Below is the story of Luke Heimlich, from a guest to this blog and family friend of 35 years. It is very long, but worth the read to anyone at all open-minded or curious.
WHAT I SEE IN THE LUKE HEIMLICH STORY
Luke Heimlich’s parents have been my dear friends for 35 years. Since the Oregonian exposed Luke’s juvenile record last year, I have watched in dismay as countless thousands of people have commented on the case, with most of them heaping condemnation on Luke. I am continually amazed that none of them see what I see in the Oregonian story.
I was sexually molested by two teenage neighbor boys when I was five years old, which profoundly impacted me in ways I didn’t fully realize until decades later. There was only one incident, I wasn’t physically injured, and I never told anyone until I was in my forties. Yet 60 years later, I still remember every devastating detail of the abuse.
In the Heimlich story, the girl’s mother said her daughter “doesn’t really remember everything that happened.” Wouldn’t the mother be relieved and thankful that her 11-year-old daughter doesn’t remember being molested? Wouldn’t she do everything in her power to make sure her daughter is shielded from anything that might trigger bad memories? Apparently not. Instead, she cooperated with a journalist preparing to expose her daughter’s reported trauma to the world.
The girl lives in a small town where the family is well-known, and the Oregonian article made her last name obvious. Court documents from the mother’s divorce and subsequent loss of custody are public records that can be accessed online. Did she fail to comprehend this would reveal her daughter’s identity to hundreds of people in the community and to anyone in the world with access to a search engine?
Certainly the reporter had to know, and his story included explicit details from the prosecutor’s charging statement, which would retraumatize the girl if the allegations were true. Sure enough, immediately after the article was published, the girl was questioned about it by some kids in her school. When I was 11, if the sexual abuse I had suffered were publicized in a way that prompted my classmates to discuss it and question me, that would have damaged me more than the original offense.
Juveniles in Washington State are denied certain legal rights that adults have. The supposed justification is that the court will look out for “the best interests of the child.” When the alleged victim and the accused are both juveniles, the best interests of the older child are sometimes sacrificed in an effort to protect the younger one. Luke sacrificed his future to spare his niece from having to undergo “further interviews … or her testimony at trial” (as the Oregonian quoted from the prosecutor’s statement). Now the girl is 12, and by all reports she is happy and thriving in her father’s care, with no sign of lingering effects.
I don’t believe Luke molested his niece, but the Oregonian has abused her in a manner that will have long-term consequences. How will she feel five years from now, when she realizes her uncle’s bright future was destroyed and her grandparents have suffered years of anguish because of something she said when she was six and doesn’t remember? I think she will eventually figure out who has acted in her best interests, but by then the damage will be done.
Part two, after I asked for some follow up information.
As I stated in a previous post, Luke Heimlich’s parents have been my friends for 35 years. Ever since the Oregonian/OregonLive exposed Luke’s juvenile record a year ago, he has been engulfed in an unrelenting tidal wave of condemnation. Much of the reporting and almost all the social media commentary has been based on incomplete, misleading, and/or outright false information.
I don’t know how a human being can survive what Luke has been subjected to. The past year has demonstrated that the world is more heartless than I could have imagined and that Luke Heimlich is the most courageous person I have ever known.
Enough is enough. It’s time to go back to the beginning and outline the facts that can be established based on public records and/or multiple witnesses. In the county where Luke’s family resides, divorce and custody documents are public records that can be accessed online. The following facts are supported by those records, which can be located with a simple Google search. I will refrain from providing the internet link, because the documents reveal the children’s names. Never mind that the June 2017 Oregonian story exposed the daughter’s identity so effectively that she was immediately questioned by some kids in school (an abomination I hope the reporters and editors will never live down).
This is where the story begins. I will outline the events of later years in subsequent posts.
2009
Luke’s older brother divorced his wife. The divorce was finalized in December. There are two children, a son and daughter, and the parties agreed to a parenting plan that included 4 days a week residing with the father and 3 days with the mother. School holidays were to be split between the parents. Based on higher earnings, the father was ordered to make child support payments to the mother.2010
In February or March, the ex-wife moved from Washington to California, leaving both children with their father. Subsequent court documents indicate she made weekend visits to the children once or twice a month during the rest of the year.JANUARY 2011
The father petitioned the court to grant him primary custody, and he asked for his child support payments to be eliminated. He attached a parenting plan that called for the children to live with him full-time during the school year and divide school holidays between the parents. The plan allowed for weekend visits from the mother twice a month.FEBRUARY 2011
The mother submitted her response, which is difficult to interpret. It consists of a form with checkboxes to indicate whether she admitted or denied the “allegations” in the 22 subsections of her ex-husband’s petition. (I hesitate to use “allegations” here, because it’s a loaded word, and the petition doesn’t contain anything I would describe as an allegation. I use it simply for accuracy, because it’s the term printed on the response form.) The mother also checked a box requesting that the father’s petition be dismissed. She attached a proposed residential schedule calling for the children to live with her during the school year and split holidays between the parents.MARCH 2011
The father submitted his reply to the mother’s response. He asked the court to deny her request for the children to reside with her. In consideration of the fact that she would bear more travel costs, he offered to continue child support payments at a reduced amount. The court subsequently issued an order approving the father’s plan on a temporary basis.APRIL 2011
The court scheduled a settlement conference for a date in September and notified both parties.MAY 2011
The father submitted a list of primary witnesses who would testify in support of his petition. The list includes his father and mother, as well as one of his sisters and her husband. There is no record of a witness list from the mother.AUGUST 2011
The court issued an order modifying custody and approving the father’s parenting plan. The mother apparently capitulated. The court order bears her approval signature, which is dated in July.The settlement conference scheduled for September was subsequently cancelled. The public record also shows a trial date scheduled for October, and it was cancelled.
DECEMBER 2011
Both children went to stay with their mother during the school holiday. After that visit, the mother told her ex-husband their daughter had described being molested by Luke.According to media reports, the timing of the alleged abuse progressively morphed from one date span in 2011 to multiple date spans 2009-2011, and finally to a single incident during a new date span stated in Luke’s eventual plea agreement: February to December 2011. There are no public records I can use to verify this information.
The May 2018 Sports Illustrated cover story about Luke includes this statement: “The mother insists that a custody dispute had no bearing on the accusations, saying that she never raised concerns about Luke and her daughter in custody proceedings.” The mother’s statement is incompatible with the timeline of events.
The basis for the father’s January 2011 petition for custody was articulated in a sentence that starts as follows: “The children have been integrated primarily into my family…”
We will never know what actually happened during the girl’s holiday stay with her mother at the end of 2011, but one thing is perfectly clear. That was the end of the “integrated” Heimlich family.
I don’t get it? Is shining a light on the possibility of a vindictive mom considered taboo? What sloppy, self-serving journalism. Heimlich pays for the rest of his life.
Is shining a light on the possibility of a vindictive mom considered taboo?
Apparently.
The page is broken, but I understand her motivations for making up the story. If she comes out and admits she made it up, I hope her ass gets sued and she gets thrown in prison.
>The page is broken,
Was for me too but I wasn’t logged in. Now it shows up fine.
Do you know/can you share if the family plans to come out and publicly fight this at some point? You’ve referenced a lawsuit more than once and if not after going undrafted a 2nd time, then it doesn’t appear likely.
I asked the source that question. Her response:
I can’t speak for Luke, but I sincerely doubt he plans to sue anyone. He is the most courageous and honorable person I know. A lawsuit would be accompanied by a prolonged media circus, and his niece is still just 12 years old. Imagine what that would do to her. Unlike her mother, Luke has done everything humanly possible to protect the girl.
It sounds like no. But we’ll see.
The Oregonian deserves some of the blame for creating clickbait articles to target Luke and the girl without doing further research like Kerry Eggers and Sports Illustrated did. I really hope Luke gets a chance at pro baseball, and the victim comes out to clear to publicly clear his name.
Thanks Angry. I appreciate what you do here. If it never happened, what is there to protect the girl from since she has already been outted by her mother? Luke’s future employment in baseball or out of out baseball seems to have been destroyed by libel and slander by the media, Texas Rangers and the Twitter blow hards. He will be viewed as unhirable behind closed doors at almost any company.
They could have been going through a nasty divorce AND the girl was ALSO molested, it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
You go ahead and believe in the coincidences up and down, not just that one.
We’ll be here when you figure it out.
Any comments on why his brother still doesn’t speak to him?? Weird timing, sliding in the draft then this comes out.
Again, they speak on a limited basis, and Josh asks their dad about how Luke is doing, according to Kerry eggers, its in his article
They do not speak to each other. That’s a fact. They see each other on a limited basis at family events.
The case negatively impacted Luke’s relationship with Josh. They have seen each other at family weddings and on holidays, but haven’t really talked in the five years-plus since then.
