unless there is video and audio proof. how the fuck could someone be charged for this 20+ years later over “he said she said”?
Same way a cold murder case gets investigated when all the DNA has degraded. They rely on circumstantial evidence. Now, that word has been corrupted by procedural crime drama TV shows, but make no mistake, a LOT of criminal cases are successfully prosecuted based on circumstantial evidence, because it is still legitimate evidence even though it’s not direct evidence. They’ll go through his electronic devices and look at text messages and photos and retrieve voice mails, they’ll conduct interviews with others who were told about the allegations at the time and see how those stories line up, and so on.
I’m not as familiar with this particular case as others are, but from the other comments I’ve read, it looks like the victim(s) had already filed police reports 20+ years ago, but those didn’t go anywhere for whatever reason (lack of evidence, incompetent police work, etc). So that helps the case quite a bit.
Could i just pick a random person and say they raped me in 2002 and then they will go to prison?
Technically, yes. There have been cases where this has happened, although it is extremely rare. The police would investigate your allegations and almost certainly find them lacking, at which point you would be charged with filing false police reports, and most likely sued by the person you accused.
Here’s a fun statistic: A man is more likely to be raped than to be falsely accused of rape. Just in case you were wondering how often the latter happens.
Same way a cold murder case gets investigated when all the DNA has degraded. They rely on circumstantial evidence. Now, that word has been corrupted by procedural crime drama TV shows, but make no mistake, a LOT of criminal cases are successfully prosecuted based on circumstantial evidence, because it is still legitimate evidence even though it’s not direct evidence. They’ll go through his electronic devices and look at text messages and photos and retrieve voice mails, they’ll conduct interviews with others who were told about the allegations at the time and see how those stories line up, and so on.
I’m not as familiar with this particular case as others are, but from the other comments I’ve read, it looks like the victim(s) had already filed police reports 20+ years ago, but those didn’t go anywhere for whatever reason (lack of evidence, incompetent police work, etc). So that helps the case quite a bit.
Technically, yes. There have been cases where this has happened, although it is extremely rare. The police would investigate your allegations and almost certainly find them lacking, at which point you would be charged with filing false police reports, and most likely sued by the person you accused.
Here’s a fun statistic: A man is more likely to be raped than to be falsely accused of rape. Just in case you were wondering how often the latter happens.