Predator and Prey: Assault, harassment, and other aggressions in the entertainment industry

[Guest]

1 hour ago, bobalina said:

If her birth was not registered until the 1960's Lynn may not know how old she is.

But does it make any sense to believe a document filled out 30 years later over the actual person who should know if she was 13 or nearly 16 when she got married. 

1 hour ago, bobalina said:

As late as 2000 girls in Kentucky could be married with parental consent at 13 so no need to lie. And I'm sure things were looser in the less populated areas.

I am going off of articles written when her birth certificate was found. They cited a lawyer from the Kentucky State Law Library that said it was illegal for a girl under the age of 14 to marry in 1948 Kentucky. I can’t find anything definitive so I’m inclined to believe that’s accurate.

Also, sometimes people will chose to lie rather than having to go through the process of getting any exemption. Things weren’t so loose that she wasn’t required to have two documents saying how old she was. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Guest

[letter8358]

7 hours ago, Bastet said:

If you're asking what that stands for, it's "no big deal".

Quoted for truth.

I want see Jagged Pill now!  It sounds interesting.

[Jaded]

7 hours ago, bobalina said:

If her birth was not registered until the 1960's Lynn may not know how old she is. As late as 2000 girls in Kentucky could be married with parental consent at 13 so no need to lie. And I'm sure things were looser in the less populated areas. In Newcastle, PA in 1935 my great aunt was married at 15.

 

Even if she was 15 and it was legal during that time that doesn't make it right. Getting married at 15 would be a traumatic experience for anyone that age.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Jaded

[Vermicious Knid]

Calling perfectly normal female biology 'ick', really? It's attitudes like this that keep menstruation a taboo topic and prevent girls from learning vital information about themselves.

[WinnieWinkle]

11 hours ago, Dani said:

But does it make any sense to believe a document filled out 30 years later over the actual person who should know if she was 13 or nearly 16 when she got married. 

Agreed! I didn't see my birth certificate until I applied for a passport at 16 but I knew how old I was before then!  The idea that because Loretta Lynn may have come from an impoverished background means she wasn't aware of her actual age is pretty insulting!

[Blergh]

Actually, I think it's possible that Mrs. Lynn DID want folks to think she was a couple of years younger than her actual age when breaking into the music business in her 30's. In any case, once the birth certificate got unearthed, she doesn't seem to have disputed the findings (although wasn't happy about them). 

What's odd in retrospect is that her late husband Mooney didn't mind folks evidently thinking him more of a 'cradle robber' than he appears to have been but DID get upset at his alcoholism being known (though it seems he made little if any effort to hide it from their family or peers). 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Blergh said:

Actually, I think it's possible that Mrs. Lynn DID want folks to think she was a couple of years younger than her actual age when breaking into the music business in her 30's. In any case, once the birth certificate got unearthed, she doesn't seem to have disputed the findings (although wasn't happy about them). 

I wouldn’t underestimate an abuse victims need to maintain a lie particularly when her entire career was controlled by her husband.

My point is that a document filed out in 1965 is largely meaningless when filled out 30+ years after the birth in question. Acting like the birth certificate is proof that she is lying is ridiculous to me based on these circumstances. That it is treated as a gotcha moment for a woman who was a child bride is appalling. She says she was married at 13 and I can’t see any reason not to believe her. Although her being married at 15 is only a tiny bit better.

[Rootbeer]

On 9/12/2021 at 8:41 AM, Leeds said:

NBD?

No big deal

On 9/12/2021 at 9:39 AM, icemiser69 said:

Note to self, when not knowing the exact meaning of a certain word, imagine the worst possible meaning in the sentence the word is contained in before looking it up.   One word, ick.

Menarche:  medical term for age at first period.  Somewhere between 10-14 for most girls.

I practice gynecology in a state where the age of consent is 16.  Any girl younger than 16 who is sexually active must be asked the age of her partner by a health care provider.  If there is more than a 4 year difference, the practitioner is legally required to contact Children's Services so an investigation may be done.  Not that I think it is just peachy keen if a 12 year old hooks up with a 16 year old. I'd probably call that one in, too.

