Harlem State Senator Bill Perkins is out with an open letter slamming Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance for leaving the alleged rape victim in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case “totally abandoned.”
In the letter, Perkins urges Vance to continue to pursue the charges against DSK despite recent reports undermining her credibility.
“There appears to be enough compelling physical evidence in support of the victim’s allegations for the District Attorney’s office to move forward with the pursuit of this case,” he writes. “Nothing that has been said speaks to the original charges of forced, unconsentual [sic] sex.”
Politically speaking, it shows what a dangerous place Vance is in even as the 2013 elections remain two-and-a-half years away. If he were to lose the support of Manhattan’s African-American political class, he would struggle to win re-election — and today’s news of acquittals in the Deutsche Bank fire trial probably won’t help.
Adds Perkins:
“To preserve the principle of due process, the decision to bring charges should be decided on its merits, not the character of the victim or the victimizer. If anything less than due process is delivered in this case then justice will have been unduly denied. This will only confirm the cynicism and fears many women have of coming forward when they have been violated. In the words of one of the religious leaders in the African community ‘a daughter of Mama Africa has beenviolated and her dignity snatched… and she is disgraced/dishonored publicly by the media. Nowonder rape victims don’t report rape.'”
