fraud being perpetrated. I think that’s a very significant fact.

He argued that the mother could be subpoenaed to testify, in which case the hoax becomes fodder for cross-examination on the issue of credibility. Cambria said that she could have committed the crime of obstruction of governmental administration, and stated that Kane was the real victim. Cambria correctly stated that Eoannou could have saved himself a ton of embarrassment by simply going to the authorities with his concerns about the brown paper bag, rather than the media.

Tom Bauerle spent two afternoons on WBEN parroting Cambria. After his presser, Cambria was caught on a hot mic saying, “Tom [Eoannou] is a good lawyer, I can’t believe he got sucked into this.” True, that.

I have no idea whether there will be any prosecution, at this point. It depends a great deal on how law enforcement assess the credibility of the complaining victim. If she knew or acquiesced in her mother’s hoax with the bag from ECMC, this case is finished. Cambria argues that she had to know, but look again at Sedita’s statement – the mother never used the bag, so the “actual accuser” feasibly wouldn’t know what, if anything, it “contained”. In any event, no one knows whether the alleged victim is culpable for the hoax any more than I know the opposite to be true; if you say she’s a cheat or a liar, you bear the burden of proof on that point.

If there is no case to be had, I will wait for the District Attorney to tell me that. Before that happens, I’m assuming that everyone involved is a rational, thinking person who would not behave completely unreasonably. So far, the complainant’s mother has proven herself to be neither rational nor thinking. As for the complainant herself, I want her guilt regarding the bag hoax – to the extent it exists – to be proven. Don’t let’s jump to conclusions about her, just like we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about Kane himself.

Anyone notice how many people directly involved or commenting publicly about this whole thing are male? Oh, it’s a tough case for the prosecution now, says former Attorney General Dennis Vacco. The alleged victim had to know what mom was up to, says Kane’s attorney, Paul Cambria. The mom perpetrated a fraud so embarrassing, Eoannou held a press conference to destroy her forever, and fire her daughter as his client. Hell, here I am asking people to stop leaking information and rushing to conclusions – and I get grief about it. The few females I’ve seen actively pursuing this case are the aforementioned Julie DiCaro, whose life was threatened for daring to report objectively, occasionally, we hear from representatives from crisis services, and local attorney Florina Altshiler, who also seems to be the only person in any piece in which she’s quoted to basically urge caution and rationality from people. We need a lot more female lawyers and commentators involved with this case.

This case has been polluted by victim-shaming since day one. I think we could all benefit from hearing more women’s voices discussing this case in the mainstream media. We’re already giving Kane the benefit of the doubt by acknowledging that he remains not only not guilty of anything, but not even charged. We sit here instead contemplating what legal recourse Kane might have if absolved of wrongdoing.

Now, we wait some more, so that law enforcement can investigate an ancillary issue about a brown paper bag that never should have happened. No, this is not how these things typically go. 

Patrick Kane Case: Eoannou Quits

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Thursday night, in a hastily called, unusually late-night press conference, attorney Thomas Eoannou publicly withdrew as attorney for the complaining victim in the Patrick Kane rape case. Eoannou’s move came just a day after he held a different press conference, where a brown paper bag with a hospital label on it took center stage, as Eoannou alleged that it was evidence of some sort of epic evidence tampering.

As it turns out, and as we reported on Thursday morning, the bag represented nothing at all. Eoannou was duped, overreacted, or both. To hear him tell it, his investigation into how that bag came into his possession led him to believe that the alleged victim’s mother’s story about it was false. Because he had so publicly used that bag to accuse someone unnamed of sabotaging this case and tampering with its evidence, Eoannou looked ridiculous coming before the media a second time doing his best Emily Litella impression: never mind.

Except here, Eoannou’s client’s mother’s misinformation was such that he felt he could no longer represent them, and he fired them. Eoannou made it crystal clear that he didn’t blame the alleged victim herself, and that she had nothing to do with this.

What do we know? 

To circle back to the underlying rape investigation, these things are true:

1. Eoannou’s bag had nothing to do with the rape kit and is not evidence of tampering;

2. The alleged victim did not lie or make up some story to Eoannou about the bag – her mother evidently did;

3. None of this means that Patrick Kane did – or didn’t – rape the alleged victim;

4. The actual evidence remains safely tucked away at Central Police Services, unmolested and untainted, and from a prosecutorial standpoint, nothing is different as we wake up on Friday morning; and

5. Thomas Eoannou – who was, is, and remains one of the area’s elite criminal defense attorneys – had no official role in this case. For the underlying rape case, his withdrawal substantively represents absolutely nothing.