Youngest patient I ever delivered: 12.  Youngest pregnant patient I ever encountered: 10.  Her 17 year old brother, not sure she ever had a period and it was an observant 4th grade teacher who called the authorities.  The little girl had no idea and was already 20 weeks along.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Rootbeer

[Rootbeer]

15 hours ago, Jaded said:

Even if she was 15 and it was legal during that time that doesn't make it right. Getting married at 15 would be a traumatic experience for anyone that age.

Not if lots of other 15 year old kids were also getting married and the girl had been raised with the expectation that marriage at 15 was not unusual.

Also, plenty of 15 year olds are sexually active now and they were back then, too.  Except they didn't have effective birth control, so many 15 year olds got married and had an 8 lb 'preemie' 6 months later.  There weren't a lot of options even back then, particularly in small communities where everyone knows everyone's business.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Rootbeer said:

Not if lots of other 15 year old kids were also getting married and the girl had been raised with the expectation that marriage at 15 was not unusual.

Lots of people doing things doesn’t stop it from potentially being traumatic. I may be wrong but it’s hard for me to imagine a 15 year old at that time having the knowledge and support to really cope with the experience. 

[Rootbeer]

2 minutes ago, Dani said:

Lots of people doing things doesn’t stop it from potentially being traumatic. I may be wrong but it’s hard for me to imagine a 15 year old at that time having the knowledge and support to really cope with the experience. 

True, but back 100 years ago, there was little to no sex education for anyone.  It certainly wasn't something discussed in polite company, there were no classes at school.  It's only in the last part of the 20th century that the majority of people entering into sexual relationships had likely received any education in the subject.  So, 15 or 25, most young women becoming sexually active back in the day didn't have very much knowledge or support to deal with the experience.  And, most of them managed to overcome it and not be traumatized.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Rootbeer said:

True, but back 100 years ago, there was little to no sex education for anyone.  It certainly wasn't something discussed in polite company, there were no classes at school.  It's only in the last part of the 20th century that the majority of people entering into sexual relationships had likely received any education in the subject.  So, 15 or 25, most young women becoming sexually active back in the day didn't have very much knowledge or support to deal with the experience.  And, most of them managed to overcome it and not be traumatized.

I really can’t agree that everyone entering sexual relationships without education or support meant they weren’t traumatized. That suggests that the trauma comes from education and knowledge. We can’t say that people weren’t traumatized because the effects are  often something we can not see. The push for change and improved rights is born out of that trauma. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Guest

[Rootbeer]

33 minutes ago, Dani said:

I really can’t agree that everyone entering sexual relationships without education or support meant they weren’t traumatized. That suggests that the trauma comes from education and knowledge. We can’t say that people weren’t traumatized because the effects are  often something we can not see. The push for change and improved rights is born out of that trauma. 

I certainly agree that education and support lessen the chances of an individual being traumatized should their initial sexual experiences be difficult, but I don't think that every young teen, either then or now, who becomes sexually active by choice, married or not, is traumatized, either.  I think the fact that most teens these days do have access to the facts including information on partner violence, STD's and contraception; makes it less likely that they will have a bad experience; but I don't think bad experiences are universal or even all that common even back when no one had this information. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Rootbeer

[Pink ranger]

Well strictly in a biological sense human beings have evolved to start reproducing from puberty. The adolescent mind is  wried to handle normal, consensual sexual relationships. It’s only quite recently, relatively, that we  culturally have disapproved of that for teenagers under 14-18 depending on your country/state. But there is a reason why we also start formal sex ed around 11 in schools and parents give the birds and the bees talk before that.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Rootbeer said:

I certainly agree that education and support lessen the chances of an individual being traumatized should their initial sexual experiences be difficult, but I don't think that every young teen, either then or now, who becomes sexually active by choice, married or not, is traumatized, either. 

