Commentary: Is 378 Years Really Justice?

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The Vanguard began in July of 2006, a little over a month after District Attorney Jeff Reisig was elected in a tightly battled and hotly contested race with fellow Deputy DA Pat Lenzi.  He took office in January of 2007.  Both before and since that time rarely a week or month does not go by without hearing a complaint about Yolo County justice and the legal system.  And yet, clearly that sentiment does not go very deep because of right now the smart money is that Mr. Reisig will not face a serious challenger in 2010.

A lot can change between now and the end of the year when someone would have to file to run against him.  Indeed there are some surprise bombshells that are being held just beneath the surface at this point, that if they saw the light of day could change entire calculations.  But that will depend on many factors outside of anyone’s control and it’s not even clear that anyone is waiting in the wings to take advantage, should such an opportunity arise.

I could go through a long laundry list of problems I have with the current DA, but I want take the time today to explain my alarm at the 378 year sentence in the Ajay Dev case that was just handed out.
Obviously some qualifications are in order here at the outset.  First, the family of Mr. Dev claims he is innocent.  At this point, I do not know that he is or is not innocent.  I know that a jury of 12 voted to convict him on something like 76 counts and acquitted him on another 13 counts.  I am certainly open to the possibility that that is a wrongful conviction, but as I write this now, I have no way of knowing for sure.  I have heard one side and I did not sit through the trial.
Some have suggested that Jury Verdicts are somehow sacrosanct.  I had the Innocence Project on my radio show a few weeks back, I just do not buy that there is anything sacrosanct about Jury Verdicts.  Mistakes happen in all walks of life.  People get convicted based on all sorts of falsities including misleading witness testing, improper conduct on the part of law enforcement, misleading results of physical evidence, etc.  I am not making accusations here, but this stuff happens.  On the same day that Mr. Dev was sentenced, the LA Times ran a story about a jury verdict set aside after a 1983 conviction of a man for killing his mother.  It tooks 26 years and a seven-month long investigation by the LA Times to find new evidence, but the verdict was set aside.

Again, in this particular case, I do not know that there was a wrongful conviction.  However, there are so many other aspects of this trial that raise alarm, that I think setting aside the ultimate question of guilt or innocence, it is worthy of raising this point.

First, 378 is absurd for these charges and I don’t want to dismiss the severity of child molestation.  But he is being charged as though he committed crimes against 76 individuals rather than against one individual on multiple occasions.  He is receiving a longer sentence than he would have gotten had he committed manslaughter and perhaps longer than if he had committed second degree murder.

In the comment section someone who seems to know the victim argued that he destroyed the girl’s innocence and deserves this sentence.  I do not argue with the prospect of the heinousness of the crime if guilty, but regardless the length sentence takes a lot to swallow.  From all accounts she is now 25 years old and married.  I have no doubt that if this happened it has made her life more difficult, but is she worse off now at 25 and married than she would have been had he killed her at age 15?  That question sounds very inconsiderate and I apologize to those who may be offended, but there just seems an incongruity in our justice system.

Family members compare this sentence to the issue of Brett Pedroia who received 1 year for a guilty of plea of molesting a 9 year old.  They argue that since Pedroia is white and Dev is Nepali, this represents racism.  To me this represents a huge flaw in our legal system.  As someone told me, this kind of sentence would never have happened in Sacramento County and it is not necessarily because Yolo County is so horrific, although it may be.  But in Sacramento County it would have never gone to trial.  It would have been plead out, Dev would have gotten a year or two, and he would be a registered sex offender and have a record, but he would see his young child in a year or two.

That discrepancy between Dev and Pedroia should alarm anyone concerned about the notion of justice.  It should really alarm people who ponder–what if he is innocent?  We create huge incentives for people to plead guilty to avoid the horrific life sentence for a crime that does not warrant such a punishment.

That leads us to the question–where is the common sense in our justice system?  There are mandatory sentencing guidelines for sure that tie the hand of the judge.  But was it necessary to charge Dev with 89 crimes?  Was it necessary for Judge Fall to impose the maximum sentence for each of those convictions?

These things baffle the mind at a time when our jails and prisons are overflowing.  At a time when our county and state are running huge deficits, we are trying these cases for mindboggling amounts of money and putting people in prison for mindboggling amounts of time.

