What do you think about the Mario Batali case and false rape allegations against men ?

AstronautLoveShack · 2022-09-06T16:26:27+00:00

I wasn't aware of him. A brief skimming of his wiki makes it clear to me that he is not a good poster child for false rape allegations. He was an alcoholic who took tip money from his employees and was accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault not by just one woman but several. He described his own behavior as "deeply inappropriate" and the court while dismissing the charges noted that his conduct was "not befitting a public person of his stature." It reads to me that he might have gotten off easy.

To the actual question, I think that actual false rape allegations are awful. There should be some recourse for the victim who is falsely accused. However, as it is most rape cases are not even prosecuted. There are backlogs of rape kits yet to be tested in most cities. And so much of rape accusations come down to "he said, she said" that a lot of women are already afraid to come forward. If you were legitimately raped and then your rapist was not only not tried or convicted but you also had to face charges of making a false allegation that wasn't actually false to you? I just don't know the solution there.

SmilesLikeMardiGras · 2022-09-06T13:20:16+00:00

On December 11, 2017, restaurant news website Eater reported that four women accused Batali of sexual harassment and sexual assault.[32][22][33] By the following day, four more women had come forward.[34] Batali took a leave of absence from his position at the management company Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group.[28][35] Producers of ABC's The Chew asked him to step aside temporarily, while his fellow co-hosts publicly addressed the allegations on air,[22][36] and he was fired from the show on December 14, 2017.[37]

Food Network halted plans to release episodes of his television show Molto Mario after the allegations.[38] Target announced it pulled Batali's pasta sauces and cookbooks out of sales.[39][40]

In May 2018, more accusations of sexual assault against Batali were aired on an episode of 60 Minutes, and the New York Police Department confirmed it was investigating Batali for his past behavior, including an alleged assault that took place at The Spotted Pig, a restaurant where Batali was an investor.[41] Batali denied an allegation of sexual assault, but said "My past behavior has been deeply inappropriate and I am sincerely remorseful for my actions."[41] Days later, Batali's company B&B Hospitality Group announced it would be closing its three Las Vegas Strip restaurants after the Las Vegas Sands Corp. terminated the companies' relationship.[42]

In January 2019, New York City police declined to charge Batali over two alleged sexual assaults in his New York City restaurants due to insufficient evidence.[43]

In July 2021, Batali, Bastianich, and their former restaurant company agreed to a settlement in the New York state case that was under investigation by the Attorney General of New York wherein they would pay $600,000 to more than 20 former employees (men and women) of three restaurants in Manhattan.[44][45]

In March 2019, Batali surrendered ownership of his stakes in Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group, a partnership between Batali and the Bastianich family, including Joe and Lidia Bastianich.[46] He also sold his minority ownership in Eataly, an Italian food marketplace.[46] The Bastianiches said B&B Hospitality Group's name will change.[47] Batali was the first chef to surrender ownerships in all his restaurants after reports of sexual misconducts.[46]

Trial and acquittal

In May 2019, Batali was charged with indecent assault and battery in Boston.[48] In court, the accuser alleged that Batali had groped her in April 2017 at a bar in Boston. Batali pleaded not guilty and chose a bench trial.[45][49][50][51]

On May 10, 2022, Batali was acquitted in Boston Municipal Court by a Judge who ruled that Batali’s conduct during the alleged incident was "not befitting of a public person of his stature" but agreed with the defense's arguments that his accuser had credibility issues and was motivated by financial gain to make her accusation.[45][52][53]

how do you expect the police to investigate complaints against famous people without "ruining" them?

SmilesLikeMardiGras · 2022-09-06T12:16:56+00:00

100 paragraphs and you didn't describe anything about the rape allegations or the case or link to it

Valuable-Marzipan761 · 2022-09-06T11:35:09+00:00

So what has happened to him? I'm guessing he's not on t.v. anymore. Still have his restaurants?

We don't know whether or not he did it bit it seems unfair to have allegations publicised before your trial.

Haven't followed the case but if the allegations seemed legitimate I wouldn't be eating at his restaurant or watching his shows.

ruboyuri · 2022-09-06T14:04:26+00:00

He had a rep. I lived in NYC during this time and everyone in the restaurant biz knew he was a drunken sleaze, as opposed to, say, Jean-Georges vongerichten or Eric Ripert. Hell, I watched him get blitzed at his own restaurant while I sat at the bar

Great food and wine, but no one was surprised, if you noticed

2022-09-06T10:19:10+00:00

I’m going to try and piece through this carefully.

