Travis M. Andrews, writing for The Washington Post on “Woman impersonates ex-boyfriend on Facebook and nearly wrecks his life“:
“On Wednesday, Lawson was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail after she “pleaded guilty to one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, or deceit, and one felony count of perjury,” according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney.”
A single year in jail. Stephani Lawson needs to spend a few decades thinking about why you don’t impersonate people and then try to get them thrown in prison for a crime that never happened. Sadly, the incompetent prosecutor who went along with Lawson’s story without verifying that Tyler Parkervest (the actual victim) had actually sent the messages should lose something as well. Of course, there is no accountability there. Prosecutors get to fuck up royally, say “oops, my bad” and go on about their business unhindered by these things called consequences. You know, the everyday shit the rest of the world faces for their mistakes.
“Eventually, police discovered that the account didn’t actually belong to Parkervest, though it bore his likeness. Lawson, instead, had created it in a (mostly successful) attempt to frame her former boyfriend.”
After the first arrest, they should have figured this shit out. Instead, Tyler Parkervest was charged and arrested 3 more times for messages that Stephani Lawson was sending to herself from her own devices (which they incompetently had not checked). She and the prosecutor spent a year ruining this guy’s life and she gets a fucking one year slap on the wrist, while the prosecutor walks away with no consequences.
“One of my DA colleagues looked at it and said it doesn’t look right, and that triggered in our mind maybe we need to look into this further,” Deputy District Attorney Mark Geller told the City News Service.
You should have looked at it further the first time, you incompetent asshole. This is why we need to talk more about female perpetrators, the impulse to downplay the harm they do, and incompetent assholes in the judicial system who enable them to continue to cause harm. Parkervest should have never had to endure 4 arrests at the hands of a female perpetrator and a prosecutor who couldn’t be bothered to do more than the bare minimum.
So they launched a follow-up investigation in to these statements, obtaining search warrants for both Facebook and T-Mobile records.
Though they launched the investigation in May, it took “all summer” to access the records because the tech companies kept “kicking back” warrants, according to Geller.
“We had to go around and around with them all summer until we got the documents we needed,” he told the City News Service.
Blaming it on Facebook and T-Mobile is beyond the pale. Forensic methods exist to resurrect data off her devices. Nah, just demand the data and when you don’t get it fast enough, keep arresting, charging and treating the actual victim like a criminal. Then assume no responsibility for the aftermath.