This Week's Global Pervs and Perverts List > OPP Paid nearly $1mn in Salary since suspended for rape, drug dealing, assaults

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There is something seriously wrong when the Ontario Provincial Police can't fire a cop with his record.

OPP officer found guilty of sexually assaulting unconscious woman

and filming it

Witnesses say Const. Jason Redmond did it to show the victim

'how easily she could be raped' when drunk

Avanthika Anand · CBC News · 

Posted: Apr 01, 2023 1:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: April 1

OPP Const. Jason Redmond was convicted of sexual assault. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)

WARNING: This article contains graphic content and may affect those who have experienced​ ​​​sexual violence or know someone affected by it.

A judge has found that Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Const. Jason Redmond sexually assaulted an unconscious woman while recording it on his mobile phone, and heard from witnesses that Redmond did it to show the victim "how easily she could be raped when she was drunk," and "to teach [her] a lesson."

In a two-day, judge-only trial at a Brockville courthouse last August, Justice Janet O'Brien heard Crown witness testimonies that she recounted when delivering her decision earlier this year, a court transcript obtained by CBC News shows. Redmond was convicted of sexual assault.

The judge read in her ruling that according to one witness, Redmond was "proving a point" to the victim that she had a drinking problem, and "he made the video to show that anybody could rape her."

Paid Leave since 2015

Redmond was previously convicted of drug trafficking in 2018 but received only one year of probation and no jail time. He has been on paid leave from the OPP since he was charged in that case in 2015.

3 OPP officers charged after 18-month drug trafficking investigation

In Oct. 2021, Redmond was arrested and charged with sexual assault, according to the OPP. In an emailed statement, the OPP said it did not issue a press release informing the public of the charge at the time "in an effort to protect the identity of the victim." Redmond pleaded not guilty.

The final ruling was delivered on Feb. 16, just over five years after the assault happened.

'He thought it was funny'

The court transcript shows that justice O'Brien heard about the assault and the video from five witnesses, including the victim and others in Redmond's inner circle.

CBC News is not naming the victim or the witnesses in this case, as the victim's identity and some of the circumstances surrounding the sexual assault are protected by a publication ban.

CBC News is not naming the victim or the witnesses in this case, as the victim's identity and some of the circumstances surrounding the sexual assault are protected by a publication ban. (Cort Sloan/CBC)

According to the court transcript, the judge found that the assault took place in December 2017, after the victim "consumed a large amount of alcohol to the point of extreme intoxication." The court also heard that both the victim and Redmond had used cocaine several times that day.

"[She] lost consciousness either because she went to sleep or as a result of the effects of alcohol, or a combination of these," the judge said.

According to the judge, Redmond told the victim the next day that "he had sexual intercourse with her while she was passed out, that she wasn't aware of it, and that he had recorded it on his phone," and held his phone out to show her.

Justice O'Brien recalled the victim testifying that she was embarrassed she couldn't remember what had happened, so she pushed his hand away, did not watch the video and went about her day as normal.

Shortly after, several people in Redmond's inner circle became aware that the video existed, including those who testified in court.

Three witnesses, not including the victim, said they learned about the video directly from Redmond, who tried to show it to them. Another witness claimed to have unintentionally found the video.

The judge said she heard from one witness who said when Redmond told them about the video, they "thought at first it was a joke because [he] was kind of laughing."

"He appeared to find what he had done funny and was making fun of [the victim]."

Another witness testified that on a different occasion, Redmond said he was "teaching [the victim] a lesson," and laughed about a member of his inner circle finding and watching the video.

The witness who found the video told the court that when they confronted Redmond about it, he said "he did it to teach [the victim] a lesson about how easily she could be raped when she was drunk."

In his defence, court transcripts show that Redmond said none of the Crown witnesses were credible or reliable, including the victim who was "drinking excessively" at the time of the incident. According to the judge, Redmond also brought up how no video was shown to the court, despite several witnesses testifying to its existence. 

