Plea bargaining is a thing of the devil, as I explained in my review of Diana Rickard's book The New True.  On the one hand, it allows the state to arm-twist defendants of lesser means into accepting guilt for crimes they didn't commit.  And on the other hand, it allows very guilty people whom the state favors to get wrist-slapped.

If I had an ace legal researcher and a huge budget, I'd do a whole series of books about how plea bargaining is used to whitewash police sexual assault in America, as I demonstrated in that same book review I mentioned above.

Today's defendant, former officer Patrick Heron of Philadelphia, is getting 15-40 years, significantly more than a wrist slap.  But it's nothing compared to the 1,300 years he was facing.  He was running loose like a goose for years, Holtzclawing the most vulnerable girls he encountered on duty.  Almost as if nobody cared what he did sexually while in uniform, even to underage girls.

"A former Philadelphia police officer pleaded guilty on Friday to dozens of sex crimes involving young women and was sentenced to 15 to 40 years in state prison.

Patrick Heron, 54, reached an agreement with prosecutors ahead of a trial on more than 200 criminal offenses — including child sex assault and kidnapping — which occurred from 2005 to 2022.
The disgraced cop retired from the Philadelphia Police Department in 2019 after working there from 1995 to 2008 and then from 2010 to 2019. He was initially arrested in September 2022 for offenses related to unlawful sexual contact with young girls, photography depicting sex acts with young girls, and retaliation and harassment against victims and witnesses.

In June 2023, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said Heron had been “re-arrested on 233 new counts,” including kidnapping, sexual assault, child sexual abuse and institutional sexual assault.

Investigators said he targeted vulnerable victims — including girls who struggled with drug addiction, had run away from home or had been arrested — and often sexually assaulted them while wearing his uniform and in the back of his patrol vehicle."

He was facing up to 1,300 years if convicted on all counts.  Of course it's framed as a win for the survivors, who now don't have to face the brutality of a trial.  There's never any talk of making the justice system more fair for survivors of rape, only having us be glad for whatever crumbs of justice we get, years later.

As we saw with Pablo Cano, don't be surprised if he doesn't serve a fraction of that 15-40 years.  He'll skip freely out the door, watch and see.

I'm covering this mostly because it's such a classic thing to happen in Long Beach.  Also because I appreciate the older guy who stepped up.

I used to go to the gym not far from here, on Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach.  That's downtown, near City Hall, the Courthouse, and the Main Library. 

Fun fact:  Not long after opening the newly constructed Billie Jean King Main Library downtown, they had to make its services "to-go only" for the safety of library staff.  The many homeless people who congregated on the steps had become more volatile than usual.  Long Beach had a series of stabbing sprees.  There must have been other issues at the library itself.  But it was fun having that giant, newly minted library open to the public while it lasted.

Part of the problem is that the library itself (around the corner from where the instant assault occurred) is across the street from the end of the Blue Line.  Everyone is forced off of the train for cleaning.

People can enter the trains for free on the LA Metro.  It's on the honor system, where you're meant to pay on a card, and then the police come around and spot check.  If you haven't paid, they give you a $250 ticket.  This is not a deterrent for homeless people, who get on the trains to sleep.  Then they get shoved off the trains at the end of the line, across the street from the main library in Long Beach, so the employees can hose everything down.  Now you know.

Thank God for these neighbors.  A man saw a woman being shouted at and brought into a garage with both of her eyes blacked so she couldn't see out of them.  For whatever reason he told his wife instead of calling the police.  But she called.

It took the police quite a while to get into the garage.  I have to wonder how terrifying that was for the hostage, to hear them out there laughing and joking, seemingly in no big hurry to get her out.  It's really a wonder the kidnapper didn't kill her.

Fox News has more information here, including more about her injuries.  That's actually my biggest concern about the way she's being treated, that she needs spinal immobilization based on obvious head injuries.

But this is what really, really annoys me about America, from the above link:

"Mozingo has a lengthy rap sheet that includes prison time for abduction in 2011, 2014 and 2019. 

He also held a woman at knifepoint in a Walmart bathroom in 2017, according to records. "

You can abduct a lot of different women in America and still be free to abduct and terrorize someone else.  Consider this guy's arrest record, the fact that he beat this woman with a baseball bat, doused her in gasoline, and threatened her life for days while holding her captive.  Then go read the YouTube comments on the recent case of the woman who molested a 15-year-old boy and got probation-only, where men are convinced that violence against women gets swiftly and harshly punished.  Mozingo did a lot of violence without the justice system putting any meaningful stop to him.

Thankfully the woman, Chloe Jones, survived this ordeal.  The Akron PD does a high volume of high-acuity calls to be sure.  But it is stunning to see how utterly unbothered they were by Jones' predicament.

This is a perfect example of why I'm in the world and not of it anymore.

ANDREW CUOMO SLAMS 'CANCEL CULTURE ON STEROIDS' FOR HIS DOWNFALL
"The former New York governor told Bill Maher he felt Joe Biden should have given him more support against sexual harassment claims, given he had faced similar allegations."

