SANDUSKY REGISTER REPORTS: 

FIGHTING FALSE CLAIMS

By Matt Westerhold
Oct 27, 2021 7:45 AM FINDLAY — A woman who says she was raped by a man who claims she's making it up wants prosecutors to charge him with falsely claiming she and other women conspired together to lie about him.

The woman asked Hancock County Prosecutor Phil Riegle to charge the man with "obstruction, falsification, retaliation (and) victim intimidation."

She wrote to Riegle on Oct. 21, asking him to file the charges. As of Wednesday, Riegle had not responded to her and he did not respond to an inquiry from the Register about her request. Riegle and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost will not say whether any charges are being considered.

In June, the woman reported the man raped her in 2008, likely drugging her drink prior to the alleged assault. While her allegation was being investigated an attorney and a private investigator working for the man she accused told a detective they had evidence that suggested she and another woman who accused him of rape in July 2020, along with an attorney, conspired to concoct the stories about being raped.

 
The Hancock County detective investigated the claim, subpoenaing telephone records of the women, but no conspiracy was found. The two women both say they don't know each other and they, along with the attorney, deny the allegation there was any collusion.

Move along

The investigation of the woman's rape complaint was closed in August. Riegle, when asked about the rape allegation at that time, said there "wasn't any evidence at this point to seek an indictment."

He's declined to answer questions about the woman's request that the man be charged with falsification for alleging she and the other women conspired together.

Yost also has declined to answer that question or other questions about why he's ignoring the women who filed the complaints against the man. In all, three women have accused him of rape. The man denies all the allegations, and he has never been charged.

Only one of the three alleged rape victims has been charged with lying about being raped. The man asked that the woman be charged with falsification, and Yost obliged. Yost is the prosecutor in State vs. Waters, but he won't say what message he's sending rape victims in pursuing the felony charge at trial, which appears to be a first of its kind in Ohio.

Yost claims Arica Waters, 29, of Lyndhurst, lied about being raped, a contention she and her attorney both vehemently deny.

Hear ye, hear ye

• Advocates fear Yost's message is if rape victims come forward and a prosecutor doesn't believe them they could be sent to prison, relating it to a common practice powerful men use to intimidate women and keep them from reporting sexual assaults.
• The threat of prosecution for lying about being raped is often used to convince women to retract allegations or drop efforts to get a man charged, advocates say.
• Another tactic is to suggest a woman "wanted it," according to advocates. Yost used that one in a court filing in State vs. Waters, suggesting the third woman who filed a rape complaint against the man was a "willing participant" in a threesome rather than a rape victim, as she claimed.

Ohio Attorney General Chief Counsel Carol O'Brien has not responded to inquiries about why the office is seeking to silence women who say they were raped.

• 
  It's not clear why Yost cherry-picked the available evidence from that investigation and ignored other evidence that is perhaps more compelling. He wants to silence the other women and hopes a judge will oblige him in that effort.
• Yost asked the court to bar the other alleged rape victims from testifying at Waters' trial, and he wants the other rape complaints excluded. He also wants the judge to prohibit defense attorney Sarah Anjum from cross-examining the man — his lead witness in State vs. Waters — about the other rape complaints against him.

There are about a half-dozen motions awaiting a ruling from visiting Judge Janet Burnside, who was appointed Oct. 18. A telephone conference among attorneys and the judge is on the docket for Thursday.

Here's an excerpt from the Findlay woman's Oct. 21 email to Riegle, which has been copied to Yost.

• "I am alleging that the accused (hired) a private detective who gave false, defamatory, deceiving and misleading statements about myself, Arica Waters and Waters' attorney, Anjum, to an investigator during a criminal investigation. This has interfered with my investigation. Detective Seem investigated these allegations and found no evidence to back them up, proving each one of these to be false.
• "During a recorded interview the accused told Detective Jason Seem that there are consequences for making allegations of rape against an individual. Was he implying that he will try and get me charged with a felony for reporting that he raped me? I find these false allegations to be intimidating and they were used as retaliation for my reporting the rape." (italics mine) - SanduskyRegisterhttps://sanduskyregister.com/news/350614/fighting-false-claims/