Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. – Lord Acton
As I have repeatedly pointed out, sex worker rights is not an isolated “fringe” issue, but rather one deeply tied into other issues including civil rights (especially those of women and sexual minorities), bodily autonomy, moral panics and witch-hunting, universal criminality, the police state, mass incarceration, lies told by “authorities” and the ability of state actors to destroy the lives of individuals with impunity. Over the past three years I have slowly expanded the scope of my subject matter, but with rare exception I think most of y’all can see how each topic I cover is tied in together. But every once in a while I run into an item which, while not technically sex-work-related, is nonetheless linked to so many of the same issues that it lies very close to the center of the web. Today we’ll look at the case of Bernard Baran, who has been brutally victimized by the state for virtually his entire adult life using exactly the same methods (employed by some of the same people) as are still regularly employed against anyone connected with sex work.
The story (as explained in this 2009 article by Radley Balko) starts in the early days of the Satanic Panic, just as it was beginning to blossom in earnest:
Baran was convicted in January 1985 of molesting six children at a pre-Kindergarten daycare facility in Pittsfield, Massachusetts…[he] was one of the first people in the country to be prosecuted in the daycare sex abuse panic of the 1980s, a bizarre, nationwide hysteria fed by fears of satanism, homophobia, and a wing of child psychology that used unproven interrogation techniques critics say caused children to recount sexual incidents that never took place…Prosecutor Daniel Ford likely engaged in serious misconduct and open bigotry in winning his conviction…yet…has never been investigated or disciplined for his role in the case…and [is now] a judge on the Massachusetts Superior Court…Ford [presented]…an edited video interview…[showing] several children alleging that Baran had sexually abused them. But edited out was footage in which some of the children denied any abuse by Baran, accused other members of the daycare faculty of abuse or of witnessing abuse, and, most importantly, depicted interrogators asking the same questions over and over—even after repeated denials—until a child gave them an affirmative answer. Some children were even given rewards for their answers…
The case against Baran was also awash in homophobia. According to court documents, the first parents to come forward with accusations against Baran in September 1984 had just days earlier registered a complaint with the center upon noticing Baran was “queer” by the way he walked and talked…[when a] child later tested positive for gonorrhea of the throat, Ford used the test…at trial, even though A) the child never accused Baran of forcing him to perform oral sex, B) the child, in fact, specifically denied having sexual contact with Baran on the witness stand, C) Baran tested negative for gonorrhea, D) the boy had told his mother two months prior that his stepfather had orally raped him, and E) on the very day Baran was convicted, charges against the stepfather were turned over to the D.A.’s office for possible prosecution. Baran’s counsel was never informed of the allegation against the stepfather…Ford implied that Baran’s “lifestyle” made it probable that he contracted gonorrhea at other times and knew how to quickly eradicate it to cover his tracks…An affidavit signed by Baran’s boyfriend at the time also paints Ford as a homophobe…[who] spent an inordinate amount of time asking Baran’s boyfriend about his own sex life, employing variations of the word faggot, and a mocking, drawn-out pronunciation of homosexual…in the ensuing months, Baran’s boyfriend was pulled over by police officers and further harassed on a daily basis, and that Ford told him, illegally, that if he spoke with Baran or Baran’s defense attorney, he would be arrested…
As if this weren’t bad enough, Baran’s defense attorney was incompetent and offered practically no resistance to Ford’s one-man jihad. Eventually, a group of civil rights attorneys (including Harvey Silverglate) took up the case and began to work toward a new trial; they recognized that the unedited videotapes would show the lengths to which the children were manipulated, and “filed a motion for the tapes in 2000. For three years, then District Attorney Gerard Downing, who assisted in Baran’s original trial, claimed to be unable to locate the tapes. When Downing died of a sudden heart attack in December 2003, David Capeless took over as D.A…[and] was able to produce them within months.” Silverglate and company moved for a new trial in June of 2004, and Baran was released on bond when a judge granted that motion exactly two years later; exactly three years after that prosecutors finally dropped all charges:
…the appeals court added in a footnote that if the state wanted to retry him, Baran could file a motion for a hearing on Ford’s possible misconduct. By dropping the charges, the D.A. avoided that hearing. “In my opinion, the possibility of an embarrassing hearing into misconduct by a former prosecutor and now sitting Superior Court judge was the main reason, if not the reason, they decided to drop the charges,” Silverglate claims. “The appeals court opinion cut a bit too close to the bone for them.” So while Bernard Baran is free after 22 years…there is no plan to look into the actions of the prosecutor, now a sitting judge, responsible for the conviction. In his position on the Massachusetts Superior Court for the last 20 years, Ford has presided over some of the state’s most serious criminal trials. He also serves on a committee that helps determine the state’s rules and guidelines of criminal procedure…