After all, the prosecution may not need the mother’s testimony to present and try this case, and without her, this whole episode with the bag never gets in front of a jury; it’s totally irrelevant. Arguably, were mom to testify, it could be brought up to assail her credibility, but that’s it. It can’t be used to challenge the credibility of the alleged victim herself.

Cambria’s Bluster

It also bears mentioning that Paul Cambria is wrong – none of this establishes that the underlying rape allegation is a “fabrication”, and he’s blustering for his client. Cambria’s posturing is unseemly, and the leaks to the media about the results of the DNA tests likely came from someone in or close to Kane’s defense team and need to stop. Those leaks are poisoning the jury pool and thwarting justice. Unfortunately, we have Eoannou to blame, since his very public accusations regarding that evidence bag opened the door for Cambria to speak publicly, as well. All of this was horribly thought-out, and has exploded in the complainant’s team’s face.

If the complaining victim’s mother lied to Tom Eoannou; if a tangential witness lied to her own lawyer, who has no official role in the prosecution, how exactly does this reflect poorly on the complaining victim herself? It doesn’t. It’s just a sideshow. It’s a shitshow, to be sure, but full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The prosecution – if it comes – will be brought by the District Attorney’s office. Eoannou’s only role was to help the accuser’s family navigate a complicated and nerve-wracking system for victims whose interests are not always directly protected by prosecutors.

At this point, the alleged victim’s mother may have bought herself a prosecution of her own.

Fraud and Eoannou’s Withdrawal

Whether a prosecution comes is up to the District Attorney’s office. Will this behavior by one ancillary witness cause a notoriously cautious office to beg off? In a statement to the press last night, the accuser’s family says that she has, “every intention of pursuing this case to a just conclusion.”

One troubling aspect of all of this is this: although Eoannou may have felt an ethical obligation to withdraw from this representation based on the alleged victim’s mother’s behavior, he had no duty to do it so publicly. Ethical Rule 1.16 is instructive on this matter: if Eoannou felt a duty to so quickly and publicly withdraw, he suspected the mother was committing some sort of fraud.

It bears repeating that ejaculation is not an element of the crime of rape, and the absence of Kane’s DNA alone should not – and does not – absolve him of rape in this case. Likewise, the reported presence of another person’s DNA does not absolve Kane of rape. If I were to speculate, I suspect that the alleged victim’s mom likely concocted the “I found a ripped-up bag” thing because she’s legally unsophisticated and thought she could manufacture some sort of doubt about the DNA evidence. When Eoannou found out the truth, he had to quit (a) because she tried to commit a fraud; and (b) he helped promote it; and (c) he came out looking stupid when it turned out to be false.

However, a lawyer can only withdraw if he can do so “without material adverse effect on the interests of the client”. Query whether the way in which he announced his withdrawal met that requirement. I don’t think it did, and I think the myriad Tweets I’m seeing demanding that the alleged victim – who even Eoannou says is innocent of this aborted fraud – be prosecuted for extortion, underscores my conclusion.

Transfer Venue

One thing is certain, in my mind: the venue for this case must be changed. Send it to Jefferson or Broome County and get it away from the Buffalo media market in order to find New Yorkers who don’t care about Patrick Kane to analyze and find the facts in this case. I don’t think that Kane – or the prosection – can get a fair trial in Erie County, and the whole thing should be moved pursuant to 230.2 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Under NY law, both sides can request transfer of venue.

Everyone Dummy Up

It is my hope that this matter goes before a grand jury sooner rather than later, and that somebody goes before a judge and asks for a gag order on all counsel and witnesses. All of this underscores what I’ve been saying since the day Mark Croce decided to tell the Buffalo News about what a classy joint he runs and how these girls were hanging all over Kaner – everyone should stop talking to the media.

Patrick Kane and the Evidence Bag

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I’ve been writing pretty regularly about the need for everyone involved with the Patrick Kane rape investigation—lawyers, cops, witnesses, and parties—to be quiet and stop feeding the media. If the underlying desire—regardless of whether you side with Kane’s alleged victim, or with Kane—is to find justice, you won’t find it by trying the case in the press.

