The Tale of Eric Frimpong

[DukeJack]

I’m not really sure which forum this belongs in, but given the direction I’m sure it will go, I think politics is the best place for it. It’s long, and I apologize for that, but shorter than either of the two linked articles at the bottom.

Eric Frompong was a Ghanaian midfielder for the UCSB men’s soccer team in 2005-2006, winning the school’s second national title in any sport in 06. In mid-February of 2007, a freshmen girl, called Jane Doe, accused him of rape.

According to Doe, she, her friends, and older sister went out to celebrate that night because she had just gotten a part-time job and her license back after a juvenile DUI conviction. They took shots in the dorm, went out, drank beer, took more shots, and her group gradually broke apart, her sister going off to visit some old friends and Doe’s friends returning to their dorm. She was walking alone down Del Playa Drive and was trying to get into a frat party she knew a couple of guys at. Frimpong was leaning on a car outside and started talking to her, and convinces her to come back to his house to play beer pong with him and his roommates. They arrive at Frimpong’s house around midnight, he introduces her to his roommates, and they begin playing pong for 10-15 minutes until she announces she needs a cigarette, and they leave for a park next door. There is a guy who has followed them from the frat to Frimpong’s house and now to the park, whom Doe confronts. This is later revealed to be Doe’s ex-boyfriend, Ben Randall, and who she had sex with four days prior. This is where Frimpong and Doe’s accounts differ.

Doe says she was knocked over, hit hard in the face at least once, choked while her pants were removed, and raped her for 15 minutes while screaming loudly through it all. Frimpong says she tried to kiss him and pushed her away because the cigarette made her stink. She then stuck her hand down his pants and he pushed her away and left to go to a friend’s party.

Around 1 a.m. another UCSB student, Justin Hannah, saw her wandering on the beach, sobbing and drunk. He asked if she was alright or needed anything, and she asked for a cell phone, calling her friends, father, and sister. Around 1:30 her friends came and picked her up and in a taped interview with police the next day, Hannah swore that she had no sand on her. However, when the deputy wrote his report, he added that Hannah described Doe as “covered in sand”. This written report, and not the verbal interview, would be used against Hannah two months later, in an effort to cause him to say she was covered in sand. Frimpong’s jeans would only yield two small vials of sand from the cuffs and one pocket.

Doe claims to have no memory from being picked up to “waking” up in hospital. Her friends, Mia Wolfson and Lakshmi Krishna, said at the dorm Doe complained of pain on her right buttcheek and left wrist, presumably from falling. They said Doe did not want to call police or go to the hospital, as she was in violation of her probation from the DUI, but eventually convinced her to go. The SART nurse who examined her found an inch long tear in her vagina, which is consistent with sexual assault as well as a round mark on her buttcheek and another on her cheek (shown to be a bite mark). She said that during the attack she had a large ring on her right hand and hit her assailant repeatedly, so that “all my knuckles were screwed up”. The SART nurse put no such thing in her report, in fact noting a lack of any scratches, blood, semen, or vaginal fluid. The only DNA evidence found was semen on her underwear, which was ultimately shown to come from Randall. Doe would testify that she had worn a clean pair that night.

[DukeJack]

Detective Daniel Kies was responsible for the investigation and met Doe in her dorm room. He suggested to her that the hit mark on her cheek was a bite, “That’s definitely, most definitely teeth marks, dude…It’s a full-on bite.” Doe was not even sure of this, she says that being hit “was the part I remember for sure”; her first admission to blacking out between playing beer pong and being found by Hannah. From this point, she became even more convinced that this was correct and the memory grew stronger, as opposed to fading like most, saying at trial “It felt like some was sinking their teeth into my skin on my face and with a lot of force…It was kind of like a second or so of biting as hard as he could.” According to Joel Engel, reporter for the Santa Barbara Independent:

To other questions at trial — including who initiated going to the beach, and whether she walked on the beach and went up the Camino Pescadero stairs — she responded “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall” or some variant more than 65 times.

Kies also spoke with Frimpong the next day, who willingly went along to the police station for questioning. Frimpong revealed he met a girl the night before named Krystal, whom Kies took to mean Doe, during the recorded interview. At the trial, Kies said “did not refer to the victim or meeting the victim at any point in time, and the victim's description was, in my opinion, matched him perfectly after I got done speaking with him, and the fact that he denied or did not bring up meeting her at any point within that interview, I believed he was lying to me.” Frimpong gave Kies a list of what he had worn the night before and where to find it in his room, believing that the DNA evidence would prove him innocent. Kies told Frimpong a girl had filed a report that they met, played beer pong, went to the beach, and went down to the beach for “sex”. Frimpong was incredulous and even agreed with the story up to the beach, claiming he had no knowledge of that part. At this point Kies decided to arrest Frimpong and read him his Miranda rights. The taped interview lasts another 12 minutes with Frimpong repeatedly denying the story, which the lead prosecutor Marsha Barron chose not to use in her exhibit.

Frimpong was examined for DNA and any marks after the arrest, with the SART nurse saying there were none. An article in the UCSB student newspaper, the Daily Nexus, was released three days later detailing the accusation. It would be another week later before Randall would decide to come forward to help the prosecution, however he could.

In his trial, Robert Sanger, famous for his defense of Michael Jackson’s molestation case, served as Frimpong’s attorney. Frimpong would not testify, something Barron hinted at, and Judge Hill denied Sanger’s motions for a mistrial, based on violating the defendant’s right to remain silent. DNA was found on Frimpong during the SART exam, in the form of two non-vaginal, epithelial cells on his penis and scrotum, and a trace amount under one of his fingernails. Unlike Doe’s exam, negative for Frimpong, this DNA did come from Doe. The defense argued that this was consistent with Frimpong’s account of Doe sticking her hand down his pants.