Luke’s parents recognize the relationship between his sons has been damaged, but believe it will be repaired with time. Josh has followed Luke’s progress in school and in baseball and asks his father about Luke when they speak.
I didn’t mean to imply they had a good relationship,
The mom also wanted the Oregonian to pay for the story..i dont know if she got money or not
Did the paper divulge that information? I have read magazines/newspaper where they come out and say someone wanted money for a story and that they do not pay.
That’s from a connected source, and i hope i don’t get them in trouble for posting it.
It’s still not as bad as outing her daughter.
I’ve heard several rumors that the mother made up the story in an attempt to help herself in that custody case, and forced the father to press charges against Luke. Would that be true in this case?
The father didn’t press charges, the State did based on evidence.
I’ve been reading a lot about the Pierce County Prosecutor.
He’s not what I think of when I think, “That’s a man.”
Then again, there’s a lot of that these days.
I live in Bonney Lake and have good friends that are close to prosecutor. Based on what I know, I’m confident Luke is innocent. That said, I’ve been told the prosecutor is a stand up guy. I don’t think it’s fair to attack the prosecutor based on what you’ve read. I think a lot of folks are making same mistake with Luke based on what they’ve read in the Oregonian.
Idk….
There aren’t a lot of good things reported about him. Perhaps he’s a good guy, but as a lawyer he’s reportedly very unprofessional.
It gives me little faith that a government employee would do those things that are verifiable, let alone what he has been accused of… and, further, what he has accused others of doing but might have done himself just in order to accuse someone of something.
I think your friends are being duped at present. Just plug his name in the google and add words like misconduct, vindictive and various other words. Then run it with words you would think of when praising a person.
The searches end up with a lot of the same reports, or variations of them.
At best, he’s an unethical and lousy manager and lawyer… who is a great guy. Most likely he is what he appears to be–a political animal with psychopathic tendencies.
And what exact evidence could they have had? Unless someone else witnessed it, it’s a he said/she said. Is that in of itself enough to successfully bring up charges against someone?
For this offense, yes.
That’s something most people gloss over when pleading for him to suffer for the rest of his life. The laws don’t take this offense seriously enough to even require a preponderance of evidence. If you’re asking to put someone behind bars for an extended stay, that should be the minimum bar.
In this country, all I can think is what Baxter said:
“There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.”
To be clear, what the alleged victim says happened does not have to be corroborated in order to secure conviction. That means the court has a mandate to believe the victim unless logistical or evidentiary issues arise within the narrative. And they can prove circumstance by virtue of adhering a date range to the offense. It didn’t happen on a Monday or around a holiday… or even during any particular season during the year. It happened between February and December of 2011… after starting with the two charges between September 2009-10 and September 2011-December 2011, when she was 4 and 6.
Golly. I wonder when the victim-not-identified-to-protect-her-identity has a birthday.
We’re all thinking the same thing but, unfortunately, nobody has spoken about the mother at all, other than the occasional quote.
Like McKalk said above, it’s apparantly taboo, so the only thing we can do is speculate. The timeline presented here does make this whole thing wounded pretty muddy. And the daughter appears to be a pawn, for several parties. Poor kid is going to have a twisted view of the world.
A lot of people calling the mom insane and vindictive. (could be the case, who knows) But are skipping over the fact that investigators are specifically trained to read signs of children being coached into false accusations.
There was a court case, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the custody motivation came up. Furthermore, this was a criminal case, not civil – higher standard than preponderance of evidence here.
Exactly! I don’t understand why everyone is acting like the mother brought about the charges. She could have reported them, but it’s the State that has to bring about the charges.
My source for this is RAINN, but prosecutors can decline a case if they feel like there isn’t enough evidence to press charges. The mother couldn’t have forced the state to prosecute, nor could she have forced the father to press charges – I believe he could have chosen not to cooperate? AFAIK survivors can chose not to move forward with a sexual assault case and the state may (occasionally) still prosecute.
Also, I have no idea why being forced to press false charges, in the father’s case, wouldn’t have come up in the custody battle. And to that last point, presumably he’d have proof the mother was lying to the police.
You can had a contentious divorce amidst everything. They aren’t m utually exclusive.
Of course you can have both. But this sounds like a he said/she said. How can there be any great evidence if this allegedly happened long ago and the girl simply reported it to the mother on a visit months later? There would be zero evidence at that point other than he said/she said, especially since the accusation wasn’t rape (i.e. bodily fluids as evidence, etc). How can you prove touching months earlier? It sounds like everyone just believed the mom and probably took the stance of “the girl explained it to the mom so it must have happened/how else would the girl know of these things?”…again, not at all thinking the mom had reason to plant it. I don’t know if that’s what happened, but I’d like to know what evidence there is of touching someone improperly months after it happened.
It is very easy for a trained professional to spot signs that a child has been coached into a false accusation. (Ex: a child is using adult language to explain what happened) Unless this was the prosecutors first week, this isn’t the first case like this they’ve seen, and it is completely the prosecutor’s (not mom) decision to press charges. They don’t just go well mom said it happened, let’s charge him.
^^^Leroy Jethro Gibbs can always tell when people are lying. Ziva was good at that as well, but Cort killed her. Other than Gibbs, every one else is making an educated guess. Nobody knows what happened other than Luke. If innocent, take a public polygraph.
“It is very easy for a trained professional to spot signs that a child has been coached into a false accusation. “…..Maybe, depends on the “trained professional”.
OTOH, after nine months of individual therapy (NOT Group Therapy) on a bi-weekly basis with the court appointed trained professional, Luke steadfastly maintained his innocence.
Some factors which seem relevant: the therapist “spent considerable time discussing with Luke the various reasons why juveniles deny committing a sexual offense that they are accused of” and “He was given several opportunities throughout his treatment to admit to the crime, but he did not do so.”
Would a guilty 16 year old have “broken” and admitted guilt during the individual therapy? Again, maybe…depends on the “trained professional”.
That’s untrue. The newly-minted sexual assault center (back then) didn’t require that the investigators be cynical in any way. In fact, they used a therapeutic method widely accepted by many states. It can be a good tool when in the hands of properly trained personnel. But when inexperienced personnel are given a mandate (even perceived) to supply fresh meat, the real mandate that you always believe the purported victim can lead to an incomplete investigation… at best… an accusation by a sitting judge that your office is vindictive at medium.
Ask him why his brother Josh doesn’t speak to him. That’s the big question. He should be familiar with that issue if he’s been a family friend that long.
Ask him why Luke isn’t allowed around his neice.
Or maybe Luke doesn’t speak to Josh? Ask that too.
Also, until August 28 of last year he could not be around his niece as part of his plea deal.
In the si interview, Luke makes it pretty clear it’s one sided. He wants to talk to his brother again but that hasn’t happened.
Paraphrasing per sources request, but basically he believed it and may have felt pressure since not taking that seriously would have been grounds to lose custody.
If denying it meant he would be pegged by her attorney as defensive, therefore guilty by association, then he had to remain ambivalent in order to protect his children.
It’s cold, but you have to do what you have to do.
Bill, why “Ask him why Luke isn’t allowed around his neice.”??
Do you doubt Eggers research and this from his article:
On Aug. 28, 2017, Luke’s record in juvenile court was sealed. He is no longer a registered sex offender. The restraining order on his nieces and nephews has been lifted. There are no restrictions on what he can do with his life. He is able to fully participate in all family activities.
https://portlandtribune.com/pt/12-sports/385703-274945-penalties-paid-heimlich-ready-to-return-for-beavers-baseball
I’ll back up and restate, He still hasn’t had contact with his neice. That’s from the si article. Clearly due to the state of his relationship with his brother.
No matter your take on what happened, do you really think it would be a good idea for Luke and his niece to be around each other?
maybe the brother knows the damage this did to Luke and doesn’t want to revisit it. He probably concluded getting and keeping custody of his kids was more important than his brother’s fate. He has to live with that.
Or maybe Luke won’t talk to his brother… If you were Luke and you claim innocence and your brother reports you to the police… Would you talk to him? How do you know he doesn’t talk to his niece? Maybe I missed that part (being serious)…
Everything else aside, there seems to be a lot of cognitive dissonance from this family friend, calling out the media for the story, expressing concern for the girl, and then writing up a detailed timeline including custody details to a blog, adding facts about the girl’s relationships at school that weren’t publicly available.
Their rush to press made their story holey by the third paragraph. By the time the mother chimed in, I was convinced Josh did it, and Luke took the fall for him because he was a juvenile.
That’s how bad the original article was. when you create more questions than answers, you pretty much look like a tool… a defamatory one, at that.