That’s absolutely not what I said. I simply said that you can’t assume something being the norm does not mean that it’s not traumatizing in some cases. We are literally talking about situation where the best case scenario is a 15 year old marries a 21 year old she knew for a month. A man who was controlling or abusive. Making statements about that specific situation being traumatic really doesn’t need historical context in my mind. 

55 minutes ago, Pink ranger said:

Well strictly in a biological sense human beings have evolved to start reproducing from puberty. The adolescent mind is  wried to handle normal, consensual sexual relationships.

That’s not true. The adolescent body may be but the adolescent mind certainly isn’t. Puberty wreaks havoc on the adolescent mind. From a strictly biological sense puberty has very little to do with the mind’s readiness or maturity. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Guest

[Pink ranger]

 

20 minutes ago, Dani said:

That’s not true. The adolescent body may be but the adolescent mind certainly isn’t. Puberty wreaks havoc on the adolescent mind. From a strictly biological sense puberty has very little to do with the mind’s readiness or maturity. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929316300779
 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Pink ranger said:

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929316300779
 

Interesting article but that doesn’t say that adolescents are wired to have normal, consensual sexual relationships. It looks into how romantic and sexual maturity develop through adolescence but the subject is too broad to make a blanket statement like that. Societal and familial influences play a huge role. Plus adolescence covers an entire decade so what someone in early adolescence is ready for is very different than what they are ready for in late adolescence. Puberty begins changes that (hopefully) lead to being ready but the specific maturation process is going to vary from person to person. It’s about way more than simple biology. 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Guest

[Blergh]

   Loretta Webb married Oliver 'Mooney' Lynn in 1948 and he would die in 1998 but the revelation that her birth certificate that she was born in 1932 instead of 1936 which was on file with the Commonwealth of Kentucky did not happen until 2012- 14 years after his death. Mrs. Lynn's own mother Clara Marie Ramey Webb Butcher (who, by all accounts,  had no real liking for her son-in-law )had signed the 1965 affidavit clarifying her daughter's actual date of birth. One can believe whatever one wants .Speaking for myself, considering that this birth certificate would stay hidden until long after the deaths of Mrs. Butcher and Mr. Lynn AND that Mrs. Lynn has not disputed it since its emergence despite being initially unhappy over it, I tend to believe a legal document signed by a person's mother [who certainly would have been at the scene of the birth] testifying WHEN that person was born is most likely a factual document.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2012/05/18/loretta-lynn-married-at-15-not-13

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Blergh
Mrs. Lynn's mother's full name corrected

[Rootbeer]

14 hours ago, Dani said:

Interesting article but that doesn’t say that adolescents are wired to have normal, consensual sexual relationships. It looks into how romantic and sexual maturity develop through adolescence but the subject is too broad to make a blanket statement like that. Societal and familial influences play a huge role. Plus adolescence covers an entire decade so what someone in early adolescence is ready for is very different than what they are ready for in late adolescence. Puberty begins changes that (hopefully) lead to being ready but the specific maturation process is going to vary from person to person. It’s about way more than simple biology. 

This may be true, but, throughout human history; adolescents have taken on adult roles and responsibilities including work, marriage and starting a family.  It is only in the past century or two that teens weren't expected to leave school and go out and work and take on the responsibilities of adulthood including marriage and family.  Kids are allowed to be kids a lot longer these days than they were in times past, and they are given more time to mature. That is environmental, not ingrained in human development. That is, IMO, more a function of the times than of any biologic imperative.

Biologically, BTW, 17 is the optimal age for first birth for women: much less infertility, pregnancy or birth complications.  Obviously, in times past, it was evolutionarily advantageous for a woman to give birth in her teens as many women died young of other causes.  So, our biology would indicate that becoming sexually active in the mid teens and giving birth by 17 is a good thing.  Emotionally and psychologically in this day and age; not so much.

