In a ruling that should not have been a surprise convicted sex offender, and all-round creep Jeffrey Epstein’s request for bail was denied because the judge thought he not only posed a credible flight risk but also posed a threat to the community. This is a man who should not be allowed anywhere near young girls and women.
“The government has established danger to others and to the community by clear and convincing evidence,” the Manhattan federal court Judge Richard Berman said on Thursday. “I doubt that any bail package can overcome a danger to the community.”
…But prosecutors portrayed Epstein as posing a risk. Authorities found possibly thousands of photographs in Epstein’s home showing young women, and “at least one individual in those photos … has self-identified as a victim of the defendant,” prosecutor Alex Rossmiller told Berman during Monday’s bail arguments.
“Just this morning, the government became aware that in a locked safe in the defendant’s mansion there were piles of cash, dozens of diamonds, and a passport appearing to be issued from a foreign country with a photo of the defendant and a name on that passport that is not the defendant’s name,” Rossmiller also said.
If an extremely wealthy person facing a possible lifetime in prison with multiple lavish homes in several countries and private jets and even his own damn island is not a flight risk, then the term would have ceased to have any meaning.
So now he will have plenty of time to reflect on the utter misery he has caused to so many women.
Maximum security with no perks, I hope.
Hey, a passport here, a passport there. No big deal. I remember a friend telling me her father had 5 passports from different countries. Well, pre-WII Europe. Even he could not remember where the fifth one came from.
Anyone else think he got away from it so long because so many rich powerful men think they have a right to young pretty girls because they are rich?
Anyone else think he got away from it so long because so many rich powerful men think they have a right to young pretty girls because they are rich?
Well, not totally. I think he got away with it because he was rich. If one is rich enough, you can get away with almost anything. “Young pretty girls” are just one thing.
Pity some of the girls did not have a nice new knife. If anyone wants, I can recommend some nice ones but they are costly. Still, Cdn$100 is not that bad. And I think we can get some boning knives for less. (You really do not want to know).
Dershowitz apparently did a bit of public pre-emptive freakout -- you know, any accusations against him were trumped up by BDS antisemites.
What about the risk he poses to The Donald? Will no one think of The Donald??
@Holms:
Your hope is unfounded. Maximum security is used pre-conviction only in the tiniest minority of cases, if ever, usually in cases of terrorism.
It’s also simply a bad plan. USA prisons are terrible, and the removal of all perks on a systematic, regular basis leaves no type of punishment other than physical violence. If you don’t care about Epstein at a minimal level for his status as a human being, which he remains, no matter his crimes, you should think about what it means to pay people to perform violence. What does it do to those people? How do those people treat their partners after years of work which normalize violence as a response to undesirable behavior?
A thoughtful person might also consider that by allowing what you might call “perks” by default (library time, television time, educational programs, access to musical instruments) then you have things to which people can grow attached as small comforts while incarcerated and the threat of removal of those benefits can serve as a more effective deterrent to bad behavior than physically violent guard.
USA maximum security prisons simply aren’t: by structuring detention so that violence is not the guards’ only response to undesirable behavior, you create a prison where guards are less violent. This, in turn, sets a tone of less violence. It makes smaller acts of violence more visible and more condemnable as violations of the prison community’s norm.
USA maximum security not only brutalizes those incarcerated, it trains those incarcerated to be even more brutal when released than they were when they were initially imprisoned. “Take away their perks!” makes a great revenge fantasy. It makes a self-destructive and decidedly unwise incarceration policy.
Crip Dyke, point being, that system exists. You can decry it, but given that it exists, it would not the the worst thing if it were people such as whatshisname were the subjects of it.
So, if you don’t want even more brutality, either do not incarcerate them or do not release them if they were incarcerated.
(Do you see the tension between the two alternatives? Me, I’d change the system rather than the subset of people subject to it)
@John Morales:
Again, you’re being obtuse to the point of making me wonder if it’s deliberate.
There are many prisons in the USA that are not maximum security prisons. There are many prisons in the USA that provide various levels of “perks”. Choosing not to advocate that Epstein get sent to a maximum security prison is not the same as advocating that he is not incarcerated.
Moreover, I actively work to change the system in the country where I live and write about the abuses that happen in the USA. I am working to change the system. Part of working to change the system is educating others about the failings of the current system, and overreliance on so-called “maximum security” institutions and authoritarian violence are two important failings of that system.
My comment, therefore, is an extension of my efforts to change the system.
Why would you ever think anything else? I mean, seriously, I didn’t say anything about Epstein specifically. My entire comment was on the system and had nothing to do with exempting a specific subset of persons from a specific set of conditions.
You really need to read this stuff more carefully.
CD:
I did not say you advocated for him to not be incarcerated, so whence this objection?