OPP seeking dismissal

In an emailed statement, OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique said the police force has been seeking dismissal of Redmond since his initial conviction of drug trafficking in 2018.

"This behaviour is unacceptable for any police officer and cannot be tolerated," Carrique wrote.

Carrique explained that the OPP's Professional Standards Unit laid charges under the Police Services Act shortly after Redmond's initial conviction.

He was then convicted on the charges, and the adjudicator for the case ordered that Redmond be dismissed from the OPP but denied a request to avoid automatically staying the conviction and penalty if appealed.

Redmond has been collecting his salary from the OPP since 2015 while suspended on paid leave. (CBC)

The OPP wrote that the dismissal ruling was immediately appealed by Redmond, which has allowed him to continue to collect his salary for the last seven and a half years while being suspended on paid leave.

The appeal is now the subject of a hearing on June 15, before the Ontario Civilian Police Commission.

Why did it take 5 years to hear an appeal?

Redmond's name was included on the 2021 Ontario Sunshine List, which is annually published by the province and publicly discloses the names of all public sector employees who earned $100,000 or more.

According to the list, Redmond made $121,047.96 that year.

According to OPP, Redmond is still before the court "facing 17 additional serious criminal charges including assault, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and others in connection with multiple victims."

He's set to appear before the court for sentencing in this case on April 14.

The Police Association of Ontario, which is the official provincial representative of 45 police associations across the province, told CBC in an emailed statement that it does not condone criminal conduct of any kind, by anyone.

"This case is disturbing and we're glad to see the individual will be held responsible," a spokesperson wrote.

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8 Iraqi Men Jailed for Gang-Rape of German Tourist in Austria

© AP 

Nine to 13 years

Eight Iraqi asylum seekers have been sentenced by an Austrian court to between nine and 13 years in jail for the brutal gang-rape of a 28-year-old German woman during New Year’s celebrations over a year ago.

A group nine Iraqi nationals, between 22 and 48 years, were arrested last summer in Vienna and two other Austrian provinces and charged with “abuse of a defenseless person and rape in a very humiliating and agonizing way for the victim.”

Charges against one suspect were dropped, as investigators found that he was asleep during the assault.

All members of the same family, the men came to Austria as migrants between May and December 2015. Five of them already had refugee status at the time of the assault, while the other four had their applications pending.

Vienna New Year's Eve 2016

The brutal assault took place on 2015/2016 New Year’s Eve, as the victim from the northern German state of Lower Saxony came to Vienna to celebrate with her female friend. The victim got “separated” from her friend during the festivities and met four reportedly drunk Iraqis at some point after midnight. They took advantage of her heavily intoxicated state and brought her to a flat, where five other men were waiting.

The perpetrators assaulted the victim for several hours, and the savage attack left the woman in need of medical and psychological treatment. “Nothing makes me happy anymore,” her lawyer quoted her as saying.

Only one of the perpetrators has reportedly acknowledged the rape and showed some remorse, while others either claimed the sex to have been “consensual” or have denied it altogether.

The investigating team, however, managed to prove their horrific assault with DNA and video evidence.

The quite harsh sentences imposed on the eight Iraqis might serve as a “warning” for all the migrants coming to Austria, Defense lawyer Andreas Reichenbach believes.

“As we all know, asylum-seekers don't have the best image here in Austria,” AP quoted him as saying. “I think that this surely played a certain role, to make it clear to these people that when they come to Austria that such behavior won't be tolerated.”

The victim was awarded damages of €25,000 ($26,265). Both prosecution and defense teams said they might appeal the court ruling, Reuters reported, citing the court spokesperson.

Migrants from other countries expressed fear that such outrageous cases might incite hostility against them to a whole new level and condemned the attack.

“Eight people raping a woman – that's honor-less! Such a thing doesn't exist in our religion,” a migrant from Turkey, Burhan Akbas told AP.

I'm sorry; what planet do you live on? Is it more 'honorable if only 4 people rape a woman, or just 2 or 3? Does marrying 9 year olds exist in your religion? Does taking sex slaves exist in your religion? Have you actually read the Quran?

