Feb. 20, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:44:17
3210 The Truth About Jian Ghomeshi's Sexual Assault Trial
Jian Ghomeshi a Canadian musician, writer, and former CBC radio broadcaster who is on trial for multiple counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking, against several women. The trial has ended, where Ghomeshi faces a maximum possible sentence of life in prison and the judge will deliver his verdict on March 24, 2016.What is The Truth About Jian Ghomeshi's Sexual Assault Trial?Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/ghomeshiFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donateGet more from Stefan Molyneux and Freedomain Radio including books, podcasts and other info at: http://www.freedomainradio.com
So it's weird, you know, there are times when everything just seems to kind of coalesce and come together.
And I genuinely believe that civilization hangs in the balance on people's response to the Xi'an Gomeshi trial.
That sounds like hyperbole.
I'm really going to make a very strong case for that today, and I hope you'll be patient as we go through the details of this.
This is going to be the difference between barbarism and civilization in the future.
There is so much that has come together in this trial, so much that needs to be understood, so much that needs to be talked about, and so many prejudices that need to be examined and challenged that it is absolutely essential that you make it through this.
Give up 5 or 10 or 20 of my other conversations.
Just stay focused on this one, please, my friend.
It is absolutely imperative.
So, Xiongameshi, a singer and a drummer when he was younger with the akabala goob Moxie Fruvis.
Then he became a radio personality with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
That's a tax-funded media outlet in Canada.
He was one of the most famous broadcasters in Canada, for what that's worth.
And he also reportedly suffers from an anxiety disorder.
And for that anxiety disorder, he has seen a therapist who has supposedly prescribed him a teddy bear for therapy, but more on all of that a little bit later.
A bit of a social justice warrior, kind of a lefty.
He is a women's studies graduate.
He minored in women's studies in college and takes a variety of progressive positions and so on.
Now, in 2014, a Toronto newspaper seemed poised to reveal allegations against him from three women who said that he had become physically violent towards them either before or during a variety of sexual encounters without their consent.
Now, this story was not published, but I would imagine as a form of damage control Gian Gomeshi met with his CBC bosses, his management in his lawyer's office, to show them videos and photographs of what he called or what was characterized as rough sex.
But he was there to say, look, it was all consensual.
I have the videos.
I have the photographs.
So don't worry.
It was all consensual.
It was rough.
But consensual and his management was presented with a video of a woman that Gomeshi had at some point dated over the past 10 years and she had large bruises visible on her body.
Now texts that were present along with this video on Gomeshi's phone referred to a cracked So he was saying, look, it was rough sex.
A paper may be reporting on this, but it was consensual.
And he shows them this media.
Now, apparently, the executives at this point realized that the problem was much bigger than they ever thought.
Gomeshi was immediately put on leave that same day.
And I would assume it has something to do with There's a morals clause in his contract that you can't hurt the brand.
Like if you're likable and then you do something to injure your likability, then you can get in trouble with those who are paying you in a lot of ways because of your likability.
It's a very amateur way of putting it.
I'm certainly no legal expert.
But there is a morals clause like if you do something really bad, then the contract is null and void.
With regards to the legality of rough sex, so in Canada, which is of course where this trial has been taking place, it is illegal to injure someone even with that person's consent.
So bondage, domination, sadomasochism and so on is thus in general a criminal activity because you can't injure someone without their consent.
Now, Just by the by, in Canada, you can hit children from the age of 2 to 12, just not on the face.
So, Canadian law says this.
You can hit children who resist, but you cannot hit adults who consent.
It's part of the general childism within society.
There are exceptions to this don't injure me bro situation.
If there are activities that are perceived to have, I don't know, broad social value is the phrase, and I don't know what that means.
But, you know, in hockey, there's a lot of punching.
There is, of course, boxing and other things like that.
So participants are allowed to hit and hurt players.
Other participants, judo and so on, because people are trained and so on.
There's also tattooing, piercing, body modification, and so on.
I guess they are accepted because they're seen to have cultural value.
I don't know what that means, but I just really wanted to point out the law.
But BDSM, rough sex, not given the same legal consideration as things like hockey, boxing, body mods, and so on, That may be partly because in a boxing match, there are witnesses.
If you're beating someone up for sex in your latex-filled sex dungeon, there are no witnesses.
This may be one of the reasons why private sexual acts are not covered or are banned, whereas public acts, if you go to a tattoo parlor, you pay money, there's a record, there's usually video in there, so your consent is accepted.
In the world of things I never thought I'd have to research for this show, I was curious, well, Curious Yellow, how prevalent is this?
You know, there's 50 Shades of Grey stuff.
And remember, the lesson of 50 Shades of Grey is that hitting a woman is sexy only if you have abs and a helicopter.
So watch out, guys.
So according to a 2005 survey, 36% of adults in the United States...
Use masks, blindfolds, and what are referred to as bondage tools during sex.
Bondage tools not, I checked, in the Black& Decker catalog.
Now, worldwide, the number of people who like this kind of stuff is about 20%.
And it's not that new a trend.
Studies from way back, from 1953, 55% of women and 50% of men liked being bitten.
And a 1999 study said that 65% of university students dream or fantasize about being tied up.
And 100% dream about missing exams.
Even many years after the fact, I can tell you that.
So Gomeshi was fired from...
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, you know, he quickly, in 1984 style, became an unperson.
His pictures were all stripped from the walls.
He did file a $55 million lawsuit against them, but dropped it soon afterwards when, I think, legal and criminal charges began to close in.
Now, he then posted stuff on Facebook about his predilection for rough sex, but claimed it was a mild form of Fifty Shades of Grey and was always consensual.
He had proof of all of that.
And because of this, the newspapers went hog-wild because he'd broken the story himself.
And his anonymous accusers went public through the media.
But it was quite some time before they pressed any charges.
So this trial by media, which is a very, very common form of modern lynch mobbing, was how these women chose to approach this at the beginning.
Now at one point eight women, and I've heard estimates as high as 11, had accused Gomeshi of violence or sexual abuse or harassment.
Now one woman, the actor Lucie de Guterres, she alleged that she was choked to the point where she couldn't breathe and slapped without her consent.
And this really was the basis of the big allegation.
There was another woman in her mid-twenties, she was a producer at the CBC in Montreal, and she dreamed of being on Q, which was the name of his radio show, and Gomeshi met her at a book signing Reportedly or allegedly took her to his hotel room, threw her against the wall, and was very, quote, forceful with her.
And this producer said that she performed oral sex, quote, to get out of there.
And she still works in the media, though not at the CBC. She said, I didn't want to complain because I was afraid that he was too powerful, that he, I guess she feared maybe he would destroy her career or something like that.
Now two of the alleged victims provided their version or statements about what happened to a newspaper in Toronto before actually sitting down and talking to the police.
Now there's seven other women whose accounts did not end up or did not result in charges against Mr.
Gomeshi.
They also spoke to the media and made Allegations of his supposedly violent conduct in romantic or sexual situations.
Now, these women can do so anonymously.
Xi'an Gomeshi did not, and still of course does not have, the benefit of anonymity when it comes to this stuff.
Now, I guess sort of like the Bill Cosby situation, the number of accusations made it sound more believable.
So, in law, there's a principle or an idea, similar fact evidence.
In other words, if people who have not corroborated or shared stories all come up with the same story, then it makes them more believable because, independent of each other, they're all describing the same kind of stuff.
If you go to the media, you kind of mess all that up because once it broadcasts across the media, then the testimony of others is tainted because they have read the media.
So this is the beginning for me, at least, of when I began to be a little suspicious of all that came next.
Because I thought at the time, okay, we go to the media.
I mean, maybe this guy is a total monster, a total creep.
I don't know.
I mean, this is something for objective evidence to determine.
But I thought, okay, well if you want to destroy someone, you go to the media.
But if you want to send someone to jail, you don't.
You keep your lip Zipped, you keep your mouth shut, and that way you can say, no, I never discussed what happened to me with anyone else, and therefore the similar fact evidence has more credibility.
So if you want to destroy someone, you go to the media.
Of course, the media will go and get all of the people into howling pitchfork mobs of irrationality.
But if you really want to get someone, you don't go to the media.
You're patient, you bide your time, and you don't do that.
So...
Anyway, so three women ended up bringing charges against Ghomeshi.
Two of them chose to remain anonymous.
The third was this Canadian actress, Lucy de Couture.
So, what did she say?
She said that during a date, Ghomeshi choked her, without her consent, to the point where she, quote, could not breathe.
I guess, thus obviating the capacity to utter a safe word, maybe a safe gesture.
And the other women's stories were quite similar, all...
These stories describe, you know, there's a date and then, boom, out of nowhere, they're attacked in the middle of this date without their consent.
And this is similar to the accusations that are made in the media.
So, of course, the question comes up, okay, well, these unconnected women, how do they come up with such similar stories?
Gosh, that must mean that there's something to it because it's the same methodology, the same approach.
They're all describing the same thing.
Well, we shall see.
Ducuter said, okay, you can publish my name.
The other two women, as I mentioned, did not.
