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News Slanders Father on Unproven Rape Claim

Listen to "News Slanders Father on Unproven Rape Charges" on Spreaker.

Note: this article contains the research links, audio transcripts and editing script for the corresponding podcast.

In a very slanted and presumptuous story first reported by WBRZ news in Baton Rouge, LA, the news agency broadcasted statements which, even in the same broadcast, were proven to be slanderous against a father who's been cleared by the courts to have full custody of his child. 

The story goes that a teenager named Crystal Abelseth, who lied to get into a bar when she was five years under the legal drinking age, met her child's soon-to-be father at the bar, became pregnant that night, and then hid the child from the father for more than a decade before the father found out. And when he did find out, he filed for custody and won. 

In an apparent attempt to smear the father and reverse the court’s ruling, Abelseth has since claimed that the illigitimate child was the result of rape. 

The headline of their story reads, "Secret documents ordered unsealed in RAPE case that saw victim pay child support to her ABUSER."

That headline is misleading on two counts. Firstly, the man they’re describing has only been alleged as a rapist. It’s not up to the public or the media to convict a man on charges of rape. That’s up to the courts, and this article proves precisely why. 

Secondly, they call him an “abuser,” which also therefore claims physical assault. Even if he could be found guilty twice for the same crime, which he can’t, Abelseth never actually told any reporter from WBRZ that Barnes assaulted her. In fact, it’s just the opposite. She claimed what happened was simple rape, which was based on a statue of age restrictions for sexual consent. 

[SIMPLE RAPE]

Instead of asserting that the father, John Barnes, was unaware of Abelseth’s age at the time they had sex, as well as his initiative to do the right thing, be a responsible father, and gain custody once he found out he had a child, they instead, without even a shred of physical or forensic or court evidence, automatically took Abelseth’s side, in a story they called…

[twisted story]

The reporter then says - again, without any evidence whatsoever other than the testimony of an admitted liar - a woman is raped (not alegedly rapted, but “raped”) and is now embroiled in a custody battle. 

[woman raped]

Their only basis for allegedly slandering Barnes in this quote is Abelseth’s statement…

[He was 30]

Never in the entire coverage of the story does anyone from the newsroom or the scene of the interview, state that Barnes was never actually convicted of rape, and they also make no inference whatsoever that he even knew that Abelseth was underaged at the time. 

This is clearly just another case where the news hears that a white male has raped a poor, helpless female, and conveniently forgotten about it’s ethical obligations to use words like “alleged” when things have never gone before the court; or to include statements like “it has not been proven,” and “this is all based on one woman’s claim.” 

Instead, they hang a man out to dry on accusation alone, even going so far as to affirmatively state that the child was born of rape. 

[child born of rape] 

The report also failed to get the child’s opinion on the matter, which would undoubtedly shed the most light on the situation, since she lived with Abelseth and her various boyfriends for ten years, and was kept away from the father for the better half of her life.

As a result of WBRZ’s failure to report all the facts of the case, as well as to both broadcast and print unadjudicated claims without even so much as a legal assessment of the facts, the news agency is allegedly guilty of both slandering the man in their broadcast of the story, and libeling him in their headline. 

The station took their failure even further when they refrained from later correcting the story to include that the claims have never been brought before the court. The closest they came to doing so was reporting that a new custody hearing was scheduled for some time in the future.

[new custody hearing]

One of the most important factors that a journalist is expected to report on is the timeline of events. WBRZ failed in every way to disclose Barnes’ placement along that timeline. They also completely glazed over the fact that by Abelseth’s own statements, she’s an admitted liar, that she’s kept the child from its father, and that it wasn’t until after she lost the child that she took any action against Barnes in the first place. Nothing says ulterior motives like a scorned woman who uses the courts to exact retribution. 

These facts, if WBRZ upheld any notion of ethical journalism, would have all but cleared Barnes of any wrongdoing.

We can only hope that by the time his custody hearing goes to court, the judge will refuse to allow any media-influenced bias against Barnes, and he’s given a fair adjudication before the bench. I’m not holding out much hope, however, since public pressure against males in recent years has increased to the point that we basically have no voice in society anymore. 

Let’s get into the facts a little deeper. 

The first and biggest problem, as I just stated, is the giant, glaring detail that Abelseth is clearly a liar. She fully admits being in a bar at 16 years of age, which means she would have had to lie to get into the bar in the first place. She would have had to lie to the bartender to get drinks. And she would have had to maintain that lie while she was in the bar to not get kicked out. And if she was willing to lie to that extent, why would she then tell Barnes the truth that she was 16-years-old? 

Let’s put this into a personal perspective. What would you do if you got into a bar at 16? Would you immediately start telling people the truth? I don’t think so. Not if you had any hope of getting away with it a second time.