Again I don’t want to diminish the severity of this crime.  If he did perpetrate these crimes on a teenager, he certainly deserves a good and fair sentence.  I’m just not convinced that 378 years is a good or fair sentence and neither the DA’s office, the Jury, nor the Judge stood in the way of that.

Throw out the question of whether or not we have locked up an innocent man in prison, to me right now, given what we know, I just don’t get how we locked up any man in prison for this long for a crime against a single victim that did not result in the loss of life.  To me that is not justice and that is something we need to fix.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

 

Author

  • David Greenwald

    Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

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Court Watch

42 comments

  1. I don’t like that Repug DA at all, but there is a difference between a conviction and a sentence. The DA’s job is to get a conviction. The judge does the sentencing. The DA isn’t going to try or care how long the sentence is, with the exception of something too short. That’s just the nature of the game.
    That said, I’d like to see serious challengers to both the DA and Rexroad. When those two were elected, they brough too much of a rightwing slant to Yolo County.

  2. “But in Sacramento County it would have never gone to trial. It would have been plead out, Dev would have gotten a year or two, and he would be a registered sex offender and have a record, but he would see his young child in a year or two.”

    A huge assumption is being made here, that Dev was willing to plea bargain. My guess is that Dev was given 378 years bc he refused to plea bargain, and put the state to the trouble and expense of trying him, even tho the evidence against him was “overwhelming” in the mind of the DA. The reality is that the DA’s office will “throw the book” at criminal defendants who do not cooperate in a plea bargain offer. The object of this game is to intimidate a criminal defendant into cooperating with law enforcement, admit guilt, take a light sentence, so the legal system can get away with the least expenditure possible to convict defendants they believe are criminals. One can argue whether the plea bargaining system is fair or not…I’m inclined to think it isn’t, especially if the defendant happens to be innocent. But that is a different discussion.

    That said, is life in prison w/o parole a reasonable sentence for a child molestor? Dev was adjudicated a child molestor. Personally, I have no problem with that sentence. I consider child molestation a heinous crime, deserving of a long prison sentence. This is particularly true bc child molestors have a very high recidivism rate, and are known not to be very rehabilitatable. In other words, we need to keep child molestors in prison a long time for the protection of the public.

    I agree that Dev could possibly be innocent. Mistakes in the legal system do happen. However, in this case, it appears the evidence against Dev was pretty solid. There was a taped phone conversation, in which he admitted guilt. I suspect his appeal will hinge on the translation of the phone conversation, since it was in Nepalese. However, the defense was supposed to be given a transcript of the phone conversation before trial, so could have presented their “version” of translation in court. If they did not, then my guess would be it is bc there is no real controversy about the translation. Either that, or there was ineffective counsel, which I very much doubt. In short, I don’t think there is much in the way of appealable issues in this case. Admittedly, I was not at trial, and can only give an opinion based on what I read in the blog or in the newspaper…

  3. [i]First, 378 is absurd for these charges and I don’t want to dismiss the severity of child molestation. But he is being charged as though he committed crimes against 76 individuals rather than against one individual on multiple occasions. He is receiving a longer sentence than he would have gotten had he committed manslaughter and perhaps longer than if he had committed second degree murder.[/i]

    Yes, this is an essential point. According to the court, Dev forced a teenage girl to be his mistress. This is an ugly crime that should lead to prison, but there are many cases of it across the United States. It almost never leads to life in prison without parole. There is no logical argument that it is the same as raping 76 different women on the street, nor that it is as bad as murder.

    I don’t read this case as racist, exactly, but the outcome could have been affected by cultural unfairness. Namely, that arguing for leniency is an insider’s game. When 5th-generation Americans have sex with teenage girls, they know how to make it look less bad. For instance, there is an entire town on the Arizona-Utah border filled with forced marriages with teenage girls. The men in that town are in trouble, certainly in my opinion in less trouble than they deserve to be. But no one is talking life in prison without parole. These men know how to navigate the system. None of these girls are “adopted daughters”; instead they have entered into “plural marriages”. They also dress up their polygamy with thick airs of Christianity. But what they are actually doing is the same thing, sex with teenagers with more coercion than consent.

