You can read the facts of this case through a simple search. Surprise, surprise: They may not be as clear and straightforward as you might think, from this copy. You can see what the prosecution wanted versus what he got. You can make whatever judgement you like about him, his victim, and the legal system.
I don’t particularly care about any of that. At least, not any more.
It’s been six years since this happened. Yet every other month, this guy’s face gets reposted to 9gag, Imgur, and Facebook, et. al, and dragged through the mud again. You may think he deserves this treatment. You may think it’s a picture-perfect case of white privilege, or rich privilege, or rich, white privilege. You may think he never deserves to be forgotten. You might be right, but don’t forget that the legal ramifications of being on the sexual offender registry will follow him the rest of his days, and they are no joke.
According to one site’s statistics, there are presently 463,634 cases of sexual assault per year in the US. In the six years since this case, that’s roughly 2.5 million cases. So my question is: why this guy? Why is this case reposted every few months on every social media site I visit? If you were to trawl through the 2.5M sexual assault cases since this happened, I absolutely, 100%, money-back guarantee that you will find at least one other case that demonstrates presumed privilege better than this.
This particular post was lifted from 9gag. Several of the comments demonstrate the same frustration I have. I once saw it reposted by a friend on Facebook, and asked: why? He came back with, “If it happened to your daughter, wouldn’t you do the same?” And I said, “Maybe, but this wasn’t your daughter either. Why do you feel the need to repost it?” He didn’t have a good answer.
So what’s going on here? It’s weird. Is this being done by the victim? Friends and family of the victim? Is someone getting paid to do it? In this particular case, the account that posted this to 9gag tags all of his posts with “decolonize.” Is it a sockpuppet for foreign agitators? I honestly don’t know, but I’m starting to think there’s a story here. Normal, rational people would have let this go by now.