I don’t know anything about Batali personally, know the name wasn’t a fan, haven’t followed it. So can’t comment on his situation specifically.

I do believe that false accusations happen, and that they can be devastating to the person falsely accused. I think allegations are more often true than they are not, but there is no doubt false ones do occur.

One issue, I think, is that there are two competing needs: the need of a community to protect itself, and the need of a community to ensure a just process.

The first is fairly basic: if someone has harmed someone, including via sexual assault, there needs to be a community response, and there needs to be repercussion and some sort of social validation for the person harmed (these are all key factors in real resolution of harm). And there is an obvious value in not allowing someone who has harmed people to continue on without repercussion, first and foremost to protect others in their working environment. That shouldn’t necessarily have to wait for a judicial process to be completed, for many reasons.

In this, the feminist push, which has become more successful in recent years, to have immediate consequences for allegations is something of a natural and needed corrective to previous cultural climates where sexual or physical violence against women wasn’t taken all that seriously, and where abuse of women was largely tolerated in many professional contexts.

The problem a bit is this. When it comes to high-profile cases, the entire world becomes the de facto community, and everyone will have their judgment of who is likely right or wrong based largely on their priors, perhaps even in absence of evidence.

And because of the way news and media works now on social media everyone sets up into camps very quickly, the pressure on private companies to ditch the accused is intense (remember that these forces are largely market ones; virtually nobody is worth the cost to the company of the bad press of continuing to employ them amidst allegations); and whatever the truth ends up being determined to be, that initial process can’t be undone.

So especially in the social media age, the corrective becomes an over-correction. Everything gets magnified. People who have no particular knowledge are convinced an accusation is true or false and will usually not be convinced otherwise. Typically this ends up being a horrible process for both the complainant and the accused.

Probably the worst case of this I can think of is the Stephen Galloway case in Canada. The dude got absolutely mistreated by his employer and had his whole life ruined, and still ruined, when there was absolutely no evidence of actionable harm — all for basically getting into an ill-advised extramarital relationship with an unstable person.

The problem is that I don’t know how to get around this given the social media climate we have. The answer, likely, would be to push for more restrained responses, like a paid suspension pending the outcome of an investigation, and have everyone just collectively agree to pause judgment and wait for details; but it’s not realistic to expect whatever millions of people who consume the news not to react to such allegations. We have social media algorithms designed to feed us things that outrage us, and a lot of women (myself included) feel very strongly about ensuring sufficient response to sexual assault.

So what do we do? I don’t know, I really don’t.

Generally, I think sexual assault allegations outside of celebrity are best handled through carefully managed community processes; they’ll still be painful for many but it can be done well. But that’s lost entirely when it’s high-profile, and given how mass social pressure works now, I honestly cannot picture a realistic middle ground between respecting the seriousness of allegations and respecting the sanctity of a judicial or investigative process.

And that sucks.

wtknight · 2022-09-06T12:49:45+00:00

I’ve worked with a lot of women and I’ve never met this type that would seemingly make false accusations against men, so when there is a case of a woman accusing a powerful man of trying to take advantage of her, I’m likely to by default believe the woman unless I see some evidence to the contrary.

If there are accusations from multiple women, then I think the probability that they are all lying is infinitesimally small.

chingness · 2022-09-06T12:54:28+00:00

Rape is the only crime I can think of where the victim is essentially on trial. Mario Batali was found not guilty due to “credibility issues” with the witness which included her making a joke about the alleged assault to a friend. Some people process trauma with dark humour.. but regardless let’s say this woman did falsely accuse him by jumping on the bandwagon of other accusations for monetary gain.

There are still a number of other women who have accused this man, at least 2 with video evidence. He also admitted to his behaviour (of inappropriate groping/sexual assault - not specifically rape) multiple times.

This man is not innocent. There is just insufficient evidence to charge him in a court of law.

False accusations are wrong and should be punished but as has been stated already there is a world of difference between not guilty, and insufficient evidence to convict.

There are many cases of men who have admitted to sexual assault where it has not ruined their lives - Donald trump being an obvious one.