Now, Lucie Ducuter, she's an actress.
There's a television show and I think a movie called Trailer Punk Boys that she said, look, she considers herself a national spokesperson for assault and reportedly once told a friend that she was to sexual assault what David Beckham was to Armani Underwear.
So the backstory is that Lucy de Cotere met Gamache at a barbecue at a Banff television festival in 2003.
So these attacks are going back now on 13 years.
So they chatted and after a while she visited Toronto and had dinner with Gamache at a restaurant on the Danforth, this Greek town in Toronto.
And she has reportedly have him saying, oh, how famous I am and how lucky you are to be with me, and, you know, makes him sound like a tad of a pompous jerk.
They went back to his house, and then they began making out, and then she says that he threw her up against the wall, choked her with his hands around her neck, and then slapped her three times.
And her quote is, that was something I had never experienced before.
So she left his house shortly after that in a taxi.
She said it did not escalate.
It stopped.
So the police filed a bunch of charges against Mr.
Gomeshi.
They dropped some of them for a variety of reasons, and currently there are four counts of sexual assault and one count, which is the most serious, of overcoming resistance against By choking.
There's going to be another trial on a separate sexual assault charge that is going to take place, I suppose, in Toronto over the summer.
Now, this stuff is very, very serious, particularly the overcoming resistance by choking.
That could put him in prison for the rest of his life.
And very serious stuff.
The women, in general, said that they did not have any contact with Gomeshi after the alleged assaults and chokings.
And that, or if there was, it was all really professional and so on.
Never tried to pursue a relationship, never tried to get him to date or anything like that.
Now, stepping back for a moment, let's look at the big picture of the trial.
So the crown, for those non-colonists, that's the state, the prosecution, the crown has to prove in criminal circumstances It has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
There's another thing called the preponderance of evidence, which is, you know, 51-49.
But beyond a reasonable doubt is like 95% certainty.
95% certainty.
Now, one of the problems with sexual stuff, particularly many years after the fact, or sexual stuff where there's no evidence, right?
I mean, if you go and rape someone, there's rips, there's bruises, there's semen, there may be vaginal tears and so on, and you go and get that checked out, and then, of course, you know, that goes from there.
The he-said-she stuff is really tough, you know, where the woman says, he hit me, and the man says, I didn't, or the woman says, I said no, and he went ahead, but there's no physical evidence.
No evidence of any assault.
Or if the woman wakes up the next morning or the man wakes up the next morning and says, I was too drunk to consent.
That is really, really tough because the man could say, well, you did consent and she said, well, I was too drunk.
Really complicated.
And this is one of the moral horrors that goes on in the realm of sexual assault.
Again, please understand, I'm just a guy on the internet.
I'm not a lawyer, no legal expert.
These are just my thoughts on the matter.
And I just wanted to mention as well two things.
I guess the trial is by judge not by jury for reasons of obvious mob mentalities and also that notes and sources are all going to be below the video attached to the podcast.
So society recognizing that the he said she said stuff when there's no witnesses and no physical evidence is a huge quagmire and a mess generally used to work to try and prevent this stuff.
You know chaperones on dates you know there used to be a standard in college campuses That the door had to be always open and the girl always had to have at least one foot on the floor.
And there used to be a lot of work around prevention, you know, like don't have sex, have sex when you're married and so on.
This like free-for-all that's been going on since the 60s has produced these kinds of problems where the he said, she said stuff cannot meet the burden of proof that is necessary for criminal convictions and 95% plus.
So you need physical evidence.
Or witnesses.
Or a pattern of behavior, right?
So this pattern of behavior is one possibility.
But there are challenges which the witnesses have, which we'll get to in a second.
Okay.
So four counts of sexual assaults upon three women, also charged with choking de Couture.
Now the challenge was this, is the charge means he must have choked her To overcome her resistance in order to do something else.
He chokes her to render her, as the quote goes, insensible, unconscious, or incapable of resistance.
That's the language of the criminal code.
So you choke someone out and then you do something else to them, but she did not make that accusation that something happened after the choking.
Similar conduct.
In other words, the victims all report the same thing.
For similar conduct to work, there cannot be collusion among the witnesses.
They can't be creating this whisper campaign and agreeing what to say.
That makes no sense at all, and we'll see how this plays out.
Big problem was, week two of the sexual assault trial, there was a bit of a twist.
Two of the three accusers are friends.
And according to one Canadian reporter, Ducuterre, quote, coordinated a covert network of women who have spent the last seven months sharing their assault stories with each other.
Now, the reason why is that, of course, it makes it...
The allegations are questionable because if the women all had similar experiences, they would not need to share information about their experiences, right?
Because if you have an alternate explanation as to why so many random women have similar stories about the guy, there's an alternate explanation called, they shared information.
Not even counting the media stuff.
They shared information.
And that was a huge blow to the Crown.
Now, during the sexual assault trial, it was...
Revealed that one of the complainants had omitted key details in her police statement and had exchanged a grand total of 5,000 approximately emails and text messages with another one of the alleged victims both before and subsequent to making statements to the police.
So Gomeshi has a very fierce Elvis-haired lawyer named Marie Hennin And she revealed during the trial that the complainant had exchanged these 5,000 messages, give or take, with Lucie de Couture.
The messages began October 29th, 2014.
That's the same day that de Couture went public with these allegations against Ghomeschi.
Hennen said, That the woman reported this alleged assault to police in December of 2014, and she kept texting and emailing back and forth with Duk Guterra until September 2015.
So that's 5,000 messages in, what, 400 days?
I mean, it seems a little obsessive.
Now, Gomeshi's lawyer, Henan, says that the complainant and Duk Guterra spewed lots of hatred towards Gomeshi.
And I'm sorry for the language of this.
This is not mine.
The woman says in one message to Guterres, I want so fucking badly for that piece of shit to pay for what he's done.
So a lot of rage, you know.
If the allegations are true, then that's understandable.
If they're not, then it speaks to motive.
Gomeshi's lawyer Hennon says, in some of the messages, Lucy de Guterres instructs the woman to contact, she says, contact my lawyer and my publicist.
Apparently, publicists are very, very important in this situation.
In other messages retrieved by the defense lawyers, de Guterres gives a, quote, detailed and lengthy breakdown, end quote, of her own meetings with the prosecution with the Crown.
Now, the witness also told de Guterres, quote, I wanted to know what they know.
And that she sought to find out, quote, how much can they dig, end quote, with regards to, you know, defense looking into her emails, correspondence, text messages, phone calls, private life, and so on.
It really depends on how much money he wants to spend.
And that's what the witness told the Guterre about how much investigation could occur in this trial process.
Now, Gomeshi's lawyer, Henan, also produced messages back and forth that showed that this witness had invited Gomeshi to a whole bunch of events after the alleged attack.
So, she invited him to a CD party and a stag and dough party.
Now, the witness said, okay, okay, but I did this on a professional level, just around the arts industry.
It was not personal.
I didn't want him to come as my friend or anything like that.
Gomeshi's defense lawyer said, okay, but this kind of contact is different from what you told police.
So she told police that she had kept her, quote, distance, end quote, from Gomeshi.
So she's like, kept my distance, right?
Now, the third woman testified that she and de Kuter were friends.
Now, at the beginning of this process, she said, no, no, no, did not discuss the sexual assault allegations with de Kuter.
We did not discuss it.
But, cross-examination and evidence, she did eventually admit that the two had discussed the case.
And, again, this collusion thing.
It comes up, and it's a big problem.
The case is a lot stronger if the people who are the accusers have not talked with each other or shared information, right?
So when they're talking, they're sharing information back and forth, there's the challenge of tainting the evidence.
Because, you know, especially when we're talking about stuff, you know, 13, 14, 15 or more years ago, You know, is it your memories, another person's memories, and so on, and, you know, you can talk about the weather, but if you talk about the case and your experiences and what happened, or what you think happened, or what the other person thinks happened, then you have a problem, because you can't go to the similar behavior stuff.
And, again, 5,000 texts and emails between Lucy Ducaterra and the third complainant, that really does...
Compromise the independence of their evidence.
And again, it's not helpful at all.
The third complainant, when she was initially asked, she said, no, no, no, haven't discussed the allegations with de Couture.
And then it turns out that she had.
Now, just before we move on, this is a big picture time with regards to this.
Not as big a picture as we're going to get to, but a big picture time for this stuff is that When it is your word against someone else's, then your word is the only thing that can convict them.
Because, I mean, you know, similar evidence and so on, but your word is the only thing that can...
So the moment that people start to doubt that you're telling the truth about anything related to the case, the whole prosecution begins to fall apart.
That is really, really important to understand around these kinds of trials.
Again, obviously, in my amateur opinion.
But given that there's no evidence, given that there are no witnesses, then you have to be ruthlessly honest with the prosecution and with the police and with the media, because if you're caught in a lie, your case is kind of toast.
Because if you're caught in a lie, then it means that people can't believe you or can't trust you.
Now, if people can't trust you, there's no conceivable way that I can think of to get to beyond a reasonable doubt.
