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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure any of this is "damning" really. It's mostly nitpicking at facts (e.g. the time of their last contact) which aren't material to a rape accusation. Really I don't understand what Arrington has to gain here. If these are actual facts relevant to a criminal defense, posting them on the internet like this is insane. So clearly they think there will be no trial, so they're slinging mud... just to rub it in? I don't see how this improves his image. It's just a mess all around.

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> I'm not sure any of this is "damning" really.

How about the part where he was in another state on the night she says he raped her?

Or the part where she left a comment on Gawker stating that he has been previously charged with rape and went to trial but got off because he knew the judge

Or the part where she deleted evidence on Facebook?

Or the part where she told Gawker that she hadn't been in contact with him since the rape but he shows a large number of messages in a pattern of obsession

Or the part where every other person who is familiar with the two of them denies even seeing a hint of abuse

Or the part where she has previously made a false accusation, of being pregnant, in order to get him to respond to her

Actually, did you read the post? This is as damming as you can get when defending yourself from a false rape accusation.

I can't imagine what else somebody in that situation could do. He is lucky he was able to track down all this information online, otherwise we could have seen an innocent man convicted.

This woman is unreliable. She also accused Arrington of hacking into Robert Scoble's Facebook account and posting as him to defend Arrington. We should have seen through this at that point, that it had to come to this is an indictment of our culture and the willingness of a few to take advantage of an unstable woman to promote their own self interest.

> This woman is unreliable. She also accused Arrington of hacking into Robert Scoble's Facebook account and posting as him to defend Arrington. We should have seen through this at that point, that it had to come to this is an indictment of our culture and the willingness of a few to take advantage of an unstable woman to promote their own self interest.

Exactly, now Calacanis, Loren & Gawker all look silly having staked their reputation with, what is clearly now obvious, this crazy, gold digger.

> I can't imagine what else somebody in that situation could do. He is lucky he was able to track down all this information online, otherwise we could have seen an innocent man convicted.

I was thinking that the entire time....at first when I heard her story, even though I didn't know her I thought it kinda strange that Calacanis and company were just piling on. Given what I know of them, that made everything feel so fishy. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt - given the gravity of the accusations.

But now....there is no doubt in my mind that he was clearly the victim of extortion by a money-grubber.

Glad he aired her dirty laundry to dry - so hopefully no one else gets duped. She seems to be a serial psycho, so hopefully there will be no more victims.

All of the posts here with the vitriol turned up to 10 seem like either paid shills or friends / associates. Recent accounts, or accounts that just magically started commenting for the first time a week ago. A few comments on other articles, but strong comments defending Mike and Techcrunch. Sketchy stuff.

If you want to help Mike out, calling the girl a psycho / gold digger etc isn't helpful. All it makes me think is "maybe the guy tormented/manipulated her and drove her a bit nuts."

In her posts, she explained pretty clearly the way she expected Mike and his friends to respond through harassing posts and shill accounts etc. It's sad to think that's what is going on here.

WTF why make things even worse by posting the lawyer's letter, including private pictures etc. Fighting fire with fire? Won't that set yourself up for a defamation counter-claim?

Did you even look at my profile? I have no interest in this case, just calling it as I see it.

I am an HN regular with enough credibility, I think, to make those types of statements. Not sure where you got your facts from...but maybe you should actually look at the profile of the person you are responding to, before attempting to disparage my credibility.

While you're correct in the sense that not all rapes end up with the victim and the perpetrator despising each other (many are between two people with an existing relationship, and he may have taken advantage of a situation they were in regardless of previously consented-to encounters), I think uid really hit the nail on the head; she's really going all in on this for someone that has so many allegations, but decided to speak to social media and Gawker before the authorities (ignoring the fact that she waited a year to do so, because in the off-chance that her claims are valid, these actions can damage/guilt someone into not speaking up until much later, if ever).

She's clearly mentally distraught over something, whether or not it actually relates to Arrington or if she's throwing him under the bus in some strange attempt to get/misdirect attention. It's unfortunate because these incidences of falsified rape claims are often leveraged by those that forget that these are the loud minority. I'm really hoping that's not the case, but even in a situation where she was not okay with his actions one night, she shouldn't have been sending him provocative photos the very next (I hope this isn't seen as victim-blaming on my part, since every situation is different and there's always the potential for Stockholm Syndrome-esque effects in these situations, I just don't think this is one of those).

The rest of her communications with him are clearly using him for who he is, and then quickly turn into spiteful posts when she realizes that she can't guilt him with sexy photos to invest in her and introduce her to others in the industry. Instead of informing him of being pregnant, she waits until the day she's "scheduled" to have an abortion to guilt him over it. Months later, when Arrington later asks if she wants to talk about it, she throws it in his face that she's "Facebook official" with someone "if that's what you mean", but is willing to meet up with him "as soon as possible" "near his offices" anyway (maybe in hopes someone would see them together).

On Scoble's status, she races to at the opportunity to insult another woman for being Arrington's new girlfriend (she isn't), drinking his "Kool-aid" and (if her claims turn out to be invalid) ironically accuses her of doing a disservice to victims of rape and abuse.

TL;DR, even if there's something remotely here for her to stand on, she needs some serious help. As such, I would absolutely call this evidence "damning" to the innocence/ignorance she's trying to portray.

Maybe he doesn't fear a criminal trial, he fears his reputation being lost.

So clearly they think there will be no trial, so they're slinging mud... just to rub it in?

Someone accused him of being a rapist. What should he do, buy a CNN spot hailing the accusations?

This is inside-the-echo-chamber logic. People outside the techcrunch bubble aren't going to read that whole thing (seriously: that's a huge page!). What they are going to see is yet another story in the mainstream media about the "controversy" about whether or not Arrington raped this woman. See the very-different-in-tone coverage on sites like talkingpointsmemo.com for a good example.

How does that help his reputation?

Because someone who does read the story is going to then make a summary and that will spread. Which is the nature of news nowadays where tl;dr is the norm and people summarize nuanced and complex topics into little zingers.

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