On that front, Wednesday September 24, 2015 was an absolute legal shitshow.

In fact, the whole week has been pretty horrible; remember Monday’s stories about what sort of DNA was found in the rape kit? There’s no reason for the general public to know that, at this point in the investigation. But Wednesday was something different; something special.

If you haven’t already heard, Thomas Eoannou, the criminal defense attorney advising Kane’s alleged victim, held an extraordinary press conference. Eoannou alleged that someone had deposited a brown paper bag at the home of the complaining victim’s mother. He went on to claim that the bag was absolutely, positively the one that once contained the rape kit administered in August at ECMC. The bag was ripped open and empty, and on it was a hospital label with the victim’s personal details and other information. Here it is in its entirety:

Pretty dramatic stuff, and if accurate—that someone had tampered with physical evidence of an alleged crime—beyond alarming. Never before had I heard of such an egregious mishandling of physical evidence of a crime, at least in an advanced first-world democracy. While Eoannou thanked the “good samaritan” who dropped the bag off, tipping the alleged victim’s family off to this break in the chain of custody, my initial reaction was that this was some sort of intimidation.

But not so fast.

Hamburg Police had this to say about it:

So, Hamburg’s chain of custody is in order. What about Erie County, whose Central Police Services (CPS) handles and stores this sort of evidence?

So, the county can also vouch for the state of the evidence, and that it is all present and accounted for.

So what is Eoannou talking about, and what was in that bag?

Shortly after Eoannou was done talking, all the press rushed down Delaware to the office of Patrick Kane’s lawyer, Paul Cambria. There Cambria, who had not previously commented about the case, except on my personal Facebook page, sang like a canary. Patrick Kane is the real victim. Kane’s DNA was not found “below” the alleged victim’s “waist”, but others’ DNA was. Because the findings from the rape kit were helpful to Kane, his side had no motive to tamper with any evidence. Only someone unhappy with the results of the rape kit would do such a thing.

People on Twitter commented on the “money soap” and Hustler 40th Anniversary mug on the bookshelf in Cambria’s office. Paul’s Hustler Mug is on Twitter.

The spectacle grew more surreal with each passing moment.

Here is a close-up of the redacted sticker on the bag Eoannou revealed:

That’s a regular grocery bag with a hospital sticker on it. Could Eoannou be incorrect? If Hamburg and Erie County confirm that all evidence and containers are present and accounted for—secure and unmolested—was this a mistake? Was it some PR stunt designed as a response to the persistent and constant pro-Kane leaks to the Buffalo News and other media outlets?  The pro-Kane PR juggernaut has been effective and well-funded up until now—not so much for the alleged victim. She is unknown and her side has been silent, until now. The information reported by some outlets had to come from either law enforcement or Kane’s legal team.

Also, let’s parse Cambria: no Kane DNA below the waist. But what about bitemarks on shoulder? Other DNA, above the waist? What about under victim’s nails? He limited his statement very strategically. The leaks about the absence of Kane’s DNA was especially harmful because for some reason people think that you need ejaculate for there to have been a rape. You don’t.

Eoannou’s bag almost certainly at one point contained some piece of evidence that was obtained at ECMC on the morning the rape kit was administered. It’s feasible, for instance, that an item was stored in there but the police took it away in a different bag. What’s clear is that everyone with no stake in the outcome of the underlying rape case agrees that the rape kit hasn’t been tampered with.

It’s also quite clear that the delivery of that bag to the victim’s mother’s house means something. What? No one knows. No one is likely to know unless the person who dropped it off comes forward. Was it to be helpful? Intimidating?

In the end, we learned that Buffalo lawyers and media are a bit clumsy when it comes to dealing with a super-high-profile criminal investigation. Hamburg and the county were quick to react to Eoannou’s charges, and it quickly turned the matter from one type of WTF into a wholly different and distinct type of WTF.

A lot of rumors flew around today, too. No one knows what’s true and what’s not. But one thing became crystal clear on a warm Wednesday afternoon in Buffalo: that the people involved in the Patrick Kane rape investigation really, really need to stop talking to the media. All of them—Cambria, Eoannou, law enforcement—everyone. We don’t need odd press events about brown paper bags any more than we need bar owners engaging in some good old-fashioned victim-shaming.