Given that we're starting the 50-50, he said, she said, you have a lot, you've got 45% to overcome to get to 95%.
And if you lie, or if you're caught in a lie, you are in trouble.
Your case is in trouble.
Now, so, this witness...
She testified she did not consent to this alleged incident, and she also told the court, okay, well, I also spent the night with Gian Gomeschi.
I didn't, and he hit me, and then I spent the night with him.
Oh, she also added, you know what else slipped my mind?
I did not report a sexual encounter to the police.
And so what had happened was during the course of the trial, witnesses were being cross-examined, and the radio or the media was reporting that emails had been found.
Between the complainants and Gian Gomeschi.
Emails and messages and so on.
And then what happened was The woman, I guess, freaked out and went, oh wait, there's more for me to tell you, right?
And that, again, does not look particularly good.
So after she heard these media reports that emails had bubbled up to the surface during the cross-examination of a previous witness, then, and only then, did she report a sexual encounter to the police, right?
And this is 16 months after all of this stuff began.
So she said, okay, well, Gian Gomeschi and myself, we went to My home.
And we had what she called a quote, or what was referred to as a sexual encounter.
And she said, well, I didn't give that information to the police in my initial statement because she said, well, I didn't feel like it was relevant.
And also that it was embarrassing.
So apparently the defense is now embarrassing.
And so the Crown lawyer, the prosecutor Michael Callahan said, well, the details were reported to the police The Friday before, in an additional statement, and that's after this witness heard the end of a CBC radio coverage about all these emails coming out against the witness and so on.
And then she felt she, quote, had to just tell, end quote, police of the encounter.
So, didn't mention the sexual encounter, found out that emails were surfacing, rushed to the police, and said this.
So she told police that...
The same night that she and Gomeshi had gone to a bar in Toronto, the two had, quote, messed around, end quote, and that she gave Gomeshi a, quote, hand job.
So, Gomeshi's lawyer, Hannon, said she didn't tell police she had gone home with him and given him a hand job after the alleged assault.
So, didn't tell.
Didn't tell police about the hand job.
The witness said, well, they didn't ask specifically.
And, oh, what can you even say?
Why didn't you tell the police that you gave the guy a handjob?
Well, they didn't ask specifically.
And this, I mean, I've known five-year-olds to lie better than that.
If that's a lie, it seems kind of contradictory to me.
Now, she did admit to the court.
She said that she accepted that she was being, quote, deliberately misleading, end quote, to police about this alleged sexual encounter because she had initially told police, this witness, she only wanted to keep things, quote, friendly with Gomeshi.
I've been in the friend zone once or twice.
Friend zones don't come with hand jobs.
Pretty sure about that.
Otherwise, it would be called quite something else.
So the witness even told police she did not have sex with Ghomeshi.
And then she said that, well, you know, the alleged handjob wasn't sex, wasn't intercourse, and it wasn't relevant to their investigation.
I mean, I don't know.
It's like Bill Clinton's not even dead and he's coming back from the grave.
I did not have sex with...
That's just the Clinton defense.
Handjobs apparently are not sex.
So, you know, ladies, I invite you to believe this.
Next business meeting, walk up to the guy, don't give him a handshake, give him a handjob.
You know, just see what happens.
If it's not sex, you know, paying someone for a handshake, perfectly legal.
But if it's not sex, then paying a prostitute for a handjob must be perfectly legal, because handshake and handjob, pretty much exactly the same thing.
And the things that human beings are expected to swallow on this planet are Probably shouldn't bring up swallowing.
So in her earlier testimony, and this may again speak to motive, the witness said, Okay, well, Gomeshi introduced me to a waiter over drinks, denied of this alleged non-sexual handjob.
And the waiter said, Oh, how long have you two been dating?
And she said that Gomeshi allegedly responded, Quote, Oh, we're not seeing each other.
We're just fucking.
She said that upset her.
Okay, again, I don't know if this is true, it's all alleged, but obviously don't do that.
Don't say that.
Now, Gomeshi's lawyer Hennon said, it's extraordinary that all three complainants withheld information from the police and from the Crown and most importantly from the court in testimony.
She said only at the eleventh hour on the eve of testifying was the truth told.
Only when there was a concern they'd be confronted with objective evidence.
The truth, she said, was not going to be told at trial.
Were it not discoverable independently, we were not going to hear the truth.
These women withholding information from the cops.
This is ferociously important, this part.
And I hope you'll be patient as I continue to build this case.
It's ferociously important.
Look, if you go to the cops and you say, 10 years ago, this guy slapped me.
And on a date.
And then the cops say, did anything happen after that?
And you say, well, you know, I gave him a hand job later.
And then X, Y, and Z, I pursued him.
I wanted a romantic relationship with him and so on.
Then the cops are going to say, listen, I'm really sorry that this happened, as you say, but we can't possibly prove it.
Or the prosecution might say that if we're reviewing the case.
We can't prove it.
We can't prove it.
And so there aren't going to be charges laid, in my humble opinion, there aren't going to be charges laid if you tell the police That the guy hit you, then you gave him a hand job, and then you pursued him romantically, and blah, blah, blah, which we'll get to in a second.
The police, I would imagine, are going to say, look, we can't prove that in a court of law, so we can't press charges.
We can't.
And so, if the trial is only occurring because the women withheld particular information from the police and from the Crown, if that's the only reason for the trial, That's really terrible.
That's unbelievably terrible behavior.
If you're withholding information, and thus causing the trial to occur, and having a man risk the rest of his life being spent in prison, and incurring legal bills, I mean, Gomeshi's legal bills are staggering.
Henlon is a top-notch lawyer.
His legal bills are estimated, conservatively, between half a million and a million dollars, not even counting what's going to go on this summer.
So, if you withhold information from the cops...
You say, he hit me, I never saw him again.
Okay, then they're going to go forward.
If you say, I haven't colluded with other witnesses, I haven't discussed the case with other witnesses, and the other witnesses' stories are similar, then the cops are going to go ahead.
If you say, well, I pursued him afterwards, and also I've talked with the other witnesses, the prosecution's probably going to say, sorry, you've compromised your own case.
It, you know, can't happen.
So if you've withheld information and thus triggered a trial, I don't even know what to say.
So there is the complainant's conduct, which we'll get into a second, but the relevance of the lies that they seem to have told under oath are pretty important.
If your whole accusation relies upon you telling the truth and you're found to be lying over the course of that accusation, that's pretty bad.
So there's one woman who claims she had no contact with Gomeshi right after this alleged assault.
No contact whatsoever.
And Gomeshi's lawyer cornered her and pointed out or revealed to the judge.
William Horkins is the name of the judge.
So this woman said, oh, I was so traumatized after this assault that I had to relive the violence every time I see this guy's, Gomeshi's face on TV. I couldn't stand it, I had no further contact with him.
Okay, well, Gomeshi's lawyer reveals emails that this victim, the complainant, had emailed Gomeshi twice a year later.
And once, once, in the email, she had attached a picture of herself in a string bikini.
If you say to the cops, this guy hit me, and then a year later I sent flirty seductive emails to him and I included a picture of myself in a string bikini, I would guess, I would hope that the Crops or the Crown are going to say, you know, we can't convict like we can because the way that you behaved afterwards is not consistent with someone who's trying to get away.
So if you neglect now, would you forget?
Would you forget that you emailed the guy who beat you?
With your string bikini picture nonsense.
So email after email comes out through this lawyer, Hennon, and suggests at least that the witness made, let's charitably call them, incorrect statements under oath.
Because she said, I cut off all communications with Gomeshi, after he allegedly punched her in the head in his home.
Now again, this witness, her identity, is protected under this publication ban.
So Gomeshi's lawyer started out by establishing that this witness originally chose not to report Gomeshi to the police, but just stay away from him.
Stay away from him.
And there was a recent police interview.
Henlon played this in court.
The woman said, I didn't have any more dealings with him after that.
And Henlon also outlined, quote, How at least six times under oath, the witness told cops and the media that she didn't reach out to Gomeshi after being allegedly assaulted in 2003.
To the point where she turned off the TV and radio when he was on because it forced her to, quote, relive the violence.
This guy is so horrible, so horrifying, I can't even hear his voice, I can't see his face.
And then, okay, she admitted that she did in fact email Gomeshi a string bikini clad picture of herself...
About a year after she says that he sexually assaulted her, pulled her hair, punched her in the head and so on.
Let's turn to Lucie de Couture.
So Lucie de Couture made statements to the police and to the court.
And she said, after this alleged assault, I had no romantic interest in Ghomeshi.
I had no interest in pursuing a relationship with him, no romantic interest whatsoever in this guy, right?
Because if the question is consent, right?
The question is consent.
And if you pursue a relationship with someone, that makes it more challenging to say that you didn't consent, right?
I mean, we'll get into the complexities of that in a sec, but it's a challenge, right?
So, the lawyer says, you told the police you didn't really have any dealing with him afterwards, except professionally, and you didn't engage with him, that you weren't friends with him, that there were no romantic feelings afterwards.
Those were your words.
Gomeshi's lawyer said.
