Lawyer: Teen molested by coach will get over it

http://www.freep.com/article/20110820/NEWS06/108200426/Lawyer-Teen-molested-by-coach-will-get-over-it?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

'A girl who was molested by her high school softball coach when she was 14 years old will eventually forget the ordeal, a defense lawyer told a judge in arguing for a more lenient sentence.

Thomas Warda said at the sentencing hearing for Mickey Gotwalt, 52, that his client "didn't kill this girl," according to a court transcript obtained by the Saginaw News.

"I mean, this isn't -- I don't think she's gonna have psychological injury the rest of her life," Warda said Thursday. "I mean, he'll be in prison, but, you know, she'll have forgotten all about this at some point."

more at link

gets over it.

Warda said the girl fell in love with her coach and sent him hundreds of text messages. Although conceding that the relationship was inappropriate, he said Gotwalt was undergoing cancer treatment and suffering from depression.

Disbarment would be a good thing for this attorney.

I recalled how my rapist showed up at the store I worked at when I was 19, with his family and purchased a bunch of clothes.

After he left the store, his little son came back to return his purchases, and I simply put back the items, thinking...he remembered me and sent his son back to shame me.

Just the other night I thought...he might have done that at many stores.....buy a bunch of items and return MOST...but not all,..just a shoplifter after all.

That was before computers...and all we had was a cash register tape...I never checked each item against the register..just believed it was all there?

But rape never goes away, unfortunately, I wish it did!

:hug:

That is disgusting. I wonder if that attorney would be singing the same tune if it was his 14 year old daughter.

There's a huge difference in long term psychological impact between teens who enter into "consensual" sexual relationships with adults, and teens who are forced or coerced into sexual relationships with adults. In a way, it's comparable to any other teen sex. If a 14 year old girl has consensual sex with a 14 year old boy, there's little chance of her suffering from it mentally. If a 14 year old girl is coerced or forced to have sex with that same 14 year old boy, there can be severe and lifelong psychological ramifications.

According to research, the primary difference seems to be the perspective of the victim herself toward the crime. My own wife had sex with a 22 year old guy when she was only 14. It was consensual for her, and even today she doesn't have a problem with it or him (though she certainly understands why that sort of thing is illegal). My own molestation was far from consensual, and is something I'll never forget.

The severity of the impact on the victim is directly related to the victims perspective and opinion toward the crime. If she sees it as a horrific thing, it will likely haunt her forever. If she, like my wife, chalks it up to an unfortunate but voluntary youthful indiscretion, it may not bother her at all later in life. At this point, there's no way for anyone to know which will be the case for this victim (she may be OK with it now, and horrified later...or not).

Painting people with the victim brush is a knee jerk reaction more often than not. And many times I think it's based on people's feelings about their own histories. In other words, a little bit (or a lot of) Freudian projection.

willingly, knowingly.

regardless of agreeing with the law or not, it is there. adn when broken, a person pays the price. doesnt matter how the `13 year old girl, 4 DECADES younger than this old man feels. that is not part of the punishment for the crime this man committed.

a fuckin 52 yr old man, fuckin with a 13 yr old girl, and you create the man as a victim.

amazing

I wasn't trying to say that they weren't. If a 14 year old girl has sex with a 30 year old guy, she is ALWAYS a victim of a sexual abuse crime, and the perpetrator should ALWAYS be punished.

My point was merely that it's a common false assumption that victims in these cases are haunted by it for the rest of their lives. The actual research shows that the long term impact of the abuse varies depending on the psychological perspective of the victim, her coping mechanisms, and her perspective toward the crime itself.

A 14 year old girl who "falls in love" with an older man and has "consensual" sex with him is simply less likely to be psychologically harmed by it later in life than a 14 year old girl who is non-consensually molested by an adult. That said, "less likely" is NOT the same as "will not be". Some teens who have consensual sex with adults are later horrified by the relationship and can have lasting personality problems because of it. There is no way to tell which teens will react which way. That's why these relationships are ALWAYS illegal and these teens are ALWAYS victims. Even if they don't see themselves as such.

It's like a mugging. Some people lose their wallet at gunpoint and become paranoid afterward, start carrying guns, and generally live in fear of it happening again. They are psychologically damaged by the incident. Others can lose their wallet to the same gun-wielding mugger and have no more reaction than, "Damn, and that was my favorite wallet." Acknowledging the fact that people can have widely divergent reactions to the same crime does NOT minimize the fact that they are BOTH victims.

As a person who was molested as a child, the point of my post was NOT to minimize the plight of molestation victims. It was merely to point out that the lawyers statement, though repugnant, is based in actual research fact. If the victim in that particular case thought that she was "in love" with her molester and considered the sex to be consensual, the lawyers position that she's unlikely to suffer long term damage from is isn't totally off base. He may have overstated it a bit, but he's not totally wrong.

The point is that this lawyer is attempting to use this argument to show that no real crime took place, so his client should be left off the hook.

Yes, the majority of sexual assault victims do manage to either get over it or at least live normal, if somewhat scarred, lives. It's still a crime.

Look at #22

As for the defense lawyer using it...that's his job. A defense lawyers only job is to minimize the punishment to his client, and not to take into account the good of society or the victim. As repugnant as it is, he's using legitimate research to do the job that our society and governments expects him to do.

That is, after all, the point of a defense lawyer.

Fat chance. she will NEVER forget it. She *may* cope with it, but she won't "get over it". And the odds of coping, aren't all that damn great, either. Unless she had VERY good counseling and familial support.

a haze of alcohol and drugs. Also strong likelihoods for her future: inability to trust men enough to form lasting relationship so a string of broken relationships, failure in school, failure at jobs, etc., etc., etc. Yeah, she'll get over it, all right.

never anything nearly as blatant and dismissive. Stunning lack of competence, IMO.

what a dipshit piece of human.

I hope that someone molests him and let's see if he ever forgets it. A-hole!!!

x(

Especially around a tween girl clearly obsessive enough to send all those text messages.

Instead of contacting her parents about the issue, he got sexual with her.

His judgement was bad on so many levels.