Sexual related attacks and incidents have been on the rise amid EU’s migrant crisis. Last year, mass sexual abuse transpired in the German city of Cologne, perpetrated by a group of men allegedly of North African and Arab descent, although police failed to identify all the attackers.

Ahead of New Year celebrations this year, police in Austria’s capital Vienna took precautions and distributed 6,000 special “anti-rape” pocket alarms among women. The devices emit a shrill sound to deter potential perpetrators and alert police.

Despite the measures, at least 18 sexual assaults occurred during this year’s revelry in the Austrian city of Innsbruck, where women were reportedly groped by a gang of “individuals.”

Skateboarders See Rape Unfolding, Take Swift Action

by Kathryn Schroeder

Arnaud Nimenya,     Carsyn Wright,     James Hielema and     Starlyn Rives-Perez

Four Calgary, Canada, skateboarders received awards for stopping the sexual assault of an underage girl.

On April 2, 2015, the young men, Arnaud Nimenya, Carsyn Wright, James Hielema and Starlyn Rivas-Perez, were in an underground parking garage at Chinook Mall when they saw a well-dressed man carrying a young woman who appeared to be very drunk and distraught, according to CBC News.

“She was screaming and yelling," Wright said. "She just wanted to be out of there."

The group stopped the man and asked him questions to determine if the girl was in safe hands. He told the group he was trying to phone her father for a ride home.

The men believed him, and then watched him take her into a nearby stairwell.

"You don't want to really think of the worst in somebody like that," Wright continued. "You don't want that situation to be real, so you just brush it off and hope for the best."

The four men left the area with the intention to return in a few minutes to check on the girl. When they did, they found the man sexually assaulting her in the stairwell.

“He had her in a stairwell, bent over ... it was disgusting,” Wright said.

The scene shocked Nimenya.

“You walk in, and you see something like that, and you freeze," he said. "You don’t know what to do."

“You can’t just leave a girl and like she was young, 15 years old," Wright said, according to Carbonated.TV. "She needed help and we needed to be there for her."

The group stopped the attack, and did not let the man get away.

“He was trying to walk out and walk away from us,” Nimenya told CBC News. “He pushed me aggressively out of the way, ... gives me the smile, like, ‘I can do this. You can’t do anything about it.’”

Three of the skateboarders chased the man down, while the fourth stayed with the girl.

The man fought back by attacking them with a longboard. The police soon arrived and arrested him for sexual assault of a minor.

The skateboarders were hesitant to speak with police because they thought they would be in trouble for fighting with the man.

“When they called us, we didn’t want to answer,” Nimenya said.

The police did not want to cause trouble for the skateboarders. Instead, authorities recognized them for their bravery and service.

Chief Const. Roger Chaffin gave each of the men an Award of Exceptional Recognition for their bravery at the Calgary Police Chief’s Awards Gala on June 2, Carbonated.TV reports.

Twenty-five other people were also recognized for acts they performed.

"This is the true nature of Calgarians," Chaffin said at the ceremony. "To be able to come out and see somebody in trouble and just act, selflessly act, to help other people out."

Disturbing Attitudes Toward Sex and Violence Against Women in EU

Over a quarter of Europeans think sex without consent

is justifiable – poll

If this is Europe, how bad must it be in Islam where sex and violence

against women are taught in the Quran?

    © Eric Thayer / Reuters

A Eurobarometer survey has shown alarming tendencies in attitudes towards sex without consent, with about 27 percent of respondents across the EU saying sex without consent is justifiable.

Most respondents cite reasons like being drunk or on drugs (12 percent), agreeing to go home with someone (11 percent), wearing revealing clothes, or not clearly saying no or physically fighting back (both 10 percent).

Sorted by country, those surveyed in Romania and Hungary tended to be the most likely to say each situation could justify sex without consent, while respondents in Sweden and Spain were among the least likely to say so.