There are many prisons in the USA that are not maximum security prisons. There are many prisons in the USA that provide various levels of “perks”. Choosing not to advocate that Epstein get sent to a maximum security prison is not the same as advocating that he is not incarcerated.
I approve. Go for it.
Why do you imagine I think you don’t want to change the system?
Heh. Ditto.
[tags gone wrong; fathomable, but]
[I corrected it-Mano]
CD: “If you don’t care about Epstein at a minimal level for his status as a human being, which he remains, no matter his crimes…”
Yeah… see… the second he chose to rape a cub? That’s the second I stopped giving a single solitary fuck about Epstein’s status as a human being. He’s a predator who goes after some of the most vulnerable he can find, and he can fucking well rot in solitary if it keeps him from assaulting another cub. Plus it will keep his fellow inmates from ganking him — we *do* want him available for trial, yes?
@WMDKitty:
I get it. I really do. But we all end up worse off if we start thinking there’s ever a time we get to kick people out of the human club. You and I would get kicked out far quicker than a wealthy man like Epstein, no matter his crimes and no matter our value. I just think it’s a bad plan. I feel the same feeling, but I choose not to act on it because history has shown me that it’s not at all wise and doesn’t lead to the ends I think we both want.
#7 Crip
-- I take your point regarding this being preconviction detention.
-- I made no mention of violence, I have no idea why you think I endorse it. I don’t know how much you retain about me given that I am just a pseudonym on a forum to you, but you might recall that I have consistently been against those endorsing the punching of nazis. Assault against even the worst among us is something I oppose.
-- Speaking of which, PZ recently posted approvingly regarding arson and a shootout in opposition to ICE. Did you get your holier-than-thou on in there? Let’s see, the post was If you don’t like punching Nazis, you’re going to hate this, and… I see zero Crip Dyke posts in there. There was also a post giving full-throated approval to a woman shoving someone off stage, causing him to fall head first off a 5 or 6 foot tall stage. Zero smug posts, or posts of any tone, from Crip Dyke. Seems like a fertile market in need of your lecturing, Crip.
Crip Dyke: Just popping in to offer my whole-hearted agreement and unqualified support of everything you have said in this comment thread. I appreciate your effort to change the system and I think we need more comments like yours.
@Holms:
I have no reason to believe you consciously endorse it, which is why I was dismantling your concept of “maximum security” and discussing how violence is inherent in US maximum security institutions. I assumed that rather than consciously endorsing violence you were simply ignorant of how violence is baked in to the US practices of maximum security incarceration.
Thus I actually explained:
If your comment was explicitly violent, I wouldn’t have needed to explain how violence functions in US maximum security incarcerate institutions. Rather than believing you were evilly desiring violence, I considered you to be ignorantly supporting a system that produces violence.
Ignorant support of something that does more harm than good when a bit of reasonable and critical thought would make obvious that things problems is much more consistent with how I see the trend of comments attached to the pseudonym “Holms” than overt advocacy of violence. Thus I thought and still think it was the proper response to this particular comment #1 in this particular thread by the person using this particular pseudonym.
You’ll also see no comments from me on Stormfront or on Gender Critical websites. That doesn’t mean I endorse either GC’s curiously incurious anti-feminism, nor Stormfront’s overtly violent racism.
I don’t like those threads… therefore I don’t hang out in them. When the topic of punching Nazis first came up, I’m sure I did register an opinion, though I’d have to go ogle to find out exactly what I said. But I went there because I hadn’t yet run across the “punching nazis” trope. Instead of searching the most recent threads for my name, you could instead search for something like:
“Crip Dyke” “Punching Nazis” pharyngula
I’m not sure exactly what you would find, but it wouldn’t be approval. Most likely it would be something like what I said to you here: this is a dangerous idea and I don’t think we should go with it.
said the kettle.
Thanks, invivoMark.
Ah, the Crip way is to ignore posts directly endorsing violence against people, but to look for comments which -- in your opinion -- indirectly endorse violence, while claiming that your comments are “an extension of your efforts to change the system.” It is a tightrope of smugness you walk.
I didn’t look for comments to criticize. I made a small click on a topic of professional interest to me, the criminal justice system, and there comments were!
Do you regularly visit The Daily Stormer and Stormfront to look for comments which endorse a racist campaign of violence which you, allegedly, condemn? Should I take it as a failing if you don’t?
I have never claimed that I’m trying to change “the system” in relation to how anti-fascist activism is done. I have here only claimed that I am trying to change one system, and neither punching Nazis nor milk shaking them is any part of the criminal incarceration system in either the US or in Canada.
Ah, the Holms way is to ignore what people actually say in favor of failing to quote specific aspects of a comment or any attempt to discuss what was said accurately and in context. The Holms way is to assert that any description is a recommendation, should that serve your purposes, and that any comment on topic X is most decidedly actually a statement on topic Y, should that serve your purposes.
It is a broad avenue of dishonesty you walk.
