Among the hundreds of web searches that have drawn readers to this site over the past several months, a couple of noteworthy themes stand out (updated weekly). Here’s one: “false accusation” of domestic violence long island “fraudulent restraining orders” “injunction” “false allegations” “restraining orders” “civil rights” perjury abuser false restraining order abuse of process civil protection… [Read more…]
I posted this letter today. I encourage readers to follow suit in their own states and communities. If the contents of this letter can serve anyone out there toward this end, you’re welcome to borrow from them freely. And I’d gladly help anyone prepare a letter or statement of his or her own. Drop me a line. Nil desperandum… [Read more…]
I was stalked several years ago by a woman who lingered nightly for hours in the dark outside of my house, engaged me in a sexually coercive relationship for a period of months while concealing from me she was someone’s wife, then lied to police and swore out a fraudulent restraining order against me in her… [Read more…]
I encountered a woman loitering outside of my house around midday in late August 2005. My home is adjacent to a stable, the smaller of two on the property where I live, and she expressed an interest in boarding her horse there. I gave her a number to contact my mother, who owns and manages… [Read more…]
To encourage abused women to seek help, feminist defenders of the rules governing the issuance of restraining orders argue that applicants’ burden of proof must be minimal. The professed intent of these advocates, namely, to fight gender discrimination, in fact promotes it. Courts rubberstamp hundreds of thousands of restraining orders against men every year based on… [Read more…]
It was years before I could tell this story with anything approaching ease (let alone outrage), and then only because I was able to juxtapose Tiffany’s public statements in a way that made it clear she’s the scabbiest form of liar. Still when I do tell the story, I’m quick to qualify Tiffany as a… [Read more…]
In trying to clear my name of Tiffany’s false allegations over the years, I’ve written scores of letters to people and institutions in positions to influence or mediate a resolution. None has so far deigned to reply with the exception of the First Baptist Church of Springdale (Arkansas), where Tiffany’s family worships (or did) and… [Read more…]
I caught a notice in May on the website SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) for a False Allegations Summit scheduled for June 2, 2011 in Washington, D.C. The advert was titled, “Zero Tolerance for False Allegations.” June was false allegations month in case you hadn’t heard. This prompts a question: why need a summit… [Read more…]
I filed suit against Tiffany last summer after meeting an encouraging female legal assistant who said, “I believe you,” and told me I could prosecute a lawsuit on my own. The last time I’d been at the Pima County Superior Courthouse in 2006, I was asked by a female clerk who critically eyed me from… [Read more…]
I chanced to tune in to a piece on NPR last year in which a judge decried violence done to his peers. Violence is distasteful to me on principle, but I found my sympathies lay elsewhere. I understand the emotional extremities legal conflicts and frustration with the judicial system’s arbitrary intransigence can drive a person… [Read more…]
It shouldn’t be any mystery why with millions of restraining orders being issued each year in the Internet age complaints of abuses aren’t louder and more numerous: stigma. A woman’s having taken out a restraining order against him—particularly one alleging violence or fear of violence—isn’t something a man is apt to broadcast, even if the… [Read more…]
All of the judges involved in my case were male. The police officer Tiffany interviewed with wasn’t. The officer wasn’t fooled, and she didn’t conceal her ambivalence about the case in my conversations with her in 2006. But her job was to follow and enforce policy, not interpret it. “Everybody lies to me,” she said.… [Read more…]
The restraining order, legally speaking, is a knot within a loophole. No one can argue that restraining order policies are impartially administered or that they’re ethical or even constitutional. And significantly, no one does. Instead the defenders of these policies apply to them words like necessary and critical (omitting “to us”). The question of fairness—as… [Read more…]
In 2010, my mother was threatened by a disgruntled former resident of the six-acre property where I live (and where she’s lived since her treatment for cancer concluded in 2006), and she took out a restraining order against him on the recommendation of the police. He subsequently showed up at her front door, stove in… [Read more…]
There’s no denying that the restraining order is a forceful instrument and a nasty one to be on the receiving end of, especially when the behaviors alleged against you are trumped up. The question is, what good are restraining orders when they’re used legitimately? Dr. Charles Corry, president of the Equal Justice Foundation, has compiled… [Read more…]
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that mainstream feminism invites dialogue, free expression, and criticism yet practices their castration. The restraining order represents this practice’s institutionalization, which makes it a catalyst for what it purports to remedy. Obviously, I don’t believe all women who apply for restraining orders are frauds. But I do believe… [Read more…]
So what did the restraining order of the woman in my story accomplish? It’s profoundly compromised the last five years of my life and my ability to work at what’s dear to me (not to mention provide for myself in a dismal economy), shamed her friends and the interests she represents as a female scientist… [Read more…]
Choose your prey carefully. This is key. Pick a man who’s fairly innocuous, and preferably one who keeps to himself. Bookish types who hold the door for others are ideal. Be suggestive and forward but also vulnerable. Engage both his sexual and protective drives. Once you’ve established a promising rapport with your victim, indicate to… [Read more…]
Put yourself in an adversarial frame of mind. Have no illusions, this is war, and emotions are your biggest enemy. Squelch feelings of anger, embarrassment, intimidation, betrayal, or residual affection for the restraining order applicant, as well as any natural inclinations toward chivalry or charity you may have. Don’t under any circumstances communicate with or… [Read more…]
The brief, unedited accounts and pleas for justice and legislative representation that follow are drawn from an online petition titled, “Stop False Allegations of Domestic Violence.” They represent its most recent four months’ responses only. Worthy of note is that at least 25% of responses are from women (some themselves victims of restraining order abuse)… [Read more…]
It’s hard to say which of the many ironies of restraining orders is the most unsettling: that they were enacted to protect women at risk of violence but can exacerbate the male rage they were designed to defuse, that they were intended to address the most extreme cases but are applied to the most commonplace,… [Read more…]
January 29, 2012
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