Moreover, more than 40 percent of respondents in the EU believe that harassing women in the street by making sexually offensive jokes should not be illegal, with nine percent in Slovenia and eight percent each in Austria, Germany, and Lithuania saying it is not even wrong.

The survey also asked the respondents about harassment at work: for instance, “touching a colleague in an inappropriate way” should not be illegal, think 48 percent of Hungarians, 42 percent of Estonians, and 38 percent of Lithuanians.

Most respondents also think that sexual harassment against women is either very common (20 percent) or fairly common (half of all respondents).

The location where violent acts occur is most often home, over 85 percent of respondents said, while 19 percent said public places, and another 19 percent said harassment happens most often online.

Perhaps even more alarming is the way many respondents expressed their attitude towards violence against women, with almost a quarter saying that women often make up or exaggerate claims of abuse, and 17 percent saying that it is women who provoke violence.

Latvia proved to be the only country where the majority said the victim is to blame (57 percent), followed by Lithuania (45 percent), and Malta (40 percent). In contrast, only 6 percent of respondents agreed with the statement in the Netherlands, and 9 percent in Sweden.

On the whole, the authors of the survey were optimistic regarding the awareness of violence across the EU.

Still, the survey highlights a few rather disturbing issues: first, 88 percent of the victims do not go to the police to report the offense. Also, there is clearly disagreement among the respondents whether some violent acts should be deemed illegal or even wrong. Finally, at least 70 percent of respondents said that domestic violence and sexual harassment are common in their country (74 and 70 percent, respectively).

Many of these attitudes I would have expected to find in Islam and in much smaller numbers in non-Muslim countries. The increasing migration of Muslims into Europe probably enhance these numbers and will continue to do so. Programs must be developed to counter such misogynistic attitudes of entitlement.

Unfortunately, the survey doesn't seem to have tested attitudes toward sex and violence against children, a much bigger problem.

How Video Evidence can be Used to Determine Girl's Ability to Say No to Sex

How video like this can be 'very powerful' evidence in sexual assault trials

'Any kind of corroboration for a witness who is under the influence is helpful,' ex-prosecutor says

By Laura Fraser, CBC News


Moazzam Tariq, shown here, has been charged with sexual assault. This surveillance tape was submitted to the court as evidence by the Crown. (Submitted)

The black and white video offers a bird's-eye view into what happens in the wee hours at a Toronto club.

A group of men order bottle service and then someone passes a shot to the woman one of them has brought to the booth.

Within 15 minutes, the video shows Moazzam Tariq pour vodka in the woman's mouth three times, slap her butt and then help her to her feet, supporting her as she stumbles across the dance floor and out of the Everleigh at 2:35 a.m. on July 18, 2015.

It looks like a typical night at any downtown club.

    Sexual assault surveillance video 2:47

What's unique about this video, however, is that it was a key piece of evidence in Crown prosecutor Jill Witkin's case against Tariq. The Brampton, Ont., man was charged with sexual assault two weeks after the encounter with the woman, after she reported to police she had no memory of consenting to sex.

On Friday, Tariq was found guilty.

Since alcohol can impair a witness's reliability — their ability to recall exactly what happened — the video provided an independent view for Judge Mara Greene.

In her ruling Friday morning, Greene said the victim appeared "disoriented, confused and incapable of making voluntary, informed decisions."  

During the trial held in Toronto in August, the complainant testified that she had a vague memory of someone, shirtless and on top of her in the hotel room and that she said, "No."

The last thing I want to do is to take the side of the perpetrator here, my sympathies are always with the victim which, when you are dealing with adults, is always the woman. But there are some troubling things about this case and the conclusions that were drawn.

It would be easy if the girl was passed out when they got to the hotel, or if there was a high level of drunkenness that suddenly came upon the girl as a result of drugging. But when she is walking, talking and accompanying a man to a hotel room there seems to be not just an element of functionality, but an attitude of willingness as well.

When a woman accompanies a man to a hotel room, it has been traditionally assumed that she is willing to sleep with the man, otherwise, why wouldn't she just go home? To then say 'No' once she is undressed and in bed with the man seems a bit late. It requires a level of self-control and self-denial that few men I know would be capable of. Self-control and self-denial are not character traits we teach children these days.