Edited September 14, 2021 by Rootbeer

[Pink ranger]

16 hours ago, Dani said:

Interesting article but that doesn’t say that adolescents are wired to have normal, consensual sexual relationships. It looks into how romantic and sexual maturity develop through adolescence but the subject is too broad to make a blanket statement like that. Societal and familial influences play a huge role. Plus adolescence covers an entire decade so what someone in early adolescence is ready for is very different than what they are ready for in late adolescence. Puberty begins changes that (hopefully) lead to being ready but the specific maturation process is going to vary from person to person. It’s about way more than simple biology. 

 
When I look back at my classmates in middle school I can name several who where sexually active and where completely mentally ready to. One time I went to a  13th birthday party of a friend at her house. Another guest the same age as us, aggressively flirted with the hosts older brother. They asked us to distract his mother while they went up to his bed room for half an hour. I have zero regrets of I the role I played. Both of them knew what they where doing even if they where legally underage.
 

[possibilities]

Marriage as a romantic endeavor is not a universal. Young girls were married off to men much older than they were for economic reasons. They make good workhorses and brood mares. Notice there weren't young boys being married off to older women.

I think conflating being sexually active with peers to being married off to an older dude while you're a teenager, is a mistake.

Also, we've done a lot of entirely wrong things for a lot of human history. Rape, slavery, it's all very common. Doesn't mean it's right.

[ABay]

Wasn't there a movement a few years ago to raise the age for marriage in several states, to protect girls from being effectively sold off?

Edited September 14, 2021 by ABay

[Guest]

4 hours ago, ABay said:

Wasn't there a movement a few years ago to raise the age for marriage in several states, to protect girls from being effectively sold off?

Yes and it still ongoing. All but a handful of states have proposed legislation to raise the minimum marriage age. Six have banned child marriage entirely. 

[letter8358]

Denise Richard's daughter alleges abusive household in TIk Tok statement video after actress's sources says it was normal parenting behavior

Edited September 15, 2021 by letter8358

[Cotypubby]

On 9/12/2021 at 9:39 AM, icemiser69 said:

Note to self, when not knowing the exact meaning of a certain word, imagine the worst possible meaning in the sentence the word is contained in before looking it up.   One word, ick.

OMG females go through puberty!? Ick ick gross! 
 

🙄

[Guest]

1 hour ago, letter8358 said:

Denise Richard's daughter alleges abusive household in TIk Tok statement video after actress's sources says it was normal parenting behavior

The fact that her freedom from her mom came with her dad allowing her to drop out of school makes me think “normal parenting behavior” is probably accurate. Plus, Charlie “winning” Sheen is the poster child for fucking awful choices. How has he avoided #MeToo given his history of beating women, knowingly exposing women to HIV and pedophile accusation?

Edited September 15, 2021 by Guest

[Zella]

45 minutes ago, Dani said:

How has he avoided #MeToo given his history of beating women, knowingly exposing women to HIV and pedophile accusation?

Did some of that come out post-Me Too? I suspect that part of it is he is such a notorious trainwreck that a revelation of that sort wouldn't really surprise anyone now. I remember his "winning" meltdown when it happened in real time. All my friends and I were like "I knew he was crazy, but I didn't realize he was this crazy." He doesn't even have that PR/image safety net now. 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Zella

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, Zella said:

Did some of that come out post-Me Too? I suspect that part of it is he is such a notorious trainwreck that a revelation of that sort wouldn't really surprise anyone now. I remember his "winning" meltdown when it happened in real time. All my friends and I were like "I knew he was crazy, but I didn't realize he was this crazy." He doesn't even have that PR/image safety net now. 

I think the Corey Haim accusation became public knowledge post-#MeToo and one of the HIV lawsuits was right around that time but didn’t get much attention. 

I don’t know that it wouldn’t surprise anyone when you really dive into the details. Multiple domestic violence incidences and child porn allegations as part of his divorce. His erratic behavior damaged his image but he has still escaped being labeled as much more than crazy.