    It isn’t reasonable to multiply a prison sentence by 10 just because the defendant is arrogant and culturally out of step. Life in prison without parole is over the top, at least based on what the prosecution has said publicly. The public can’t see all of the evidence in the trial at the moment, but if there is some better justification lurking there, the DA or the judge should explain what it is.

    [i]The judge does the sentencing.[/i]

    It certainly adds fuel to the fire that the judges have to run for election at all. They have nothing to run on other than how hard they can throw the book at defendants. In the end it makes them all “rightwing”.

  4. Reportedly, the defendant refused to accept the DA’s plea- bargain offer . We do not know the particulars of the plea bargain offered but, given Reisig’s record as DA of relishing high profile media attention(especially in this type of case, just before his reelection campaign), it probably wasn”t much. It is almost an unwritten law among some judges to punish defendants with maximum sentences when they reject the DA’s offer to “plead out” and insist on going to trial. This is to “encourage” defendants to plead-out,a form of judicial system collusion between the DA and judicial bench that should be unacceptable.

  5. ” The DA isn’t going to try or care how long the sentence is, with the exception of something too short. That’s just the nature of the game.”

    I have to say that having been in the court during the sentencing that’s untrue, Steve Mount was pushing for the max all the way.

  6. Only know what I’ve read said:
    “There was a taped phone conversation, in which he admitted guilt.”

    ..according to what I concluded from DPD’s orginal piece, the defendant admitted in this taped phone to having consensual sex with his accuser after she was 18.
    How is this admitting his guilt to the charges??

  7. Ol’ Timer: I want to be clear on the phone conversation, that is one interpretation of what was said. The family claims it was a hypothetical comment taken out of context. I have not yet read the transcript, so I do not have first hand knowledge.

  8. “The DA’s job is to get a conviction. The judge does the sentencing. The DA isn’t going to try or care how long the sentence is, with the exception of something too short. “

    The DA suggests to the judge how much time should be given. I suspect most often the judge goes along with whatever the DA suggests.

    “..according to what I concluded from DPD’s orginal piece, the defendant admitted in this taped phone to having consensual sex with his accuser after she was 18.
    How is this admitting his guilt to the charges??”

    If I were sitting on the jury, and heard a taped phone conversation in which Dev admitted having consensual sex with the girl at 18, my thought would be – “He lied about have sex with the girl; if he had sex with her at 18, then in all likelihood he had sex with her prior as the DA has posited and produced evidence of”. In other words, if Dev was a proven liar, I am free as a juror to believe the witness against him – the girl who claims rape by Dev as a child.

    “This is an ugly crime that should lead to prison, but there are many cases of it across the United States. It almost never leads to life in prison without parole.”

    That is because most child molestors accept a plea bargain. Dev’s mistake was to not take the plea bargain.

  9. [i]The family claims it was a hypothetical comment taken out of context. I have not yet read the transcript, so I do not have first hand knowledge.[/i]

    It’s striking that both sides are making so much hay of this transcript, yet neither side has made it public. What’s keeping them? This is not the same as paying for a full trial transcript.

    And instead of a “we translate it this way, they translate it that way”, what should be public is a verbatim transcript with a full record of the original Nepali. The translations could be useful too, especially since they are part of the court record. But in the age of the Internet, anyone can find new translators to compare notes.

  10. Why should an innocent man take plea bargain? Focus the case as a whole. An innocent man should have nothing to fear, since the justice would be on his side? Was it?

    It all started when the victim threatened retaliation of Ajay’s involvement in breaking up
    of her relationship with her boyfriend. The family was aware of her promiscuousness
    nature, which is against Nepali culture. Premarital sex and even kissing before marriage
    is a taboo. Ajay/family had conversations with the boy and the victim thought that the
    eventual breakup was related to that. She then went to police and complained of abuse. No
    record of telling anyone that she was raped 3 times a week. The police questioned Ajay and
    put him through a Lie Detector Test Ajay passed it! The case was withdrawn.

    After that, the victim goes to Nepal. She gets arrested in Nepal for passport fraud and
    was jailed. Now she is stuck in Nepal and cannot go back to USA. There was no way out. She
    contacts the Yolo Police for help and asks to reopen the case. The detective works with
    the embassy in Nepal to get her back into USA (They have provisions to do that for
    investigation. If Ajay is found guilty, she will get US citizenship, by US laws) she comes
    back to USA on a news passport, which was illegally obtained.