Then, there’s this other very curious statement that she makes about her friend wanting to leave, but she wanted to stay. 

[FRIEND WANTED TO LEAVE]

That statement by itself doesn’t necessarily conflict with the matter as a whole. But when you pair that with her other statement that when she did leave with Barnes she wanted to go home then. 

In other words, her friend asked to leave, but on her own free will, and by her own admission, she wanted to stay with Barnes. The last time I was at a bar talking with two women and one chose me over going home with their friend, I naturally got the distinct impression that there was some chemistry. So she stayed there, she continued talking to Barnes, and she continued drinking. 

If this doesn’t create an impression of wanting to have sex, I’m not sure what else does. I mean, in the dating world, that’s the literal lead-up of events that leads to getting lucky. But lucky was unfortunately the last thing that Barnes would end up being. 

Nevertheless, this series of events also clears Barnes of forcing her to stay with him at the bar. 

If that was the only part of her statement that conflicted, I’d say it would already be a hard case to prove in court. But that’s not the only conflict. 

The second conflict is that she states, instead of bringing her home, he brought her to his house, where he raped her on the couch. 

[INSTEAD OF BRINGING ME HOME}

Think about that situation for a second. If her statement is true, Barnes would have had to ask this girl directions to her house, correct? She doesn’t say he knew where she lived. So there would presumably have been some discussion that would’ve led Barnes to her house. That would have to mean that she was giving Barnes directions, and Barnes was physically driving away from that direction.

So, if her statement is true, and Barnes really did deviate from those directions, when Abelseth realized that he was driving to his house instead, why didn’t she say that she put up a fight? Where is her story of how that went down? Why is she not mentioning the bruises she had from fighting back from driving to his house? 

In fact, Barnes would have presumably had to carry her kicking and screaming from his car to his house, where he would then have had to perform this alleged rape that she claims. Where is her statement about the cuts she received from clinging to the handrail and fighting against crossing the threshold of his front door? Where are the neighbors that must have heard the scuffle and came to her aid? 

Then, when it was all done, Barnes still had to drive her home. And to be guilty of rape, he would have had to knowingly drop off a 16-year-old girl at her parent’s house that he just finished raping. This teenager would have been a mess. Her clothes would have been torn. Her hair would have been a mess. She might be missing a fake fingernail or two. How would he ever think it was possible to get away with that level of a crime if an actual rape did occur. 

If he is this horrible monster that she’s claiming he is, why didn’t he just strangle her in his apartment, carry her body back through the neighborhood that apparently didn’t give a shit about the girl that had just gone into his house kicking and screaming moments before, and toss her off a bridge? At least then he wouldn’t have to worry about a pregnancy or going to jail for statutory rape. 

I think the obvious answer is that he’s not a monster, that she deceived him like she did everyone else for years, and that they had consentual sex. After which point, Barnes did a nice thing of dropping her off at her house. 

There are only two possible explanations for why WBRZ didn’t announce these conflicts in Abelseth’s statements. Either they purposefully refrained from reporting the conflicts, or they overlooked them, and are therefore no good at their job. And in neither of those cases does it look for WBRZ.

I’m betting that they knew very well that these conflicts existed, because, instead of calling Abelseth out on the fact that she’s a lying slut to begin with, they depict her decade of lies as a period of overcoming adversity.

[OVERCAME ADVERSITY]

But let’s get back to that fateful ride home. 

if she didn’t put up a fight when he was driving away from the directions she was giving him, and she didn’t put up a fight when she somehow wound up in his house, and she didn’t put up a fight during sex, then how is it that she’s making any claims of rape in the first place. 

Well, that’s just it. There was no time when she’s claiming she put up a fight. In fact, the only claim that she’s making that she was raped was that she was due to the fact that she was underaged. 

[He was 30]

That’s it. She’s simply stating that he is statutorially guilty of raping her. And WBRZ just ate that right up. 

[PROBLEM IS…]

Actually, the problem is that Barnes might not have even known!

This, of course, boils the entire situation down to a case between his word and hers. And I’ll be interested to see how that plays out in court, if it’s even accepted before the courts throw it out. 

Logistically, the whole situation where Barnes supposedly dropped her off at her parent’s house makes no sense. There are too many gaps. And it also says nothing about Abelseth’s parents’ responsibilities. 

In fact, where are they in all of this? Why are they not sitting alongside Abelseth as she makes these unadjudicated claims about Barnes from 16 years ago. That’s more than a decade-and-a-half ago, so her parents are sure to know quite a bit about this case. Are they not there because Abelseth spent two decades lying to them as well? 