There are many cases of men who got away with multiple sexual assault cases because their victims were scared they wouldn’t be believed and would themselves be on trial with their past dug up to discredit them. Harvey Weinstein being an obvious example.

There are examples of men actually being able to be found guilty - with all of the evidence that has to entail - but being given a slap on the wrist. Look at Brock Turner.

In the UK at least there are many cases of rape kits going missing or CPS declining to prosecute due to insufficient evidence when they have what seems like really good evidence but they worry about stats. So who would come forward when they know all of this?

Let’s not forget also that rape accusers also face huge public criticism regardless of the validity of their claims so there’s not a great deal of benefit in making a false claim.

I genuinely don’t know what world some of you live in where you think mens lives are being ruined daily with false rape accusations but ignore the lives ruined by actual rape..

ummizazi · 2022-09-06T13:21:51+00:00

Seems like this guy has multiple accusations, by at least 11 different women, over more than a decade, in different states.

Pretty hard sell to convince people he’s didn’t do anything wrong, especially if he had a major drinking problem.

He faced criminal charge in one case and was acquitted. He also paid to settle two civil cases in Massachusetts and paid another $600k to end an investigation by the New York attorney general office. His company paid out even more for other allegations at a restaurant he was involved with.

There was allegedly video of him groping unconscious women at a restaurant. I don’t know if the video surfaced but there were contemporaneous emails among staff describing the video and the woman called a crisis center the next morning but didn’t file charges.

YaKnowEstacado · 2022-09-06T12:05:14+00:00

What type of country allows a man to face repercussions over allegations before he has his day in court? What kind of country allows a man to be destroyed and when the case against him goes nowhere he still remains blacklisted from his industry?

I don't really understand what the alternative is. The repercussions he faced weren't legal, they were personal and professional. I'm not sure how the "country" is supposed to "not allow" that.

There's no right to run a restaurant and be on TV. There's not even a right to employment. It sounds like he was a liability and bad PR even without the allegations, given his drinking problem. And it's possible there were other bad behaviors that his employers knew about. Being acquitted doesn't mean anyone's required to employ him. It doesn't even mean he's innocent.

Edit: Looking further into this guy, it seems like he has a lot of accusations over the course of many years, and some proven cases of misconduct on the job. He also cost his employer a lot of money in lawsuits. Even the judge who acquitted him said he behaved inappropriately. Again, if you think an employer isn't within their rights to fire an employee like this I'd like to know why and what you think should happen instead.

DXBrigade · 2022-09-06T13:51:23+00:00

The benefit of the doubt exists solely in the court. If people believe you are guilty, then they are gonna be wary of you and it's gonna impact your professional life.

RedditsOlderBrah · 2022-09-06T10:35:42+00:00

You are statistically more likely to be killed in the parking lot of the shopping centre you next visit than being falsely accused of rape by a significant margin. If you aren't emergency calling your loved ones before getting out of your car to traverse the dangers of the parking lot having a fear of this is statistically, empirically unlikely event happening to you is a waste of time on a scale that's hard to verbalise.

Your concern for this topic should go exactly as far as understanding that it can happen, and then taking reasonable precautions to reduce the likelihood as much as possible.

Taking all that into account, look at what you typed. That was a massive waste of your cosmic miracle of an existence.

CatchPhraze · 2022-09-06T16:44:18+00:00

Repeat after me: a lack of evidence for a conviction doesn't prove that the accusations are false. Just that it cannot be 100% certain to be true.

2022-09-06T22:53:08+00:00

According to the FBI 94% of rape allegations are true, 6% are false. Odds favor the victim being correct.

An acquittal and being innocent are not the same thing.

2022-09-06T11:06:26+00:00

People often times forget what a good justice system is supposed to prevent. Justice is supposed to prevent crime and we know and acknowledge that, it's supposed to punish crime and we know and acknowledge that...it's also supposed to stop people from taking justice in their own hands, because...that's really bad, and we typically forget or choose to ignore that.

Rape does not get justice in a court of law, so people are trying to recreate their own form of justice. This is why false rape accusations can be so harmful. Because almost no one beliefs the courts when it comes to rape.

You want the harm to go away? Fix the courts. But I'm guessing you don't want that either. You want the courts to stay exactly as they are, because it's good exactly as they are now AND get rid of the nasty consequences of the courts being exactly as they are.