1. I grew up reading Mike Royko every morning, before "_____ slams/guts/eviscerates ______" was a headline format. 
2. Why anyone has ever cared what the original nepo baby, Bill Maher, said about anything, or thought of him as anything but a bridge from William F. Buckley to the alt-right, is beyond me.
   
3. This entire concept is like a nesting doll of shitty men, as if decency or women's perspectives didn't exist at all.  All this conversation lacks is Jimmy Kimmel -- not America's sweetheart from late night, but the one who used to host The Man Show.  He often slams and eviscerates on The Daily Beast too.  Kimmel was one of Biden's biggest defenders against Don Jr, about the hair-sniffing, which I couldn't avoid noticing no matter how hard I tried at the time.  The whole thing was one of the circles of the inferno, maybe the third or fourth, for me personally.
   

Once we get inside the conversation, nothing Cuomo says disappoints.  I could go on and on, but it's just him really laying bare the pure hypocrisy and rape culture of the Biden administration and entire Democratic Party, doing my work for me.

The fact is that Joe Biden's sexual misconduct got less investigation than Brett Kavanaugh's.  America didn't want that.  The #MeToo Movement got shut back down, un-coopted, for reasons that I won't go into here.  I'm a close observer of all of this as you may note from my blog.

But the Biden-Harris campaign supporters came after me guns blazing when I complained about the hair sniffing.  I've never voted Republican and never will.  But I got accused of every ridiculous thing, and called a liar and much worse.  I recognized "vote blue no matter who" for "take whatever I cram down your throat -- or else."

For the record, Tara Reade's claim sounds perfectly valid to me.  Her complaint was never investigated; SHE was investigated.  Reade, her personal and political history, her blogging, all of that was investigated and attacked by professional feminists who later got cushy gigs on MSNBC.  But nobody has ever explained to me why Biden sniffs hair. He refused to apologize, then made jokes about it.  Also Reade may well be a right winger and nutty as squirrel poop, and also, her complaint may be valid.  I have no reason to think he didn't do exactly what she said.

Make no mistake, I did vote for Biden in 2020 despite my "never Biden" position.  That position was based on the many, many videos I have seen of him violating the sexual boundaries of women and young girls, even on one occasion a swaddled infant.  Worse yet, he's never answered for any of it.  He's never so much as explained why he does the hair sniffing if it's not a fetish -- which I'm saying it obviously  is -- much less apologize for it.  He's been a complete asshole about all of it.  And his supporters have been as abusive and dishonest about it as humanly possible to me personally. 

I got pressured into voting for the blue rapist over the red one last time.  Next time I'm not voting for water over fire, I'm staying home and letting it burn.  Keep calling me a liar, it's fine.  Hell hath no something something whatever.

The #MeToo Movement (not the real one, but the co-opted media heyday of 2019) was full of people I'd never heard of, being brought to task for things they did long ago.  Here is another one.  Better late than never.

After reading up a bit, he sounds terrible.  And he looks like the actual cryptkeeper.  His face is a jump scare, like a ghoul that rapes you in your nightmares with his stringy white ghost hair.

He was convicted on four counts of sexual assault, as discussed in the linked video.  His son was influential in speaking against him.  I feel bad for such family members.  There's usually nothing they can do about it other than what he apparently did.

But I also was personally struck by the comments of the survivors.  They mentioned how unfair it is, that he's just gone on about his business, living in wealth and privilege the whole time, while they've suffered constantly.  And they still have to pay for the rest of their lives.

I know this feeling.  My mom really did me dastardly wrong, and got away with blaming me.  Very much like these women, I was forced to keep quiet and accept being blamed for the crimes against me for many, many years.  And she kept all the money, too. 

But you just have to let go of all of that and be happy with the days that you have.  Because that's winning. 

You got him convicted.  He spends the rest of his days in prison, like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein  :)  He's a baloney sandwich guy now.  You get to do arts and crafts with the children that you love, or whatever relaxes yourself. 

Sometimes a person has a name that sounds right.  And I suspect this is one of those times.  Because Hamish Ogston sounds horrible when I say it out loud.  And he sounds horrible when I read about him.

I had never heard about this person before, but he's apparently one of the wealthiest people in Britain.  And he allegedly likes Asian sex workers.

WION
"The accusations against Ogston include trafficking, illegal employment, drug procurement, extreme exploitation, and attempts to bring sex workers into the country under false pretenses.

Ogston is also accused of trying to bring Thai sex workers falsely claiming to be "bamboo basket weavers" into the country in 2022.

Ogston has also been accused of paying another Thai sex worker to procure prostitutes and class-A drugs, including crystal meth and cocaine, between 2014 and 2023.
Ogston's response

Ogston vehemently denies these accusations, stating that they do not amount to systematic exploitation.