Then there is also the element that suggests a man dating or meeting a girl is now responsible for her level of intoxication. Of course, men/boys have always attempted to ply girls with liquor to loosen them up and make them more likely to be willing to have sex. Now, it seems, that the man/boy has to be careful to get the girl drunk enough to have sex but not so drunk as to be unable to consent or even just to forget that she may have consented. And he has to make this judgement when he, himself, has been drinking.

It will soon come down to guys having to record a girl's consent on their cell-phones before they dare jump into bed with them.

At any rate, there needs to be a difference in sentencing from a situation like the one described here and one where it is very clear that consent was not given. 

I hate this drinking until you are blotto that goes on, especially among girls and young women. It leaves them vulnerable, with no ability to control their situation, and completely at the mercy of the character of those she is drinking with. That's not saying girls are responsible for getting raped; it's saying excessive drinking puts girls at much greater risk of being raped. That's not the way it should be, but that is the way it is.

At the hotel

Witkin also submitted as evidence in the trial surveillance video taken from the Thompson Hotel at 2:37 a.m. in which you see Tariq and the then 25-year-old complainant walk into the hotel. His arm is wrapped around her waist and she's leaning heavily against him as the pair enters.

Tariq, 29, checks them into the hotel and they get on the elevator. Video taken inside the elevator shows the woman slumped against the wall, her eyes half open.

Both the prosecution and the defence agree about what happened next. The pair went into a hotel room. In the morning, the woman awoke and "felt violated," Witkin told the court. The results of a sexual assault exam found semen in her vagina that matched that of the accused, according to evidence submitted by the Crown.


The Crown submitted video footage to corroborate the complainant's evidence that she was too intoxicated to consent to sexual contact. (Submitted)

Defence lawyer Danielle Robitaille, who helped represent former CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi during his sexual assault trial earlier this year, does not disagree that sex happened.

The question, however, is whether the woman was too intoxicated to be able to consent, something that Witkin argued the video shows and Robitaille disputed.

Reliability and credibility

Ottawa criminal lawyer Michael Spratt said he has never seen this amount of video evidence — almost a half an hour's worth — introduced at a hearing to try to prove that someone could not legally consent to sex.

But Spratt said he expects courts to start seeing more video introduced as evidence, especially in cases where alcohol or other factors might affect a witness's reliability.

"It can be very powerful and very corroborative evidence, depending on what it shows and what inferences can be drawn," he said.

The complainant in this case was open about not having any memory of the events leading up to the encounter in the hotel room.

"She was not one of those witnesses who had a blackout and tried to fill in the blanks in her memory," Witkin said. "She's very fair about what she remembered and what she didn't."

Former prosecutor Karen Bellehumeur said that in this case the Crown was essentially using video evidence to fill in the gaps.

"When you have to rely on a witness who is intoxicated, there's always the argument that they're not reliable," said the lawyer who now specializes in civil litigation in sexual abuse cases. "Any kind of corroboration for a witness who is under the influence is helpful."

Legally, the prosecution still has to prove that there was an absence of consent, but there's "a shift" in attitude from "no means no, to yes means yes," Bellehumeur said.

Accused didn't testify

Tariq did not testify during the four-day trial in provincial court.

His lawyer said in her closing argument that when it comes to consent, the judge needed to consider a complainant's ability to make conscious decisions — and not outward symptoms of intoxication.

"There is no requirement in law that a complainant be able to walk a straight line to consent to sex," Robitaille told the judge. "The requirement is that they appreciate the sexual nature and they have the ability to decline if they wish."

Robitaille had argued that the video shows the complainant was able to send text messages and keep track of her phone and purse, which indicates she was functioning at a level where she was aware of what was happening.