She says, there were no romantic feelings afterward.
I guarantee you that, says Lucy de Couture.
The lawyer asks her, do you?
Under oath, you're going to guarantee me that?
Oh God, yes!
de Couture said.
And then...
Out come the emails.
No romantic interest, never pursued him.
Pennant produced an email in court.
Lucy Ducuterres sent to Gian Gomeschi, July 5th, 2003, hours after Gian Gomeschi is supposed to have assaulted and choked her.
And the letter that Lucy, or the email that Lucy Ducuterres sent to Gian Gomeschi, hours after he supposedly assaulted her, reads this.
Quote, You kicked my ass last night and that makes me want to fuck your brain out tonight.
You kicked my ass last night and that makes me want to fuck your brain out tonight.
After this alleged choking and assault.
Lucy de Couture not raising the public profile of Canadian women that much...
She sent a photo of herself giving a blowjob to a beer bottle on the street to Gian Gomeschi.
She sent a photo of herself giving a blowjob to a beer bottle on the street.
Lucie Ducuterre kissed Gian Gomeschi goodnight.
They had brunch together the next day.
They took a walk together and she cuddled with him in the park.
And there are pictures of that, which is how this has been established.
de Katera told the court, ah, she sat on the couch with Gomeshi after the alleged assault and kissed him.
She also kissed him goodnight after the assault.
Now de Katera said kissing Gomeshi on the sofa, it didn't really seem consequential, which is why she didn't tell police.
And Gomeshi's lawyer.
Asked what I think is an important question.
Kissing the man who just assaulted you and tried to choke you and slapped you was inconsequential?
Yes, Dukatera said, insisting that she was trying to normalize the situation.
I don't know what that means.
I don't know what that means.
Dukatera also said that she sent flowers to Gomeshi when she returned back to Halifax and thanked him for being a good tour guide.
Thanked him.
So, again, the email sent literally hours after she claims that he assaulted.
This is July 5th, 2003.
Jean, getting to know you is literally changing my ming.
I think that's supposed to be mind.
In a good way, I think.
You challenge me and point to stuff that has not been pulled out in a very long time.
I can tell you all about that sometime, and everything about our friendship so far will make sense.
"You kicked my ass last night and that makes me want to fuck your brains out tonight." Lucy Ducuterre.
And this was not the only email produced by Ghomeshi's defense.
Here's one written July 9th.
Now this is five days after the alleged assault.
And this was a handwritten letter that was sent.
And it's fairly long.
I'll just give you sort of brief highlights.
You can find this stuff online.
So Dukatera wrote about the weekend that she and Gian Gomeschi had shared together.
She wrote that she had, quote, a few regrets from this past weekend that she wants to clear up.
She, I guess, wanted to clear up some of Gomeschi's questions about the weekend, saying she was, quote, too chicken shit to answer them initially.
Lucy writes about how she felt a spark with him immediately, the moment she saw him in Banff, and that he was too sparkling and she could see his face everywhere.
After the barbecue in Banff, she did write, she said, ah, you were surrounded by other women, paraphrasing.
She was surrounded by other women.
I don't know if I want to be with someone who obviously is so attractive to women, has a string of women around him.
There was a certain amount of jealousy, I'm sure, that was involved in this part of the communication.
She also said, by the way, I came to Toronto expressly to see you.
Quote, We hooked up for dinner and you totally knocked me out.
She said, either because you were reading my mind.
Incomplete thought, I guess.
And then in the letter, Lucy references that Gomeshi apparently had commented about wanting to go home and lie down and hold each other as they listen to music.
In the letter, Ducatira says, quote, really, what on earth could be better than lying with you, listening to music, and having peace?
And she says, we had a wonderful weekend together.
I really liked it.
And it was great seeing him become more relaxed when he was around her and so on.
And she said, I am sad we didn't spend the night together.
I could have been more open with you than on pen and paper.
So at this point in the trial, Gomeshi's lawyer stops reading the letter, and she hands the letter to Ducuter to read the last line.
And Ducuter reads the end of the letter, which goes like this.
I love your hands, Lucy.
Now these, of course, if you remember, these are the hands that Lucy de Guterres says strangled her.
I love your hands.
So de Guterres began.
It, the assault, never happened, Hennon said flatly.
Oh, oh, it happened, said de Guterres.
You love his hands.
You tell him you want to fuck his brains out.
You never told the police the crown.
You were never going to tell his honor until it was shown to you.
De Guterre replies, I never told his honor until now.
Again, I don't know what that means.
I'm just giving you some facts.
So after Couture wanted to come clean, a detective asked her, okay, are there any more emails or communication between you and Gomeshi that you've not included in your statement?
So this is when she tells the detective once more, well, she sent Gomeshi flowers and something that de Couture had also recently told the court.
And...
Thanks for hanging out is what was in the note attached to the flowers.
Hennen then said, but you never told police about hanging out in the park and snuggling.
Ducater responds, well, she had absolutely no memory, you see, of that until the defense lawyer showed her photos of them hanging out in the park and cuddling yesterday.
The lawyer asks, or says, it slipped your mind that you were snuggling with the man you said slapped and choked you?
Ducater replies, it didn't make an impression on me.
Is it possible, Mr.
Ducater, that you just tend to forget the stuff that shows you were lying?
Says the lawyer.
Oh no, replies de Guterres.
I'm not lying.
I just chose to remember the stuff that made an impression on me.
Again, moving into fluid memory, post-modernist, incomprehensible baffle gab, I guess, is the, you know, like you startle a squid, out comes the ink and it darts away.
So, 13 days after this alleged assault, de Guterres sent another email.
And included the line, quote, I think you are magic and would love to see you.
Also asking if Ghomeshi would, quote, like to hang out again?
And Henlon, Ghomeshi's lawyer, says, Are you prepared to admit that you have been lying about your feelings?
That you have been lying about the incident?
Are you prepared to admit that now?
Absolutely not.
Ducuter responded.
So, Ducuter says that, ah, she says, I didn't know that any contact I may have had with Gomeshi afterwards would have been relevant to, quote, the crime that happened.
She says, I didn't know I was going to have to disclose all of that information.
But sort of belying that, she did give the police and the court a whole bunch of details about other days where she spent time with Jean Gomeschi.
She told them she had brunch with him on the weekend.
She told them she went to Toronto.
She told them she went to a barbecue with him while she was there.
So she gave them lots of information.
She just kind of admitted her sexual pursuit of Jean Gomeschi.
And if that's the only thing that she admitted, and that's the one thing that may have prevented the court from pressing charges against him, that's pretty significant.
So a tiny bit of backstory here.
So de Guterres says that at the Gemini Awards, which is Canadian Arts Awards, she says that she was there and Xi'an Gomeshi just gently placed his hands on her throat, you know, gave her, I guess, a patented creepy Middle Eastern smile and then wandered off.
And so she says, placed his hands on my throat, it was terrifying, and so on.
So Hennen produced an email from November 24, 2003.
This is after this incident at the Gemini Awards where Dukatera says that Gomeshi again put his hands on her throat.
So the subject line of the email was, brace yourself.
And the message read, quote, I'm in town and I'm going to call your cell phone and ask you to play with me.
In a manner of speaking.
So you have fair warning.
Hendon produced another email sent around that time, reading thusly, quote, How busy are you going to be in Banff?
I want to play with you.
And another which contained this message.
Want to go for a hike?
Pims on the terrace?
chance encounter in the broom closet.
Gomeshi's lawyer demanded to know from Dekater why she didn't tell the police before the trial about snuggling in the park with this man who had allegedly choked and slapped her.
Dukater said, Well, she said she believed her first statement to the police was the first step in some longer exposition that would be teased out later by the Crown.
She said, oh, you know, my only knowledge of the legal system really comes from American TV shows.
What do I know?
Blah, blah, blah.
Well, Hennon said, and reasonably so, in my opinion, to Katero had a lawyer.
Very experienced lawyer.
Very experienced in the process of sexual assault trials.
And how could it be possible that Guterro did not know the process in any way despite retaining one of the best lawyers in the area?
So, Hennen reported that after the first complainant finished testifying, it was de Guterro's lawyer who reached out to the Crown and said, hey, do you want any more information?
After.
Hennen said, on February 4th, literally before you came into this court, end quote, you decided there was more to disclose.
The Kuterres said, that seemed like the first opportunity to do so.
To which Hennen replied, you had 16 months and there were 37 emails sent to the police.
You could have said something in any one of those.
May 26, 2004.
Dukater wrote again to Gomeshi.
Quote.
Life is good.
Shooting a Joel Plaskett show.
Friday.
Loving.
My new computer which makes writing to you lovelier.
I might stalk you a little bit.
Holy bunny boiler.
July 11, 2004.
Subject.
You're in big trouble.
Quote, If I don't get to hang with you while we are in Banff, I'm going to beat the crap out of you.
I am booked pretty solidly for the days, but maybe dinner?
Or perhaps I could tap you on the shoulder for breakfast.
There's a woman who says, no romantic interest in Gomeshi after this terrifying and terrible assault.