However, potential offences include immigration, prostitution, and human trafficking laws, as well as knowingly employing adults without the right to work or controlling prostitution for gain. all carrying significant prison sentences.
What does it mean?

The impact of Ogston's alleged exploitation on the women involved has been severe. 

Some women reportedly required medical attention due to extreme sexual acts he allegedly demanded."

While none of this is "proven beyond a reasonable doubt," it all sounds far too consistent, cohesive, and believable to me.  Ogston doesn't say he didn't do it.  He claims his behavior doesn't equal systematic exploitation.

Meanwhile, if you run an internet search on his name, you will see that nobody wants his money anymore.  Hopefully that means that economically vulnerable women won't have to deal with his predatory bullshit anymore.  Of course there won't be prison for him just because women allegedly needed medical care after he got his rocks off.

The part where he calls them "bamboo basket weavers" clinches it for me, that he finds his racist exploitation of them purely adorable.  Mr. Colonialist feels 100% entitled to do as he wishes with them.

In a surprise twist, something very popular on TikTok may turn out to be terrible.

The Daily Mail

"A small-town police chief famous for his TikTok clips allegedly swapped incest videos on a secret social media account and kept a trove of child pornography, court documents reveal.

Joel Justice Womochil, 38, was charged with 24 counts of sexual exploitation of a child and 10 counts of aggravated internet trading of child pornography. 

***

The engaged cop's deleted secret profile's bio read: '38 w male looking 4 that special girl that was raised right and wants 2 continue the tradition. If u luv the little things In life message on Wire same name.' "

Gross.

Like the horrifying Isabella Scavelli tragedy, here is another story of a rape victim being attacked and traumatized twice in a row.

A 911 dispatcher in Boston happened to be watching the webcam from the southernmost point in the USA, a buoy in Key West.

He saw a man dragging a woman behind the buoy in a headlock.  Moments later the man emerged, fixing his pants.  The woman stumbled away partially undressed.  So he called the police in Key West to report what he had seen. 

WCVB

"Citing records, WPLG also reported that other witnesses in Key West called police to report a “nude female, crying and screaming.”

Officers spoke to the victim at a nearby hotel and later learned that she was raped elsewhere earlier that same night. Gasag claimed he stepped in to "rescue" her prior to driving her to the Key West landmark.
Gasag was also accused of returning to the scene of the crime to tamper with evidence, WPLG reported.
Gasag recently pled guilty in the case and was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison and five years of probation."

Did you catch that?  Mr. Gasag came across a woman in distress because she had been raped.  So he offered to help her, put her in his car, took her to a remote location, got her in a headlock, and raped her again.  It's fun being a woman, for sure.

No update on the first rapist of the night.

Chris Hansen's legendary show To Catch A Predator has spawned many imitators on YouTube.  The premise is simple:  adults pose as minors online.  They engage in explicit chats with adults and lure them to a bait house.  When the adult arrives for a meet-up with a teenager, it's a camera crew and the police instead.

I enjoy watching this sort of content for obvious reasons.  I don't want anyone to feel safe luring minors.  I want them to always believe it's Gordon Flowers on the other side, some big hairy fat dude who delights in having you arrested for clicks.  There's never, ever a child available for sex.  Only that guy.

I had never heard of Boopac Shakur.  There are an abundance of predator hunters with shows and channels now, I really can't keep up. 

I'm sorry that he was killed. 

CNN

"Lee confronted two teenagers Friday night – a 17- and 18-year-old – at a restaurant in Pontiac. He accused one of being a pedophile and punched him, according to the police news release.The teen who was punched pulled out a knife, and the other – suspected to be the 17-year-old – shot Lee several times with a pistol, according to police. He was taken to the hospital and later died of his injuries.
The suspects fled but were arrested Saturday afternoon, police say. The sheriff’s office has not released their names."

Chris Hansen had to stop doing TCAP because it was too legally murky.

But one of the cornerstone, foundational things of the premise is to not be alone.  You always have a crew of people -- and Hansen always had a house full of police with him, which obviously Shakur and the other new wave of pred catchers don't have.

But you also have to have everything on tape, 100 percent of the time, in case they say you tried to punch them.  This apparently happened at a popular restaurant that almost certainly has cameras that will show exactly what happened.

The whole thing is tragic.  Please, my dudes, never punch them.

RIP Boopac, thanks for trying.

If grown adult men in one of the most violent professional sports can't get helped when they get sexually abused -- and clearly they can't -- what chance do women and children stand?

AP News

"“Certainly, having somebody like Kyle Beach, who was a known player, someone who was very well known, to come forward — that’s what gave him the courage,” attorney Antonio Romanucci said of his client, identified in court documents as John Doe. “People say, ‘Oh, this is a money grab’ — it’s not. I mean, ultimately, there will be hopefully some financial compensation for him. But there is no doubt that in these situations, people who have been abused sexually take time for them to come forward. And when they see that other people come forward, that gives them a path to follow.”

Welcome to our world.  They always say you're grabbing for money, after they ruin you financially/economically.