Strawman -- I did not fault you for failing to challenge the bad ideas presented at such places, I faulted you for failing to challenge the bad idea at a place that I know you to frequent: Pharyngula. You are anti-violence even against odious people -- which is a point of agreement between us, for whatever that is worth -- I am simply wondering why you left a blatant example of promoting violence for politics unchallenged.
Imitation is a form of flattery, thanks.
An interesting statement, given that you ignored my objection to violence in order to pretend that endorsing no-frills imprisonment for Epstein means I endorse violence.
Not at all. I took your anti-violence and your endorsement of maximum security detention to indicate that you are not aware of the problems with maximum security detention as practiced in the USA. You came across as ignorant, not violently immoral, which is why I provided education instead of calling you a violence-prone, immoral jerkwad.
And you’ve done nothing to challenge that picture of you as ignorant, but not prone to violence. You’ve neither lapsed into violence (or threats of it) nor shown that you’ve educated yourself. As far as I can tell, you remain now the person you were at the beginning of this thread.
Of course, I could further note that remaining who you were at the beginning of this thread includes remaining the person who refuses to quote specific passages from others’ comments so that one can judge the truth or falsity of your assertions. You’ve said, I repeat,
Where, precisely, can you quote me in this thread pretending that you endorse violence? Try supporting your argument with evidence just one time. It might be thrillingly novel for you.
And I explained that while I had (at least) once challenged such bad ideas, I do not frequent such threads because I find them upsetting. So when you fault me for failing to challenge the bad ideas presented in threads I don’t read, you’re faulting me for doing exactly the same thing as you failing to challenge pro-violence threads on Stormfront. I presumed you don’t read Stormfront. I know I don’t read those Pharyngula threads. I think the comparison quite fair.
But I will, in fact, go further. I will assert that anyone can remain silent at any particular time without violating an anti-violence duty save in the case where the person criticized for silence helped bring about the violence (voting in a particular president might put a moral obligation to speak up against that president’s strategy of using drones to murder people in other countries, a moral obligation I felt when Obama did exactly that and to which I hope I responded adequately -- I certainly did not remain silent, though quantizing exactly how much anti-war advocacy discharges my duty is difficult).
While I believe that ethics require that we operate anti-violently, not merely non-violently, in this violent world, I don’t believe that any particular statement or action made by someone not-Holms requires a Holms-response. You could be in a hurry. You could intend to write a comment but get distracted. You can feel exhausted at confronting the same problems again and again. You can refrain from speaking out against a particular act of violence or violence-advocacy for lots and lots of reasons that carry no implication of ethical or moral violation.
Therefore, if I were to read those threads and not find an anti-violence argument from you, or Mano, or any other specific person upon whom I was checking up, I would make no moral value judgement on the people who failed to speak up in that one thread. Generously, I extend this principle even unto myself. I have no past history of advocating punching Nazis or electing a leader who now so advocates, therefore I don’t have a particular duty to confront such advocacy. I do sometimes confront it in my personal life. I have once or maybe a couple times confronted it here on FtB. But I had no hand in creating this problem and so if I prefer to focus my attention on other problems, the fact that I do not address this one, even though it might be considered “in my backyard” is, I think, no moral deficit.
People who advocate violence are morally responsible for such advocacy. People who perform violence are morally responsible for that violence. People who see such things and do nothing, ever, no matter how many times this is repeated might be reasonably asked why, though even then there could be morally satisfactory answers provided the person never played a role in bringing violent circumstances about or empowering violence or its advocacy. People who have played some role on bringing power to violent persons or creating violent situations, I agree that they must answer if they remain silent when the violence occurs.
But people who engage in organized opposition to violence but fail to stop one rape or comment on one thread or even multiple threads on one blog are not people towards whom I believe moral opprobrium is deserved.
Let’s take a different example. As wrong-headed as you are, and as unable as you might be to discern the difference between an anthropological model that describes gender as it exists and an advocacy model that describes what gender should be, I still believe that you honestly think that you are morally required to oppose trans rights lest inadvertent and disproportionate damage be done to cis women personally and feminism philosophically.
Yet you never comment at my blog when I write on these issues. I know that you read FtB. I know you see the ticker on the side announcing recent blog posts. Even so, you have utterly failed to contest my transfeminist advocacy.
Is this a moral failing on your part, in your opinion? If not, then you are inconsistent to fault me for failing to comment on some number of Pharyngula threads. If you do believe this is a moral failing, then I’ll note your failure to meet your own moral standards as interesting, and I’ll note that we disagree … but there’s little point to the conversation beyond that.
My what? Perhaps this is due to the terse wording I used, but I made no comment of approval regarding USA’s detention methods. Rather, I stated a desire that Epstein get the strictest of whatever the system has. What the street crook gets, so too does this billionaire rapist.