Now, Dukatera says, well, you know, it's not totally uncommon for victims of sexual assault to reach out or to be in contact with their alleged attackers.
Well, Gomeshi's lawyer said, okay, like, I understand the theory, but you don't have a long-term relationship with this guy.
You don't depend on him financially.
You don't work with him.
You don't work for him.
You have, like, one...
Date with him.
So how is it that you're, you know, bonded and, you know, it's not kids involved and all that?
Another email.
Greetings, Earthling.
You know, I think about you sometimes and, as usual, wonder how you are.
Will you let me know how you are?
If there is an itch you need...
Scratching?
Peace, biznatch!
Things I haven't really had to say since we reported on Ferguson.
Another email.
Subject.
Mmm.
Shopping.
Jago.
Like J-Lo, J-Gameshi.
She writes, There is a very cool scene in Six Feet Under, Season 3, featuring the matriarch and her beau.
They're in a hardware store, considering which kind of screwdriver they should get, more specifically cordless or not.
Somewhere, amidst the deliberations, she turns to him and says, I don't want to do this by myself anymore.
And they get married, ten minutes later, which, in the narrative, works out to...
About a week and a half and a world of heartache and call camera angles.
Supposed to be cool, I think.
To continue, the sentiment being that it is doing these day-to-day trivial things with someone is the what makes the world a kinder place to live in.
Gay, but true.
I think you are magic and would love to see you.
I'm realizing that in the note I mailed to you I was really asking if you'd like to go to Crappy Tire and help me pick out an electric rake and I am thinking now that maybe you would not because I really pissed you off somehow.
And then I'm thinking, you're captive in a Cuban prison and are trying to send me telepathic messages to get me to spring you from the joint so we can go smoke cigars rolled on the thighs of virgins and frolic on the beach with the virgins.
So, can you help me out with this?
Do you want to hang out again?
Deku fucking dare.
That's...
How she signs it.
Don't shoot the messenger.
No romantic interest in the guy.
Apparently, this is the guy who hit and choked her.
Now, none of these accusers have been any kind of long-term relationships with Jean Gomeschi.
No financial dependence, no power imbalance, no kids.
You know, these factors that sometimes will yoke victims to their abusers.
Now, one of the defenses is they say, well, you know, women who are victimized in these situations are traumatized and they bond with their abusers and so on.
And I don't know, this women are overwhelmed by their emotions and act irrationally seems such a cliche from like 19th century Victorian hysterics that it's hard to take it as a serious defense that feminists wouldn't attack as being unbelievably retrograde.
But this idea, well...
I lied because I was traumatized.
I forgot to tell the police this because I was traumatized and so on.
Well, the lawyer Hennen said there is not an expert in the world that would come and testify that perjury is indicative of trauma.
What the witness cannot do is lie and conceal their conduct and then, when caught out, say, oh gee, that's just how victims of abuse behave.
Playing the V-card.
Remember, in a criminal trial, standard of proof is enormously high.
See, it's not enough to show that the complainants may be telling the truth, despite massive inconsistencies and subsequent conduct, like pursuing a guy they say is an abuser.
The true question, at least in Western law, certainly Canadian law, is something like this.
Given What seems to be perjury, massive inconsistencies and incomprehensible conduct and a whole bunch of other factors.
Is it possible?
Is it possible that the events did not occur as the women allege?
That's all that needs to be asked.
Is it possible, given how we've seen this trial go down, is it possible that the events did not occur as alleged?
Gomeshi, Jean Gomeshi does not need to prove that they're lying.
He doesn't need to prove that they're mistaken.
He only needs to show 5% likelihood that they might be.
The trial is going to be lost only if the judge is 95% or more positive that the women are not lying or falsifying or misleading or anything like that.
And it doesn't take a lot.
There's one complainant, one who said, oh, no contact with Gomeshi after this alleged assault.
This statement was false.
Sent him an email with bikini pictures.
So if you've got inconsistent statements, contradictory statements, when you promise to tell the whole truth and you don't, you have to wonder if they're telling the truth.
Now, of course, nobody's ever going to know exactly what happened that night.
When someone says, I was so traumatized by the events that I sent this guy a picture of myself in a string bikini, with regards to de Cotere, Is there a question of reasonable doubt about consent given this ferocious, stalky pursuit of John Gomeshi afterwards and this constant hurling of sex at him?
You know, this is a big problem.
I mean, just my opinion again, you know, like when men are sexually aroused, you know, the little head's thinking and the big head is not.
It's a way of overcoming a man's resistance to just keep throwing the v-card at him, keep throwing vagina at him until he crumbles.
And this is what seemed to be occurring.
I want to have sex with you.
I'll fuck your brains out.
I want to play with you.
I want to scratch your itch.
This is constant hurling of the v-card at the guy.
Is that consistent with somebody who's traumatized and brutalized?
And also, you know, if they say, well, I didn't think that these emails were relevant and I didn't think that they were important or I forgot about them completely, okay, that's, I guess, a defense.
But if that's true, then why do you rush to the cops once you find out that the emails have surfaced and say, oh, I've got more information to give you.
I've got to give you this information.
Okay?
Which is it?
If you don't think it's important, then you can't rush to the cops saying, I need to give you this information when you hear that these emails have surfaced.
Right?
It doesn't make any sense.
The basic question, if the police had known in 2014 what they know now, if the prosecution had known in 2014 what they know now, would they have laid charges?
Would they have laid charges if the women had said, oh yeah, a year later I emailed them a picture of myself in a string bikini and sent really flirty emails, and if another woman had said, oh yeah, totally, You know, I wanted to fuck his brains out.
I stayed.
I necked with him afterwards.
We cuddled the next day in the park.
Did all kinds of cool stuff together.
And I kept emailing him, begging him to come over and screw my brains out.
And I wanted to wake him for breakfast by just nudging him.
Would the police have laid charges if they had known this information?
Is the conduct of these women following these alleged assaults, are they consistent with someone who has been assaulted?
And this answer of like, well, women go crazy, that's not an answer.
Is it safe to convict on this evidence, these inconsistencies of conduct and statements and withholding information and rushing to the cops with information when it surfaces in another venue?
Now, of course, a lot of people are hamming around the police.
Ah, you didn't discover these, what is it, more than two dozen emails that were pounced on the witnesses by the defense lawyers.
Why didn't you find these emails?
Why didn't you find these emails?
Bad investigators.
Well, I have little doubt that the investigation among the cops was hampered by political correctness and was hampered by the ever-growing witch-hunt of the media bloodhounds.
Right?
Because if these women, they ran to the media, and why did they run to the media?
To gain momentum and to make it harder to resist their allegations leading to Charges, at least in my opinion.
So if you're a cop and you're investigating this and you go full tilt boogie, you find out all this stuff, well, you're going to have to say, I'm sorry, we can't press charges.
In which case, you know, the media and the feminists and the social justice warriors, they're all going to go completely mental on you.
Isn't it just easier to throw this guy to the wolves and let the mob bypass you and watch that spectacle instead?
I'm not saying I know any of that.
That's just my particular hypothesis, what I could see happening in those shoes.
I don't know anything about that.
I'm just completely hypothetical.
So, people also don't genuinely or generally understand the role of detectives.
The police, they investigate the offense itself, not every conceivable detail of what the witness ever did.
They really have to rely on the complainant, on the witness, to tell them relevant information.
They can't just go and say, turn over everything you've ever done and every message you've ever sent.
The witness has to say to the police, this is what's relevant.
The police can't go on a fishing expedition and grab everything they want.
Even if they could or even if they wanted to, it's kind of a problem if they want to pursue a prosecution.
So let's say they go and they find these emails.
Well, then the police who are investigating this have to give all these emails to the Crown, to the prosecution.
And then the prosecution is illegally obligated to disclose these emails to the defense.
So if the police go and find damning evidence, they have to turn it over to the prosecution.
The prosecution has to turn it over to defense.
So they may not have a very strong incentive to find this kind of stuff either.
So these are emails.
Between the people, potential collusion, the emails from the supposed victims to Ghomeshi, well, they kind of contradicted, significantly contradicted what both of these women told the court.
Can you really blame the prosecution if the witnesses don't disclose certain pieces of information and evidence?
The Crown asks and the witness says what's going on.
You can't reach into someone's brain, flick the truth switch and have it all come pouring out.
Can't control what the witness says or doesn't say.
And this imbalance...
Look, the government and the cops are sitting on pretty much Virtually unlimited resources.
To investigate, to prosecute, they can do just about all the money in the world, all the time in the world, all the resources in the world.
And that's on the one side.
On the other side is one guy hiring one lawyer, usually on his own dime if he wants a decent defense.
So all the resources in the world on the side of the state.
On the other side, one guy, one lawyer, and a giant ticking clock of expenditures.
So, to try and level this, the Crown has to disclose everything that they have.
It makes it somewhat equal, because all of that resource, you've got to share it with the defense.
Now, does the fact that Lucie de Cotere sent Gian Gomeschi a love letter after the alleged assault, does that mean she wasn't assaulted?
Of course not.