During his investigation of Doe’s bite mark, Kies talked a forensic dentist named Raymond Johansen who looked at the evidence and deemed it too vague to identify based on Frimpong and Randall’s dentition. Kies did not file a report of this, instead suppressing it and going with another expert, Norman Sperber, who said Frimpong made the bite. During the trial Kies said they chose to use Sperber over Johansen, because Sperber volunteered to do the work for free, something he then denied on stand. In total, the prosecution called 32 witnesses, and Sanger only one, an expert on blood alcohol content. During Doe’s SART exam, she had a 0.20 BAC, which the expert said could have been as high as 0.29 during the time of the rape, which is nearly lethal. Frimpong was convicted of rape December 17, 2007, and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Since that time a juror has come forward and expressed regret saying they were pressured to arrive at a verdict before the holidays and Sanger was able to procure an expert witness to reexamine the bite mark who had been unavailable due to surgery. He said that Frimpong could not have made the bite but that Randall could have. Hill dismissed it, saying, “I've not seen a rape case with so much incriminating, credible and powerful evidence.” His case is currently in appeal and an appellate attorney, Ronald Turner, has been added to the case.

Personally, this scares the shit out of me. Due to the soccer angle, I’ve been watching this case for some time and reading up on the nightlife at UCSB. Just substituting place and school names, and this could easily be JMU. To think that a girl, on little more than a half-memory and a name, can have me convicted of rape, that’s terrifying.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=4300383
http://www.independent.com/news/2009/de ... -frimpong/

[dbackjon]

Sounds like a travesty of justice.

[JMU DJ]

This is what I'm talkin about. Shoty evidence, the word of a person who was probably black out drunk, semen from another dude... and the police are trying to decide if they should charge a woman for yanking a mans hang down. F-ing Travesty.

[andy7171]

The real travesty is someone thinking Harrisonburg is comparable to Santa Barbara.

[JMU DJ]

The real travesty is someone thinking Harrisonburg is comparable to Santa Barbara.

Don't think he was comparing locals as much as insert school name here with the same story.

[DukeJack]

The real travesty is someone thinking Harrisonburg is comparable to Santa Barbara.

Don't think he was comparing locals as much as insert school name here with the same story.

Ha, yeah, DJ's one of the few who really would understand. I do not mean comparing the town, I meant the schools and the partying surrounding them. My parents were set to move to SB when I was 11, we had a house picked out and everything. I know there is no comparison between the two towns.

[DukeJack]

What I've never understood is why the ex-boyfriend was never even considered, despite being named a the scene by Frimpong and Doe. After coming forward and saying their breakup was fine with him, he admitted jealousy to officials. His semen was found on her, not Frimpong. He had means, motive, and opportunity, but because the girl could remember the one black kid there, well, there it is.

I'm not trying to suggest whether or not Frimpong is guilty, but it just seems like a massively egregious oversight not to check out the ex.

[CID1990]

All of this is the fault to George Bush and his evangelical friends encouraging rape, the execution of gays in third world countries, and training Al Qaeda how to hijack airplanes.

[AZGrizFan]

All of this is the fault to George Bush and his evangelical friends encouraging rape, the execution of gays in third world countries, and training Al Qaeda how to hijack airplanes.

I'm guessing Frimpong is a gay black hijacker posing as a soccer player.

[SeattleGriz]

Personally, this scares the shit out of me. Due to the soccer angle, I’ve been watching this case for some time and reading up on the nightlife at UCSB. Just substituting place and school names, and this could easily be JMU. To think that a girl, on little more than a half-memory and a name, can have me convicted of rape, that’s terrifying.

When I was 12, my dad flew me down to Ohio to spend the summer with him. My first day there I answered a knock at the door, where when I opened the door, some 8 year old girl tells the cop with her that I was one of the boys that abused her.

Ran up, got my airline ticket and the little girl suddenly changed her story. I wasn't one of the boys. I learned that lesson then.

[DukeJack]

UPDATE:

Frimpong's bid for an appeal was denied, now his best chance is through an appeal with the California Supreme Court. I try to avoid personal feelings in cases, it only leads to bias, but the forensic evidence, and known bias of the prosecution and judge, in my mind points no other way. This kid got screwed.

http://www.independent.com/news/2010/ma ... al-denied/

http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm ... 0100316013

[AZGrizFan]

UPDATE:

Frimpong's bid for an appeal was denied, now his best chance is through an appeal with the California Supreme Court. I try to avoid personal feelings in cases, it only leads to bias, but the forensic evidence, and known bias of the prosecution and judge, in my mind points no other way. This kid got screwed.
http://www.independent.com/news/2010/ma ... al-denied/

http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm ... 0100316013

Well, which is it? Did he or didn't he?

[native]

All of this is the fault to George Bush and his evangelical friends encouraging rape, the execution of gays in third world countries, and training Al Qaeda how to hijack airplanes.

Oh, yeah, forgot about all that. Thanks for the reminder, Cid.

[89Hen]

Don't think he was comparing locals as much as insert school name here with the same story.

All I know is that this would never have happened in Iowa.

[houndawg]

Don't think he was comparing locals as much as insert school name here with the same story.

All I know is that this would never have happened in Iowa.

The cows never testify.