    The new case is on. Many of the information that would have supported Ajay was not allowed
    or ignored. Instead of defending justice, tactics (prosecutor misconduct) were used to
    somehow win the case.

    These include:
    •Use media
    •Withhold & ignore evidence
    •Stretch the case to years to push the defendant for a plea bargain (by weakening him
    financially and psychologically)
    •Use emotions to get Jury’s (which was predominantly women) sympathy
    •Use tactics to physiologically manipulate the Jury, by presenting material unrelated to
    the case
    •Do not allow sufficient time or do not allow key witnesses…
    •Misrepresent facts
    The list goes on.
    It would be very clear to anyone who looks at this case with an open mind that the trial
    was unfair, the verdict was irrational and the sentencing was extreme. Racial bias also
    can be suspected considering other trials & sentencing.

    Remember, the people who are the guardians of justice, they should guard justice at cost. They have a moral responsibility not to act like a defense attorney. They should not try to win at any cost. But it seems like there is clear history here. Read on…

    ….”He has received a measure of criticism for his actions in this case, namely because his first injunction, while powerful, completely trampled on due process and was blatantly unconstitutional”… Read on:

    http://daviswiki.org/Jeff_Reisig

    …”Despite these advantages, in the closing week of the race, it seemed close enough that Resig would pull out a very dirty campaign tactic.” … Read on:
    http://davisvanguard.blogspot.com/2006/12/2006-year-in-davis-review_6269.html

  11. Yolo County has to be the worse county in all of CA to try getting a fair trial at and a fair sentence. I am willing to bet Nothing like this happens in Sonoma nearby, and that the county is even worse than the former king of the corruption Tehama.

    Another thing I would like to add is that even in the bible god was able to forgive anyone including murderers (rapists as well I think) as long as they were able to change their ways and accept christ. If I remember correctly one of the saint’s was a former murderer or something that was saved. I think in this country there is a misconception that through harsh sentences and hard time people change and have their thoughts changed or ingrained into them by the system. I don’t think it’s true it only makes them worse, more hateful, resentful, and ready for vengence once they get out, plus prisons are crime schools to begin with. I think the way scandanavian europe handles it is the right way, and that is to treat criminals as people who made mistakes or have problems and need to be taught the right way to live or rehabilitated. God always teaches compassion and forgiveness.

    You also have to realize that sexual crimes unlike others can hit anyone and especially males. EVeryone I think including most if not all women/teens like this girl was has hormones and hornyness. Anyone can be caught off guard and let those hromones dictate them esp if they are taught by society it is acceptable and not hard to get away with due to hollywood for example and woody allen being the prime example. Unlike other crimes like calculated murder a sex crime can hit anyone of any socioeconomic class that is why I do not understand why he got a sentence higher than a murderer. To take part in a calculated murder you really have to be a stone cold person or someone with really crossed wires due to your upbringing, but I am sure there are tons of people not caught for various sex crimes all over even Yolo county that are being hypocrites and commenting on these threads. Heck Arnold is just as guilty of groping woman as that dentist that was sentenced in that very county by that same crappy lawyer this Ajay guy got.

    Also Miley Cyrus was dancing on a pole recently and I am not sure who set that show up, and movies like American Beauty, etc. really make a lot of men think teenagers are game and acceptable. Plus the disparities between age of consents in states and things people say online. So how can you people truly blame him and think that kind of a sentence is acceptable unless they proved he was holding a gun to her head every time he had sex with her? I mean even look at porn sites, almost all of them advertise teenage sex and even lie about girls over 20 calling every single female a teen thats how much they are pushing this.

  12. “But he is being charged as though he committed crimes against 76 individuals rather than against one individual on multiple occasions.”

    David, I thank you for spelunking for alternate views to the goings on in Davis. However, I think you could possess a little more insight and finesse when talking about these things. The above sentence seems to imply that you find an offense where there were 76 victims in want of a harsher punishment rather than one victim raped 76 times. If I am correct in interpreting this implication, then I must say that I cannot fathom the difference here, only that, instead of one innocent person being tortured multiple times over the span of approximately 5 years, it was 76 individuals each being tortured once. In either situation, this is ridiculously disgusting, and the fact that you try and make one sound more heinous than the other is most disturbing. Both situations are equally atrocious, and require, in my opinion (as all of these comments on these forums are), equal amounts of punishment.

