I don’t know if Abigail Simon is telling the truth in claiming that her “victim” was not only the aggressor in their intrigue but also forced himself on her and in testifying that she didn’t want to have sex with him and that the purpose of her responding to hundreds of his emails and text-messages was to keep him away from her.

But it seems that almost everyone, apart from her family and friends(?), thinks she’s lying about everything, even those who think her sentence is an outrage and travesty and, consequently, are largely or partially sympathetic. With one exception, all the people whose comments I’ve read not only think but know that she’s lying albeit I’m sure few of them attended the trial, the sentencing, the pretrial hearing, etc., or perused the transcripts. Their views are derived, with some exceptions, wholly from the media coverage, whose biases in favor of the “victim” and “child” and against the accused I will discuss in some detail later.

I would have to read the trial transcript, the sentencing transcript, the pretrial hearing transcripts, etc, and interview people who knew her and/or the “victim,” before I decided if it was more likely she was lying or telling the truth. Most likely, given all the facts, I’d conclude that her story, the basis of her appeal, is a mixture of truths and falsehoods. And so, too, with her “victim.”

But in regard to the “he said/she said” testimony, the only certainty is that the “child” and “victim” is a liar who either committed perjury when he testified at a pretrial hearing that he was the aggressor who forced himself on Abigail or when he testified at trial that she was the initiator and that the sex was consensual (in respect to her actions, of course, since a “child” of 15 is too young to consent to or knowingly initiate sex with an adult). As for the hundreds of texts and emails they exchanged -without which she might not have been convicted on “three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct- I will soon argue, in some length in another post, that this evidence is actually more exculpatory than inculpatory, and explain why it makes her claims more rather than less credible, unless there are things I don’t know and will never know.

Even if I read all the court transcripts, interviewed dozens of people, etc., I could only surmise and form an idea based on facts and logic as to what really or probably happened. I don’t know what occurred, exactly or generally. And never will know. Unlike those who are 100% certain that she’s lying about everything, I’m not omniscient. I can’t read minds. But given the cases of Melissa Bittner and Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall, both in Milwaukee from 1996-2002 and who knows how many similar cases of which I’m unaware, it’s possible that Abigail is telling the truth about her “victim” being the aggressor who forced himself on her, if not as a whole then largely or essentially with some half/partial-truths and exaggerations/embellishments. With Melissa and Cassandra, unlike Abigail, I know that they were harassed, molested, and sexually assaulted by their “victims.” And Cassandra was also raped.

On April 7, 1997, Cassandra was sentenced to 4-years in prison for having sex with a criminal of 15 who initiated the “affair” by raping her and then sustained it by threats and manipulation, apparently. And at school, as a prelude to forcing himself on her when she visited him at his home on school business, obviously when no one else was present, he constantly harassed her, hounded her, implored her for sex, molested her, kissed her against her will.. I don’t know if she reported all or most or any of these “incidents” to school authorities. But if she did, little or nothing was done to punish or discipline her tormentor or create a situation in which she’d be protected from his assaults and importunities.

The MJS reporter doesn’t describe the assault at the “victim’s” home in any detail, concrete and specific. But at sentencing, addressing a clearly unsympathetic judge, her lawyer repeatedly called the assault “rape” and noted that her “victim” might have been waived into adult court” had she reported the crime to police. Idealistic and compassionate, she didn’t report the rape lest her assailant “would go to prison and become more of a delinquent” and she didn’t end the intrigue that followed because she didn’t know “how to stop it without hurting him.” In a letter she wrote me from prison, she described her “crime” as a “mistake made out of overcaring and naivete.” She also told me that two psychologists (apparently for the defense and thus capable of objectivity and independence) concluded that she was not a “sexual predator” nor a “threat to society and children” and that the intrigue was not a “sexually-motivated crime but one manipulated by the victim.”

But despite all of this and who knows what other “mitigating factors,” a loathsome and/or craven judge sentenced her to 4-years in prison. And, unlike myriads of violent recidivists, she was denied “discretionary parole,” release from prison after serving 1/4 of her nominal sentence, and was thus enslaved for almost 3-years in a country in which, during the 1990s, the average time-served for murder was less than 6-years and the average time-served for all violent crimes was approximately 4-years.

Mandatorily released from prison after 32-months, she was subjected to years of “active community supervision.” Because she acquiesced to sex with a criminal and biological man under age 18 who raped and molested her in a liaison that wasn’t “sexually-motivated” but “manipulated” by a de jure and theoretical “victim” who wasn’t prosecuted for his sexual assaults, she was judged a dire threat to every child in Milwaukee, the adjacent suburbs, the state of Wisconsin, all of the U.S., and the entire world. Thus she couldn’t go shopping, see a doctor, visit friends, travel to other cities and states and countries, and do sundry other things in public and private without the permission of her parole agent.

And everyone convicted of “second-degree sexual assault,” irrespective of the facts and circumstances, must register her life as a uniquely monstrous, execrable, and dangerous criminal, unlike stereotypical criminals who’ve committed murders and other violent and mala in se crimes but who’ve never been convicted of a sexual offense. And because she is classified as level-3 offender, the worst of the worst, theoretically as deviant and dangerous as violent rapists who terrorize and brutalize and kidnap and murder their victims and men (including underage adolescents) who prey on and rape and/or serially molest prepubescent girls and boys, her name, mugshot, and address will be on the internet, accessible to everyone, until she passes from this world in her 70’s or 80’s or 90’s or 100’s. So even her “victim,” assuming he’s not dead or buried in prison, can go online, see her address, and possibly visit her some warm summer night.

To call all of this insane is an understatement. It’s beyond insanity.

* She was convicted of the offense above, a felony with a maximum sentence of 20-years in prison, in a plea-bargain. She was initially charged with “repeated sexual assaults of the same child,” theoretically a more serious crime with a maximum sentence of 40-years in prison.