Justice is not being served by transforming a spectacle into a circus.

Max’s Progressive Club’s Late Disclosure

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Oops! Mistakes were made!

Actually, former Cheektowaga Democratic Committee Chairman Frank Max’s Progressive Democrats group has said absolutely nothing on the issue of its illegally and improperly late campaign finance disclosures. But before we get to that, let’s examine the constituent documents that Max’s companion group – the “Right Democratic Team” filed with the state earlier this year. As you’ll recall, the “Team” is a brand-new construct that held a fundraiser in late July but even at this late September date has yet to disclose anything at all about its activities during the primary campaign season, except a claim that it received $125 from two sources.

Cheektowaga Right Democratic Team by Alan Bedenko

I especially like the stricken “political” as the committee apparently was going to be a PAC before becoming a multi-candidate committee. It’s unclear whether the committee was created on August 7th or 14th, based on the competing “received” stamps, but either way, its filing came one or two weeks after it held its inaugural fundraiser. Who spent money on the fundraiser? How much was raised? To whom were the checks made out? How and when were they deposited? What right did this committee have to raise money for itself if it wasn’t yet legally in existence?

The Right Democratic Team declared the candidates whom it was supporting, also noting that these candidates – Magierski, Specyal, et al. – had authorized it to do so. The filing was executed on July 30th, one day  before its scheduled fundraiser.

As we reported on September 8th –  on the eve of the September 10th primary, which was hotly contested in Cheektowaga, Max’s Progressive Democrats hadn’t filed the requisite disclosures despite the fact that it was quite obviously participating the primary election. We knew that because of a piece of direct mail that it sent out slamming Democratic supervisor candidate Diane Benczkowski. Frank – who has run several times to be the county committee chairman and should know better – seemed to be sort of crossing his fingers and hoping that no one would question why there was no 32 day pre-primary or 11 day pre-primary disclosure filed.

On September 16th, he finally came clean – far too late to matter for the people whom he was working against, and completely against the law. Based on his wide experience engaged in electoral politics, there’s no way this was negligent, accidental, or some mistake. The failure to disclose had to have been intentional.

Now, Max’s group would like to inform you – the electorate – that his personal committee actually DID participate in this primary season, and in its late 32 day disclosure, filed on September 16th, reports having spent $1,600:

In its late 11 day disclosure, also filed September 16th, it reports spending an additional $950:

The 32-day report was due August 10th, and the 11-day was due on August 31st. All of this is 2 weeks to a month too late. All of it was, apparently, specifically designed to keep the electorate and their opponents in the dark about their activities.

The post-primary disclosures were due on September 21st. Neither the Right Democratic Team nor the Progressive Democrats have one on file yet.

Buffalo Connect: WiFi from 1999

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In a partnership with UB and M&T Bank, the city of Buffalo unveiled free outdoor WiFi along the Main Street corridor this summer, to much fanfare.

The ribbon-cutting was in mid-July, accompanied by hopeful comments, including this from Mayor Brown:

If downtown Buffalo is going to be a thriving engine of opportunity for all city residents, we must find ways to support the entrepreneurs who are driving technological advances and creating jobs. By providing city residents, members of the business community and visitors with free public Wi-Fi, we will continue to attract more people and business to downtown Main Street, while making targeted investments to improve our city’s wireless infrastructure.  I thank M&T Bank for leading the effort to engineer, purchase and install the system in partnership with the City of Buffalo and the University at Buffalo as we work together to further strengthen our economy.

I would submit that it’s not entrepreurs along Main Street who need broadband, but the poorest of the poor. Some of the region’s fastest publicly accessible internet is found at any branch or location of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, with speeds – up and down – that exceed 20 Mbps. Noting that 58,000 people work downtown every weekday, here’s what M&T’s Robert Wilmers had to say:

Every day it seems, downtown Buffalo is adding new residents, new employers and employees, new visitors, new and redeveloped buildings—and now new public Wi-Fi.  Buffalo Connect will make downtown Buffalo an easier place to stay connected, and that’s good for our City, and for the people who live, work and visit here.