Of course not.
That's not the point.
We will never know whether she was assaulted or not.
There's no time robots you can send back to video that room, that encounter, whatever.
We'll never know for sure.
So the fact that she sent a love letter to the guy doesn't mean she wasn't assaulted, but that's not the standard of criminal trials.
The standard of criminal trials is this.
Does the fact that she sent him a love letter raise doubt about the assault?
That's the fundamental question that the judge has to ask, in my opinion.
Now, the prosecution of the Crown said early on that they were mulling over bringing a, quote, similar fact application at the end of the trial.
What does that mean?
Well, it means that at the end of the trial, the Crown really wanted to go to the judge and say, okay, listen, judge, what are the chances, what are the odds That these three different people, with no knowledge of each other's allegations, that they all come forward and make very similar allegations, if they're not telling the truth.
That can't be a coincidence.
Three different people, same kind of allegations.
Well, now one of the complainants has admitted to discussing in detail the details of the allegation with at least one of the other complainants.
So now, there's an alternate explanation as to why the women's stories are similar, because they exchanged information.
And that's not something that was really available to them at the end.
So, to sum up, really, in general, none of these three complainants were very forthright with either the police or the Crown, the prosecution.
And that is what's more important, that they weren't forthright, that they seem to contradict themselves, that some people have accused them of committing perjury, lying under oath in at least six occasions.
That's what's important.
Not, well, they pursued this guy.
It's not that de Kuter pursued Xi'an Gomeshi.
That matters is that she said she didn't and then it was proven that she did and she did not confess she didn't when confronted then that's the important thing not that she pursued doesn't I want people to say oh well the fact that she pursued this guy doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that she wasn't assaulted that's not the point the point is that the only thing that can hang this guy is her integrity her word her honesty and if she's caught lying Never
pursued him.
No romantic interest in him.
Repeated emails.
Handwritten letters.
Come on, people.
You don't forget that stuff.
You handwrite a letter to the guy who assaulted you telling him you love his hands.
You won't forget that.
So the fact that she was not honest means that that little crystal chime that snapped that break of honesty that is the only thing that can possibly convict him.
Full integrity.
And patterns of behavior, absolute honesty, that's the only way you could even remotely get close to the 95%.
The moment you're caught, falsifying, you're done.
And I'm saying this for a variety of reasons, not least of which is to prepare people if he's not convicted.
So this whole trial was supposed to last like three weeks, but the lawyers both hit their closing arguments.
On the ninth day of the proceedings, because I believe, and other people concur with this belief, that the Crown's case just kind of fell apart.
Now, this doesn't mean his troubles are over.
Like, he's admitted to liking rough sex, so he can never say, I never hit anyone.
I never caused anyone any pain or problems or anything like that.
So that's, you know, the fact that the question of consent is important.
But it's not the only thing because, again, you cannot consent to being choked out.
You cannot consent, again, outside of sports and so on, right?
Now, in the closing arguments, the prosecutor Callahan said that the law states a witness cannot be considered less credible just because she continues a relationship with an alleged abuser.
He also said late disclosure isn't fatal in a sex assault case.
A person continuing to have a friendly or even romantic relationship with the person they claim sexually assaulted them is not unusual.
Now, again, that's not really the point.
The point is that there was inconsistent statements and contradictory statements and a lack of disclosure.
Look, there may be some inconsistency.
You say one thing, you do another.
He abused me, but you sue him.
But the core narrative of the complainants must stay truthful.
The quote here, what does affect the witness's credibility is when there's really such considerable and bald-faced significant contradictions.
This is a lawyer outside the case.
De Kuterra testified, no desire for a romantic relationship with Gomeshi.
The emails that maybe she didn't expect him to keep for 13 years showed otherwise.
If the witness testimony is as inconsistent as it's been reported, I wasn't there, of course, right?
Is it conceivable that the judge could be satisfied beyond any kind of reasonable doubt?
I don't see how.
And a reporter wrote this.
So each of these witnesses significantly amended police statements.
They withheld information that they felt was embarrassing.
They said, oh, lapses in memory, and oh, these incidents happened more than a decade ago, emails, and I don't remember sending this, I don't remember this photo, I don't remember any of this stuff.
Okay, well, fine, if you don't remember anything from 10 or more years ago, how is your testimony credible that he strangled and hit you?
The messages, it's the only objective, you could say, reliable evidence.
Was the behavior consensual?
Well, the messages of the women continuing to pursue the guy, well, they support the defense's case.
So, that's the big picture.
Why have I spent so much time and godly amount of effort in putting all of this together for you?
Look, just at a personal level, look, I'm not a big fan of Xiong.
I'd never actually heard of the guy.
But, you know, I read a little bit about him and all that.
Look, he's a, I don't know, hyper-feminist, turbo-mangina.
I mean, he's big on progressive and, you know, a proto-feminist.
And he lives off my tax dollars.
And his celebrity is sort of vampiric on the productive classes and so on.
So I'm not a big fan of the guy as a whole.
What he likes to get up to in bed.
Sorry, I don't want to be old-fashioned or whatever.
It's kind of gross to me.
It kind of gross to me.
You know, if the cracked rib things is true, that's pretty gross.
Bruises, I mean, that's horrible.
And...
I don't know, I guess, I don't know, maybe 2016 or 2015, given what happened in Germany and all that.
Not the time to come out as a sexually aggressive, if not downright violent Middle Eastern guy, Iranian origins and so on.
And so he threw his lot in with the social justice warriors, the radical feminists.
Is he really deserving of a huge amount of sympathy?
I mean...
The listen-and-believe legal system that he himself lobbied for has caught him in its vicious, ugly, smoky trap.
So...
But nonetheless, you know, it's like freedom of speech.
You never have to protect the freedom of speech of popular people, and the fact that this guy is kind of gross, to me at least, you know, makes him tougher to defend, but we have to hold our nose and stick with our principles.
And, um...
That is really important.
The police, I think, in a lot of ways, and this is part of the Ferguson effect in the States, the police are kind of getting crippled by political correctness.
If they had really cross-examined these women, There's a reason why the women ran to the media first, because the media, you know, in the online victim pity party that focuses on women's supposed victimhood, I mean, that's an endless bath, it seems, these days.
So the women ran to the media, so the media would be on their side, so they could get a movement started that anyone would stand in front of and put their hand up on their peril, right?
So if the police had been pretty...
Strong in cross-examining these women to really get to the truth of this story, I'm guessing the women would have run to the media and said, Detective so-and-so was mean.
He yelled at me.
I feel like I'm on trial here.
All of the bad signals that go out to rouse the estrogen brigade from hell.
And so I imagine that the detectives were like, OK, well, we'll let the court figure it out because, you know, the...
I don't want to be yelled at by the media for the next five years for attacking a poor, crying victim woman, right?
And the same thing sort of happened in a much more serious way with the Black Lives Matter movement and so on, but...
This one is a tougher one to sort of thought.
Like, there's supposed to be this big rape culture, so women...
If women believe in the rape culture, they should not go to guys' houses who they've just met, right?
I mean...
That's not...
If you believe...
Like, if women are talking about rape culture, all men are rapists and so on, well...
And if there is this rape culture, like in the States, it was only a couple of years ago that the category of being raped as a man even existed.
And about half of the rapes in America, at least, are...
Forced to penetrate or being raped.
That is men who are the victims of rape and only a couple of years ago did it actually become a crime that the government even remotely kept track of.
So I don't know about this whole rape culture thing.
We've got a whole presentation below which we can link about all of that.
But this false accusation stuff is really, really significant and really, really brutal.
Like there's been a whole bunch of these Supposed rape cases, we'll get to a few in a moment, that have kind of wended their way through our public consciousness, they all seem to fall apart.
Like, a woman can destroy your life based on a false accusation of rape.
I think it's pretty easy to make the case, although it's not a fun case to make, it's pretty easy to make the case, that Being falsely accused of rape is worse than being raped outside of the, you know, potentially getting pregnant or STD thing.
But being falsely accused of rape is worse than getting raped.
It sounds shocking, I know, but just think about it.
You know, we want to be reasonable and not explode into emotional reactions, right?
Just think about it.
If you're raped, Terrible crime.
You get sympathy.
You get support.
You can get counseling.
You get all the lovely things in the world to try and help heal a hideous wound on your sexuality and body and integrity and peace of mind.
So you get sympathy.
If you're falsely accused of rape, your life is destroyed.
You're fired.
Your wife could leave you.
Your kids won't talk to you.
And you go through a grueling, gruesome trial.
You could be jailed for 10 or 20 years.
And it may be that the condition of your release is that you have to admit to it.
And then you are a sexual predator.
You are in the sexual deviant registry database from here to kingdom come.
That just goes on and on.
Not only do you not get the sympathy that the rape victim gets, but your life is destroyed and you are thrown in prison where, ironically, you might in fact be raped in that environment.
To be raped, terrible crime, but you get sympathy, you get support, you get help, and people care about what happens to you with love and affection.
If you are accused falsely of being a rapist, your life is destroyed, and you're never getting it back.