Huh? You think a post in a fairly obscure sports blog that lays out a timeline is more revealing than what the boregonian, and by association SI and NYT ( who pointed to the o’s article(s)) ?
That’s just silly.
This is all a lot of conjecture from a clearly biased party. I’m not sure any of it is relevant to the established facts of the case.
I’m sorry, but ‘old family friend’ does not give one any authority on the matter. The mother cannot file charges. She can make a complaint, but it has to be found credible by professionals trained to do so before charges would be brought.
I’m not saying that this proves anything — but absolutely nothing in this article is persuasive to me. It comes across like a character reference, nothing more.
Well said Kevin.
Fair points.
Everyone is biased. There’s my side, your side, and the truth.
Since the Oregonian gave a one-sided story, it’s appropriate to provide other perspectives.
There are a whole lot more sides than two, and a lot of truths as well.
Was at an event on Monday evening and the Sports Illustrated article came up. Interestingly, the four other guys at the table had all read the article and all seemed to think Luke was getting the shaft. “Mob justice via the internet” was how one guy described it.
But would they draft him? If their jobs were on the line, would they draft or sign him?
I would draft him because his record is sealed and would pass a background check. That’s what you would have to state in your reasoning to draft him. You cannot legally discriminate someone who does not currently have a record. That’s what I don’t get.
Ultimately, MLB teams want to win….well most do, and great pitchers are hard to find.
It would be a three day news cycle and then it would go away.
It will never go away. But it will find a balance somewhere that is acceptable.
My duck friends think he’s getting screwed over as well.
I look at this in one way. This story never should have gotten out in the first place. It was an error by Benton County Sheriff’s Office, Corvallis PD, and State Police for the initial citation. Also, Looks records are sealed now. He can’t legally be discriminated from being hired by someone because of a now sealed record, can he? If a current employer looked up his records and ran a background check on him, he wouldn’t have anything on his record, no? So they can’t use that to discriminate from hiring him just because it’s public knowledge he plead guilty to a juvenile crime, right? It’s hard for me to discriminate against someone when there is currently no record other than an online article stating a criminal record before it’s sealed.
Sure any other employers can’t hold it against him but professional sports is different. As far as I know the MLB can discriminate in their signing of players. Haven’t heard of any player successfully suing to get signed or being colluded against due to character concerns.
Luke was a pawn in a larger battle. BUT, even if he did do it, which I don’t believe, the state of Washington’s juvenile justice act SHOULD have dictated a course of events wherein he was able to put his life in order.
That was short-circuited by a university administration that was intimidated by John Canzano more concerned with its public perception than a student (Luke) to whom it owed a higher order, fiduciary, duty to care for his well being. (NOTE: I do not include Pat Casey in this indictment. I believe he has tested the limits of what the university allowed his to say in regard to this case. Nor do I believe Luke wanted to take himself out of action a year ago; that point was insisted upon by Ed Ray and others in the university administration.)
The local prosecuting attorney, in an office long since disposed to make its reputation by busting student athletes, made a technical error that triggered the whole sequence. Incompetence there but from it this whole series of events seems to have cascaded, sort of like the old proverb–“for want of a nail.”
What more can be said about the Oregonian and all the derivative stories since it first broke? It’s been lazy and derivative, motivated by the basest of motives.
But the lowest of the low are the scouts who ring the concourse during games Heimlich has pitched. They have not only seen his competence as an athlete, but also the regard, nay, love his teammates have for him; the respect that Pat Casey has for him whose testimony ANY MLB team could go to the bank on, and yet still they are afraid to take a chance the kid. Shameful and gutless.
I have quite a few issues with what you said here. One if he did do it, which he pled guilty, then he should have done his jail time. Two “busting student athletes”, if student athletes do something wrong then they should be held accountable. Unless the prosecuting attorney is just making up charges, this point it mute. Third and most important just because someone is “loved” by their teammates and coaches doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of doing terrible things.
Anyone is capable of doing anything terrible. It’s why we have free will. We choose to do good or evil.
First point- He did do everything asked of him by the court system. If you think he should have spent time in jail too, take it up with the courts.
Second point- Sure, they should be held accountable. Heimlich was when he was 16. He didn’t commit any crimes/offenses/violations since arriving in Corvallis. Local law enforcement misunderstood the law regarding out of state residents registering within the state and made an error. The error was soon corrected, but resulted in a false blip on the local radar which opened the door for the Oregonian to start digging into court documents they otherwise would have never known existed.
Third- You’re basically saying the court system is failing to keep people out of harm’s way, by allowing those they have deemed rehabilitated to reintegrate back into our society. That issue is between you and the court system. Everybody is following the rules as they are currently set.
How does being a college or MLB player make a person more or less likely to commit a future offense? That doesn’t make any sense. If anything, keeping him in the public eye puts the microscope on him even more than if he were Luke, the server at your local Denny’s.
Wow.
Nice post.
He was motivated to go through the juvenile rehabilitation recourse precisely to avoid the prospect of going to jail IF he had been convicted by a judge. Presumably based upon the advise of counsel, he figured that if he pled to the juvenile offense he obviated the risk of going to jail and, as any number of figures associated with the juvenile justice system would have told him, after going through counseling and convincing a judge that he was no threat to repeat an offense, the record would have been sealed and he could have gone on with his life. The whole trope, dating to Dennis Dodd’s idiotic statement last February (“who would confess to such a thing if he didn’t do it?”) is SO naive as to stagger the imagination. The only good thing to come out of the NYT/SI sequence is that experts were uncovered who validated a point that Martin Meyer tried to make on this site.
Actually, Jay, your first issue is not with wannabeav. It’s with the juvenile justice system as set up by the elected representatives of the state.
Your second issue overlooks the fact that the erroneous charge (later dropped) by Benton County is of the very same effect as if the prosecutor was “making up charges”.
Your third point looks like a straw man.
+1 not -1
Legally, they can’t hold it against him but it will be. I work for a fairly large corporation and it’s pretty easy not to hire someone and deem them not the best fit. It happens on a regular basis and I assure you Luke will experience this for the rest of his life.
I think what’s getting lost in all of this is the most important question: Does Luke Heimlich, a person who was adjudicated as a minor, and who has, in the eyes of the law, been rehabilitated, deserve to be integrated into society as a meaningful contributer? The Law says Yes, but the SJWs say No. Unfortunately, in today’s society, the SJWs have more influence than the Law.
I’d have less of a problem if he just owned up to it and stopped insinuating that his niece is lying.
Would you really though?
Are you serious?
Do you have absolute certainty that he did “it”? Based on what?
Or do you not desire truth but only a resolution you like?
Does anyone have the exact quote of the victim with regard to not remembering? What publication was it in, etc?
I believe it was in Moran’s original story, but someone like OOB is going to have provide you the link.
Cake’s post at 2:18 pm (below) has the full quote. It is from the original Oregonian article (next to last paragraph), here is the link:
http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2017/06/luke_heimlich_sex_crime_surfac.html
The victim’s mother said she does not keep tabs on Heimlich but knows he’s one of the top players in the United States. She said her daughter was young enough that “she doesn’t really remember everything that happened,” but nonetheless has been ostracized from family events because most members of the Heimlich family have sided with Luke.
The victim’s mother said too much when she said something.
Apart from that, the victim’s mother said a lot of stuff that changes as the story evolves.
For someone who “doesn’t keep tabs”, she seems to know a lot about when the college playoffs are starting.
Exactly what I thought. And how many classes he’s taken and hours logged….
It’s in the last few paragraphs of the SI story
What about that little girl?
According to her mother, she’s doing well these days. She has little memory of what happened when she was four to six years old, and seemingly no lingering effect has surfaced—”she just knows that [Luke] was inappropriate,” the mother says. “But those kind of things manifest differently in every single victim. As far as I can tell, no, it hasn’t. She’s still my superstar girl; she’s stronger than most full-grown women. I mean, she’s great. But I do worry that in the future that it will.”
The omission of when she was 7 is notable.
Not sure the non-custodial mom comes across as genuine here. JMHO
Angry, lots of new names here all of a sudden. Organized effort to discredit Heimlich? Even if he committed the crime, he paid his juvenile debt to society with distinction according to the Washington judge. The only interesting point left for me is whether he has any legal recourse and it sounds like probably not. It’s a sad case.
You’re going to have to point me to the organization.
It might just be the same person under different names. Not like that hasn’t happened here a couple thousand times.
I noticed the same trend. This blog is the last redoubt for a critical analysis of the Heimlich situation and these drones have come on here to finish him off like sharks. One other point: anyone who is crying crocodile tears about the original victim ought to direct their fire at the Oregonian. I mean, by her mother’s own account, this was a forgotten history until they until they yielded to clickbait temptation.
A recent quote from Elon Musk seems relevant in this context: “… holier-than-thou hypocrisy of the media who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie. This is why the public no longer respects them.”