    On another note, “Bravo!” to Only Know What I’ve Read for doing your homework on child molestors!!

  13. “No one serves a full sentence. With good behavior, his sentence will be cut in half.”

    This isn’t true actually, there are mandatory sentencing laws, I think he has to serve a much larger percentage, someone else give the exact number, I know the judge mentioned it.

  14. Yes, is is true – see Penal Code 4019 which dictates “good time credits.” Felons serve 50-66% of the time imposed by the sentence (with a few excepttions such as Life without possibility of parole or LWOP)

  15. [quote]This isn’t true actually, there are mandatory sentencing laws, I think he has to serve a much larger percentage, someone else give the exact number, I know the judge mentioned it.[/quote]The law in California for violent felonies requires the offender to serve a minimum of 85 percent of the time sentenced.

    source ([url]http://www.articlearchives.com/crime-law/corrections-parole-probation/508233-1.html[/url])

  16. So this guy adopts a 15 year old from another country and then repeatedly rapes her violating her both physically and emotionally. Even worse does so while being in a position of authority as her guardian, a position that he is supposed to use to protect her.

    Having worked with victums of such abuse I can attest to the devestating impact and emotional scars it leaves on these people. These people are so seriously damaged that no compassionate person would ever suggest that the damage to the victum could ever be outweighed by the concept of mercy for the perpetrator.

    They legal system rightfully throws the book at him. The Judge gives him the max, the DA brings every charge he can. These people understand the gravity of the crime. If Pat Lenzi were to have won the DA race she probably would have asked for even more time. If he is guilty, and. he has been convicted, no cultural or racial bias is relevent. If he should have taken a plea and didn’t he made a mistake but don’t try to make it the DA’s fault for removing someone who would do such things from the general population. If you want to condemn the DA for showing too much mercy in the Brett Pedroia case you may have an argument but to say this guy should get the same when the facts are quite different is a stretch.

  17. typhon mary, you do not know if it was rape or consentual sex until she changed her mind later once she found a boyfriend. Plus, famous people get away with such crimes all the time doing little if any time. Look at Polanski for example. No one in Europe cares about his crime and America doesnt care enough to extradite him.

  18. Old School, you have some interesting role models to look up to there. Maybe you want to be just like them but don’t actually have the balls to commit a crime?

  19. Polanski got one count for one act. His defense was she lied about her age. The girl in the case and her parents came to his defense saying the punishment was too harsh. As for suspected bias, he had made China Town and many big water interests in Southern California were not happy about a movie that revealed the kinds of things that went on to bring water to L.A.

    This guy was her guardian. How old was she when this started? How long did it go on for? How many counts were brought against him?

    Someone posted that the woman involved is now 25 and married as if to say this is all water under the bridge, she should be over it by now, but the reality is that they offer no psychological assessment and it is more than likely that she has suffered greatly and will carry the scars of post traumatic stress from this abuse for the rest of her life as do most people who have suffered child abuse.

    As a professional who has a good deal of experience working with children who have been abused in such a manner I can tell you that people who experience this sort of abuse are the most damaged children, and, later, some of the most damaged adults you will ever meet. They are often unable to hold jobs or maintain relationships. They are often substance abusers, suffer from depression or become abusers themselves.

    This was no small crime and three hundred years is both justice and sends a message of deterrance. Castration or capital punishment would be a more traditional punishment but we don’t do that sort of thing anymore for this type of crime.

    I wonder what they would have done to him in Nepal for this sort of crime?

  20. The sad part of this article is that it detracts from the things that the DA should be criticized for doing. His willingness to go for the death penalty in the Holloween massacre, the murder of Andy Stevens, and going forward the Topete case. The prosecution of young people for transporting drugs, adding a second charge and dramatically increasing the penalties, when all they are doing is carrying small amounts of them from here to there are but too examples. His opposition to medical marijuana is another example.

    Going after him for the West Sac gang injunction and now this are examples of how you miss the mark in you criticism, attacking the DA for racism or bias when he is trying to do the job he was elected to do, protecting the law abiding citizens of Yolo County.

  21. “That is because most child molestors accept a plea bargain. Dev’s mistake was to not take the plea bargain.”