During the 22 years he was imprisoned for “crimes” that existed only in his accuser’s evil minds, “Baran…was raped and beaten more than 30 times, necessitating six different transfers to new…institutions.” With help from the National Center for Reason and Justice, an organization founded “in 2002 [by] several writers, human and civil rights advocates, and attorneys…to support Baran and others falsely accused of child abuse,” Baran sued the state and won $400,000 compensation last August. But when he asked for his records to be expunged, Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley (whom we have seen before) refused without any valid reason:
At 2 p.m. on February 26, Bernard Baran, represented by attorney John Swomley, [asked] a Massachusetts judge to expunge all records of his arrest and conviction. Baran wants to go on with his life with a completely clean slate…The State of Massachusetts, however, is inexplicably fighting to keep Baran from expunging the records of his case. NCRJ calls on the State to serve justice by immediately processing the expungment. “Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in the past has had a troubling record with these cases,” says…Swomley…“Now is her chance finally to do something right, something no reasonable person could possibly think unwise. We were surprised that the State opposed the expungement of Baran’s records…”
I’m sure Swomley is just being diplomatic, because I’m not surprised at all. Coakley is well-known for her puritanical anti-sex crusades (including a major role in the persecution of Backpage), so her dedication to pillorying Baran is wholly predictable. And as long as we keep giving unlimited power to the least-evolved members of our society, none of us should be surprised when they then use that power to act out their own twisted fantasies on living human beings.
He’s out of jail but I haven’t seen his story told anywhere in the state controlled media. This seems like a 60-minutes expose for sure but … well, you know.
Really – the tapes need to be played for the American public. They should all be put up on YouTube so that citizens can see how they’ll be violated should the state ever pursue charges against them.
Raped and beaten more than 30 times? WTF are we paying guards for in prison? I had almost 400 people (male / female) in overcrowded conditions on a cruiser and we’d spend four months at sea continuously sometimes. We never had anything close to a rape occur.
Can’t he fuckin’ SUE the hell out of the State of Massachusettes for wrongful imprisonment?
I think some of them think the rape is part of the punishment. When he was the California Attorney General Bill Lockyer joked about how he was looking forward to Enron executive Ken Lay being raped in prison.
We need to get a grip on our prisons … we’ll all be living in them some day. I don’t want to have to defend (literally) my ass!
I’ve noticed that a lot of Americans who claim to be anti rape are pretty indifferent towards prison rape, including rape charities.
It’s considered to be a part of the punishment. Americans even make jokes about it. Generally speaking, American prisons are out of sight of the public at large and most people have never been inside one (that includes me). The U.S. legal system is viewed as being “coddling” to criminals and so – the prison rape makes up for that in most people’s minds.
They just assume that everyone in jail is (a) guilty; (b) a hardened, violent criminal; and (c) on some kind of sentence that is too light for the crime actually committed.
“They just assume that everyone in jail is (a) guilty; (b) a hardened, violent criminal; and (c) on some kind of sentence that is too light for the crime actually committed. ”
I can understand that and I get why Americans might think a rapist deserves to be raped in reciprocity, but if rape is okay against all convicts, why not stick male and female prisoners together? It seems rape is okay against male prisoners, and what about the consequences when they’re released?
I suppose what troubles me isn’t so much the jokes, but why people who make a career out of being anti rape either dismiss prison rape or seem to think it’s not relevant. There are also lesbian sexual assaults in prisons, which again seem to be ignored. The only time anyone seems bothered is if a guard is involved. $400K for 30 rapes is $13.3K a rape. I have no knowledge of what the standard compensation for a rape is in America but that seems quite light to me.
Of course, if you have a gang affiliation you have some protection against prison rape, so basically, the people who are the least like what the public thinks of as “hardened criminals” are the one’s most likely to have a bad time in prison. (Also, obviously, if you are a “pretty boy” who doesn’t look like much of a threat… and people wonder why Aaron Swartz committed suicide.)
Most of the public are criminals anyway, they just haven’t been caught for smoking pot/downloading movies/seeing prostitutes/illegal gambling or things they don’t even realize are against the law. (Oh, and that especially includes law enforcement, often the worst gangsters of the bunch, though in their case their gang affiliation keeps them out of prison altogether.)
Most of your hardened career criminals, if they are indeed scared of prison, are scared at the punishments the state will dish out like time in solitary and the like, not so much of their fellow inmates, who represent a chance to network.