With a major presence on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, the University at Buffalo provided fiber assets and expertise in network engineering design and management. University at Buffalo students also helped design the new logo and digital experience for Buffalo Connect.

“This is a great time to be in Buffalo—whether you are working here, studying here, or coming to visit and enjoy all our great city has to offer. UB is excited to partner in the expansion of our region’s Wi-Fi capabilities to better serve the people in our downtown corridor each day. This network will be a terrific asset to our community, and we are proud that we can lend our leadership and expertise—including the involvement of our student engineers and artists—to make this regional fiber network a reality,” said University at Buffalo President Satish K. Tripathi.

That’s a lot of technology and money backing this up.

The network operates through more than 30 “hot spot” access points running along Main Street. The access points, which have a range of approximately 250-feet, are now installed and operating from the Theater District through Canalside and Erie Basin Marina. Additional access points are being installed to extend the network to North Street, on the doorstep of the growing Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

So, how’s it working? City of Light 2.0 decided to test it all out. The results are embarrassing.

Basically, it’s ridiculously slow. Even a tourist with no cellular data would find this to be an utter waste of time, and difficult to connect. In part 2 of its analysis, City of Light underscored that these sorts of speeds are what you’d have expected to get out of wifi in 1999. In fact, it seems as if speeds are capped at 2 Mbps, which is a tiny fraction of what you get from LTE on your cell phone.

…the reliability and strength of the signal from Buffalo Connect drops off quickly once you get off of Main Street.

Drawing from this key, we can see there’s a very fine line of green teal down Main Street, and pretty much everything else is blue. The areas that aren’t on Main Street are generally blocked by large buildings.

While on Main Street, there is a lot of background noise. Yet with all the background noise, it still has a strong signal. If you have potential for decent download/upload, but a lot of noise and/or interference, then you will likely experience slow or “unstable” connectivity that appears to drop. While on the Buffalo Connect network, while going up and down Main Street (the green areas on the map), and throughout Canalside, the connection consistently provided 1Mpbs and there was no drop in coverage.

To make matters worse, it appears that Buffalo Connect’s routers are quite expensive, retailing at about $1,200 each.

…a pretty penny was spent on these brand new routers, all to provide residents, businesses, and visitors to the area with a wireless network that we have trouble finding any practical value for.

On top of routers, there are other aspects to the network that would’ve cost the provider more money, such as the black boxes pictured behind the router, the lines to the router/black boxes also pictured, the lines from UB’s fiber, labor, weather-proofing, setting up firewalls, and basic network administration. While we’d have trouble estimating the total costs of all this, we can safely assume it wasn’t cheap.

To reiterate our thoughts from Part 1, Buffalo Connect is a lackluster network. As one can gauge from our further analysis, it has a lot of potential to be greater than it is. In Part 3, we’re going to investigate UB’s network to see how it influences Buffalo Connect’s performance.

It’s hard, sure, to quibble with the quality of a free service, but why tout the hell out of something that simply doesn’t deliver? And why doesn’t it deliver?

Patrick Kane and DNA

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kaneQ

It’s been quiet lately on the Patrick Kane rape investigation front. Here’s what happened in August:

Why Mark Croce went to the Buffalo News: August 9, 2015

Slut-Shaming and the Patrick Kane Case: August 12, 2015

The Patrick Kane Case FAQ: August 13, 2015

Patrick Kane’s Designated Driver Opens Yap: August 17, 2015

Paul Cambria on Patrick Kane: Don’t Prejudge: August 18, 2015

After the initial round of victim-shaming and leakage to the media, the meme over the past few weeks has been “will they or won’t they”? Specifically, will Kane and the victim reach some sort of private, civil accommodation (read: payment) in order to avoid a prosecution?

Although a civil settlement would likely involve some promise that the alleged victim would not testify against Kane or otherwise cooperate with any prosecution, it is not completely impossible for a D.A. to prosecute anyway; difficult, but not unheard-of. The upshot of it all is that District Attorney Sedita’s office mysteriously postponed the first day of grand jury testimony, and it’s scheduled to begin shortly. Reports of a possible settlement are contradictory and likely speculative.

In the meantime, Kane appeared at a bizarre press conference where he apologized for the “distraction” and otherwise generally appreciated – but did not answer – everyone’s questions.