    I have always heard that the American justice system is the best, I have come to realize it is not. Why should the sentence be 50X-100X worse if the person puts up a defense? Does that represent a “best” in justice?

    No doubt the DA used every dirty trick to win conviction. I wonder how many translators were hired until they found the words they liked?

    Things were stacked against this guy-

    The case was in Yolo County – worst justice system in the state where the DA is oblivious to justice and the judges act like they do not care.
    He has the wrong skin color and from a place too close to Afghanistan
    This was a sex crime
    He is a male
    He dared to put up a defense
    Used an attorney from outside the circle

    This was the perfect candidate to throw the book at.

    This guy might be guilty, but you have to wonder. Most of the people in the protest pictures were women – there seems to be quite a bit of doubt.

  22. DPD said:

    “Ol’ Timer: I want to be clear on the phone conversation, that is one interpretation of what was said. The family claims it was a hypothetical comment taken out of context. I have not yet read the transcript, so I do not have first hand knowledge.”

    …your response does not address the question: hypothetical or not, if he spoke only about sex with the accuser after she was 18, he has not admitted to the crimes that he was being tried for. The jury may have taken to heart the standard instructions from the bench, i.e., if you feel that the accused has lied about ANYTHING( in this case, not EVER having sexual relations of any kind with his accuser),you MAY reject everything that he says as a lie.

  23. I just don’t know ol’ timer, until I read the full transcript, I’m not going to guess, I’ve heard too many different interpretations.

  24. “…your response does not address the question: hypothetical or not, if he spoke only about sex with the accuser after she was 18, he has not admitted to the crimes that he was being tried for. The jury may have taken to heart the standard instructions from the bench, i.e., if you feel that the accused has lied about ANYTHING( in this case, not EVER having sexual relations of any kind with his accuser),you MAY reject everything that he says as a lie.”

    The point is that if Dev lied about having sex with the girl, even if she was 18 or older, then the jury is free to infer he lied about everything else, including his denial that he had sex with the girl when she was 16. The jury is also free to infer the girl’s testimony is believable. That is the problem with lying on the stand – it can get you into a whole lot of trouble.

  25. “Polanski got one count for one act. His defense was she lied about her age.”

    Actually it is really amazing how good his plea was. He had numerous counts on him like furnishing drugs and alcohol for a minor, rape on two different occasions (he f@ked her in the a@@ took a break and grabbed her again and continued a while later), he also met her on two occasions and knew her mother so there is no way he wouldnt have known about her age and I believe he later admitted in interviews from France that he did, he also furnished child pornography by taking nude pictures of her on two occasions. Still even if the judge was so bad as the documentary “Polanski wanted and desired” portrays he still would have only gotten up to like 15 or 20 years while this guy gets over 300. Oh and Polanski sent the judge pics of him in Germany with other under aged girls hence why he didn’t want to abide by the plea and Polanski also hooked up with a 15 year old Natasha Kinski (same age as this sopposed “child”).

  26. “The girl in the case and her parents came to his defense saying the punishment was too harsh.”

    well the girl in this case should definetely do the same considering he brought her over from a third world country and it is because of him she has a chance at a better life here. No matter what happened or what things led to, I am sure even she will tell you it turned out a lot better than if she stayed in Nepal. Also, doesn’t that tell you something that Polanski’s defense claimed 20 years was too harsh when someone now gets over 300 when this girl in question was even older?

  27. “Someone posted that the woman involved is now 25 and married as if to say this is all water under the bridge, she should be over it by now, but the reality is that they offer no psychological assessment and it is more than likely that she has suffered greatly and will carry the scars of post traumatic stress from this abuse for the rest of her life as do most people who have suffered child abuse.”

    Polanski’s victim sure seems to be over it and even encourages the charges to be totally dropped, in fact she herself said something to the effect of “I hope now when he thinks of me he won’t hate me for what I’ve done” or something in one interview/article I read. And Polanski had numerous victims it is fact, heck that was the whole reason the mother hooked up her daughter with him as a blackmale scheme cause she heard rumors.