Even now, there is this story and at most they mention his drug and alcohol issues playing a role in ending the marriage. By and large his press right now is surprisingly positive with articles like this one in People. 
Martin Sheen Says Son Charlie Sheen's 'Recovery and Life Is a Miracle': He's 'Extraordinary'

Edited September 15, 2021 by Guest

[Zella]

1 minute ago, Dani said:

By and large his press right now is surprisingly positive with articles like this one in People. 
Martin Sheen Says Son Charlie Sheen's 'Recovery and Life Is a Miracle': He's 'Extraordinary'

I'm not sure the press coverage he is getting right now is really indicative of how the public sees him, though. It sort of smells like a desperate, deliberate attempt to rehabilitate his image more than anything else. I guess the jury is still out on whether that will be successful, but pretty much everyone I know still uses him as shorthand for "really batshit/unhinged." My dad is hardly really up on modern pop culture and he liked Charlie Sheen back in the early days, but he still makes Charlie Sheen Tiger Blood jokes, which he always prefaces with some sort of "WTF is wrong with him" comment. I guess it's true that people may not necessarily see him as predatory versus just unhinged, but he's definitely not coasting on a wholesome persona like Bill Cosby. 

[Kel Varnsen]

12 hours ago, ABay said:

Wasn't there a movement a few years ago to raise the age for marriage in several states, to protect girls from being effectively sold off?

There was a Full Frontal with Samantha Bee episode from I think a few years ago. It was focused on the US (although I am sure it happens everywhere where it is legal) and how a lot of times those cases of a minor getting married with parental consent are basically cases where an underaged girl is raped, gets pregnant and then comes from a family that doesn't want any kind of shame associated with having an unwed teen daughter so they force her to marry her assaulter. Which sounds completely terrible.

6 hours ago, Dani said:

How has he avoided #MeToo given his history of beating women, knowingly exposing women to HIV and pedophile accusation?

Has he avoided it though? I mean he has basically become a punch line and as far as I can tell he hasn't really gotten tv/movie work in years. Seems like a case of shitty behavior ruining a career to me. I am sure that if he wasn't from a famous family he would probably be completely forgotten.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Kel Varnsen

[letter8358]

All I remember from Denise Richard is that during the divorce trial, she proclaimed that Charlie Sheen exposed her siblings to child porn on the internet and that always sends a chill down my spine. I mean, exposing child porn to your kids?!? How low can you go...?!?

Edited September 15, 2021 by letter8358

[ifionlyknew]

6 hours ago, Zella said:

I guess it's true that people may not necessarily see him as predatory versus just unhinged, but he's definitely not coasting on a wholesome persona like Bill Cosby. 

I agree with this. With Charlie Sheen if anything new came out most people would say well what can you expect?  It's Charlie Sheen.

50 minutes ago, letter8358 said:

All I remember from Denise Richard is that during the divorce trial, she proclaimed that Charlie Sheen exposed her daughters to child porn on the internet and that always sends a chill down my spine. I mean, exposing child porn to your kids?!? How low can you go...?!?

Well if you are Charlie Sheen I think he could and did go lower.

[Llywela]

On 9/13/2021 at 10:29 PM, Pink ranger said:

Well strictly in a biological sense human beings have evolved to start reproducing from puberty. The adolescent mind is  wried to handle normal, consensual sexual relationships. It’s only quite recently, relatively, that we  culturally have disapproved of that for teenagers under 14-18 depending on your country/state. But there is a reason why we also start formal sex ed around 11 in schools and parents give the birds and the bees talk before that.

There's a really widespread belief that only in our civilised modern times have we stopped marrying girls off as soon as they hit puberty, but it really isn't true. Look at actual marriage records from the Middle Ages, for example - often seen as a dark age when girls were married very young - and it turns out that in fact, the average age of a first marriage for women was around 22. Not so different from today. There are individual and cultural variations, of course, depending on where you look, and class played a big part in the equation (upper class women tended to marry earlier than lower class women) but by and large, history was far from being the child bride free-for-all that most people believe. Even when royal houses married their offspring as young teens to seal an alliance, the couple weren't expected to consumate that relationship until they were older.