And you can't have both.

If people don't belief that courts hand out justice, then they make up their own minds. Because they don't trust the courts. Action, meet consequence.

statsfodder · 2022-09-06T10:11:18+00:00

Any western country
Any western country
Rule 1 - women are wonderful. Rule 2 - if you catch yourself thinking otherwise please refer to Rule 1. Any questioning of a woman is victim blaming Men are to be socially punished from the point of allegation incase the court doesn't do it. Her word is more than enough evidence.

And somehow the oppressive patriarchy allows this...

RealNiceLady · 2022-09-06T12:43:03+00:00

I think the fear of false rape allegations are overblown.

figuringMylife · 2022-09-06T11:32:47+00:00

stop fucking crazy bitches, keep your dick in your pants, stay the fuck away from them. he was probably acquitted but i know how restaurants and night life is, he probably fucked her. just like women should watch who the fuck they get pregnant by and have accountability, men should have accountability for their bullshit with getting rape allegations.

ClaraBow01 · 2022-09-06T10:04:10+00:00

False allegations are wrong but they aren’t that common. They are about as common as false allegations for other crimes. Men are far more likely to be raped than falsely accused of it. The reason some people believe the accuser right away is because there is a staggering lack of accountability for rapists. The few that get sentenced often get very short sentences. The MeToo movement was brought on because of the lack of legal accountability, so people have tried taking it into their own hands. I think people should think more critically though, and I think they are. I think the RedPill and MRAs greatly exaggerate the effects of false rape allegations. We should be supportive of those who have been falsely accused but we can also recognize that it is not a systemic issue. From my knowledge, women who falsely accuse men of rape tend to have a history of lying and abusing others. Not just any woman will falsely accuse someone, like not just any man will sexually assault a woman.

In short, I think we should treat false rape allegations the same way we would treat other false crime allegations. There is no real need to brand them as uniquely a problem.

warramite · 2022-09-06T18:06:18+00:00

If there's no proof and no conviction, he shouldn't lose anything

kayakr1194 · 2022-09-06T20:12:16+00:00

Look at the Oxindental College case. A girl and a guy communicated about having sex, they had text messages, phone calls, friend witnesses to their intentions. But they were both drunk and she regretted it the next day and said she was raped. The guy was expelled from school and ended up suing the college and won.

I am not saying that women do not get raped and that is absolutely terrible, sincerely it is, but you can't have it both ways. You can't cry wolf, and then be upset when no one comes to your rescue when it actually happens.

Flightlessbirbz · 2022-09-06T22:34:05+00:00

Sometimes there is excellent evidence against someone and nothing ever really happens. Sometimes there isn’t much of anything and a life is ruined. A lot of that depends on money.

Ok-Map-7596 · 2022-09-06T11:34:36+00:00

Don't care. If you don't wanna do the time don't do the crime.

Powerful_Skill1847 · 2022-09-06T12:40:14+00:00

Women here think an accusation is proof. They can't constantly attack a guy for having an accusation then say they are against false accusations.

Andrew Tate has an accusation against him so he is bad. No proof but an accusation

Gigamon2014 · 2022-09-06T11:30:49+00:00

Women love guys with money, guys who are popular, guys who can cook, guys who know about exotic things, guys who write books and have traveled to exotic places like Batali. Lots of broke women have also been known to try and escape poverty by sleeping with their boss for promotions and raises.

And lots of women who have made false rape allegations have done so because they regreted consensual sexual encounters or they tried sleeping their way up the corporate ladder but didn't get the results they wanted. There have been stories of women who have cheated and lied they were raped to save their relationships.

This is an interesting tidbit which I do think is worthy of consideration. One thing thats starting to infuriate me about this sub is the denial about just how many women are willing to barter their sexuality for access to wealthy/desirable/high status men and the lifestyle they provide. I see a lot of women purporting dangerous garbage about women actually only wanting emotional availability and "niceness" in men and its often leading to men operating with a strong sense of naivety.

No, I don't think false rape accusations are all that common. I trust the FBI statistics that peg it about 2-10% at best. However what is mighty common is accusations of sexual misconduct, breaches of corporate morality clauses and HR overreach. Women can, have and will exploit both their gender and increased hyper awareness of male sexual impropriety in professional settings for their own advantage and anyone pretending otherwise is dangerous.

