Since we learned that Tara Reade edited a Medium blog post from 2019 to match her new claims against Joe Biden—and did so mere hours before going public with those claims—I’ve found it very hard to keep myself from blowing up in anger over it. There’s a personal reason for this. I know first-hand what happens when a claim of domestic violence or sexual assault is pursued even when evidence comes to light that shows it is clearly non-credible.
Many longtime Kossacks know that in 2006, literally weeks after I left an emotionally abusive marriage of three years, my ex-wife saw fit to abuse me one more time. I’d pressed charges against her son for making good on threats to beat me up. Her response? She got a girl who was staying with us to falsely claim that I’d made her watch X-rated movies and threatened to beat her up if she told anyone.
I still remember almost falling apart on the Saturday after Labor Day when the police came to the door. It was easily the longest four hours of my life. Fortunately, after they didn't show up for court twice, the charges were thrown out in January 2007. I believed then, and I believe now, that she was banking on me merely waving my hands and wailing about how she’d yelled, screamed and cursed at me for three years rather than actually try to defend myself. I had a really good lawyer—a former DA here in Charlotte. I believed then, and I believe now, that when my ex-wifefound that out, she knew she would be racked up for perjury and subornation of perjury if she peddled this story in court.
To this day, it is beyond hurtful to believe my ex-wife hated me so much that she was likely banking on me getting beaten up or worse. But it is almost as hurtful to know that this ordeal could have ended far earlier than January 2007.
When I sat down with my lawyer for the first time, he looked at the charge sheet, and noticed my ex-wife had supposedly made this discovery just hours after her son had been arrested for beating me up. It took him no more than five minutes to say that this was retaliation. When I told him that I was at work at the time she claimed this happened, he asked me to get my time card for that week. On the face of it, this should have been DNA-level evidence that my ex was lying.
I went to work on the day of the first appearance, having every reason to believe this would have been the end of it. But when I came home that night, I was stunned to discover that the case was still going forward—supposedly because the girl had a right to be heard. I later found out that when my lawyer mentioned the time sheet, the DA responded, “We have a right to present our case!”
To this day, almost 14 years later, it is beyond comprehension why the DA handling the case didn’t have the guts to put two and two together. If I could prove I was at work at the time this discovery supposedly occurred, on paper there was no case. And because of that failure, I had to go through calling pretrial release every Monday for five months. For years afterward, I had nightmares of being taken to the hole for my own protection. Even today, I wonder if people think I’m a monster.
I have a very good idea for why I had to go through this despite having DNA-level evidence that this claim wasn’t credible. I suspect that years of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault having doors slammed in their faces has led a lot of prosecutors and cops to feel they have to chase down claims that are clearly not credible. They’re afraid of not even wanting to chance letting a predator remain free.
That suspicion was confirmed back in 2017 when Breana Talbott was arrested for falsely claiming she’d been brutally gang-raped by three black men in Denison, Texas. Talbott burst into a church on the night of March 8 covered with cuts and bruises from what she said happened to her. It turned out that police suspected within a day or two of that her story wasn’t adding up. Not only were nurses unable to find any evidence of sexual penetration, but cuts on her jeans didn’t match the wounds on her jeans. Despite this, however, police were reluctant to declare the claim unfounded in the off-chance she was telling the truth. It wasn’t until Talbott confessed to making the whole thing up two weeks later that they were able to do so.
This was highly unnerving. Forensic evidence that announces in capital letters that no assault occurred, and they still felt the need to investigate? Was it worth potentially ruining innocent people's lives and making them shell out scads of money to defend themselves for a crime that never occurred? And that’s before we consider the racially-charged nature of Talbott’s lies. It made it all the more outrageous when Talbott cut a plea deal that allowed her to avoid jail time altogether.
Seeing the Reade story crop up has unnerved me just as much as the Talbott case did. There is something fundamentally wrong if the risk of allowing a predator or abuser to remain on the streets is so great that we must pursue claims of domestic violence and sexual assault even when it should be clear to anyone with half a brain that they aren’t credible. It’s one of the starkest pieces of evidence that too many people have forgotten that we don’t punish the guilty, but protect the innocent.
It is long past time for us to find some sort of happy medium on how we handle domestic violence and sexual assault. Chasing down clearly non-credible claims does as much of a disservice to survivors as sweeping claims of domestic violence and sexual assault under the rug. I’m living proof of the damage this can do.