This believe the women thing, because I'm not the springiest of spring chickens I remember, of course, back to the Bill Clinton days, I've always...
had a problem with the fact that women generally say, well, if a woman accuses a man, then he must be guilty.
We've just got to reform the whole system so that the accusation becomes the truth.
Why don't these social justice warriors, why don't these feminists call Bill Clinton a racist?
He's been credibly accused of rape by Juanita Broderick.
And her accusations are fairly well tested.
And why is he never called a rapist?
Well, lots of reasons for that, which we won't get into right now.
It's just one of these inconsistencies that's important.
Might seem like a left turn, it's not.
Antidepressants.
Antidepressants.
I look at the world, look at this sort of stuff, and I'm like, why?
Why?
Why?
I'm like Jackie Chan face.
Why?
Why?
Why do people act so crazy?
Why do people act so crazy?
Well, I don't know exactly, you know, but...
One of the things that may be a factor is, you know, antidepressants can really mess with your head.
And, you know, I mentioned at the beginning, Gian Gomeshi was suffering from an anxiety disorder.
I don't know if he took talk therapy.
I don't know if he got meds.
I have no idea.
But if he did, then he would join a lot of other Canadians.
Canadians are among the world's biggest users of antidepressants.
As much as 9% of the population is on one damn depression-fighting drug or another.
And that's a study from the OECD. Only Australia and Iceland, I guess fire and ice, have the higher rates of consumption of this stuff.
And, you know, I've had Robert Whittaker on and I've done presentations.
This stuff can really mess with your head.
And I wonder the degree to which this may be involved in people's, like, just weird, kind of crazy behavior.
I don't know.
Do you think people are getting crazier?
You can let me know in the comments below.
I couldn't find information on Canada, but one in four American women is on antidepressants.
And, like, at way higher rates than men.
One in four women on these antidepressants.
Women are using anti-anxiety medications at more than twice the rate of men.
And this stuff is not...
Well, it doesn't do a whole lot better than placebo from what I've read.
And you get talk therapy and exercise, which are two things I recommend highly to listeners to this show.
I did talk therapy and I exercise.
But, um...
This stuff.
You take a pill, be happy, or get better.
I mean, one expert calculates that psychiatric drugs have contributed to the death of more than half a million people just in the West.
Those are people aged 65 and older.
This is including deaths due to To suicide.
So I think that they're pretty toxic things.
I advise everyone, of course, to seek their own advice.
And see, some people who take these anti-anxiety medications get this paradoxical response, this sort of opposite response.
So, you know, if Shankar Meshi was taking anti-anxiety medications, what can you get?
You can get increased anxiety.
You can get increased irritability and agitation, like just not feeling comfortable in your own skin.
Ants crawling up your bones or something like that.
However, you can also get more severe reactions including mania, hostility and rage, aggressive or impulsive behavior, and full-on hallucinations.
Hostility and rage, aggressive or impulsive behavior.
Now, This is a bit of a more sensitive topic.
So, again, these are all just thoughts and conclusions I had.
This is not syllogistical proof.
This is not, you know, 95% certainty.
So, people play, and men and women do this, and they play something I call the hottery.
Now, the hottery goes a little something like this.
I remember trying to pick up my yoga teacher, right?
I mean, you play the pottery, which is, I can get this great person who is mysteriously still single, although incredibly high status, and can get a lot of Penis or a lot of pussy.
I can get this person because I have just magic whatever, right?
And it's the heartery.
And when you play the heartery, maybe it can work sometimes, but a lot of times bad things can happen, right?
So I would guesstimate something like this.
Again, just my opinion.
I'd guesstimate something like this.
Jean Gomeschi was an alpha male in Canadian society, powerful, rich, famous, good-looking, talented, and these women wanted him, high status.
And so they played the V card, right?
I'll go make out with you and whatever, right?
I want to have sex with you.
And they tried to basically screw him into being their boyfriend.
Possible.
And maybe they submitted to humiliating sexual practices.
I don't know.
But when he says, oh, we're not dating, we're just fucking, it's very humiliating.
Because a woman's sexuality historically has been what she withholds in order to secure a man's long-term commitment, right?
Because kids, which are the result of sexuality, take like 20 years to raise.
So that's sort of the point.
And...
If a woman just fires the V-cannon, right, fires the vagina cannon at a guy, and he just kind of shrugs and moves on, then she's lost the heartery, right?
She's made a play for the alpha hypergamy, right?
The woman wants to trade up.
That's why we've evolved.
No problem with this.
It's the way things are.
She fired the V-cannon and missed.
Missed.
And you can see, for me at least, subjective, and this desperation from DeCaterra's emails, like, how much sex do I have to throw at you for you to want to spend time with me?
And then she basically hints that they should get married in a week or two and she wants to settle down with him.
Played the hardery and lost.
And...
That's a trouble, and particularly for women who hit the wall, right?
Physical looks, right?
And get into your 40s and mid to late 40s, and your V-cannon's pretty much going to miss most times now because the men of status are looking for younger, more attractive women.
Biologically speaking, that's what's going to drive things.
So you play the lottery, and you try to snag this ultimate alpha male, which is going to be very high status for you.
Oh, lucid de couture.
Mrs.
Gomeshi, you know, wow, you finally caught him.
You're very high status.
Golden vagina time.
You're very high status in that situation.
But if you make a try and you fail, and then you see this guy maybe dating younger models, and I mean, just...
There is that old phrase.
I know it's a cliche, but it may be not entirely relevant here that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
So the hottery is something to remember, something to be careful of.
You spend a lot of time trying to upgrade and what can happen for a woman is she spends her 20s and 30s trying to get the ultimate alpha guy, the ultimate alpha male, and then she runs out of sexual attractiveness because the alpha male is looking for a younger, fresher-faced, lustrous, hairedly, more fertile woman, so then you end up Toast, right?
You can't play the Hardery anymore because the V cannon doesn't hit anyone you want to be with.
And then you go from aiming at the very highest to having to accept a much, much lower quality of man because you've hit the wall and your fertility is expired.
And anyway, it's a whole other topic.
But just keep the Hardery in mind.
This is a cautionary tale for people to remember just how important it is to manage their expectations.
This defense, oh my god, this defense Well, women can be assaulted by someone and still have madly desiring romantic feelings for them.
I mean, oh god.
This is what Dick Cotter actually said.
Women can be assaulted by someone and still have positive feelings for them afterwards.
That's why there are emotionally abusive relationships that continue.
It bothers me.
The whole idea that women are just completely insane, that you can beat up a woman and she just wants to fuck your brains out and all that.
I mean, I just, like, women are so insane and so irrational and so emotional that you can't expect any kind of consistent behavior from them.
They're going to do mad things at all times and for no reason and explain it all by the magic word trauma and, oh my god, what a disrespectful thing to say about women.
It's a horrible thing to say about women.
If it's true, then women are irrational and emotional and crazy, and that's not the case.
I'm happily married with a wonderful daughter, so no.
I don't accept that.
But the defense is so insulting to women as a whole.
Now why is this I said at the beginning?
Thank you for your patience for going with me on this journey.
I said at the beginning, That this was about a fork in the road, civilization versus barbarity.
I mean it.
I mean it.
Look, men are watching.
Men are watching this trial.
You may not think we are, because we're not out there posting, I believe her, but men are watching this trial.
And you know what men are seeing?
Giant, deadly, spiky, poisonous, dangerous, quicksand vagina traps all over the place.
Danger.
Glitterous.
Danger.
Glitterous.
Men are watching this.
And a man is going to look at the sexual politics that are going on in the media, in society, in the courtroom, and he's going to say, Come on, Japanese sex robots!
I mean, he's got the choice.
There's an endless amount of pornography, I hear, on the web.
He can masturbate instead of getting involved with a woman, you know, if he's got a significant chance of getting divorced.
Okay, you know, I've heard the argument.
I have some disagreement with the statistics, but people say, hey, 47% chance of divorce, which is going to destroy your life.
Acid mitosis, as a friend of mine once put it.
If you wanted to jump out of an airplane, they said, well, there's a 47% chance of your parachute opening, would you go?
No, of course you wouldn't.
So men are looking at this and saying, it's too goddamn dangerous.
If 13 years later, some woman can say, yeah, he hit me, and then you end up with a half a million dollar legal bill, and your career is destroyed, and your best chance is just to somehow stay out of jail and live in your mom's basement till she dies, That is not worth it.
That is not worth it.
So what does that mean?
That means that men are not going to settle down with women.
Men are not going to have children.
Smarter men.
Idiot men are going to just go and have sex, you know, idiocracy style.
But the smarter men are going to look at these odds.
They're going to say, hmm, no thanks.
Not for me.
Not for me.
No protection.
My life can be destroyed.
It ain't worth it.
It ain't worth it.
Men are watching this and seeing Is there any place I can put my penis where some black and decker social justice warrior power tool isn't going to hack it off in a blur of blood?
If smarter men and men in general, men in the West, don't have kids, what's going to happen?