Young people have always fooled around, to be sure, and no doubt there were plenty of individual cases where a hasty marriage was seen as the best solution, but on the whole, girls have not historically been married off as young as most people think.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Zella said:

I'm not sure the press coverage he is getting right now is really indicative of how the public sees him, though. It sort of smells like a desperate, deliberate attempt to rehabilitate his image more than anything else. I guess the jury is still out on whether that will be successful, but pretty much everyone I know still uses him as shorthand for "really batshit/unhinged." My dad is hardly really up on modern pop culture and he liked Charlie Sheen back in the early days, but he still makes Charlie Sheen Tiger Blood jokes, which he always prefaces with some sort of "WTF is wrong with him" comment. I guess it's true that people may not necessarily see him as predatory versus just unhinged, but he's definitely not coasting on a wholesome persona like Bill Cosby. 

But if he was viewed as predatory (which he is) would he even be able to attempt to rehabilitate his image in the same way? The fact that he has mostly been able skate on his worst behavior and be labeled “crazy” really downplays what he has done. It’s bizarre to me that there are conversations about if Alice Ripley is a pedophile but Sheen has been actually accused of the crime and escapes the label entirely because he’s unhinged. 

In many ways it reminds of the Archie Hammer story where most people and the press focused on the sensationalism of cannibalism rather than the serious abuse allegations. Yeah, Sheen’s career is mostly dead but it’s a lot easier to comeback from being a punchline. The reaction to Charlie Sheen is far different than to Josh Duggar when they’ve been accused of the same thing. 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Guest

[WinnieWinkle]

24 minutes ago, Dani said:

The reaction to Charlie Sheen is far different than to Josh Duggar when they’ve been accused of the same thing. 

Until I read it here just now I had no idea that Charlie Sheen had anything to do with child porn in any way.  Was he never charged?

[Blergh]

8 hours ago, Dani said:

I think the Corey Haim accusation became public knowledge post-#MeToo and one of the HIV lawsuits was right around that time but didn’t get much attention. 

I don’t know that it wouldn’t surprise anyone when you really dive into the details. Multiple domestic violence incidences and child porn allegations as part of his divorce. His erratic behavior damaged his image but he has still escaped being labeled as much more than crazy.

Even now, there is this story and at most they mention his drug and alcohol issues playing a role in ending the marriage. By and large his press right now is surprisingly positive with articles like this one in People. 
Martin Sheen Says Son Charlie Sheen's 'Recovery and Life Is a Miracle': He's 'Extraordinary'

Shame on the elder Mr. Sheen for continually trumpeting such hooey about the younger Mr. Sheen while ignoring all the wreckage on innocents the younger Mr. Sheen has wreaked down the decades (and shame on People magazine for treating such fodderal as though it came from Mt. Sinai Tablets as they have every spin and utterance of Kate Gosselin). 

Has  there been no one in the elder Mr. Sheen's circle who's ever attempted to tell him that if he can't bring himself to deal with anything negative about his clearly toxic offspring, the best thing he can do is not comment on it at all instead of trying to spin sludge into gold?

[Zella]

5 minutes ago, Blergh said:

Has  there been no one in the elder Mr. Sheen's circle who's ever attempted to tell him that if he can't bring himself to deal with anything negative about his clearly toxic offspring, the best thing he can do is not comment on it at all instead of trying to spin sludge into gold?

I'm sure they have. My understanding is he is very close to his son, so I doubt he would listen. 

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, WinnieWinkle said:

Until I read it here just now I had no idea that Charlie Sheen had anything to do with child porn in any way.  Was he never charged?

It came out during his divorce from Denise Richards. She said she found images of “very young girls” and boys that “looked underage” on his computer. She had printouts she said came from his computer. He says she lied and that he turned his computer over to the FBI.  

[letter8358]

Denise Richards... I remember reading about that, though!

