Rapist seeking visitation with child he fathered after attack on teen victim

[rawex5]

FOX UNDERCOVER - An admitted Massachusetts rapist is seeking visitation rights to the child he fathered after raping his underage victim, setting the stage for a precedent-setting legal fight in the Bay State.

>>interview with Laurie Myers, former rape crisis counselor and co-founder of Community Voices

The victim and her family are fighting back, saying the rapist is only showing interest in the family now that the child support bill is coming due.

"She got raped at 14. She decided to keep her baby. And now she has to hand her baby over for a visit with her rapist?" the victim's mother said.

The teen mother, who still suffers from severe anxiety and depression, says she's terrified at the thought of having to face the man who raped and impregnated her to arrange for visitation rights.

"He threatened me. He told me that he could make my life upside down, and I wouldn't have anybody and he would pin it all on me. So I was scared," she told FOX Undercover reporter Mike Beaudet.

It happened when she was in eighth grade, just 14-years-old. He was a 20-year-old man she knew from her church, the boyfriend of her friend's older sister.

When her mother found out, they went to the police to press charges. But she decided to keep the baby.

"Being Christian, the way I looked at it, the way I thought of it, this is a baby, an innocent person that didn't do anything wrong. Like, why should I take away that life?" she said.

The man was charged with four counts of statutory rape of a child in 2009. Last year, he pleaded guilty to all the charges in Norfolk Superior Court. FOX Undercover isn't identifying the victim or the rapist to help protect her identity.

The Norfolk prosecutor asked for a three to five year prison sentence. But Superior Court Judge Thomas McGuire sentenced him to 16 years of probation with the condition he acknowledges he's the father of the baby and abide by the probate and family court.

The probate court ordered him to pay child support, opening the door for him to request visitation rights with the child.

"He hasn't cared up until now. Why should he now? She's three. She doesn't know who he is," the teen mother told FOX Undercover.

The attorney for the man who admitted raping the teenager would not comment on his client's fight for visitation rights. But he did claim the relationship was consensual, even though he acknowledged it was inappropriate, given the victim was only 14 and his client was 20.

The family has hired attorney Wendy Murphy.

"Why was this case sent to family court? This isn't a family situation. This is a criminal situation," Murphy said.

Murphy believes the problem stems from the sentence imposed by Judge McGuire in the criminal case.

"The consequences of sentencing this man to probation for 16 years, which is really until the child becomes an adult, and making him declare paternity and pay child support, includes that this guy gets a legal father-child relationship out of the deal," Murphy said.

Murphy has filed a motion with the court, asking the judge to amend the sentencing conditions and order the man to pay restitution instead of child support, which would force him to support the child he fathered but not give him visitation and other parental rights.

Murphy's motion also asks that the man be ordered to stay away from the mother and the child.

"All this family wants is to cut the cord. Get the rapist out of their lives. And if the judge wants to help them financially that's great. But let's call it restitution, not child support," Murphy said.

Sixteen other states have already tackled this issue, according to a 2010 study in the Georgetown Law Journal, by enacting statutes to protect a raped woman who chooses to raise her child.

Nine of those states allow or require the termination of the rapist's parental rights, while the other seven allow or require stripping custody or visitation privileges.

Massachusetts is one of 34 states that has not addressed the issue.

Murphy hopes that will soon change. Because the Superior Court judge has yet to rule on her motion to reconsider the sentence, she has filed an emergency petition with a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court to act.

"This was a young girl. Way, way beneath the age of consent," Murphy said. "If the judge thinks this isn't as serious as a stranger rape, and if this is a judge saying to himself, ‘I wouldn't have done this if it had been a stranger in a dark alley,' then that's a judge that maybe shouldn't be sitting on criminal cases because we got over that distinction I think 30 years ago."

"What kind of legal system commands a toddler into a relationship with the man who raped her mother?" she asked.


Read more: http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/19...n-rights-teen-mom-fighting-back#ixzz27nVo962I

 

[ninjahood]

as bad as it sounds, im for him seeing his son...he made it afterall...

she was crazy enuff to keep it.

 

[AEA18]

^^^ So much wrong with that post

 

[lyonbc1]

as bad as it sounds, im for him seeing his son...he made it afterall...

she was crazy enuff to keep it.

:x :x :x cmon man.....you sound like an aide for Todd Akin a lil bit... you want to put a mother, who was 14 when she was raped, to face a man who took advantage of her and physically, emotionally, psychologically abused her to have visitation for a child?? What's he gonna say to the kid "Oh hey I'm the one who forced your underage mom to have sex with me, maybe we can go get some ice cream"

 

[captnaj phd]

What is this, ****** up story day?

 

[Master Zik]

1st page of General is too wild for me today. Kids dressing up as Batman villains murking themselves, kids killing parents, parents killing kids, dude in a car chase murking himself, now we got rapists wanting visitation rights.

 

[ninjahood]

as bad as it sounds, im for him seeing his son...he made it afterall...

she was crazy enuff to keep it.

cmon man.....you sound like an aide for Todd Akin a lil bit... you want to put a mother, who was 14 when she was raped, to face a man who took advantage of her and physically, emotionally, psychologically abused her to have visitation for a child?? What's he gonna say to the kid "Oh hey I'm the one who forced your underage mom to have sex with me, maybe we can go get some ice cream"

like i said, its terrible all around, but if you keep da seed of someone that violated you, then you kinda let that door open.

da child is ALWAYS gonna eventually who his father was, you might as well break da news now.

