JACKSON CO.—Leave it to Mike Carr to really get things rolling in Jackson County.
Michael Carr
Carr, the former U.S. assistant prosecutor who helped put away Raymond Martin, former Gallatin County sheriff, is now the head honcho in Jackson, winning the state’s attorney’s race back in November and moving right through his duties to go after the bad guys in his county, of which there are a lot.
However, a huge contingent across the nation is thinking right now that Carr has the wrong ”bad guy” in the case of Melissa Beth Vistain.
Vistain, 29, of Carbondale, has been charged with a single count of Filing a False Report. But it isn’t just any false report. Vistain is accused of filing a false report of rape last year. The charge was leveled against her May 3, 2012, by former prosecutor Mike Wepseic, after she’d made a report of being “drugged and held captive,” all the while being sexually assaulted, against a fellow following the incident which occurred over the weekend of March 31.
Victim’s rights groups across the country have jumped on this. They are horrified that ANY prosecutor, Wepseic (who retired last year, opening the way for Carr to run) or Carr, would pursue such charges against a woman who has been violated. They descended upon Carr in force recently, according to an article in the Southern Illinoisan, sending letters of strong reproach against Carr for even thinking of following through with Vistain’s trial, which is set to start March 18, 2013. The letters had the following tone, as noted in the Southern:
The Women’s Center in Carbondale and 22 other groups sent Carr a letter asking him to drop the charges because prosecuting “a sexual assault victim is devastating to the victim and chilling for current and future sexual assault victims.”
“The clear message of this prosecution is that survivors of sexual assault must be able to prove their own innocence or face prosecution when they report a sexual assault crime,” the March 6 letter to Carr stated.
However, a little more digging into the matter shows the probable reason why Carr is pursuing the case.
Seems that Vistain “spent a weekend with a longtime male friend” over those three days including March 31, this in Murphysboro…and her husband apparently didn’t know about it. Until she filed a report of rape against the “male friend.” Whose identity hasn’t been disclosed in mainstream media reports, but which is no doubt on file and will be brought out in court.
Apparently the investigation turned up that there was no sexual assault of any sort. Maybe it was all consensual, maybe it wasn’t; there wasn’t enough there to pursue charges against the man involved, according to Wepseic. But evidently there’s enough for someone as astute as Carr is to pursue the case against Vistain.
So what do you think—was Vistain caught with another guy and decided to falsely claim “rape”? Or the victim’s rights groups, who think it’s better to always err on the side of the purported victim and treat every claim of sexual assault as the real deal until it can be sorted out in court, the ones who are on target in this case?