Hmm…. do I sound cynical?
I seem to recall a study from a few years back that suggested that most prison rapes are committed by the guards themselves, but perhaps I’m misremembering.
In America most prison rapes are carried out by black inmates on both black and white prisoners. It’s not addressed I suspect because it’s a racially explosive issue.
Would it have anything to do with the fact that Blacks are overrepresented in prisons (compared to general population)?
I would guess that may be a significant factor, but rapes of white women by black men and higher than the number of black women raped by white men too. Some of the crimes may be racially motivated, some sexually motivated but prison rapes are a much bigger problem in the US than they are in Europe. When someone has been raped 30 times in jail there is a huge problem.
Would the very broad definition of rape used in the US have anything to do with this (“Oh no, I shouldn’t have had sex with him, it’s rape!”). Also, I think black men are poorer than white men in the US, so that would hurt their chances to get sex consensually. But some of it could be due to cultural factors (related to why they’re considered more difficult clients).
Note that I have never been in prison or involved in a rape, but I’m certainly not saying it’s not a problem.
I think there are cultural reason for black on white crimes, I think they will be exacerbated in a prison were blacks are the majority. I also think that to understand trends we would need to know how many offences are committed by the same offender? How many victims were gang raped, or raped multiple times on different occasions? Do the offenders have a history of racial aggravated violence?
I also think you have a good point about definition of rape. The lack of sexual opportunities with white women might be a factor, or it might be revenge for being rejected by a white woman, but that doesn’t really explain “American” black rape culture in prisons. The length of sentences and lack of conjugal visits might be a factor too. This doesn’t seem to be happening in the US military as far as I’m aware. So whatever the causes, I think the questions need to be asked without being afraid of the answer.
Official misconduct is never punished. And neither is misconduct by their rich donors.
Cases like this are one of the reasons I like something I read in one of Robert van Gulik’s very well-researched “Judge Dee” novels about pre-modern China. He said that in China, judges had very broad discretionary powers (they could order up torture, among other things) but if someone died under questioning without confessing (which is an absolutely mandatory thing to have beffore finding anybody guilty in Chinese traditional law) or was later found to be innocent, the judge and his men got the exact same treatment they’d meted out!
It’s outrageous that he only got $400,000 “compensation” for 22 years imprisonment! The state should have gone into banruptcy for this scandal.
By the way, the youtube video about California’s infamous Coalinga institution to house child sex offenders indefiniitely has disappeared. Does anybody know where else that video can be found?
I thought I’d encountered this before — on your site actually. But last night I read a quote from one of the Dune books that power draws the corruptible to it.
Despicable doesn’t even begin to describe this situation. I think a lot of sex abuse cases from the 60s-90s should be reviewed for exactly this type of discriminatory practice of accusing gays and lesbians of being molesters even when the evidence says otherwise. Baran is but one of many whose lives have been ruined.
Hopefully, that DA who sat on the evidence until evil finally killed the rest of that stub he called a heart is in a special level of hell. Coakley can join him when it is her time.
Woohoo. This week down in Dixi the campaign against sex trafficking “Georgia’s not buying it” starts up. I think i can have some fun with that tag line. http://www.wsbtv.com/news/ap/crime/campaign-against-sex-trafficking-in-ga-kicks-off/nWwcf/
Judging by that story, they are indeed buying it…hook, line and sinker.
It seems unfortunate to me that the spirit of Cotton Mather lives on in Massachusetts three centuries after his death. I think that Baran should threaten a suit for character assassination, slander, and violation of his civil rights in Federal civil court against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in general, and the prosecutors and all other individuals involved in particular.
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“I spent 22 years getting beaten and raped in prison for a crime I did not commit and all I got was this lousy $400,000 t-shirt.”
If nothing else, Baran could go to Mexico, buy a one-room bungalow on the Pacific Ocean, and live out the rest of his life in peace with that money. However, if he decides to do this, I would recommend sneaking in rather than going through Border Patrol because of his “record”.
One of humanity’s most frustrating flaws is our discomfort at admitting “I don’t know.” Another is our tendency to refuse to say “we were wrong.” Even when it isn’t Martha Coakley herself who was wrong in this case, she just can’t take that last step in admitting that her “tribe” was wrong at any given time in the past.
I understand too well how a (perceived) gay man could be sent to prison just because hateful people believed he is gay.
At the Mission Gardens Apartments — a Section 8, HUD HOME program and California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC) property in Santa Cruz managed by behemoth corporation The John Stewart Company (JSCO) which manages it — an adult gang of LGBTQ haters stalk residents they perceive to be LGBTQ aided and abetted by JSCO.