Well, you're going to have the demographic winter, and there's going to be an inverted pyramid of old people who need resources and retirement benefits and healthcare, and young people aren't around to pay the taxes.
What happens then?
Hello, Angela Merkel.
We're going to bring in a lot of third-world culturals into first-world countries.
Did you think that white people had anything to do with rape culture?
Hello, Sharia law.
So...
When this begins to happen, when smarter people stop having kids, they try to import a whole bunch of third-worlders into Western countries, and let's just say there are going to be some challenges to that, and I can't imagine that the feminists who really care about Western women are going to think that that's going to work out just fantastically for Western women.
Hey, let's bring in more Saudi men, because they're all about the women's rights.
So yes, this kind of trial and the outcome of this kind of trial can be a fork in the road for civilization as a whole because men all throughout the West are watching this.
And if you have satisfied yourself, I've refrained from talking about this case.
I wanted to wait until the facts were in.
But if you have been part of this lynch mob and you've been out there posting he's guilty and he's a bad guy and he should pay and so on, you better go the hell out and apologize to everyone you misled and you're rushed to judgment.
and you getting swept up in this witch hunt you better go out and apologize because men are watching and they want to see if y'all can admit that you were wrong if he's acquitted and for good reason if he's acquitted for good reason which I think I've made a reasonable case that he might be if you were wrong you better go and apologize or civilization might end it literally is that important I mean, where are the feminists?
Where are the feminists?
Oh, my God.
Where are the feminists?
Look.
Oh, man, this in-group preference stuff, I'll get to that in a second, but...
Look, it's not been a great year or two for false rape claims, right?
We know that.
We can admit that, right?
I mean, post below.
Has there been a single high-profile rape case That wasn't later, didn't collapse into a hoax or fraud.
Post below if I've missed them.
Hey, do you like keeping track at home?
Okay, let's look at some.
So, Ben Sullivan, Oxford University.
Rape hoax.
Everybody was certain.
Rape hoax.
Duke La Crosse.
Rape hoax.
Remember?
Crisco Mangum?
She accused them of raping her.
She was a black stripper.
Didn't, and then later ended up murdering someone.
Stoyle James Dean, rape host.
The Hofstra rape hoax.
The Rolling Stone University of Virginia rape hoax.
I think there was some fairly dicey stuff in Lena Dunham's autobiography.
And it's out there.
Here's a quote from a website.
Consider some responses to the news that singer-songwriter Conor Oberst has been falsely accused of sexual assault.
Last December, a woman writing in the comments section of the website So Jane, going by the name Joni Faircloth, claimed Oberst raped her when she was a teenager.
The charge spread across the internet.
Oberst denied it and brought a libel suit against Faircloth when she refused to retract the story.
In July, she completely recanted admitting that she had made it all up to get attention.
Yet instead of showing sympathy for the ordeal of the musician, one known for being supportive, Of feminist issues, some chided him for taking legal action to defend himself against a false career-damaging charge.
In the Daily Dot, pop culture critic Chris Ostendorf decried the lawsuit arguing that it could intimidate real victims of rape and that it promoted the idea of men as victims of false accusations, even though that's exactly what Oberst was.
After Oberst dropped the suit, Bustle's Caroline Pate praised his decision and referred to the saga as, quote, a rollercoaster for both parties, treating the false accuser and the wrongly accused as somehow morally equivalent, and called the revelation of Oberst's innocence, quote, crushingly disappointing.
Again, we've got data about this, but it's not as uncommon as you might think.
Okay.
There was a study that said more than 40% of the reports evaluated in one study, excluding those as not enough information to classify them, did result in disciplinary criminal charges.
However, 52% were investigated and closed.
The researcher told someone that the vast majority of these complaints did not proceed due to insufficient evidence, often because the complainant had stopped cooperating with investigators and who knows what the actual percentage is but it seems to be higher than the single digits this paper also mentioned another type of complaint that did not proceed cases in which quote the incident did not meet the legal elements of the crime of sexual assault the
men are watching if you want women to be believed You must punish those who lie about assault and rape.
Because we hear that women should be believed when they accuse a man of sexual assault.
But what happens to the women?
I'm not saying it's the case here.
We'll find out over time.
But what happens to the women who are proven to have lied or who retract their claims?
In some mystical universe, does it just continue that it somehow happened and forget and ignore?
If you want people to believe women, you must punish the women who lie.
Perjury.
False accusations.
Think of how much time, effort and resources have been tied up in this court case from women who withheld it.
Crucial information from the cops.
And who have misrepresented pretty important things under oath.
How many millions of dollars, how many thousands of person hours have been consumed in this that aren't available for real victims of rape?
For people who have genuinely been the victims of a crime?
If you want women to be believed, society must find a way to punish those who lie about assault and rape.
Must find a way to do it.
If these women did perjure themselves, they need to be prosecuted.
They need to be prosecuted.
Why?
To deter false accusations, if the accusations turn out to be false.
You have to tell the truth in a court, otherwise we can't have a court system.
And if you lie and aren't punished about really significant things, And you're not punished.
Who can we believe about anything?
Women sometimes lie about being raped.
And if there's no punishment for them, that is hard to believe.
We want to believe.
We want to believe.
But there must be deterrent to those who lie.
And if these women are not punished, if they've basically destroyed a man's life, and if it's proven that What they said fits the standard of perjury.
If they're not punished, men will see that too.
And it's open season.
No defense.
And no deterrence to those who may be lying to destroy a man's life.
It's not about Zhang Gamishi.
It's about everyone.
And what the hell is this null hypothesis for a lack of consent?
Let's just say that...
It all came down to consent in this situation.
I know it doesn't.
Let's just say it did.
Because the consent is very important.
And certainly with rape, the consent, like forget the BDSM stuff.
With rape, consent is everything.
Consent is everything.
So these women say, well, I didn't consent and then act exactly the same as if they did consent afterwards by pursuing the guy, by wanting to, intimating that they might want to marry him and be his girlfriend and have sex with him and fuck his brains out and all that, right?
Bang him in a closet.
So, if a woman can act exactly the same as if she consented but claim a lack of consent, how on earth could conceivably be disproved?
How on earth could it conceivably be disproved?
And listen, last point, last point.
Thanks for your patience.
This is the last point.
A last point and then a scene.
I say this as a man and as a keen observer of the world and the society that I live in.
If I were to say to you, publicly, because I am, if I were to say, I believe Gian Gomeschi did not assault those women because I believe Gian Gomeschi did not assault those women because he's a man.
Thank you.
And men don't lie.
Men who deny assaulting women, men who deny attacking women, must be believed because they're men.
And men don't lie.
I stand with Xi'an!
Would you be shocked?
Would you be appalled?
I believe him because he's a man.
And men never lie about these things.
You'd be appalled, right?
Of course you would.
But this is what men see all the time.
I stand with the victim.
Victims don't lie.
They must be telling the truth.
They're right.
They're truthful.
They're honest.
This is what men see all the time.
So this, dude to dude, you need to listen to this.
Very important.
And others to you.
Women have pretty ferocious in-group preferences.
women tend to believe other women it's not all the case it's a tendency it's not 100 it's a tendency when black politicians get into power they work to advance black causes when women are around they tend to work to advance women right what was it that madeline albright who presided over uh sanctions against iraq that killed a half a million iraqi children said there's a special place in hell for women who don't support other women Vote for the vagina!
Find a podium, find a vagina, vote for it!
Women have ferocious in-group preferences.
Minorities have ferocious in-group preferences.
The only group that does not have any in-group preferences these days is men.
And I think society would be far healthier if men started developing in-group preferences.
Look, if you are surrounded by a group with ferocious in-group preferences, Women, minorities, you name it.
If you are surrounded by groups with ferocious in-group preferences and your group has no in-group preferences, you will lose.
You will lose and lose hard and lose bad and lose forever and lose long time.
Done.
You will be done.
Now, I don't know how to undo the in-group preferences of other groups, so maybe, just maybe, it's time for men to start developing Male in-group preferences.
Now, I understand.
Men will screw each other over for vaginas.
I get that.
Evolutionary, you've got to grit your teeth.
Stand with men, have in-group preferences for men, and see what happens in the world.
And maybe the world will say, wow, you know, we don't like having men have in-group preferences, so...
We better all start relaxing our in-group preferences and stick more with general principles.
This is a philosophy show.
That's what I would like.
How about men start having in-group preferences?
Believe a man because he's a man.
Stand for men because they're a man.
What would that look like?
What would that be like for everyone else?
How much shock and horror would men receive if they acted in the way that other groups act?
I'd say, let's find out.
So, thank you for your patience.
I'm going to end with a little thing.
A little thing here is important.
Ah, it's not important.
It's cool.
Great play, A Man for All Seasons, about Sir Thomas More, and just watch the movie.
It's great.
So, I'm just going to read the dialogue without context.
I think it speaks for itself.
A man named Roper says to Thomas More, So now you give the devil the benefit of law?
Yes!
What would you do?
Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?
I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
Oh?
And when the last law was down, and the devil turned round on you, Where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast.
Man's laws, not God's.
And if you cut them down, and you are just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
