Hart, McLeod, Dube, Foote, Formenton charged with sexual assault

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Goriders

Like Trudeau?

No, seriously... wat

[FlamesAddiction]

Regarding consent videos, at least in Ontario where this trial took place (and I assume in Canada as a whole), they are useless for determining whether there was consent for each act. The law says that consent has to happen at the moment something takes place.

The judge used consent videos in this case, both the one recorded without her knowledge during the activities and the one after, to get an idea of her level of intoxication. It was the judges assessment of those videos and the ones showing her leaving the bar and hotel, that she wasn't as intoxicated as she said she was, not that she was or wasn't consenting.

[CliffFletcher]

Right. Consent videos aren’t treated as evidence of consent by courts. But athletes believed they did, which is why they became a widespread practice.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Dienasty

1) Jaromir Jagr - https://thehockeynews.com/news/news/...-less-about-it
2) Aziz Ansari - https://www.npr.org/2018/01/16/57842...on-aziz-ansari
3) Matt Arizia - https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...araiza-dropped
4) Trevor Bauer - https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...-fraud-arizona
5) Duke Lacrosse team - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/duke-la...rystal-mangum/

Here are 5 of them.

You should probably actually look into those situations.

Jagr wasn’t blackmailed by the model, just a random person that found the photo.

Ansari wasn’t blackmailed and didn’t deny anything.

Arizia slept with an underage girl and while his lawsuit was dropped, neither of his friends involved with him were so lucky and one of them involved in the situation was convicted of possessing child porn.

Bauer has had several allegations made against him and was kicked out of the league after an investigation.

The Duke situation is the only one where a false accusation legitimately occurred, as admitted to by the accuser (who was also a murderer).

If those are your best examples of blackmail and false accusations, they’re good evidence of how rare they are and how rare the type of person that makes them is.

[OmegaV4]

With this verdict coming down, it's plainly clear that there are no winners in this case.

E.M isn't a winner. She had to endure 9 days of testimony in front of the country, picking apart a traumatic event in her life, and now with the judges ruling, her credibility is buried.

The players aren't winners. While they may have been found not guilty, their reputations and careers are permanently caked in mud, utterly ruined.

If there is one winner(if you could even call it that) through this whole thing, in my opinion...it's due process.

Evidence was presented, a case was made, it went through the proper channels, and a verdict was levied. It's unfortunate that we live in a society that used to be "Innocent until proven guilty" which has now transformed into "Guilty until proven innocent."

And let me be clear.

I'm not taking anyone's side in this. What those five did was abhorrent, plain and simple.

But due process was followed, and I'm hoping that we can come back to that, where people don't jump to conclusions or try to cancel people before both sides of the story are heard, reviewed, and ruled upon.

[Kipper_3434]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You should probably actually look into those situations.

Jagr wasn’t blackmailed by the model, just a random person that found the photo.

Ansari wasn’t blackmailed and didn’t deny anything.

Arizia slept with an underage girl and while his lawsuit was dropped, neither of his friends involved with him were so lucky and one of them involved in the situation was convicted of possessing child porn.

Bauer has had several allegations made against him and was kicked out of the league after an investigation.

The Duke situation is the only one where a false accusation legitimately occurred, as admitted to by the accuser (who was also a murderer).

If those are your best examples of blackmail and false accusations, they’re good evidence of how rare they are and how rare the type of person that makes them is.

The thing about blackmail is that, when it works there's no court case to reference.

[Funkhouser]

False allegations do happen, although I have no idea how regularly.

https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/article620901.html

The article above outlines a situation at McGill in which a student executive was accused of sexual assault publicly, although never charged. It was claimed that the sex was not consensual and the girl was too intoxicated to consent.

The student executive was fired, forced off his sports teams and socially ostracised from campus. Many months later, text messages from the girl indicated that she targeted him for sex that evening in order to get his job.

This is just one example, but essentially I think the judge was correct to take each case a face value and not blindly ‘believe the victim’. The truth is rarely black and white, and everyone deserves the presumption of innocence, even in the court of public opinion.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Dienasty

1) Jaromir Jagr - https://thehockeynews.com/news/news/...-less-about-it
2) Aziz Ansari - https://www.npr.org/2018/01/16/57842...on-aziz-ansari
3) Matt Arizia - https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...araiza-dropped
4) Trevor Bauer - https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...-fraud-arizona
5) Duke Lacrosse team - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/duke-la...rystal-mangum/

Here are 5 of them.

The Aziz situation was neither false nor blackmail. Unlikely it would have lead to a criminal or even civil conviction, but there is little dispute that Aziz made inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Kipper_3434

The thing about blackmail is that, when it works there's no court case to reference.

That’s not how it works, no. But if you’re attempting to suggest not all blackmail is reported or makes it to court then that holds true for countless other crimes including sexual assault.

There’s no reason to believe blackmail is unique underreported or under-sentenced that I know of, but if you have stats backing it up I’m happy to be educated.

[OmegaV4]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Right. Consent videos aren’t treated as evidence of consent by courts. But athletes believed they did, which is why they became a widespread practice.

With how much of a grey area "consent videos", people may have to resort to operating like adult film stars if you want to have sex with someone.

I think an actor went on a podcast, and talked about everything that they do prior to a scene...it's along the lines of everything that the participants are comfortable with, what they aren't. And then forms are signed, like legal contracts.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Funkhouser

False allegations do happen, although I have no idea how regularly.

https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/article620901.html

The article above outlines a situation at McGill in which a student executive was accused of sexual assault publicly, although never charged. It was claimed that the sex was not consensual and the girl was too intoxicated to consent.

The student executive was fired, forced off his sports teams and socially ostracised from campus. Many months later, text messages from the girl indicated that she targeted him for sex that evening in order to get his job.