They slur them with LGBTQ hate filled taunts. They vandalize their property with LGBTQ hate symbols. But worst, they employ the crudest LGBTQ stereotypes — like the ones used against Bernard Baran — to tar (perceived) LGBTQ residents as a danger to children in the apartment complex. They did and continue to do this to me. They have tried to persuade police officers to arrest me. They have lied to government investigators (from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, HUD’s Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Justice) to try to wrongly incarcerate me. They know I suffer from anxiety, agitation and a sleep disorder which causes me severe insomnia. They have used their LGBTQ hate campaign to target my disabilities, trying to run me out of Mission Gardens and off the Section 8 program. They have conspired to violate my civil rights.
I have not been silent about this hate mongering. I’ve complained to the highest levels of the federal government — even to the U.S. Senate. I have a five year long open U.S. Postal Inspection Service complaint about this. My sister’s USDOJ Fair Housing Investigator claimed he was investigating this and established it to be true. I sent letters to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan informing him what his agency allowed to continue unchecked. The Santa Cruz Police Department refuses to investigate this until someone assaults me.
Every level of government has failed me. I can understand how Bernard Baran was targeted and punished because he’s gay. Why hasn’t any federal agency stepped in for him? For the same reasons they have abandoned me. The federal government makes presentations to the LGBTQ community to garner their votes. However when push comes to shove, they are strangely silent. Thus bigoted local officials supporting LGBTQ hate mongers can run amuck, destroying gay lives.
I have been falsely imprisoned in my Section 8 apartment for 5 long, terrible years. I can’t roam free. These LGBTQ haters have sent children up to my apartment to frame me as a child molester. They chase after me with cameras to snap photos of me around children, so they can claim that I touch them. They have solicited all my neighbors — who now shun me — to turn them against me with this LGBTQ hate slander.
The worst part is that this all started when — with the aid of a former property manager my sister filed Fair Housing charges against with HUD’s FHEO — they began stealing my gay and lesbian mail. This all started during a government investigation! HUD’s FHEO knew about this yet allowed it to continue unabated.
Who do I turn to now? Everyday I think about what happened to Bernard Baran. It terrifies me. How much longer must I suffer with this? How will it end? Who will help me. Who will help similar victims?
John, have you spoken about this to one of the anti-defamation groups like GLAAD? You also need to talk to a lawyer (some even take cases like this pro bono) and seriously consider asking the section 8 program to relocate you. Yes, that would let the bigots “win”, since it’s exactly what they want; it would also give you back your life.
I have an open application with the Government Accountability Project — http://www.whistleblower.org/ — the situation here is complicated because I am whistleblower on corporate and government fraud, misconduct and public corruption centered around my Section 8 apartment complex. If GAP doesn’t take me on, I’ll contact GLAAD and the ACLU (who I have been communicating with).
Personally, I don’t understand why HUD has been so dumb by not relocating me to other housing: they’re a mediocre agency. Go figure!
I can’t afford to relocate on my own: I’m stuck here unless someone else helps me relocate. I’m in desperate need of intervention by a legal advocacy group. I hope GAP takes my case. I’m crossing my fingers.
Thank you for the suggestions. I do, however, want to see the bigots brought to justice. Hopefully the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and HUD’s OIG will do that. Again, I’m crossing my fingers — the government doesn’t seem very competent. I’ve been embarrassing them with the news media quite terribly.
Det Peter McGuire whose name should ring a bell with Bee’s family committed suicide this past weekend.
He was a key detective in this prosecution.
He was indicted on 29 counts of rape and committed suicide before he was arraigned.
Shocking to my soul. Is the US justice system corrupted or what.
It will only get worse with Satan siting in the congress and a two faced double talking pres. Bronco bomber.
Now the news on murders of blacks 2014 long over do,
great turbulance in the streets world wide the first of many before Marshal law for there altimate goal the NWO.
All we can hope for is a continuing fight for truth and one day all these corrupted judges and police officials who lie, face God in the great judgement.
You know, Maggie…I know you hate Ann Coulter with a hatred hotter than a thousand suns, but on the subject of Martha Coakley, you and she are on the same side. Ann wrote an outraged column about Gerald Amirault, who served 18 years in a Massachusetts prison for “crimes” that were acknowledged before his release as never having happened…and Coakley refused to release him early when she was asked to.
Honestly, I’m not entirely sure of who she is. TV personality, right? Or talk radio? Isn’t she like a perennial hawk?