It’s also why Moran is out of the business and Canzano is literally begging to be let back into the good graces of OSU fans.
Let’s not forget, the mother seems to want this to continue also. I have not read or heard that she wants the media (or anyone) else to stop the narrative. But let’s get Luke keeps on.
She should be ashamed of herself!
Let’s assume for a second that he is innocent and one of his main goals in not suing would be to protect his niece from further media circus, etc.
I have a hard time respecting someone who would fall on his sword so ridiculously hard. He has the right to think about his own future, too. The niece and family are already going through the circus, and it is not in his power, nor responsibility, to protect them from it as his expense. At some point you have to stand up for yourself, and he can’t fix his niece having a crappy mother, again, assuming.
He’s a saint if that’s what’s going on, but he will have to live with the dismal future he has decided to sign himself up for at this point.
I think that’s why he went to the media recently to proclaim his innocence, but I sort of think it has backfired and just brought up the “sexual predator” hysteria again. He’s trying to say his niece is lying, but he’s doing it in as delicate a way as possible and this is a big, messy pile of shit from all angles. Heimlich doesn’t want to sling shit.
Yeah, I really did wonder at the time if the NYT article was a good idea. In hindsight (so easy) it seems as though everything was stirred up again. Not to say it might not have been anyway but the sharks really started circling. Every two-bit, so called journalist thought it was her/his calling to venture an opinion that, 99% of the time, was incomplete or inaccurate.
It would have been anyway. I’m guessing it was pre-emptive to the shit storm that would have came anyway with the playoffs looming.
He needs to sling some shit for the media to be held accountable for their own irresponsible role in this mess, as well as the Corvallis PD. Although if he did it, I have a hard time really caring about that, even though they were still irresponsible.
Hard to fight for someone in the court of public opinion who won’t even fight for himself – even when the issues raised about juvenile justice and legal system flaws carry far beyond this specific case.
Not the right time to fight for your cause. Two weeks from now, perhaps.
Was it CPD or BCS? I remember Moran said it was a Sheriff, then later said it was a Sergeant, so that wasn’t helpful. I can understand if it was CPD. They’ve never been… um… efficient.
Benton County receives its info from the State Police, who have jurisdiction over the campus. They would just kick it to OSP. But I can wholly believe CPD would march into Gill and stomp all over that jurisdiction.
While we’re at it, the timing of Moran’s knowledge of the bureaucratic mistake, where to look for it, and the developing sense that the mother isn’t quite all there and probably couldn’t have had knowledge of it makes me think someone within the courthouse tipped Moran. It’s the simplest answer.
Heimlich will sign a deal after the draft in a few days. That way a team doesn’t have to deal with a media circus yet still gets a 2nd round talent.
Someone should kill that mom.
Yeah, let’s not advocate violence here, okay? Not cool. That’s no better than an opposite version of someone believing Heimlich is a molester and saying someone should kill him.
This! Minus the killing the mom. I stumbled across someone saying he has a deal with the Yankees last night. I couldn’t verify the person having any reason to know that kind of info.So could be just a dude starting rumors…
That would make sense in a PR way. He’d fit in with a team everyone already hates anyway!
I think that’s what will happen, too.
If he did do this crime, I don’t have an issue with what is happening, though I lean toward “he did his time” argument. If he didn’t do the crime, obviously there is a big issue with it. The problem for me is evidence. I don’t see how 2 months after this happened there’s enough evidence. A plea is considered fact by a court. So they view that as guilt without any reasonable doubt. But I don’t view it that way. I view the plea as possibly guilty but also possibly “let’s get this over with” with reasonable doubt attached. Can anyone explain what evidence there can possibly be so long after the fact? DNA would be gone…what else? If this is all just verbal accusations that is super weak. I’ve seen the court document summary but nothing else. There is a 7 page file with the info on the case. I know one person here who has seen it, yet they haven’t shared it with me. That might have the actual evidence and make this case obvious one way or the other.
My brother is an attorney. I asked him about libel. He said likely not a case there.
Need to show damage to reputation, need to show meas rea, and need to overcome press protections, so its a very high bar, and even higher with a public or semi-public figure. And the damage to reputation must be directly tied to the alleged libelous statement. Reputational damage probably arises from the underlying crime, not the labeling of his status, in which case libel case would not get past summary judgement
He’s not an attorney in that specific field, but given what he knows about that area felt that where it will stand.
If publishing that someone is a felon who is not technically a felon is not libelous, then what is?
A key sentence, to me, seems to be, “Reputational damage probably arises from the underlying crime, not the labeling of his status.”
Now, I’m sure he’s open to an attorney who handles libel correcting him. But, he’s pretty smart, so I’m assuming no case. I thought it was a good case, too, which is why I asked. He doesn’t have every fact of the case. I just gave him a synopsis.
Given that employment forms ask if you have been convicted of a felony, not what crimes you have committed, safe to infer what effect a felon label does to your reputation in today’s world.
Run it by an attorney who handles libel exclusively if you can find one.
The difference between the underlying crime and his status are substantial. Incorrectly labeling his status is what causes reputational damage.
I’m sure MLB teams have been told by their legal departments he doesn’t have a criminal record. They’ve been told what the clinical definition of a pedophile is, and how he doesn’t come close to even pretending to be one. They know that what he plead to was pretty much walking up to someone who doesn’t have power (therefore, s/he doesn’t have credibility” and grabbing, “her by the pussy.”
But the public labels him worse because the media was negligent.
He’s not a documented or admitted predator, yet nobody would vote for him as POTUS, let alone cheer for their favorite team if he was drafted by them.
There’s something wrong with this picture.
one of Jack’s most astute posts
Welcome to Wonderland, Alice.
I got into a FB argument/discussion of sorts with a stranger about this, that ended up going to private message. The woman has seen BOTH sides of this coin…as the abused whose mother did not believe her until the boyfriend was arrested on separate charges against different kids (two of them), and as the mother of a girl who was coerced into claiming abuse (the other parent promised her a new red bike if she made the allegations). According to her, they put her daughter through a “knee-chest” exam. I haven’t looked up what this entails, but basically it is to determine if a young girl has been penetrated. If we’re to believe that LH “…touched her outside and inside..” it would be alarming, at least to this woman, that this test wasn’t conducted. In her case, her daughter admitted to the story after the test showed that no such assault had happened. She also could not accept that charges were brought to LH without any such physical evidence.
I’ve heard of no medical report or of any such exams being conducted.
The conversation was cordial, albeit charged as you can expect due to the nature of discussion and her unfortunate history.
Perhaps he is planning to just go play in Japan.
As sad as it is, I wonder if signing with a major league club would be a mistake. If the team wasn’t willing to take the media hits for drafting him, why would they want to ever promote him to the major league club. If he signs, works through the minors for 3 years and then is brought up to the majors, won’t it all be brought back up again by the goon squad?
Second chances, forgiveness, redemption, reformation, justice, honor, hope, healing are all lost in this situation. Sadly it was only weeks from actually being sealed for good.
Money can buy a PR firm to handle the messaging for almost anything these days.
If not Japan, maybe the Mexican League. Josh Lueke, a former MLBer and Texas Rangers farmhand when convicted, is currently playing in Mexico. He was charged with rape and sodomy and convicted and served time for sexual assault. That didn’t stop the Rangers from keeping him around 2 more years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Lueke
Who is the player that turned into a huge meth head then was given redemption by the Rangers? Happened maybe 8-10 years ago. I thought that guy killed someone in a DUI crash but I may be mistaken on that part.
Kind of ironic that the precious Texas Rangers were the one team to come out and say they would not draft Heimlich. Seems like they gave Josh Hamilton a lot of leeway also.
The Rangers have always been devoid of ethics. There’s no irony involved.
If you want to be enraged, you can go read about how they managed to secure the land on which their stadium is built.
That will tell you what they’re all about.
2016 American League Comeback Player of the Year, Matt Bush, alcoholic.
Hit and Run after nearly killing a 72 year old motorcyclist while driving drunk; not his first run-in with the law. In 2012, at age 26, convicted and served prison time.
Ironic doesn’t really say it all.
That might be who I was thinking of. If it is, I’m almost sure there was a drug element. Anyway, I forgot to make this comment when the Rangers spewed their self righteous bullshit.
Don’t forget about Josh Hamilton and their former manager Ron Washington.
Even if we are to assume he was guilty as he plead, there are laws in place to protect juvenile offenders so that they may someday be productive members of society and not perpetuate future offenses. Every media outlet aside from the Portland Tribune has labeled him a convicted child molester or child molester versus someone who committed a sex offense as a teen. There is a difference here and forever on Google Luke Heimlich will be a child molester – record sealed or not. The laws in place to protect Luke have fallen by the wayside and he will face a tremendous battle in being the citizen the laws are intended to facilitate. Playing baseball may be a privilege as many in the media and elsewhere have said. However, in the process of ensuring he no longer has this privilege his rights as a citizen have been taken away.
