October 14, 2010 05:54 PM UTC

Buck Loses Defensive Cover on "Buyer's Remorse" Rape Scandal

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Scot Kersgaard of the Independent responds directly to partisan attacks on his reporting.

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So the campaign of GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck has chosen its response to the emerging scandal surrounding his refusal to prosecute an alleged case of rape in 2005–a case he refused even though the alleged perpetrator was recorded admitting to the crime. The expressed callousness toward the victim in the case, not to mention preconceived biases that may have affected his judgment, are the central themes in this story as now reported coast to coast.

Buck’s response? Naturally, shoot the messenger.

In [Buck spokesman Owen] Loftus’s opinion, ProgressNow, Waak and others are acting as if they’re compassionate, “but they’re really exploiting victims — and that’s the really unfortunate thing about this. Now, a victim might not want to report a case because they’re afraid their story could end up on the front page of the Denver Post.”

That’s a peculiar defense we must say, since it’s easily arguable that the way Buck treated this alleged victim is a far greater deterrent to a future rape victim reporting a case than a political group giving said victim a platform to tell what happened could ever be. And as the Colorado Independent’s Scot Kersgaard reports this morning, the latest in a devastating series, the victim being “exploited” by these “liberal smear merchants”…is talking to the press all by herself.

So much for shooting the messenger:

“I represented something he didn’t like,” said the victim, who didn’t wish to be identified, in an interview with the Colorado Independent Saturday. “I don’t know why. I was a full-time student, I worked full-time, I was doing tons of volunteer work.

“We all have these stereotypes, but we have to be able to look past them in order to deal with the individual. In a position like DA, you have to be able to do that, and he couldn’t do it,” she said.

Specifically, she is talking about his reference, in a private meeting, to an abortion she says she never had, as well as his references to her drinking on the night in question, and his repeated references to the fact she had invited the suspect into her home…

During the victim’s meeting with Buck, Buck referred to the fact that she had invited the suspect to her apartment, saying, “It would appear to me and it appears to others that you invited him over to have sex with him.”

“So, you’re telling me that previous sexual relations is enough to provide consent; you’re telling me that because I called him and invited him up, that I invited him up for sex?” she asks.

“I’m telling you that’s what circumstances suggest to people, including myself, who have looked at it. Although you never said the word ‘yes,’ the appearance is of consent.” Buck said…

“He (the suspect) admitted he did it, and they gave him a pass, said, ‘Thanks for coming in,'” the victim says. [Pols emphasis]

“Buck told me that something morally wrong happened, but that it wasn’t legally wrong. I read him the statute (Colorado Revised Statute 18-3-402), which says it is sexual assault if the victim is physically helpless or intoxicated,” the victim said.

Make sure you read the entire feature-length report, with much more directly from the alleged victim, as well as comments from experts on sexual assault who dispute pretty much everything Buck asserted to her about the law. And the worst part of today’s story for Buck? The “liberal smear merchants” that he’s relying on to deflect from this growing disaster are nowhere to be found.

It’s looking more and more like an endgame, folks. We’ve seen it before.