 

[tr1ll]

If I was a judge, I'd have a hearing, walking in the court room, sit down and say, "N please, you dead inside!", and walk out.

 

[nationaltruckerdave]

It's his child so he deserves his parental rights

 

[captnaj phd]

like i said, its terrible all around, but if you keep da seed of someone that violated you, then you kinda let that door open.

da child is ALWAYS gonna eventually who his father was, you might as well break da news now.

That's an interesting perspective. I will say that I can't even fathom how a woman could go through with something like that. I mean...doesn't the kid look like the guy?

 

[jewseejay]

1st page of General is too wild for me today. Kids dressing up as Batman villains murking themselves, kids killing parents, parents killing kids, dude in a car chase murking himself, now we got rapists wanting visitation rights.

This. If I'm the girls father when the raper comes to pickup the baby for his visit... Instant slugs to the chest

That's if this was a real rape and notta "my ***** daughter had consensual sex before she was of age"

 

[jewseejay]

1st page of General is too wild for me today. Kids dressing up as Batman villains murking themselves, kids killing parents, parents killing kids, dude in a car chase murking himself, now we got rapists wanting visitation rights.

This. If I'm the girls father when the raper comes to pickup the baby for his visit... Instant slugs to the chest

That's if this was a real rape and notta "my ***** daughter had consensual sex before she was of age"

 

[miketysonthekiller]

like i said, its terrible all around, but if you keep da seed of someone that violated you, then you kinda let that door open.

da child is ALWAYS gonna eventually who his father was, you might as well break da news now.

Yea, because I'm sure the child wants to know the man that raped his mother and brought a bastard into this world. Yea, thats totally not gonna build some hatred in his heart... yep....

 

[futuremd]

 

[mr brown]

wait? he admitted to raping this broad and got no jail time???

 

[ninjahood]

like i said, its terrible all around, but if you keep da seed of someone that violated you, then you kinda let that door open.

da child is ALWAYS gonna eventually who his father was, you might as well break da news now.

Yea, because I'm sure the child wants to know the man that raped his mother and brought a bastard into this world. Yea, thats totally not gonna build some hatred in his heart... yep....

truth hurts.

 

[Master Zik]

1st page of General is too wild for me today. Kids dressing up as Batman villains murking themselves, kids killing parents, parents killing kids, dude in a car chase murking himself, now we got rapists wanting visitation rights.

This. If I'm the girls father when the raper comes to pickup the baby for his visit... Instant slugs to the chest

That's if this was a real rape and notta "my ***** daughter had consensual sex before she was of age"

I was thinking this as I read the op before I typed my post but for me it was the victim shooting the guy. Just the audacity of this request and to make it a legal matter.

Reminded me of a few SVU episodes where the rapist has some complex so he purposely rapes women when they're ovulating and keeps a timetable to see if they get pregnant or the dude that was impregnating women with his sperm instead of donor's.

 

[carver]

wait? he admitted to raping this broad and got no jail time???

Yeah, what is this..

Or did I read it wrong, did all he get was probation?

 

[nawghtyhare]

I dont wanna be THAT guy but we know women can lie it coulda been a concentual relationship im not saying its right but it coulda been and she cried rape after her parents found out she was pregnant. If that is the case he should be able to see the kid

 

[carver]

I dont wanna be THAT guy but we know women can lie it coulda been a concentual relationship im not saying its right but itncoulda been and she cried rape after her parents found out she was pregnant. If that is the case he should be able to see the kid

This is also true, it's has happened oh so many times.. she didn't want to admit that she was sleeping with an older man so she cried wolf

 

[obina]

Dude some of you guys are sick. Supporting excuse for kids killing their parents now this dude thinks its ok for a rapist to see his child? Just so much wrong that statement Ninjahood. Gross man. 1st page of General has just been all kinds of wrong today.

 

[ninjahood]

I dont wanna be THAT guy but we know women can lie it coulda been a concentual relationship im not saying its right but itncoulda been and she cried rape after her parents found out she was pregnant. If that is the case he should be able to see the kid

This is also true, it's has happened oh so many times.. she didn't want to admit that she was sleeping with an older man so she cried wolf

yea, this is believable too...dude was her friend's older sister's boyfriend.....

 

[mjt26]

She was 14, it couldn't be consensual, hence the term statutory rape. But then again, we all know that a 20 year old man just can't resist a 14 year old temptress, right?

 

[futuremd]

I dont wanna be THAT guy but we know women can lie it coulda been a concentual relationship im not saying its right but it coulda been and she cried rape after her parents found out she was pregnant. If that is the case he should be able to see the kid

Too bad.

The law doesn't make excuses. They tried to throw genarlow wilson in jail for 10 years for getting a BJ and luckily he only served 2. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_v._State_of_Georgia

 

[nawghtyhare]

I dont wanna be THAT guy but we know women can lie it coulda been a concentual relationship im not saying its right but it coulda been and she cried rape after her parents found out she was pregnant. If that is the case he should be able to see the kid

Too bad.

The law doesn't make excuses. They tried to throw genarlow wilson in jail for 10 years for getting a BJ and luckily he only served 2. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_v._State_of_Georgia

U know would the law have still applied if the person was 17? Also what if the person is imancipated would that make it concentual?