Feel good story - Jury awards man $8.4 million for false rape accusation

This story is a couple months old, but I just saw it. An army colonel was about to be promoted to general when some random blogger accused him of raping her like 30 fucking years ago. The army yanked his promotion and started an investigated that found no proof, but his career was over. Can you imagine that shit?

He sued her for defamation and was awarded $3.4 million for lost wages and reputation damage and $5 million (!!!!) for punitive damages. Apparently the punitive damages in this state are limited to $350K and the overall damages will probably be reduced to around $2 million, but wow this is still a huge win.

He proved that every part of her story literally could not have happened. The jury was composed of three men and four women. They deliberated for 2.5 hours, but the entire deliberation was over the amount of the damages. They all unanimously agreed after their initial poll that she was liable. One juror said that they awarded the punitive damages "to make sure that something like this could never happen again."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/08/11/jury-orders-blogger-to-pay-8-4-million-to-ex-army-colonel-she-accused-of-rape/?utm_term=.87a6e2715a48

Edit: Oh and after the army's investigation found no evidence against him, his name was put forward again for promotion but Obama's scumbag Army Secretary still denied it. Unreal what that man did to the country.

Edit 2: Been getting some flak for my first edit because I said that Obama's Army Secretary denied the promotion and it is against sub rules to discuss politics. Sorry.... I guess? I didn't attack liberal tax policy or foreign policy. I attacked their sexual assault policy.

I'm not sure how the politics can really be disentangled from this case. One party has been driving this almost exclusively, and one party decided to create a situation in academia and in the military where one unfounded accusation on someone's blog ends your career/education in order to win more votes from women. That's the reality. If reality makes you uncomfortable, there are a few other subs I can recommend for you to check out such as Two X Chromosomes or The Blue Pill.

If any of the mods think this breaks the rules I will remove the offending paragraph.

Edit 3: There's a bit of confusion in the comments that people are saying "glad he was acquitted," or "why wasn't she jailed for lying," etc. I'd like to give a 10 cent civics lesson for those who maybe aren't from the US or don't fully understand the legal system. I'm not a lawyer. Please feel free to correct me if you are and I've made a mistake.

In the US and other countries that get their legal traditions from the English, there are two types of trials, criminal and civil. In a criminal trial, the people through their government bring charges against a person for breaking a law. At the trial the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed the crime to the jury. If the jury returns a guilty verdict, then you are punished by the state with fines, community service, probation, prison, or even death.

In a civil trial, one private citizen or corporation sues another private citizen or corporation (government can sometimes be sued but not always) for committing a tort against them. They seek to recover monetary damages for being wronged. These torts could be anything from libel/slander like in this case, to medical malpractice, to suing a dog owner if his animal bit you. In a civil trial, the person bringing the suit must show that there is a greater than 50% chance that they are correct (different standard than criminal trial) and also show how they were damaged by the wrongdoing.

If the jury decides in their favor they can then decide how much the damages should be. There are different types of damages that can be awarded. For example in this case the jury awarded him $3.4 million for lost wages and for damage to his reputation. This means that the jury believed that the wages he should have made as a general plus the damage to his future earning potential and the personal suffering he endured because of his damaged reputation was worth $3.4 million. They also awarded punitive damages of $5 million. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant and deter future behavior like this. Again note that the actual judgement was almost certainly reduced by the judge to around $2 million. This seems to be a pretty common theme in civil trials.

Some are asking why she is not in prison for making a false charge. She never made any official charge against him. She just put some words on her blog. Some are also asking why she isn't in jail for perjury (lying under oath), since she lost her case. Understand that just because she lost this case, she is not guilty of perjury. The government would have to bring charges against her and conduct a whole new criminal trial to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she lied in her testimony. Simply losing a court case in which you testified is not enough to convict you of perjury, otherwise the loser would be getting hit with a perjury charge after after case.