When 2019 dawned, we learned that we narrowly averted another racially-tinged travesty. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Kristen Rimes told police in Columbia, South Carolina that a black man in a hoodie yanked her out of her car in a Walmart parking lot and sexually assaulted her.
But two weeks ago, police dropped a bombshell—Rimes was the one in jail. It turned out that in late December, they had concluded that she had never been anywhere near that Walmart, and her story was all a lie. Rimes is currently facing charges of false reporting and false swearing, and could get up to ten years in prison if convicted.
We haven’t heard anything about this case since then. That’s a shame, because it’s literally impossible to overstate how much damage this woman could have done. Can you imagine if an innocent man had been arrested because of Rimes’ lies? Even if he hadn’t been charged with anything, merely being arrested on bogus charges can do a lot of mental damage. I know from experience, having been framed up myself—the scars still run deep more than a decade later. And of course, there is the waste of police resources.
I’m hoping that the reason we haven’t heard anything is because Rimes—or at least, her lawyer(s)—have had the good sense to start talking about a plea deal. Those better versed than me can correct me, but if the police were able to determine that she wasn’t anywhere near that Walmart, the only logical assumption is that they were able to prove it by tracking cell tower data. And if they’ve got that data, they’ve got her.
If Rimes has anything at all in her, she will take a plea deal and apologize to the community. Even if she does so, Rimes needs to do some significant jail time. We need to make an example out of her and send a message that you can’t make false charges against someone—especially when they even appear to be racially motivated. She ought to get significantly more jail time than Stephani Lawson, the Orange County woman who created a fake Facebook account to make it look like her ex-boyfriend, Tyler Parkervest, was stalking her. Lawson ultimately pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of a year in jail—which is a bad joke considering that Parkervest could have faced a decade or more in jail on those bogus charges. In my view, anything less than four to five years for Rimes would be a joke.
There’s another reason why I’m surprised we haven’t heard more about this case. Given the way it could have ended, I’d like to think some cop in Columbia looked at this and said, “Wait a minute, this doesn’t add up.” Given that in too many jurisdictions, we’ve swung from not believing women at all to believing that this sort of crime is one for which you’re guilty until proven innocent, that took guts. I said before, and I’ll say again—that cop deserves a medal.
The hot lights need to be turned on Kristen Rimes--if only to send a message that this is the sort of thing that cannot be tolerated in any society.