Dirty deeds in Denver: Ex-prosecutor faked texts, destroyed devices to frame colleague
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"She had even, she added, gone to the local Apple Store in an attempt to retrieve the data on the devices."
So, just to put a cherry on top of everything, isn't pretty much every visit to the Apple Store for this sort of thing done by appointment? What did the Apple Store records show in support of her claim?
So, just to put a cherry on top of everything, isn't pretty much every visit to the Apple Store for this sort of thing done by appointment? What did the Apple Store records show in support of her claim?
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In the long run it won't work because digital forensics. But .... serious damage could have been done to actual victim if the texts were leaked into the court of public pitchforks and torches.
And there were actual damages to the victim as can be seen by
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The worst part of this is all of the people who legit are harassed and now won't be believed.
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One suspects she didn't intend the police to become involved; probably she was just trying to trash this person's career?
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It's hard to fathom why someone that invested 5-6 years of their life (and several hundred thousands of dollars) to become a lawyer would piss it all away by trying to squeeze a settlement out of a DA and/or the Denver DA's office. So either this person is astonishingly dumb for a law school graduate or had some sort of serious beef with her colleague.
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No, the worst part is all the male's rights assholes will point to this case as "proof" that all women are making false sexual harassment claims. The reality is that the number of false claims are low, are nearly always caught (although not necessarily without causing some damage, as in this case) and far too many real victims never even speak up.
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Or you have to be seriously stupid to believe the police are this stupid.
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the.mighty.oracle
Ars Scholae Palatinae
The worst part is definitely the party that got victimized by the fraud. Perhaps you just have a bit of a bias...
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Inappropriate workplace conduct isn't a police matter absent a crime such as sexual assault being alleged. I suspect these were internal DA investigators. Checking the article's link to the Denver paper, that story included "Hines felt the agency’s internal investigation was incomplete. Leadership in the office insinuated that Choi should be believed and was courageous for coming forward about the allegations, he said."
It also says the matter was referred for criminal investigation but charges were not filed.
Either way, a good reminder to avoid romantic entanglements in the workplace. Even assuming mutual interest at one point, if/when a relationship sours, it's like botulism. The organism is dead but the poison remains.
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I think just the opposite. Because this case, in the end, relied on actual evidence to prove the accusations were false. Evidence-based prosecution and defense are, after all, what we want, and the system worked well here in the end.
The initial transfer wasn't handled well, but again I think in the end that, too, will be settled by fact once Hines' lawsuit proceeds.
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Well, the police do tend to find a way to be stupid when it suits them. The phrase "strategic incompetence" comes to mind
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No single person should be trusted on their word. Men, women, children.. all have biases and reasons for bending the truth or outright lying to benefit themselves. Society understood this at one point.
Just as the article describes, whether we like it or not there are mountains of data now on anything electronic we engage in and combine that with all the tools available cheaply now to record our lives in various ways, there is no reason an accusation from anyone should make it past the starting line without evidence beyond 'he said/she said'. Verbal claims should never be actionable on their own. Glad he is suing, glad she was disbarred, and hope this does have a chilling effect on anyone else thinking to ride the coat-tails of MeToo for their own benefit.
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The police aren't always drawing from the deep end of the gene pool. (Apologies to Al Bester, Psi Corp).
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I wonder what the motive was, especially for take 2 a year later after he’s been moved.
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So, I can offer a tangential situation. Once upon a time, I called the police to a DV situation. I called the police. My first wife (we had a marriage that was "fraught" on the best days, and way, way worse than "fraught" on the worst) had been drinking. Heavily. So had I, but I'm more a sleepy drunk than an angry one, but she, may she rest in peace, was an angry drunk.
So I called the police. Because she'd been throwing things, which I had been okay with until it started being kitchen knives. Throw an ashtray at me? Whatever. A plate? Not great. Bowl, pot, whatever.
But knives? That's a solid HELL NO from the Orwell camp.
So I called the police. Not knowing that if the police get called to a DV situation, someone's getting arrested, at least in California. Guaranteed, someone is getting arrested.
Turns out, the police do heavily favor the woman in these situations. We're both pretty drunk, but she's calmed down by the time they got there, and I was pretty calm to begin with.
But I got arrested anyway.
Because "something" had to change in the situation.
So if someone's going to get moved when there's an accusation, it's probably going to be the accused, not the accuser. I don't know if someone must get moved. No idea if that's DA office policy. But if it is, that's going to be the accused way more often than it's going to be the accuser.
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They do, but Alan Dershowitz is the kind of person that teaches those classes, with predictable results, as seen relatively recently when legal podcaster P Andrew Torrez, who used to make bad jokes about taking ethics from Dershowitz was later revealed to be a sex pest himself.
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Because if it ever is substantiated, Choi has a MASSIVE lawsuit on her hands for retaliation.
That is the problem with this, you shit in the water, SOMEONE is drinking it. If an accusation is made, someone almost certainly has a lawsuit against someone at that point. Whether the allegation is true/substantiated, or not.
If no one is moved, same issue. Unfortunately, Mr Hines probably doesn't have a strong lawsuit against the DA. He will have to prove damages. Simply being moved is likely not enough and isn't likely going to be considered retaliation or creating a hostile work environment. Now, what might have happened after the 2nd round of accusations would be really important. Or if Mr Hines can show his career advancement was impacted by how the DA's office handled it.
But many employers have HR policies that if an accusation is made, someone gets moved. Even if it isn't substantiated.
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Even somewhat post #MeToo, the woman is assumed to be the victim, especially in a Blue area like Denver. Lacking evidence, the male is pretty much boned. He was punished for one alleged verbal inappropriate comment. Lucky for him in this case, there was sufficient evidence to back his side of it.
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Feels like there's a step missing there, like some kind of mediation, or that the bar should have been higher than a single remark (unless they voluntarily agreed to the transfer as an expedient resolution). That might have also helped them suss out the BS or be more attentive to concerning behavioral patterns.
OTOH with someone in such bad faith and willing to outright lie, can imagine that actually trying to address the conflict might have made it even worse .
uggh, glad I'm not in HR
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Whenever I catch myself feeling respectful of the legal profession, I try to remember that both Ted Cruz and Sidney Powell have law degrees.
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Id think that data can still be recovered from a computer injured by a bottle of water. IDK about the phone.
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Since 1974, legal ethics instruction has been required in law schools by
the major accrediting entity for law schools.
https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1036&context=book-contributions
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