Another College Student Avoids Prison After Raping a Freshman

No Prison For Colorado Student Who

Raped ‘Helpless’ Freshman

Austin Wilkerson had faced years behind bars 

for attacking a half-conscious woman

Tyler Kingkade 
Senior Editor/Reporter, The Huffington Post

Austin Wilkerson told friends of a fellow University of Colorado-Boulder student who drank too much at a party that he’d take care of her. Instead, he raped her as she drifted out of consciousness and lied about what he had done.



Wilkerson, 22, convicted of sexual assault of a helpless victim and unlawful sexual contact, faced a possible prison sentence of four years to life for the March 2014 attack on the freshman woman. But a judge in Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday sentenced him to two years on work release and 20 years’ probation.

“I’ve struggled, to be quite frank, with the idea of, ‘Do I put him in prison?’” said Judge Patrick Butler, according to the Daily Camera newspaper. “I don’t know that there is any great result for anybody. Mr. Wilkerson deserves to be punished, but I think we all need to find out whether he truly can or cannot be rehabilitated.”

The lenient punishment, reminiscent of the six-month sentence given to Stanford University athlete Brock Turner in June for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, adds to the perception that the criminal justice system too often fails to consider the trauma and lifelong effects experienced by rape victims, said Brie Franklin, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

societal betrayal

It's a crying shame when it appears that Judges are part of the culture of rape on university campuses. How does such a sentence encourage the next girl who is raped on campus to come forward and report the crime. What's the point? She has to endure giving testimony, a cross-examination, and then listen to her rapist lie about her in front of her family - all for what? A slap on the wrist?

She suffers with the myriad psychological effects for the rest of her life! His sentence does nothing to help her heal but only deepens the sense of societal betrayal. Way to go Judge Butler!

“We are disappointed to see, yet again, that the impact on the perpetrator, who chose to commit a crime against another person, is being considered over the impact on the victim, who did not have a choice in the matter,” Franklin told The Huffington Post.

Turner’s light sentence helped propel national outrage against the judge who imposed the punishment and its message of making excuses for serious criminal assault.

  News report

Supporters of Wilkerson, as in the California case of Turner, appealed for leniency. Wilkerson’s friends and family said the crime was a “traumatic incident” for him. They asked the judge to consider Wilkerson’s future, and said he “will go far in this world if not defined by this one incident.”

His victim might have had the same potential, but unfortunately, she is defined by this one incident. She will need a lot of support to get past that.

Wilkerson’s victim drank too much celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, and Wilkerson told her friends he’d take care of her. Instead, he “isolated and raped the half-conscious victim,” prosecutors said in court documents.

Wilkerson admitted to investigators he’d made advances to the victim that night, “but that she rebuffed him each time, and that he felt ‘pissed off’ and called her a ‘fucking bitch,’” according to court documents.

Wilkerson told the jury that the woman wasn’t inebriated and that their sexual activity was consensual. His defense argued that the victim filed a rape claim to cover up for a drop in her grades.


        COURT DOCUMENTS/THE HUFFINGTON POST

An excerpt from the pre-sentencing memo submitted by prosecutors in Austin Wilkerson’s case.
Following his conviction in May, probation officers recommended a sentence with no prison time, arguing Wilkerson was remorseful. Prosecutors fiercely disagreed, writing in a pre-sentencing memo that Wilkerson’s changing story was evidence he hadn’t seriously accepted his guilt.

District Attorney Stanley Garnett pointed to harm to the victim in a memo to the court, arguing “it is objectively offensive to consider as ‘punishment enough’ the fact that the defendant will have to pursue a career as a biochemist instead of as a medical doctor.” 

“If more than a quarter of people in this community were killed by a drunk driver, or assaulted or menaced during an invasion of their home, the community would call for a stronger message than a sentence of probation with no punitive sanction to effectuate respect for the law, the deterrence of crime, and the protection of the public,” Garnett wrote. “Sexual assault should be no different. Murderers go to prison. Armed robbers go to prison. Rapists go to prison. This is what justice requires.”