Disingenuous at best; the difference that I noted once already is that you actually frequent Pharyngula. You have now informed me that you skipped those posts, which strikes me as odd given the topic similarity of that sort of post to your stated topic of interest -- violence as a tool against politically vile people seems quite similar to violence as a tool against convicted criminals -- but whatever. It seems that the small daylight between those topics makes the difference to your reading tastes, where I consider them too similar to one another to ignore.
Speaking of skipping things out of disinterest: your ensuing novel.
@Holms
If say there is a minority (lets say immigrants) -- And a person opposes violence towards this minority, but also indulges in the same rhetoric as the perpetrators of violence towards this minority -- Lets say calling immigrants criminals , rapists , murderer etc -- Would you say the person opposes the violence or is perhaps a minor contributing factor to the violence?. I use immigrants as an example -- the reason the question is posed to you is because of the views you seem to have about trans women.
By the way I dont think Crip Dyke implied you endorsed violence -- there would be no point making the response Crip Dyke did if that was the case -- it was more along the lines did you know (i didnt) , or consider these implications when you wanted Epstein to go to maximum security prison.
The rest of your response towards Crip Dyke is a Dear Muslima variant.
I dont think Crip Dyke implied you endorsed violence
Good, because Crip Dyke even says that, quite clearly.
Rather than believing you were evilly desiring violence, I considered you to be ignorantly supporting a system that produces violence.
Made a good case for that too.
#24 deepak
This is a deeply flawed analogy. If I restate it with the analogous parties swapped in and highlighted, we arrive at:
If say there is a minority (lets say convicted traffickers and rapists of minors) — And a person opposes violence towards this minority, but also indulges in the same rhetoric as the perpetrators of violence towards this minority — Lets say calling convicted traffickers and rapists of minors criminals , rapists , murderer etc — Would you say the person opposes the violence or is perhaps a minor contributing factor to the violence?
I hope the issue is apparent immediately, but for clarity:
-- What is the problem with calling convicted traffickers and rapists of minors “criminals, rapists, murderer etc.”? Two of those are factually accurate, and I didn’t use the third.
-- How is calling Epstein a “criminal, rapist [and trafficker] “[indulging] in the same rhetoric as the perpetrators of violence against [convicted traffickers and rapists of minors]”?
Holms,
I am butting in, but pretty sure Deepak is using a sociological sense of ‘minority’, not a quantitative one. And your objection is purely based on that conflation between senses, and thus irredeemably flawed.
[sorry, deepak, not Deepak. Case-sensitive, am I]
@Holms
I wasn’t making an analogy.
a. You have stated a commitment to non violence -- good we agree
b. I am assuming that your commitment is beyond a superficial “I do not commit violent acts and I dont support other people doing so” to a more extensive what attitudes and views may contribute to such violence. For e.g demonizing Muslims and Jews can lead to violence directed toward that community even if the person doing the demonizing states that they do no want violence committed . While you can counter with whatever example and analogies , all Im stating here is that there are examples where rhetoric can lead to violence , even if that rhetoric doesnt contain encouragement to violence -- should be fairly uncontroversial?.
c. Therefore , you should reconsider some of the things you have said and supported , specifically with respect to the trans community. Note this doesnt mean you are responsible for anything but if society as a whole has some views that causes violence towards trans people then members of that society who abhor violence need to reconsider some of their views, no?
Regarding b:
I am against violence against X, and I am against demonising X, where ‘demonising’ means making something out to be worse than it is. If there is a true statement to be made about X, then that is not demonising X even if the true thing happens to be damning of X. In other words, when talking about …anything, really… truth is the ultimate defense.
Regarding a:
Wow, that was out of left field. To my knowledge, I have not demonised (i.e. said something both negative and untrue) about trans people. I endeavour to say only true things in discussion of that, or any, topic.
___
It might also be of benefit if I clarified my comment #1 by expanding upon it:
I want Epstein to have the strictest* of the available range of imprisonment strictness, exactly as if he were a penniless accused (and previously convicted) rapist. I am not against prison reform uplifting that strictest form of imprisonment to something less strict.
*excluding solitary confinement, though this is complicated by the fact that he is a prominent and recognisable figure, and thus might need solitary confinement to protective him. The general population likely poses a grave risk to him.
Oops, “Regarding a:” should be “Regarcing c:”
Errr, and “protective him” should read “protect him”
I should really preview more often.
@Holms
I did not mean to imply that your rhetoric has reached the level of demonisation . However you have used /supported rhetoric that is sort of like
Trans women are muscular men posing as women (Was it the cyclist post on butterflies?)
Trans women might assault women because some are really men who are pretending to be women
Trans women are hurting “real” women in sport
Trans women are intruding on safe spaces
Shrug. Im sure you believe this. But the truth is usually far more complicated. Unless you believe that people arguing with you endeavour to lie, hmm ?