This whole thing is awful. Regardless of what happened, everyone involved in the story is worse off than if it had never been published.
Luke, his niece, and the rest of their family have undoubtedly suffered in myriad ways from the publication of what they expected to stay private.
From that standpoint alone, I’m disgusted with the decision making of the Oregonian/Oregon Live.
I am generally of the belief that juvenile crimes should be left behind following rehabilitation. This is for a number of reasons. Some crimes make that belief difficult to reconcile. But any question around the guilt of a teenager accused of those crimes also complicate matters.
I don’t know what happened. But is the world a better place for us knowing what we do know? I don’t think so. And, yeah, whether Luke committed the crime he pled guilty to, the justice system has failed him.
There’s a near certainty that the rest of his life will be wrecked, to one extent or another, by that guilty plea. And, whether or not a person believes him, or believes he deserves forgiveness, is immaterial to that point.
And, as others have noted, every time Luke Heimlich does anything in he public eye, it drags the spotlight back towards his niece—which should also not be the case.
No one has been served well by the news media, social media, or the justice system.
I don’t know what happened. I’ll never know. And I don’t need to. Whatever happened, it is a tragedy that did not belong in the public eye. And, because it is, everyone’s misery is compounded.
Regardless of what happened, everyone involved in the story is worse off than if it had never been published
Exactly. Nobody won. Maybe the mom since she wanted this outcome.
Nobody won, and now that the mob has its teeth in it again, it’s ever less likely that anyone will.
I hope I’m surprised by some team, somewhere offering him a chance to continue playing baseball, but I think the court of public opinion has said “sure you did your time, now go be a janitor for the rest of the your life”. I can’t help, but believe there’s some class resentment also, if he was drafted according to his talent, he would probably be a millionaire.
Also, for those who keep screaming that he “pleaded guilty to a felon”, they aren’t understanding that from Heimlich and his families perspective none of this was ever going to be public, so it made sense to take the plea and go through the adjudication process instead of risking losing the case and being sent to juvy jail. They took a calculated risk and it failed late in the fourth quarter through no fault of Heimlich’s.
Not Brenda Tracy’s. She’s feeling very important and self-righteous.
Get to start this all over in the fall when Teagan Quitoriano enrolls. Even Oregon passed on him…
Was he ever charged?
That is irrelevant in the court of public opinion.
True
up above, time stamped at 5:00 pm, Helmsley wonders if it was a mistake for Luke to start going public late in the game.
Absolutely, it was, and here we enter one of the most devious aspects of the serial manipulation of Luke Heimlich: after the university fails to give him the support he deserved as a student of theirs; following the local prosecuting attorney’s gaffe that opens the door to the original outbreak of vigilante journalism; THEN, the scouts start telling him “we can’t be put in a position of drafting you if you remain silent on this; say something in your defense.” Thinking the scouts were operating in good faith, Luke is lured out into the open, only to be ambushed by the snipers waiting for his head to pop up. The NYT and SI articles gave ESPN cover to plaster their broadcast last weekend with the same misleading and inflammatory terminology that Moran imprinted in the public imagination. Then the likes of Rosenthal and Yahoo sports piled on, with the coup de grace intended to have been delivered by the “newbies” who showed up on this site in the last 24 hours. Everyone one of those elements: senior OSU administration, Benton County Prosecutor’s Office, the media (Kerry Eggers, and Martin Meyer on this site excepted), and MLB should be ashamed of themselves. Failure all around.
Back to Helmsley: Martin Meyer maintained all along that Luke should keep his mouth shut, play baseball, and act in complete accordance with the ethos and practice held by how the only party with actual jurisdiction understood to be the disposition of the case.
Bottom line: this was a major miscarriage of justice, even if the underlying incident occurred (which I happen to think, based on logical inferences from the timeline specified above, never did.)
I don’t know how LH can hold up – the media onslaught has to get to him at some point. And seeing his fellow players being drafted.I credit Pac-12 for his well-deserved awards and, as far as I know, no formal pronouncements. Nowhere do any of these articles point out that Pat Casey immediately said what a model student and player Luke has been while at OSU. That his teammates stand by him.
“She doesn’t remember anything.” What a load of tosh. If an incident occurred at age 6, surrounded by agencies interviewing her, by her parent’s acrimonious divorce, – her memory must be pretty selective. Age 6, you are in first grade, (unless this generation of Heimlichs also home schools.) You’d better start remembering things.
We need a professional to tell us if this is a common thing, because I share your skepticism on this. There is a form of PTSS in which the subconscious buries the memories of an incident, only to be unwrapped in pieces (or sometimes as a whole) at later dates.
But I’m not familiar with the one that allows the victim to tell his or her parents, walk it through the interview and investigation process, be prepped for testimony… then forget all about it.
If there are cases in which this is true, so be it. But I can’t find any information anywhere that tells me it’s a reality, let alone a common one.
I believe Casey has been delimited as to what he can say about the matter.
He does.
It’s called his job.
I keep asking, but nobody seems to want to answer:
What do you think the university should have done to support him?
when the original story came out, the University should have pushed back against the false narrative that Moran was propagating about Luke’s legal status and the federal higher ed access practices that Moran cited but apparently didn’t read. The net effect would have been what Meyer attempted to do on this site 8 months later: he wasn’t convicted of anything, he wasn’t a felon; the matter should have been kept confidential, etc etc. etc. Everything Meyer said here in three separate briefs could have been stipulated by the Student Affairs office at OSU. It would have countered the narrative.
AND, they should have allowed Luke to play last year. Don’t believe for a second the story about how he wanted to withdraw last June. That denouement was part of a second “plea deal” that Luke had to agree to. “Step out now and we’ll support you coming back next year.” The optics of his stepping away had the subconscious effect in many circles of reinforcing the Moran/Canzano imprint. Luke wanted to play last year for the same reason he played so well this year: his conscience is clear.
The University, a public institution, cannot comment on a juvenile adjudication in another state. And when they speak about a student who is a registered sex offender, they can only say about him or her what they say about all other students who are registered sex offenders.
So… what should they have done, other than the illegal things you want them to do?
If Luke didn’t make the decision to step away from the team in the face of last year’s onslaught of stupid, negligent ignorance, then he is a much lesser person n my eyes. It would have been the height of selfishness, and it would have been an insurmountable distraction for his team… one so far beyond his absence so as to make the difference laughable.
If you want to claim potential stoicism instead of selfishness, don’t. That’s too weak an argument for the consequences of your proposed scenario.
you wanted to know what the university could have done and I told you. Even the writer for the Corvallis newspaper called out Ed Ray and the university for non-feasance on this matter. To repeat: all they had to do was vocalize all the points Meyer made here, all of which they are (or should have been) familiar with, in regard to the whole “ban the box” movement,(relative to juvenile offenders and adult felons) which movement, by the way, is a major part of the modern progressive orthodoxy you so routinely espouse. (and which, ironically, Moran has now moved to professionally.)
You didn’t tell me what they could have done. You told me what you wanted them to do and apparently think they can do.
To be fair, you answered my question.
I assumed that was the collective thought from that camp. I just wanted someone to write it down for the record.
I don’t know what OSU’s legal options were/are. However, it would now seem that that Ed Ray saying Luke had the option to play for OSU during the 2018 season was sufficient. Shutting up could well be the high road.
OTOH, I wasn’t aware of the points taken in wannabeav’s post.
What points?
Confidentiality is the only word he has correct, but he uses it in the wrong context.
I know I’m biased on this one, but Steve was the height of professionalism in Moran’s original article. He and the publications he referred to Moran (which Moran ignored) were the only credible parts of the original story.
Pat Casey is a part of the university and speaks officially in that capacity. He has been the height of professionalism. Ed Ray walked it straight down the line.
But apparently they’re all supposed to get in some giant NUH-UH argument with the stupids?
Now let’s see how deeply you’ve thought about that scenario.
What do you think the consequences of getting in a troll war would be if OSU chose that route?
Agree. I’d like to enjoy this weekend and hopefully a trip to Omaha. When the season is over, let’s see what move LH makes and go from there. Nothing he should/can do right now. Let’s Go BEAVS!!
Have Luke’s parents ever said anything?
I believe there were some quotes in the Eggers article
Off the topic at hand but still OSU baseball related………….
Bryce Fehmel and Jake Mulholland were not drafted. Both are expected to return to OSU next year.