A friend of mine had an uncle who is an executive at a medium sized tech company and he was raked over the coals over an accusation of sexual misconduct made by a young woman with whom he attended a post work drinks and proceeded to have a particularly flirtatious conversation laced with sexual innuendo. Did he do anything explicitly wrong? No, it was the kind of banter that would have been a-okay in a conversation among friends...but his seniority really meant that he shouldn't have even been exploring that avenue with any colleague. What makes things even worse is the strange infantilization of these professional women who, in may cases, are very much aware of what they're doing, are gunning for older, powerful men and are very aware of how their sexuality can be used to entice interest. Many often are none-the-wiser, especially if you take the horseshit bluepilled beta failures on here tell you about women not desiring older men or those with status or wealth. I called my friends uncle out on the fact that he should have known better and understood that women aren't innocent snowflakes whom shouldn't be treated with the same caution you would give to a male professional rival/colleague.

faith_in_gasoline · 2022-09-07T02:09:59+00:00

I have no idea who this man is, but I want to say, as a woman who has been rped, I’ve slept with men who were accused of rpe and were very careful when I told them about my previous experience and I could definitely empathize with them, and they were very careful and nice to me. I absolutely despise false allegations, especially as I know how it is when it truly happens.

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MasterTeacher123 · 2022-09-06T13:17:18+00:00

Do individual police departments have their own definition of what gets thrown in the “false” pile or is it a universal standard?

General_High_Ground · 2022-09-06T20:56:43+00:00

And lots of women who have made false rape allegations have done so because they regreted consensual sexual encounters or they tried sleeping their way up the corporate ladder but didn't get the results they wanted. There have been stories of women who have cheated and lied they were raped to save their relationships.

At this point, it doesn't even have to be a woman who wants something.

If I was for example someone rich or influential(a corrupt politician for example), and had someone I didn't particularly like(and I wanted them to... ahem, "disappear") all I would need to do would be to find a woman, and offer her for example 500000$ to accuse some dude that I don't like, of sexually assaulting or raping her.
We could go over the details beforehand so that she is not caught lying, but even if she is caught, it's not like something will happen to her anyway, she'll just have 500000$ more in the bank, so it's a win/win for her, but that person that was accused would've suffered irreparable damage to their reputation, even if proven innocent. And I would be able to win an election, just like that.

While this is just a fictional scenario, I'm pretty sure that at this point it's just a matter of time; if it's not already happening.

Magnito-was-right · 2022-09-07T00:14:46+00:00

I always think, what if someone did rape someone but they were black out drunk so they don’t remember it? That person would insist they were innocent and probably truly believe it.

nargi · 2022-09-23T08:15:34+00:00

He wasn’t acquitted in court; he settled financially, but he wasn’t innocent. I know people directly involved that he harassed and assaulted. Dude’s a piece of shit.

Brianna3333 · 2022-09-29T13:12:04+00:00

That man is a predator. Servers and bartenders that work at these places are not escaping poverty. Its respectful job. Shows your worldview about the labor market. This man preyed on women for decades and should be in jail. I see no justice. The women he coerced were maybe drugged or forced to take care of him in fear of losing their job. Servers and bartenders at that time probably make more money than you think. Your poor people sentiment is disturbing. Its a hard job that takes a lot out of you and if you are working for a celebrity chef even more is expected out of you. He’s a millionaire and will always be ok financially. He is a disgusting person. He continues to go out in the industry and try to intimidate women. I don’t know what acquittal you speak of but I do know hes paid off several women. Those are signs of guilt not innocence. He has sexually assaulted women on camera. The fact that you paint these women the way you do is jarring. He terrorized his staff. Women have to deal with potential assault the moment we leave our houses in the morning. People should believe us. I hope you never have a daughter because I don’t think you understand that.

DareWright · 2022-10-02T01:07:25+00:00

Nice of you to victim-shame, OP. As an alleged rape survivor, you should know better.

Title	What do you think about the Mario Batali case and false rape allegations against men ?
Author	lostacoshermanos
Upvotes	11
Comments	185
Date	September 6, 2022 9:50 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/x76egu/what_do_you_think_about_the_mario_batali_case_and/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/what-do-you-think-about-the-mario-batali-case-and.1129886 https://theredarchive.com/post/1129886

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