Sex will alter futures, fortuneteller tells teens

[Piscivore]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/03/26/20100326fortuneteller-sex-conviction-ON.html

[Rasmus]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/03/26/20100326fortuneteller-sex-conviction-ON.html


Defense lawyer Gregory Humphries insisted the girls were lying and says a cold interrogation room led to Duran's videotaped confession.

Ah .... ye,s, I've been cold in my life once or twice before. I did not end up confessing to having raped two minors. It would have to be a *very* cold interrogation room.

On the tape, are his lips blue and do they crack open? Is he shivering, even? Does his breath show up in the air and does it condensate?

[a3sigma]

Male convinces gullible females to have sex with him by telling them egregious lies and making absurd promises he cant' possibly keep.... details at 11...

[kerikiwi]

Is it possible to have these two put under some kind of benevolent guardianship so they can be protected from themselves?

[Sledge]

Would this have been a crime if the girls hadn't been minors?

[Mirrorglass]

Ah .... ye,s, I've been cold in my life once or twice before. I did not end up confessing to having raped two minors. It would have to be a *very* cold interrogation room.

On the tape, are his lips blue and do they crack open? Is he shivering, even? Does his breath show up in the air and does it condensate?

I assume the defense lawyer is suggesting the confession was pried out of the man by a form of torture. Long times in unpleasant environments, even only relatively unpleasant, can crack a man pretty easily, so it's not completely impossible. That's not to say I believe in the theory - I guess the defense lawyer works with what he's got.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Yes, the girls behaved with amazing naivety but, in their defense, I once had a similar experience.

I was dragged by a friend (who was a believer in the paranormal and was experimenting with Wicca at the time) to a palm reader when I was 15 (I didn't want to go, wasn't interested, didn't want to spend the money and was on the fence about whether it was real or not, even at that age and even though I wasn't a skeptic at that time...as a matter of fact, I didn't know skepticism existed at that age) and the palm reader had the gall to tell me that I'd never be successful and that I'd have two illegitimate children.

I have no idea what in the world was going through that old woman's mind to say something like that to a 15-year-old. How cruel and irresponsible. What was she thinking?

As a matter of fact, even if such a thing as psychic powers existed and you could know something like that would happen, an adult would still have no business saying such a thing to a 15-year-old.

My best guess as to why she told me something so strange is that palm readers mix fortunes up. Mix it up to make it realistic! Be creative! Let your imagination run wild! Give this person one marriage, give this person a divorce, give this person two marriages, make this person a future widow/widower, give this person one divorce and one stable marriage, give this person a domestic partnership, give this person a broken engagement.

Give this client one child, give this one two children, give this one three, give this one adopted children, give this one stepchildren, give this one foster children, give this one two adopted children and two biological children, give this one two stepchildren and three foster children, etc.

Or maybe the palm reader realized I smelled a rat and didn't want to give her any more money and therefore decided to give me a negative reading.

[Edges]

Would this have been a crime if the girls hadn't been minors?

I'm not a lawyer, but my guess would be yes. In the article, it mentions that one of the things he's charged with is forcible rape. This charge is irrelevant to the age of the victim(s).

I assume this comes from the fact that he claimed bad things would happen if they didn't have sex with him-because the victims believed him, this would seem to be similar to him threatening to hurt them himself if they did not submit.

The fact that they are minors means that there are more things that he can be charged with, not that his actions would have been legal if they were adults.

[Sledge]

Little more detail in this MSNBC article (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36038339/ns/us_news/). What a loathsome fellow.