The big question mark is will Drew Rasmussen sign with the Brewers. After all he’s been thru I think he’d be stupid not to. If he doesn’t and returns to OSU? Well, a weekend rotation of Fehmel, Rasmussen and Kevin Abel would be pretty good. Either way, barring any defections only losing Luke from the pitching staff. If Rasmussen does sign there should be a few options for No. 3. Lots of holes to fill losing 2/3 of your offense. Kwan, Grenier, Madrigal, Larnach, Gretler and Jack Anderson all were drafted or out of eligibility.
Also remains to be seen which HS players show up in the fall or sign pro contracts. I remember hearing about two of them but their names escape me. All in all, next year will probably be the polar opposite of this year. Very good pitching but the offense may struggle at times. A rebuilding year for Beaver baseball standards. I wouldn’t expect a Pac-12 title but finishing in the top 3-5 and being in the postseason again isn’t an unreasonable expectation.
But I’m getting ahead of myself as the 2018 team’s destiny is still unwritten. Go Beavs with balls and sticks!
*Edit
Left out Kyle Nobach. He’s also out of eligibility. That makes 7
Hitting will dip for sure, but I think an offense of Rutschman, Taylor, Malone, Armstrong, Claunch, Jones, and even Casey, will still be pretty formidable.
Jake Dukart (OR State QB commit form LO HS) was drafted in the 39th round. So we may see him try to play two sports at Oregon State? He plays 3rd base.
He says he will either go to OSU and be completely committed to football, or sign and be completely committed to baseball.
I think if I was a 39th round pick, I’d go to OSU and play baseball and try to break into the top 10 rounds…seems like a more clear path. Not too many kids go to OSU after being drafted out of HS and have their draft stock drop. Making it stick in the NFL seems like a much longer shot.
This is the first year in what seems like forever we did not have a true freshman be a standout position player. The two middle infielders from WA were supposed to be pretty good.
There weren’t any real opportunities for the freshman to break into the lineup this year. Just a byproduct of having a very experienced team.
McMahan is the next great one. He turned down a lot of $ to come to school.
In the Minneapolis paper this morning:
“One player the Twins did not take, Oregon State pitcher Luke Heimlich, convicted of molesting his niece when he was fifteen.”
“Minnesota is off to play mighty Oregon State in their first Super Regional.” I like the mighty part!
Whenever I comment about the girl’s mother and how she could have lied on any of The Oregonian’s articles on Luke, they immediately delete it. They keep making him the villain and never reveal any true facts about the case. What has Luke done to them for those authors like Canzano to be so biased against him? Lol.
Having a talent, when they have none.
Ok, I admit, I just had to see how the douche was going to go off on Luke. Canzano lights up Luke in his article this morning… he is such a piece of crap. Talked about how Luke re-victimized the girl by trying to up his draft chances in coming out and saying he didn’t do it and how the major leagues agrees him.
DOUCHE!
If he didn’t do it and the girl has no memory of it, how is she being revictimized? If he did do it, well…
anybody here ever edited a wiki page?
John’s seems to be out of date and needs some revisions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Canzano
You can add adulterer to his list of accomplishments. Should he be publicly shamed for it? You know, since he has morals and shit.
Is anyone else beginning to think dolphin boy is in the anger phase of his own personal trauma?
This is fascinating with regard to Heimlich.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B4AsF1ma0
Fascinating, indeed. So Stephen Ceci is on a list of 5 or so people most hated by prosecutors? Back to “she doesn’t remember.” Accusation is of multiple incidents – multiple – reportedly from age 4 until age 6. She told her story to her mom, to case workers, answered her dad’s questions about what her mother told him but she doesn’t remember? But now her memory bank about these supposed incidents is blank? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, indeed.
Ugh, Brenda Tracy. I have to stay off twitter.
She’s delusional and getting a lot of attention for it, so it’s not going anywhere.
Just need to stop commenting I guess. I want to jump through the screen. All of a sudden, I’m “evil” for suggesting the case isn’t black and white. FFS.
Can you link me to these Tweets? That sounds manipulative.
It’s not just her…I’ve got others piling on. It’s in the same thread you posted on about Karma coming back to JC.
https://twitter.com/GWHunter_RALSUP/status/1004772046620975110
And so forth.
same thing happened to me and when I askedthose four questions that I previously posted here, they shut down my user account…im getting to the point where I’m no longer going to read that pos e version publication.
Brenda Tracy is the only rape-victim I know of who has turned her victimhood into a full-time industry. Of course she slobbers all over John Canzano. He’s responsible for her fame.
It all comes back to Mike Riley…
Ho ran out of money…
There’s a long history of people turning tragedy into advocacy. I’m not sure why you would pick on someone who overcomes one as the reason to not listen to her.
The words and ideas make her wrong, not her circumstance.
Her circumstance does give her a rational reason to be irrational. That’s not to say it gives her free license, as she seems to believe. It means we should understand she can be irrational for different reasons than anyone else precisely because of her circumstance. It’s not that she’s just profiting off her advocacy when she flies off the handle.
Her hateful ideas should be met with a wall of compassion. If she makes a pity play, then pity is appropriate.
The draft proved that as an institution or as individuals, supporting a disgusting loser who is associated with a crime as brutal as child molesting was the wrong move. Definitely not worth winning a few baseball games and the pac12 should be sick about awarding him now.
Sounds like this will likely be the end of the line for Luke’s baseball career.
Hopefully he will find some kind of a forgiving occupation and create a semblance of a normal life, but he is owed nothing. I hope osu makes better character decisions going forward. What a PR nightmare!
Hey Brenda.
“Hopefully he will find some kind of a forgiving occupation and create a semblance of a normal life, but he is owed nothing.”
He earned the right to be drafted by what he did on the baseball field you ignorant fuck stick.
I for one am sick and fucking tired of you internet judge, jury and executioners that continue to berate people all over the internet because you disagree. And it isn’t just in this instance . If you don’t like the laws currently in place then do something about it. Write the powers that be in the government explaining why and work with them on having said laws changed. Washington State law is different than Oregon law. Luke is not a registered sex offender, a felon, etc. He did what was asked of him by the court. Get over yourself and let it go. You and everyone else that continues to drag his family thru the mud should be ashamed of yourselves
I hope he does sign a FA contract and has a long and successful pro baseball career just to spite people like you.
Now, kindly go DIAF
“Hopefully he will find some kind of a forgiving occupation and create a semblance of a normal life, but he is owed nothing”
Cool, well since he has no record, I mean really he can get hired doing anything else. But you figure just not related to baseball, so: preacher, school teacher, youth coach, day care worker?
What jobs exactly are on your ok list?
So precisely how has Luke’s case had an impact on your life? You make it sound as though Luke did this to you? Has your life forever been changed by this story? Was it your daughter he molested? I understand the emotion behind many comments, but what I don’t get is the vigilante mentality especially given Luke was a mere 15 year old at the time this apparently happened. The justice system based on experts’ recommendations set the sentencing requirements for situations like this with the expectation a juvenile can be successfully rehabilitated and integrated back into society as a productive, responsible adult. From the sound of it, you and many others commenting want a pound of flesh from Luke when he has already given that and more. He has proven without a shadow of a doubt that he has become a responsible adult, excellent student and paid the price for his actions.
As someone that has been molested at the age of 5 by my own female cousin who was 15, this story resonates with me on a personal basis. And, yet, I have found no satisfaction thinking or wishing nothing but the best for Luke and the girl.
Maybe at some point in the future, people like you can step back from your emotional outrage to be a little more objective that there is more than one victim here. It is also possible that Luke was also a victim in his childhood of being molested and repeated that act as a learned behavior although I’m not 100% convinced either way he did or didn’t do it.
Either way, there’s no winner in this entire story….only a girl, a teenage boy and both families that have suffered potentially irreparable emotional damage. This has been exacerbated by the media’s willingness to sacrifice a little girl’s well being in addition to that of the families all for the sake a selling a story. Shame on them and shame on you for feeding into the emotional frenzy that is entirely self serving and grandstanding.
John Canzano is the perfect example of the moral hypocritical compass along with Brenda Tracey. You might not be aware that Mr. Canzano’s radio program on ESPN radio was sponsored for years by the Dolphin II Strip Club but Canzano staunchly is a support of anti-exploitation of women. I’ve pointed this out to both of those hypocrites and Canzano denied any knowledge and Brenda turned a blind eye to it.
Those who are so morally outraged would be better served to do some serious soul searching about their own lives and judgmental positions before calling for vigilante justice in Luke’s case.
For me, I’ve learned through the years that people are human with all kinds of faults. We should be judged on what we do about those faults to redeem ourselves to make the world a better place rather than let those circumstances define our future.
I believe Luke has made every sincere effort to redeem himself and for that I applaud him. As for the girl, by all family accounts she is doing quite well with no apparent lingering effects except having to relive this story as told by a partial media that is also vigilante driven.