In Sunday’s Buffalo News, however, we have more leaks from people who are likely aligned with Patrick Kane’s legal team, or else are superfans working for law enforcement. The News reports:

DNA evidence does not confirm a woman’s allegations that Patrick Kane raped her, four sources familiar with the case told The Buffalo News.

DNA tests taken from a rape kit conducted on the woman showed no trace of Kane’s DNA was found in the woman’s genital area or on her undergarments.

The lack of that DNA evidence does not necessarily mean a sexual assault did not occur, legal experts say, and the evidence involved in this type of investigation typically consists of more than just DNA. The investigation continues, and Kane has not been charged with any crime.

The only thing missing is a quote from a bar owner about how the alleged victim was asking for it.

Whoever these four sources are, they’re in the tank for Kane. Full stop. This is yet another piece of the elaborate and well-remunerated public relations war being waged against the alleged victim in an effort further to victimize her, shame her, and to try this case in the court of public opinion. Justice is not being served here – only the interests of a very wealthy and famous young man who finds himself in very deep trouble indeed.

But what about this, from a prosecutorial point of view? First, let’s ask a former sex crimes prosecutor who also happens to be a female:

“The absence of DNA and semen, in itself, does not prove that there was no rape,” said Florina Altshiler, a Buffalo attorney who worked as a sex-crimes prosecutor in Alaska. “It proves that there was no ejaculation, or possibly, that the perpetrator wore a condom.”

Altshiler said she is aware of cases in which rapists did wear condoms.

For the counterpoint, let’s ask a male, retired District Attorney:

Frank J. Clark, the county’s former DA, offered a different opinion.

If none of Kane’s DNA was found on the woman’s genital area or in her undergarments, that information “could be a game-changer” in Kane’s favor, he told The News.

“If the vaginal swabs taken at the hospital show no sign of his DNA, that could very well exonerate him of rape,” Clark said.

The occasion of a rapist using a condom is “extremely rare” in his experience. Clark said.

So there you go. Here’s a bombshell piece of leaked information of unknown provenance! What does it mean? MAYBE NOTHING, MAYBE ALL THE THINGS. Feel more informed?

Still, Kane’s DNA was found beneath the woman’s fingernails and on her shoulders, according to two of the sources, one of them a member of law enforcement.

Whatever occurred between the two prompted the woman to abruptly leave Kane’s home, call her brother on a cellphone, go to a local hospital to be examined for signs of rape, and to file a crime report with Hamburg Police, claiming that Kane attacked her, according to authorities and sources close to the case.

I don’t think its a credit – legally speaking – to the News’ four ejacualatory sources that Kane’s DNA isn’t where one might expect it to be, but rape means any unwanted penetration – however slight, so it’s likely that the alleged victim said no, Kane went for it anyway, and she managed to fight her way out of there before Kane finished. After all, Kane’s DNA was found on her, just not around her genitals or in her underwear.

Thanks to the News’ sources, we can now have this discussion: there doesn’t have to be semen for there to have been a rape.

Again: I don’t know whether or not Patrick Kane raped anybody; I certainly hope no one raped anyone. In mid-August, I implored people close to the case to stop talking to the media. As I wrote then, “…the jury pool poisoning is continuing apace — of course, no one has yet been charged with a crime, but it’s safe to say that the authorities are investigating whether one happened, and whom they might charge. So, what we see happening as the coverage lurches from Mark Croce’s victim-shaming to anonymous supporters of the alleged victim defending her, to Lieutenant Thomas English, the aforementioned designated driver turning to the News to rebut the alleged victim’s friends’ assertions.

“The whole case has devolved into a public relations battle. In this case, Kane has deeper pockets, star power, and more to lose, so it stands to reason that his PR effort would be well-funded and professional, while the alleged victim’s side has been silent, and some friends talked to the News without attribution.”

The PR effort calmed down a bit, but Sunday’s article reveals that the court of public opinion is in session, and that maens Kane’s alleged victim is now on trial. Cui bono? Obviously, Kane – casting doubt on the very existence of any “rape” certainly helps his image and bolsters those die-hard fans who refused to believe the allegations because of the identity of the accused. What if the leakers are from the DA’s office? This sort of revelation would, let’s say, soften the blow if charges aren’t filed – regardless of the whether there’s been a civil deal.

Justice isn’t being served here.

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