Are they not there because they don’t believe her? They are the child’s grandparents. Why were they not interviewed? They clearly share a family member with Barnes. Do they have a relationship with Barnes? Why did WBRZ refuse to even consider the idea that other witnesses close to the affair may have something to say on the matter. 

But we’ll probably never know, so I’ll move on. After that, she admits that she lied about the pregnancy - a lie that she maintained for more than a decade before Barnes found out. The child was born in 2005, and yet…

[2011]

Instead of admitting that she’s a conniving, promiscuous reprobate that kept up this lie for so long, she says that everyone “thought it was just from a boyfriend,” and that she “just let them think that.”

[SHE LIED ABOUT THE FATHER]

Gee, another way to say this might be that she flat out lied to everyone she knew about an illegitimate child. I love that she paused before saying that she “just let them think that.”

[SHE LIED ABOUT THE FATHER]

You hear the pause there? That’s probably her cogitating on how to twist her lie into making people think that she’s an innocent victim of this monster who forced a baby into her. 

Or perhaps she was coached by the other female in the interview, who also slandered Barnes without even a modicum of evidence. 

[THE FRIEND]

The reporter also very unprofessionally slants the conversation by saying that everything was fine until Barnes found out. 

[everything was fine until Barnes found out…]

The reporter for WBRZ neglects to put any emphasis whatsoever on the fact that the only time the matter has been to court, the judge knew that Barnes had empregnated an underaged girl, and adjudicated in his favor anyway.

[COURTS SIDE WITH BARNES]

They make him out to be a horrible person who was lying in wait to spring some trap on Abelseth. But the problem with this narrative is that he’s the one who gets trapped by outing himself as the father, and then signing himself up for even more responsibilities if he loses the custody case. And what did WBRZ’s detective work turn up to answer this question of why he would do this? 

[GUMBO DIGITAL]

That’s right. Apparently, if you design the police department’s website, they love you so much that you can literally get away with rape. 

With police officers, themselves, going to jail all across the nation for doing a helluva lot less than raping someone, I seriously doubt that an entire police department, the court system, the judges presideing over his case and everyone else along the way, would simply turn a blind eye to a child rape at the hands of a computer nerd. 

But here we are, living under the web of lies that Abelseth wove to keep the child ignorant to the fact that it was not really fatherless. This lie also kept the child’s gainfully employed father ignorant of his daughter. And the basis for this is that he edits PD’s website, and so he obviously has immunity from sexual assault. 

Then they go on to talk about DNA as if Barnes was trying to hide the fact that he was the child’s father…

[BARNES ADMITS DNA]

Let’s forget that WBRZ completely stepped over the fact that Barnes fought and won custody, during which time he would have had to admit being the child’s father, which further destroys the argument they’re making to influence the public to believe he was hiding. As soon as Barnes found out he was the child’s father, he actually stepped up and did the right thing. 

Instead of reporting an unproven rape case, the news outlet could have reported on the guy that didn’t run from his fatherly responsibilities the moment he found out. They could have reported that this nation is full of single mothers and this guy steps up to the plate. 

If Barnes was guilty, why would he voluntarily take a DNA test? Why would he seek out the attention of the courts to gain custody? Why has all of this been played above board? Why would he not simply pack up his life and move to a new state and avoid responsibilities and childcare costs and all the challenges that accompany fatherhood? 

But WBRZ made no mention of any of these very contradictory items in the story. Nope. They did the very safe, the very common, and the very unoriginal thing by jumping on the rape-culture bandwagon, tied this man’s credibility to the stake and burned it in a public show of unbalanced journalism. 

Why? Because that’s the narrative that the mass media wants America to think of white males in society today. Where we once lived in society as regular citizens, we’ve now apparently decided in the last few years that we should collectively just start raping and committing violent crimes in huge numbers that then overshadow all the other reports across mass media. 

This, of course, flies in the face of the fact that she also never actually admits that she even told Barnes about the child. She specifically says, “when he found out…” Not, “when I told him.” 

[When he found out]

This probably means that he investigated a rumor he heard through the grapevine. And in that case, Barnes is actually lucky that she didn’t wait until the child was 18 and hit him with two decades worth of back-child support all at once. 

I think Barnes is lucky that he ever found out. Clearly there’s a pattern there that Abelseth was perfectly willing to maintain a huge lie for multiple years. Both he and the child could have gone their entire lives without knowing that the other even existed. 

And where are the charges filed against her for this miscarriage of justice? When did the state step in and protect Barnes from a woman like this? She should be made to pay him back-child support, or at least throw out her cases with prejudice so she can’t keep dragging him into court. 

And that brings up another point. Let's forget for the moment that John Barnes, the child's real father, was lied to, and that this lie was perpetrated over multiple years. This also means that Barnes spent that entire time not knowing his daughter.  