Edited September 17, 2021 by letter8358

[Zella]

Obviously one can never guess what a jury will actually do, but the prosecution has rested in R. Kelly's trial, and the first day of the defense sounds like a disaster to me.

https://www.theroot.com/as-r-kelly-s-trial-winds-to-a-close-defense-witness-s-1847722469 

[merylinkid]

Yeah the defense seems to be going with "well  I  never saw any abuse so it couldn't have happened."    Dude they were underage girls, was he going to fuck them right in front of you????

[Zella]

13 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

Yeah the defense seems to be going with "well  I  never saw any abuse so it couldn't have happened."    Dude they were underage girls, was he going to fuck them right in front of you????

Yes, it's a really bizarre line of reasoning. I found it interesting that they were also trying to say that not only did they not see any abuse but they also never saw him around any young girls before being forced to backtrack and admit that, yeah, they did see him with underage girls. 

What power does the defense have to compel a witness to testify? Because it seems like they're really scrapping the bottom of the barrel here with their witnesses. 

[Rootbeer]

15 minutes ago, Zella said:

Yes, it's a really bizarre line of reasoning. I found it interesting that they were also trying to say that not only did they not see any abuse but they also never saw him around any young girls before being forced to backtrack and admit that, yeah, they did see him with underage girls. 

What power does the defense have to compel a witness to testify? Because it seems like they're really scrapping the bottom of the barrel here with their witnesses. 

Yeah, apparently because he wasn't assaulting young teens while meeting with his accountant, it couldn't have happened.

It also didn't help when, after first claiming that he never saw any young girls around R Kelly's mansion, one of Kelly's personal assistants then completely reverses court when confronted and admits that he did indeed see at least one young woman try to leave the studio and he was 'relieved' when she was able to do so.  And, that's from a guy who has worked for R Kelly for years and admitted on the stand that he didn't want him going to jail.

If someone is called as a defense witness and doesn't turn up voluntarily in answer to a summons; the judge can order law enforcement to go out and pick the witness up and bring them to court or be arrested for contempt of court.  I was once supposed to be a defense witness in a murder trial.  I knew the victim and her husband a bit professionally and happened to have spoken to her in very vague terms about a problem she was having the week before she died.  The defense was trying to claim that it was a suicide, not a murder and that the victim was depressed and killed herself.  While I certainly was aware of specific details of her life that were distressing; I didn't ever think she was suicidal and, that being the case, figured the cops caught the right guy.  The defense lawyer told me he would call me as a hostile witness and. if I didn't show at court, I'd be arrested.  As it turns out, he never used me anyway.  And the husband was convicted.  Got a retrial on a technicality and convicted again.  Still in jail.  Because it was murder, not suicide.

[Zella]

Thanks, @Rootbeer! That makes sense. I always read about hostile witnesses in relation to the prosecution forcing them to show up but couldn't think of any examples involving the defense. 

[Spartan Girl]

As long as this all ends with R. Kelly in prison, I’m good.

[Zella]

3 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

As long as this all ends with R. Kelly in prison, I’m good.

I'm definitely hoping the inept defense witnesses help him on his way there. 

[Rootbeer]

Just now, Zella said:

I'm definitely hoping the inept defense witnesses help him on his way there. 

That's the kicker: when even his longtime employees are unable to toe the line and deny, deny deny; there is no way the jury can pretend it was all a misunderstanding.  Those guys may never have specifically seen him assault young women, but they clearly knew there was something fishy going on and it seems like a couple of them have grown a conscience and/or are afraid of perjuring themselves.

[possibilities]

Sometimes you can't mount a good defense because there isn't one.

[letter8358]

Nicki Minaj betrayed us: an inside look of the singer botching Jennifer Hough's MeToo story

Edited September 24, 2021 by letter8358

[Blergh]

6 hours ago, letter8358 said:

Nicki Minaj betrayed us: an inside look of the singer botching Jennifer Hough's MeToo story

Why would I not be surprised if she considers Miss Hough and her own brother's child victim to be WORSE for actually reporting the rapes than her husband and brother are for being convicted  rapists?