This is just one example, but essentially I think the judge was correct to take each case a face value and not blindly ‘believe the victim’. The truth is rarely black and white, and everyone deserves the presumption of innocence, even in the court of public opinion.

Nobody is saying they don’t happen, just that they are rare.

And while I respect the effort to focus solely on false allegations and finding examples of them, there’s no evidence or reason to believe that is the case here, and it should be noted that for every example you find, there dozens, maybe hundreds of examples of sexual assault victims whose cases don’t even make it to court, and less than half of those that do see the perpetrators convicted.

Ask yourself why you’re not sharing their stories.

[Wedge]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

No, seriously... wat

Agree with him or not, it's pretty clear GoRiders is noting how the CBC is a Liberal (Trudeau) tool.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Wedge

Agree with him or not, it's pretty clear GoRiders is noting how the CBC is a Liberal (Trudeau) tool.

.....Wat

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by OmegaV4

With this verdict coming down, it's plainly clear that there are no winners in this case.

E.M isn't a winner. She had to endure 9 days of testimony in front of the country, picking apart a traumatic event in her life, and now with the judges ruling, her credibility is buried.

The players aren't winners. While they may have been found not guilty, their reputations and careers are permanently caked in mud, utterly ruined.

If there is one winner(if you could even call it that) through this whole thing, in my opinion...it's due process.

Evidence was presented, a case was made, it went through the proper channels, and a verdict was levied. It's unfortunate that we live in a society that used to be "Innocent until proven guilty" which has now transformed into "Guilty until proven innocent."

And let me be clear.

I'm not taking anyone's side in this. What those five did was abhorrent, plain and simple.

But due process was followed, and I'm hoping that we can come back to that, where people don't jump to conclusions or try to cancel people before both sides of the story are heard, reviewed, and ruled upon.

London police had already closed the case. Do you think reopening the case and having it go to trial and having this result was worth it for all sides?

[Dienasty]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You should probably actually look into those situations.

Jagr wasn’t blackmailed by the model, just a random person that found the photo.

Ansari wasn’t blackmailed and didn’t deny anything.

Arizia slept with an underage girl and while his lawsuit was dropped, neither of his friends involved with him were so lucky and one of them involved in the situation was convicted of possessing child porn.

Bauer has had several allegations made against him and was kicked out of the league after an investigation.

The Duke situation is the only one where a false accusation legitimately occurred, as admitted to by the accuser (who was also a murderer).

If those are your best examples of blackmail and false accusations, they’re good evidence of how rare they are and how rare the type of person that makes them is.

He asked for examples where "Blackmail attempts ect or purposely vindictive false accusations to ruin a career." He asked for 3, I provided 5 from what were public ones I remembered. How you rationalize them is your own business.

But you should really re-read the Trevor Bauer story, you are egregiously off base on that one.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/sport...rged-fraud-spt
https://www.reuters.com/sports/repor...er-2025-06-03/

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

London police had already closed the case. Do you think reopening the case and having it go to trial and having this result was worth it for all sides?

One of the CBC experts they talked to yesterday mentioned that in most provinces, the Crown only goes ahead in criminal trials if they think there is a greater than 50% chance of conviction. Ontario has a lower bar though. They only have to think there is a reasonable chance for conviction, which can be less than a 50% chance. What's "reasonable" isn't exactly defined and can be flexible. In this case, it sounds like both the police and the Crown thought it would be difficult to get a conviction and loosened what was considered reasonable out of public pressure.

Kind of off topic, but with the way Ontario approaches it, I wonder if their justice system sees a higher rate of wrongful convictions for various crimes. If it's a low bar to get you into court and you present poorly, especially to a jury, I could see that being a problem.

[Macindoc]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

.....Wat

Canada Tonight and former Marketplace host Travis Dhanraj just resigned (involuntarily, according to him) from his position at CBC, stating that the broadcaster would only allow him to bring on left-leaning guests and supporters of the current government to his show. He is stating that he was forced out for questioning the "lack of editorial balance", "tokenism masquerading as diversity", and "problematic political coverage protocols and the erosion of editorial independence". He has stated online that there are many shady behind-the-scenes goings-on at CBC that he intends to "pull the curtain back" on. His lawyer has stated that he is suing the broadcaster and will he making a complaint to the Human Rights Commission

Prior to that, the federal government passed a digital rights law that caused Canadians to (temporarily) lose access to most mainstream online news (CBC being a notable exception).

Given Dhanraj's claims, it is reasonable to explore whether an agency funded by the government (and which the opposition threatened to de-fund if elected) is truly independent, rather than being a propaganda tool (even if unintentionally) for the government.
I

[Jiri Hrdina]

Where did he state that they would only allow him to bring on left leaning guests?
I haven't seen those quotes.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Dienasty

He asked for examples where "Blackmail attempts ect or purposely vindictive false accusations to ruin a career." He asked for 3, I provided 5 from what were public ones I remembered. How you rationalize them is your own business.

But you should really re-read the Trevor Bauer story, you are egregiously off base on that one.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/sport...rged-fraud-spt
https://www.reuters.com/sports/repor...er-2025-06-03/

Care to explain how the Jagr or Ansari examples fit the discussion… at all? One was a a blackmail attempt from a random person that had nothing to do with the woman in question and no accusations of abuse of any kind, and the other was a true story the person in question admitted to and felt sorry about. Neither of them are examples that fit.

Do you even know the Bauer story? How is the second article relevant? It touches on exactly what I’m talking about with Bauer, these are two different accusations, two of several against him on top of accusations of online abuse of women as well.

[ThatHighGuy]

Originally Posted by Wedge

Agree with him or not, it's pretty clear GoRiders is noting how the CBC is a Liberal (Trudeau) tool.

Lay off Facebook and X for a while...