Could you imagine that? Think of your closest sibling. Maybe a parent. Think about the wonderful times you’ve had together, all the memories you’ve shared. Now imagine that someone just takes a half-decade of those times away from you. Just one day, you lose an entire chunk of time with that loved one.

Just because there isn’t a crime of memory theft, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a victim. That’s theft. It just doesn’t have a monetary value attached to it. 

Presumably as a result of Abelseth having maintained her heartbreaking lie for the first five years of the child's life, Barnes was able to successfully argue in court that the child was better off with him. 

Nevertheless, once WBRZ announced the story, it found itself in a huge echochamber that was of course picked up by all the major networks, and social media streams. I even found this story on Facebook. 

Why? Again, all because it’s a nice, safe story in a culture that’s being trained to see white males as automatic perpetrators in the courts. This man has been slandered openly and widely all as a result of one woman’s desire to seek retribution for losing a child she hid from its father for five years.

Abelseth never filed a single case against Barnes until after she'd been ordered to pay child support. So, the data points to a greater likelihood that Abelseth simply wants out of her new debt to Barnes. And by the way, this is all after she’s been dating other men, who she’s probably also relied on to help her with the child. 

Another interesting thing that I noticed about the broadcast, was that WBRZ set up a full production to get Abelseth's side of the story, with multiple cameras, multiple chairs, her “female advocate” sitting next to her, and everyone was wired up with individual mics. 

And yet somehow, even with all those resources for mobile reporting, they didn't do anything more than call Barnes on the phone. And even in that, they somehow forgot to record the phone call with Barnes so that they could play that audio revealing side of the story. 

In fact, he only got a one-sentence mention right at the very end of the broadcast. 

[SPOKE TO BARNES]

And even in that mention, they were still fixated on the idea that he was admitting the child was his. Like, why would he argue for custody over a child that’s not his. 

This sort of “harping on facts” that the media loves to do is another way that they drum up outcry for supporting their agenda. It’s ridiculous when you actually understand what the journalists are doing. But most of the viewing public never thinks that deeply about these tactics. 

And frankly, that’s what you should be offended about - the fact that mass media news networks are playing on your ignorance to rile you up and get you angry. Because an angry public is a public that keeps watching the news. And as long as you’re watching the news, their Nielson ratings go up for length of time watched. And when their watch-length goes up, they can charge more ad revenue from advertisements on the commercial breaks. 

They are playing on your emotions in order to make more money. Congratulations. You’ve all been made whores by the media that you watch. 

Thankfully, my ad revenue comes directly from you, my readers and my listeners. So, you are my number one priority. 

I’m going to make a prediction right now: This will probably end with Barnes losing custody of the child under public pressure, or he’ll end up owing Abelseth money. The child will go back to a lying slut. And even if Barnes doesn’t go to jail for the horrible crime of having a fun, drunken night 16 years ago, his decades of faithful work with the sheriff’s department is over. But because rape allegations are basically career kryptonite, he will undoubtedly never work as a designer again. 

And people all over the Reddit-sphere are starting to notice that this is the power given to women in society today - there are examples all over the country of imbalances in the courts which are biased against men. And as a result, men are given harsher sentences for the same crimes (a new study says), charge reduction disparities exist over men in felony cases, and they’re less likely to win in a custody battle even though they’re equally qualified and financially stable. And if you think I’m being a blanket misogynist here, head over to the article from this podcast and check the research in the text. 

Abelseth lied for half-a-decade, and she probably would have continued lying had Barnes not investigated a rumor, and then stepped up to the plate to own his fatherly responsibilities. But when he did, he won. And we know what happens to men who win against women in court. The woman comes back with a vengeance, filing appeals, filing paperwork to overturn verdicts. And when those don’t work, they change their story to make it seem as though they were the victim. 

This trend is especially prevalent in cases where there’s never been any allegations of assault until after a custody hearing does not favor the female. There are even advice articles on strategies for how women can keep their kids, by abusing the courts.

If you’ve been affected by a story like this, why not tell me about it? Send your story to thejusticepod[at]gmail[.]com. 

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Thanks so much for listening. We’ll see you next time. 

Bumper: Find the original story HERE, with other references below:

1. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id+2144002
2. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/f8nhc4/women_have_more_power_in_society_than_men_while/
4. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180503085049.htm
5. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/gender-differences-felony-court-processing-three-hypotheses
6. https://www.complex.com/life/woman-says-shes-been-ordered-to-pay-alleged-rapist-child-support 
7. https://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/women-abuse-men-often-called-abuse-fiff/ 
8. https://goldbergjones-or.com/child-custody/criminal-charges-impact-child-custody/
9. https://cordellcordell.com/2022/custody-battle-10-things-that-can-sabotage-your-case/ 

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by legallyinsanefilms