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Alleged Rapist Allowed to Cross-Examine Victim
By
John Del Signore
Published Oct 24, 2008
Modified Oct 24, 2008
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By
John Del Signore
Published Oct 24, 2008
Modified Oct 24, 2008
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Good morning. So this happened yesterday: Rape suspect John Hamlett, a convicted sex offender, was permitted to cross-examine an unnamed woman who accuses him of breaking into her East Third Street and Avenue B apartment in 2006 and sodomizing her at knifepoint. Against the advice of his lawyer, Hamlett insisted on cross-examining the distraught woman—a doctoral student in psychology now living in San Francisco—for about an hour. His questions included "I forced you to have oral sex, right?" and "You stated I put you in a chokehold? And you felt faint?" To which she responded, "Actually, I thought I was going to die." Finally, she begged the judge to stop the questioning, saying, "Do I have to do this? I've been through this. How many times do I have to go through this?" The judge told her she did, and Hamlett continued after a recess.
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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