Fine with me. I am shocked you are suggesting the police and prosecutor acted improperly without any basis for doing so, but clearly we live in different worlds. In my universe, the police, prosecutors, and schools generally try to do the right thing, most follow their procedures, and there are overly ambitious students who greatly exaggerate ( or lie) about their credentials to get an elite degree.
I am glad I am not in your environment.
Why you are so ready to believe her given her documented history of âstretching the truthâ, to put it mildly?
I agree & that may be the ânew evidenceâ that saved the doctor from facing multiple felony counts as it would be used to challenge the credibility of the DAâs primary witness against the doctor.
Actions have consequences and embellishments are a type of action. But exaggerations on an educational application for a competitive position do not justify felony child abuse resulting in nearly a month of hospitalization.
@hebegebe: Felony charges would not have been brought without substantial supporting evidence. Both physical & testimonial evidence supported the daughterâs claim.
Please read the entire âPillow Talkâ article. seems clear to me that a couple of posters have not done so.
No one claims they do. Separate matters. Her mother did not apply for a scholarship, she did, and the veracity of her claims is the issue. Yes, she may have suffered. Many have. You donât get a Rhodes for suffering.
I can try and find it verbatim but one of the local St. Louis newspapers reported it as âdiary notesâ that contradicted her claims. I am not suggesting that any of us can speak to the validity of her claims of abuse just repeating the facts as offered by various stories.
Her self representation however does not jive with the facts. At a minimum she didnât correct the Philadelphia Inquirer âpuffâ piece where she self describes a youth of financial hardship spent going through several foster homes.
She group up with the trappings of affluence, attended costly private schools and was only in foster cater for one year as a young adult.
Rhodes determination was as followsâŠ
âRhodes committee found that she created and repeatedly shared false narratives about herself, using these misrepresentations to serve her interests as an applicant for competitive programsâ.
Their determination doesnât opine on the validity of her abuse claim but the totality of her narrativeâs accuracy.
Diary notes can be used to challenge a witnessâ credibility even though diary entries are not written under oath.
I can understand why the charges were dropped as the main witnessâ credibility could be challenged by her own writings (diary & applications). Nevertheless, a near month long hospitalization & placement in foster care cannotâand should not-be ignored.
P.S. My thoughts & position are clear. No need for further debate.
I am seriously trying to understand your position. She was hospitalized for a month ( which may or may not reflect her abuse claims, given the judgeâs comments), therefore she is entitled to a grad degree and scholarship regardless of her ethics? It doesnât matter how inaccurately she describes her background, it is all excused because of her hospital stay 6 years earlier? Foster kids get a free get-out-of jail card?
I live in this world too⊠but with family members who are prosecutors, public defenders, and lawyers in private practice (not to mention all the teachers and social workers) ALL of them would agree that âgenerally trying to do the right thingâ is not the same thing as âthe truth always winsâ. NOT AT ALL. Especially with a parent who every single news article describes as a 'prominent physician". Imagine the same news article but with a black mom who drives a school bus. Or a Latina mom who is a cashier at 7/11.
My prosecutor relative would be the first to admit that cases get dropped every single day. Even when every single person involved knows that the person is guilty. It is not a good look to bring a case which doesnât have a very, very clear shot at a conviction. Being convicted and being guilty are not the same thing.
Iâm baffled why anyone would see this case as anything but sad, and the rush to judgment (the mom must be telling the truth because sheâs âprominentâ and white) confuses me terriblyâŠ
I donât think anyone is making conclusions about the momâs credibility, and frankly I resent your unfounded allegation that doing so is based on the momâs race. As I said before, the mom did not apply for the scholarship; her credibility is not relevant to anything in the case at issue. The issue is whether the woman accurately represented herself to the Rhodes committee and Penn grad school. At least the Rhodes committee feels she did not.
She was hospitalized for 22 days and no where does it say that prolonged hospitalization was a result of injuries sustained during the subsequently dismissed abuse incident. We simply donât know and it doesnât matter.
What we do know is that she claimed to (and based applications on) having grown up bouncing around the foster care system while being very poor. We also know she grew up living with her affluent family, attended private schools, indulged in expensive past times and spent one year in foster care.
The Rhodes decision (and Pennâs raising concerns) was entirely justified by these indisputable facts.
Maybe I missed it but I havenât seen anyone referencing the race of either the girl or her mother. Iâm baffled and confused terribly by your suggestionâŠ
So is it fair to suggest your rush to judgment in support of the student is based upon her prominence as an Ivy League Rhodes candidate and white?
Fact is she embellished her past hardships in spite of what weâre undoubtedly tough circumstances. Race, the mother, hospital stays, etc are all just shinny objects.
Might I remind members of the forum rules: âOur forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place, and one in which members can post without their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics being questioned by others."
and
âCollege Confidential forums exist to discuss college admission and other topics of interest. It is not a place for contentious debate. If you find yourself repeating talking points, it might be time to step away and do something else⊠If a thread starts to get heated, it might be closed or heavily moderated.â
Since the thread is currently being dominated by a few users debating talking points, I am putting the thread on slow mode until tomorrow.
Beyond the âshe said/she said allegations of abuseâ none of this addresses the issue of if Penn deliberately targeted her in retribution for her appearing as a witness in the wrongful death case for the other student. In addition while her claims regarding her background may not have met the criteria for Rhodesâ definition of âfirst genâ by all accounts they did meet Pennâs. I canât see why then they would threaten to withhold her undergraduate and graduate degrees if she didnât withdraw her application to Rhodes. Surely it was for the Rhodes committee to determine if she had misrepresented the facts and it should have had no bearing on Penn conferring her degrees on her.
Iâm no tinfoil conspiracy theorist but I have no trouble believing that it is within the realm of possibility that certain individuals might decide take such an approach as a defense tactic in a lawsuit. If this all came about because of a smear campaign to punish her for her support to the other case I find that very troubling.
The school had nominated her for the Rhodes ( she needed the schoolâs nomination to qualify).
The entire Rhodes investigative report (and UPennâs for that matter) are included in UPennâs filing, available here: DocumentCloud
A lot of what people have argued about/assumed on this thread is answered in the Rhodes Report.
For what itâs worth regarding your concern for my use of the word expungement, this is from the U Penn response documentâŠ
âThe decision in the expungement proceeding stated the initial charges were based on false informationâ.
Lots of good info in the above âDocumentCloudâ link. For a quicker read, I suggest starting on pg 73, with âPennsâ Investigationsâ starting with point #60.
Any one read the reports who still wants to defend the student? She seems very disturbed and manipulative.