This story will eventually fade into anonymity but those who repeatedly condemn Luke for his redemption should remember there will come a time where you will be also held accountable for your every action. When that happens, I’m betting you’ll all be wishing for forgiveness too.
.
There is a trauma relived for all of the roles you list, more. So you have to have some compassion for those who react completely out of whatever state they revisit when they respond to it. If your post is it, just be calm. Don’t be combative. Combative would make it about you, precisely the point you were trying to make about him or her.
*and more
It’s a nightmare if you’re ignorant and have zero compassion for him or the survivor.
Consider this:
In this case, the survivor gave interviews to investigatory personnel. Without seeing the transcript, none of us knows what is said. The only snippet the public gets is some negligent “reporting” that describes the offense as (to paraphrase from memory) touching her inside and outside where she goes to the bathroom.
According to Washington State law, that’s rape of a child in the first degree due to her age and their age discrepancies.
The prosecutor charged him with two counts of molestation, which is essentially copping a feel. So your first indication when reading Danny Moran’s weird collection of misfit facts and defamations that the story was amiss is that the prosecution didn’t believe the victim… and then they believed her less by removing one of the charges.
This tells me the victim’s story was inconsistent over time.
All the people I know who are victims do not forget the details. A couple of them suppressed memories and remembered at a later date. But once verbalized, the trauma is not forgotten and is recalled with detail always.
The mother of the survivor says her daughter doesn’t really remember any of what happened when she was 4 to 6. I can’t get over that simple statement. Certainly she remembers them, since when she was 7 she was subjected to multiple interviews for investigatory and prosecutorial proceedings. And then she obviously had years of therapy so as to lessen the impact of the trauma as she matures and becomes an adult.
Correct?
Consider also that sex offenses in Washington, by law, do not have to be corroborated.
That really means the prosecutor didn’t believe her. It’s not that s/he thought s/he didn’t have a case. Any case would rely on only that testimony, but the prosecutor chose to disbelieve her testimony. And before you try to explain that sometimes prosecutors are wrong or lazy, don’t. Even a quick study of the prosecutor’s office in that county at that time will tell you that they were overly aggressive regarding sex offenses against children.
Can you please share what occupations are acceptable to you and the mob? Can he become a doctor, a CEO, an entrepreneur, an artist or are these occupations too much of a privilege for a former juvenile offender?
He can do any of those things(unless he does it well, then we’ll have to revise the invisible rulebook)
Has anyone considered the possibility that Brenda Tracy is just a slut that participated in a gangbang then had buyers remorse the next day? I mean, no one plead guilty to the crime and no one was ever charged. So, by her black and white logic she wasn’t raped and it never happened.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-connecticut-false-rape-20180603-story.html
Nope.
Yes. Not the first to have buyers remorse and to claim victimhood.
She was 24, a single mother to two boys, ages 4 and 5, and she said, “I had victim written all over me.”
So, off she went to party with college age guys.
“victim written all over me”? Give me a break!
I’m not a Brenda Tracy fan at all and I think she has used her situation to exploit and gain media attention, but I think your comment is off target….are you suggesting that because she went with three guys that she deserved what she got….I hope not because that’s unthinkable IMO. Anyway, I have disdain for Canzano (Dophin Boy) and the Tracy alliance because they are using their forum to misrepresent facts and generate sympathy based on misrepresentations. JC is that last person that should be criticizing anyone on morality….especially exploitation of women given his own radio program’s relationship with the Dolphin II strip club.
No one “deserves what she got”. No one.
The response was to the question of whether or not ANYONE had considered the possibility that Brenda had buyers remorse the next day. It is certainly a POSSIBILITY, happens all the time. Ask any LEO with street level experience.
I’m also questioning her black/white logic. Since Luke plead guilty, he’s guilty according to her. No one plead guilty or was even charged with rape in her case. In her black/white logic does that mean that it even happened since no one was even arrested? Or those that she accused of rape are even rapists? I am calling out the hypocrisy in her twisted emotional logic.
I’m not saying this is even the case. Much like in the case of Luke, none of us were there and really don’t know what did or didn’t happen. I also provided a link to a pair of football players who were falsely accused of rape. The woman later recanted her story. Certainly Ms Tracy was ready to burn them at the stake for something that was consensual and crickets now because it doesn’t support her narrative or cause. Hypocrisy at it’s finest. I am also saying that could certainly be the case with her. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But innocent people are accused of horrible crimes in this country they did not commit. Every damn day. And the social media judge, jury and executioners out there are ruining people’s livelihoods. I have a problem with that.
You would have to ignore all the evidence, as you did all their arrests.
Good luck with that.
You would have to ignore all the evidence, as you did all their arrests.
Good luck with that.
What you’re completely missing is the chance to respond in the same technicalities her black and white world provides.
If she wants to stick to that logic, walk her through how he was never convicted of anything. Tell her how he did not plea guilty to felony, according to his agreement. Explain to her the difference between cases which require a preponderence of guilt, a preponderence of evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt. Tell her how he now has no record and zero restrictions on any occupations, activities or locations.
If she wants to argue with the law, tell her to go harass the legislators. But also tell her the antics she’s employing will meet some resistance if only to bring her into the realm of some semblance of reason.
The black/white viewpoint is shallow at best. Anyone who employs it exposes themselves as know-nothings. Combine it with a bombastic voice, and that’s the world we live in now. I don’t go looking for these outbursts from these people anymore. I’ve heard their “reason,” and if it changes it will be a noticeable shift which will compel me to think of that person as thoughtful once again.
Some people will never exit that shallow existence because their entitlement has reinforced that existence.
But I don’t need to go off on Golfy Bonespurov right now. He’s going to get the shit beat out of him by Frenchmen and little rocket people in the next few weeks precisely because he’s that shallow.
Hell! He’s even managed to piss off Canadians.
Canadians!
I don’t think my comment is off target at all. See my comment below responding to TheFuzz…..
I am not saying she deserved anything. If she is truly a victim then I have empathy for her. No one deserves to be raped. I never said that at all. What I was saying is that is it possible she was a willing participant in the event and had regret the next day? It’s not like that scenario has never played out. See the link I provided in my post about the two football players that were wrongfully accused of rape. That shit happens all the time as well. No one truly knows what happened other than the parties involved that were present. As is the same case with Luke. Things with her are black and white. Her logic is based on emotion and she’s grandstanding for her cause. Luke is just a scapegoat at this point. I doubt her sincerity about “crying in a closet” when she heard about this situation. The only thing she comes off as is a vindictive man hating twat on a soapbox that fails to realize there are three sides to every story. As someone who plead guilty to something years ago I was innocent of to protect my family (not anything sexually related), I can understand why Luke would have done what he did if this is in fact the case.
You have some very valid points and I am sorry for what happened to your son and what your family had to go thru. But, I was not there and don’t know the specifics nor would I ever ask. Why? Because it’s none of my business and it’s a family matter with yours. Sadly Danny Moron couldn’t leave well enough alone and failed to take this into consideration. Hope he’s enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame. If believing that you reap what you sow is karma then hopefully someday he gets his.
His chances of finding any occupation have been ruined by those wanting to ensure he never plays baseball again. When he’s homeless and on welfare they can celebrate their victory and contribution to the betterment of society.
I wrote about my experiences as a father in this position last year when this story first broke. My son was sexually abused by a family member when he was 5.
This is what I know…parents do not want to their child to testify in court. I find it interesting that the mother of the child in this case was willing to go to trial, and it was Luke’s side that stopped that from happening to protect the girl. In our case we were the victims and we were the ones fighting for a plea just so my 5 year old son wouldn’t have to sit in a court room and have that be a memory of his childhood, that had already been traumatized.
This is what I also know…the victims don’t forget. My son remembers what happened and it has been over six years since that day. My son gets a subscription to Sports Illustrated, he was excited to see Luke on the front page, until he read the headline. Thanks to the publicity that this has stirred up we get to talk about my son’s case with him again.
A lot of things in this story do not add up and having been through the justice system, I can easily see how and why Luke and his parents did what they did.
Yep, I was a victim at 5 years old and I still remember it vividly today even though it happened light years ago….victims don’t forget….that alone speaks volumes.
Keep in mind that there’s a decent possibility the girl does remember everything, but she does not trust her mother enough to speak to her about important issues… because she blabs them all over the place… with bile attached.
This New Yorker article linked by Kevin Edge on Twitter is deserving of a read…
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/when-kids-are-accused-of-sex-crimes/amp?__twitter_impression=true
These stories confirm the social science research done by Caldwell in The Caldwell Study cited but ignored by Moran that requiring youthful offenders to register as SOs does more harm than good.
