Opinion

Falkenberg: Focus on what matters in Cleveland rape Falkenberg: Cleveland case should focus on what matters

It doesn't matter if she wore makeup.

Or if she hung out with older boys at the playground, as some have claimed. Or if she bragged about sex on her Facebook page.

All that matters is that she is 11.

She couldn't have consented, not even if she wanted to.

If the horrific descriptions in court documents are true, and this sixth-grade girl from Cleveland endured hours of lurid, brutal sex with a gang of at least 17 men and boys in a single-wide trailer and a nearby house, there is only one word for it: rape.

Yet, the gossip tongues of Liberty County continue to suggest otherwise. And so has an attorney for several of the defendants charged in the case.

The attorney, James D. Evans III, has claimed to Houston Chronicle reporter Cindy Horswell that the victim was "seeking attention" and "she wants to be a porn star."

"This is not a case of a child who was enslaved or taken advantage of," Evans was quoted saying in a story Sunday.

It is not uncommon for those accused of rape to try and insinuate their victims somehow led them on to commit an act of sexual violence. Her skirt was too short. She was flirtatious. She said no, but she meant yes.

What the law says

It's a revolting strategy, and it sometimes works. But to insinuate such a thing in the alleged gang rape of a child is beyond the pale.

Even some of Evans' fellow veteran defense attorneys, who make a living defending people accused of heinous crimes, were shocked at his comments.

"Jesus," said Patrick McCann, former president of the Harris County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. "That ain't the way to approach this."

Under Texas law, anyone who has sex with an underage person can be charged with a crime, even if they claim not to have known the person's age, McCann said. And that's technically true even if the underage person lies about his or her age or produces a fake ID.

No one has suggested that the victim misled anyone about her age. Just that she looked and acted more mature than her years and somehow encouraged or even enjoyed what happened to her a few days after Thanksgiving last year.

Such a claim is hard to fathom, and not just because of her age.

Police say the girl was persuaded by a 19-year-old with prior drug convictions to leave her house and go "riding around" in his car with two other men. She soon found herself in a house where she says she was threatened with violence if she didn't take off her clothes.

Recorded on phones

Before long, she was having sex with several men, who then called others to join in. After a relative of one of the suspects arrived home, the assault continued at an abandoned trailer as the alleged rapists took video and photographs on their cell phones. The images went viral in the community, and among the alleged rapists, there appeared to be two star Cleveland High School basketball players and a school board member's son.

Some of the graphic details in the search warrant affidavit are too obscene to repeat here. But, according to the document, the victim told a forensic interviewer with a child advocacy center that she suffered vaginal injury during the attacks and that investigators might find blood at one of the locations as proof.

Quanell X to speak

The case has shaken the small town of Cleveland. And today, Houston celebrity activist Quanell X is expected to add to the turmoil by staging a news conference there. I'm not certain what he's going to say. I assume he'll focus on race and level accusations based on the fact that the victim is Hispanic while all of her alleged attackers are black.

In a place like Cleveland, where the black side of town is still known as "the Quarters," it's not beyond reason to question whether race is playing a role.

But I would implore Quanell to stop there. He shouldn't add to the brutality of this case by joining a war of words against an 11-year-old girl.

Regardless of the rumors, and the unconscionable claims of a defense attorney, this case is about rape, the brutal rape of a child who deserves protection, not blame.

Correction: In a Feb. 23 column regarding Anthony Graves' compensation claim for wrongful imprisonment, I wrote that Comptroller Susan Combs "is not an attorney." My point was that we don't elect comptrollers to be attorneys and re-investigate criminal cases to determine who gets compensation. But, in Combs' case, she actually is an attorney licensed by the State Bar. (Sorry about that, counselor-comptroller!) Also, comptroller spokesman R.J. DeSilva disputed a statement by attorney Kevin Glasheen in the column. Glasheen said he believed one of his clients had received compensation even though he filed a claim late. DeSilva said Steven Phillips made the initial deadline but then had to file a second claim later.

lisa.falkenberg@chron.com