  28. “As a professional who has a good deal of experience working with children who have been abused in such a manner I can tell you that people who experience this sort of abuse are the most damaged children, and, later, some of the most damaged adults you will ever meet. They are often unable to hold jobs or maintain relationships. They are often substance abusers, suffer from depression or become abusers themselves.”

    than read these posts by someone who claims they liked old men as a teen and got raped by one even (she also spends a lot of free time on imdb defending Polanski and under aged sex):

    she wrote:
    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000591/board/thread/137083648?d=137161037&p=1#137161037
    “My age is 45. I was born the year after Geimer and know the time period better than you do. I knew 12 and 13 year old girls who were sexually active with guys older than them. I knew 13 year olds who were going after teachers in school because they wanted to. I knew 13 year old girls who were pregnant by guys older than them. The year after I was raped, I fell in love with a 43 year old man and we were together for five years after that. So you ask me how I know teenagers’ thinking…. I was one during that period and I can tell you, during the early to mid to late seventies, we saw our parents having key parties and being sexually free.

    I can tell you, had Roman Polanski seen a dolly carrying, gum chewing, pigtailed girl in Sammy, he wouldn’t have chosen her. PERIOD! There was something knowing about her, and if you look at her photos, she has this air of having been there a few times. She doesn’t have that Cindy Brady aspect to her.”

    that same person wrote in a post above:
    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000591/board/thread/137083648?d=137123017#137123017
    “I’ve stated this before, as a rape victim myself (the same year, funnily enough) I could never EVER forgive my rapist. And we rape victims have this ‘look’ that only others know. And I can tell you, neither she, nor Patricia Bowman or Desiree Washington have it. They do have, however, that $$$$ gleam to their eyes. I don’t care what the transcript of her testimony says, she could have lied. Happens all the time. But one thing I’ve never done, is forgiven my rapist. As for the pedestal, perhaps you should re-examine why you put Sammy there.”

    see, do you really think this nepali girl would be able to trust men so easily and meet one on the internet less than a year later?

    and if it really was as such bad of a crime as you describe why would the governor of CA still be friends with him, why would harrison ford fly all the way to europe to hand him an oscar, etc.

    and here is a brand new post on there defending him like countless people on imdb do:
    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000591/board/thread/144813215

  29. Wow, you are really fixated about Polanski and know much more than I would want to about it. So you have convinced me that Polanski should be punished even though his pregnant wife being murdered by the Manson family does cause me to have some sympathy for him. Anyway, just because Polanski has been in exile for over 30 years doesn’t mean anything about the Dev case is unjust.

    As for giving the girl a better life it sounds like you are in favor of human trafficing for sex. I think it was one of the few things Bush was right to oppose.

  30. In your earlier article on the sentencing, you wrote:

    California law mandates full and consecutive sentences for the 46 forcible sexual assaults. Fall sentenced Dev to the upper term of eight years for each of those separate counts …

    Suppose the minimum “full sentence” is two years instead of eight. That’s still 92 years. What’s the difference between 92 and 378? Unless I’m missing something, the judge didn’t really have much discretion.

  31. I got to know Ajay, Peggy and their adopted daughter back in 2000 for a few months when I assisted them as their real estate agent. They seemed like a healthy, happy family to me with no signs of abuse. Thank you, David, for trying to get a full transcript of the 52 minute phone conversation between Ajay and his daughter. Please keep readers informed of your success or lack, thereof.

  32. typhoid mary, I was trying to point out how hypotrycial this socirety is. Look at many comments directed at Dev of people syaing to kill him or hoping he gets raped etc. no one ever said or says that about Polanski even though he’s done similar if not worse things. Also, this guy is only facing up to 30 yrs for doing similar stuff to an even younger girl just not being legal guardian:
    http://childsafetywatch.blogspot.com/2009/05/christopher-selfridge-accused-of.html

    the da messed up or did something shady in the ajay case unlike that da.

  33. Check out advocatesforajay.com if you have not already. Typhoid Mary assumes that a dark skinned guy getting convicted by a white jury in a county known for a much higher conviction rate for dark-skinned people means he must be guilty. Also, she gained much by his conviction – the right to stay in the US. She wants to be here so badly she allegedly forged paperwork to come here initially. Again, see advocatesforajay.com.

  34. You failed to mention that Dev had connections that got the victim jailed back in their native country when she was back visiting other family to keep her from coming back to Yolo County and testify against him. She was jailed for over a year and only released by the Davis PD investigator working with the state department. Can you really tell me you would want that guy living in your neighborhood?

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