Yeah… I remember clicking on that link and getting engrossed in it before returning to the article and realizing how poorly it was written.
Then Dolphin Boy and the Clackamas Prosecutor went off on their weirdly masturbatory rant about how they gonna git pedo bastard felons like Luke, and he’s lucky that he’s only the subject of their weird rant. So I started looking into Washington juvenile justice, and the only conclusion was that the Clackamas Prosecutor should be disbarred, and Dolphin Boy is evil.
Disbarment is too far.
Censure is the most applicable action.
If it hasn’t been done already someone should send this to the twitter accounts of Moran, Canzano, Tracy and the others. Not that they will read it, but others may.
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/sam-mellinger/article212765599.html
Another good read
Thanks for the link. Sortof sums up how I view it for the most part. One of the few media members willing to express the unpopular opinion on the subject
Finally! A true journalist who intuitively understands the hypocrisy of ESPN Rosenthal SL Price Kurt Streeter Danny Moran Mark Katches Brenda Tracy and all the others
Can you link this to Canzano’s twitter?
While scrolling the stations today, I stopped on CLownzano for less than 20 seconds and his latest prescription for the undrafted Heimlich is to take this new opportunity to start a non-profit for abused youths. CLownzano is such a big windbag of arrogant hypocrisy. Doesn’t he run a non-profit for youths? Is this his personal prescription for his own sins as well? I wonder sometimes if those who are yelling the loudest are guilty of the same. Sometimes your own failings look much worse on someone else and are much easier to point out in them than to admit in yourself.
I think Clownzano is a fraud, narcissist, self-serving and manipulative jerk continuing to try to crush Heimlich without justification at this point.
It’s not at all uncommon – be weary of those who speak too loudly. Aka “the lady doth protest too much” – Billy Shakespeare
I wonder what Moran’s stance on all of it is now that he sees what has become of his “background procedure”. He could shed some light on the original article and it’s suspicious timing, sourcing.
His guilty conscience should be a nice companion for years to come. He surely knows he was the dupe in this whole thing from the start.
Will Pat Casey finally ban any and all contact with the Oregonian?
If, as has been reported, many or all MLB teams already had the report on Heimlich – did the whoregonian know this? If not, their “research” didn’t exist, and if they did and didn’t report it early on, clearly they were waiting until just before playoffs.
“as has been reported”………link?
Recently, some whoregonian named Ben Sherman was either on twitter or in olive comment section. I’d read that some time ago,however. When I went to the article – I think the most recent didn’t get drafted piece of BS (good initials for him) his comments were mostly deleted.
The Kansas City Star has a new piece up about Luke & that Hill guy from Oklahoma State that assaulted his pregnant girlfriend. He’s advocating for someone to give Luke a chance on their team. It’s a good read. I’d link it if I knew how…
Hey dipshit, someone else posted the article already! FML. It’s been one of those days
You shoulda stayed with carrots!
A good read, the link was posted above by F_Nemec at 5:01
EDIT/ADD: Just noticed that Lundeberg retweeted a link to the KC Star piece some 5 hours ago.
Lundeberg continues to impress, as far as I know he is the junior guy at the GT; wonder how long he sticks around.
Here’s a great thread from the daughter of The Voice. She has a strong and important voice herself calling out Moran, Tracy and Canzano. Thank you Lydia!
https://mobile.twitter.com/LydiaParker123/status/1004502124732997633
Agreed. The masses carrying the torches and pitchforks continue to not look at the facts that have been provided.
Thank you to Lydia Parker for being a voice of reason for LH.
Look, none of us were there and don’t know the truth of exactly what did or did not happen. But the fact that Luke has maintained his innocence from day 1, passed a polygraph test and the timing of the matter during a custody battle between the niece’s parents is enough to cast reasonable doubt imo.
Lydia is a stand up gal; I’m glad I’ve had a chance to tell her that to her face.
Her previous mention of her own victimization, offered as a counter to either the NYT or SI mention of a victim who had to go cry in a closet when hearing of the LH case, took courage. She said something like, “I cheer my heart out for Luke, both on the mound and in life off the diamond.”
Such a shame that the pitchforks and torches have been replaced by social media and virtual mobs.
“Such a shame that the pitchforks and torches have been replaced by social media and virtual mobs.”
Sad reality of our times.
My recent revelation is to throw the hypocrisy and mob mentality back at the likes of crapzano. Get the word out about the Dolphin on every Luke related clickbait tweet. Include that info to every industry person that links to one of his tweets.
If he wants notoriety, he can have it by answering to the folks that think he’s got the moral high ground.
Are we lamenting the olden times, when people marched in the streets, already?
Why… when I was young, we used to walk to show outrage… uphill… both ways… even in the snow.
OOB that’s my fault for the -1. I tried to give you a thumbs up and my fat thumb hit the wrong one. I missed that about Lydia before. I don’t mean to minimize any victims out there and I admire her and RxBeav above for sharing their stories.
Whether Luke was an offender or not, this has been an educating experience once I actually started reading about juvenile offenders and why Washington has laws in place to protect them from being registered for the rest of their lives. I wish Canzano and mob would have done the same before destroying someone’s life and then tweeting “the survivors won”.
What is “The Voice”?
I believe the reference is to Mike Parker, Lydia’s dad who is “the voice” of the Beavs.
Mike Parker. The audio broadcasts usually start with “and now the voice of the Beavers, Mike Parker, on the call”.
But why would it be shortened to something as ambiguous as The Voice?
The only times I really hear his voice are occasionally on the road and when he raises it at hoops games. I find his analysis to be a newspaper in the digital age.
Oh… and commercials. I hear a lot of commercials with him as a spokesman.
I remember some years back giggling at one of his closing lines on somewhere like Block 15. He was touting their food with some line like, “You can try their blah, their blah, and my favorite,” and I couldn’t help but think of his tolerance for taste.
Well said Lydia. Keep up the fight!
The Voice?
That’s doesn’t sound pretentious, bordering on parochial.
After not being drafted again and all of the shit slinging by the internet executioners out there? I hope Luke takes this as motivation for whatever remains of his career at Oregon State. Throw a no hitter with 20K’s this weekend. Use it as an “us against the world” mentality. They already hate you. Make them hate you even more.
Go Beavs and Go Luke!
I read the print version of Canzano’s opinion piece this morning, what an asshole. It looks like he got Casey to talk about the Texas Ranger’s holier than thou statement and then turned Casey’s excellent points about the Ranger’s hypocrisy against him, making it sound like all Casey cares about is winning games. I was going to get a friend to post on the website, but after just 24 hours Canzano has shut off his article to comments.
All this coming from the guy who played dumb when it was pointed out that his radio show was sponsored by a strip club with a less than stellar past. You can’t make this shit up.
This from Lydia below is pretty telling of the singleness of mind of the Canzano and Tracy platform.
“I asked to speak to Brenda and she denied me that chance. If the mark of an educated mind is being able to entertain different opinions without accepting them, then not being able to entertain those opinions must be the mark of something else…”
Funny enough he replied to me that his show isn’t sponsored by a strip club, or he’d revolt. What a fucking hypocrite.
https://twitter.com/johncanzanobft/status/1005094576384667653
Tell him sure, not anymore… not since he was shocked… shocked to find there were child traffickers putting money in his pocket… for years… while he ostensibly championed people like Brenda Tracy.
Some people are just evil and play the game to line their pockets.
Hey Angry, where is the source for the info where the mother asked the newspaper to pay her? I’ve seen several people mention, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.
I have no idea. I never saw that myself.
It’s a rumor. It’s also not her worst action, if true. So it’s just redundant.
The guy is such a hypocrite. Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist and to this day claims that the “survivor” is a liar. Yet, Canzano had him on his show and was chatting him up like they were best friends. Apparently some sex offenders are okay to him and some are not…and some people should admit to something they claim they didn’t do and others shouldn’t.
Didn’t he also hobnob and advocate for Ben Rapistburger?
PS. You should get on Twitter and call him out on this.
What?
Dolphin Boy is also a hypocrite?
How dare you point that out. You must hate children… and the troops.
This could all be discussed with Canzano face to face during the football season at each home game, since he is a new season ticket holder and will be attending each home football game with all of Beaver nation. I’m sure he is just a regular Joe out in the bleachers and not a grandstanding liar who bought tickets for a write-off and used it as a platform to suck up to OSU fans, never intending to actually attend a game in the stadium. Canzano is a loud mouth behind a microphone but I doubt he would ever appear at an actual OSU event as the common man he wanted to portray himself to be in that article.
OSU must draw the line on yellow journalism, especially when OSU/student athletes are regular targets of such “journalism”. Casey should never give Canzano another interview.
Who cares?
Dude’s a floozy renting free space in your head.
[…] And there’s more. See Kristine Erickson’s piece. […]