Oklahoma Court of Appeals Upholds Bizarre Lower Court Ruling on Rape

Ruling is sparking outrage among critics who say the

judicial system was engaged in victim-blaming

and buying outdated notions about rape

An Oklahoma court has stunned local prosecutors with a declaration that state law doesn’t criminalize oral sex with a victim who is completely unconscious.



The ruling, a unanimous decision by the state’s criminal appeals court, is sparking outrage among critics who say the judicial system was engaged in victim-blaming and buying outdated notions about rape.

But legal experts and victims’ advocates said they viewed the ruling as a sign of something larger: the troubling gaps that still exist between the nation’s patchwork of laws and evolving ideas about rape and consent.

The case involved allegations that a 17-year-old boy assaulted a girl, 16, after volunteering to give her a ride home. The two had been drinking in a Tulsa park with a group of friends when it became clear that the girl was badly intoxicated. Witnesses recalled that she had to be carried into the defendant’s car. Another boy, who briefly rode in the car, recalled her coming in and out of consciousness.

The boy later brought the girl to her grandmother’s house. Still unconscious, the girl was taken to a hospital, where a test put her blood alcohol content above .34. She awoke as staff were conducting a sexual assault examination.

Tests would later confirm that the young man’s DNA was found on the back of her leg and around her mouth. The boy claimed to investigators that the girl had consented to performing oral sex. The girl said she didn’t have any memories after leaving the park. Tulsa County prosecutors charged the young man with forcible oral sodomy.

OK, first time I've heard that charge.

But the trial judge dismissed the case. And the appeals court ruling, on 24 March, affirmed that prosecutors could not apply the law to a victim who was incapacitated by alcohol.

“Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation,” the decision read. Its reasoning, the court said, was that the statute listed several circumstances that constitute force, and yet was silent on incapacitation due to the victim drinking alcohol. “We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language.”

Why not, if it is clearly inadequate?

Benjamin Fu, the Tulsa County district attorney leading the case, said the ruling had him “completely gobsmacked”.

“The plain meaning of forcible oral sodomy, of using force, includes taking advantage of a victim who was too intoxicated to consent,” Fu said. “I don’t believe that anybody, until that day, believed that the state of the law was that this kind of conduct was ambiguous, much less legal. And I don’t think the law was a loophole until the court decided it was.” To focus on why the victim was unable to consent, he continued, puts the victim at fault.

But several legal experts declined to fault the appeals court, saying instead that the ruling should be a wake-up call for legislators to update Oklahoma’s laws.

Michelle Anderson, the dean of the CUNY School of Law who has written extensively about rape law, called the ruling “appropriate” but the law “archaic”.

“This is a call for the legislature to change the statute, which is entirely out of step with what other states have done in this area and what Oklahoma should do,” she said. “It creates a huge loophole for sexual abuse that makes no sense,” she said.

Jennifer Gentile Long, who leads a group, AEquitas, that guides prosecutors in sexual and domestic violence cases, agreed. She said the Oklahoma law was an example of a gulf that still exists in some places between the law and evolving notions around consent and sexual agency.

Oklahoma has a separate rape statute that protects victims who were too intoxicated to consent to vaginal or anal intercourse, Long noted. But “there are still gaps in the ways laws are written that allow some cases to fall through the cracks,” she said. “This case” – because it did not involve vaginal rape but an oral violation – “seems to be one of them”.

In the wake of the ruling, Fu has said he will push for lawmakers to change the code. Many states have engaged in a broad overhaul of their rape laws in recent years, Anderson said, part of a movement to fall in line with the modern understanding of rape.

“There is a recognition that social mores have changed, that the law should now try to protect sexual autonomy as opposed to sexual morality,” she said. Often, the law changes after an outcry over unpopular court rulings.

The Oklahoma appeals court declined to make the ruling a precedent. But Fu said he has learned that other defendants are nevertheless making the same argument in other parts of Oklahoma to avoid charges.

The defendant’s attorney, Shannon McMurray, was not available for comment. She told Oklahoma Watch, which was first to report the ruling, that prosecutors were clearly in the wrong to charge the young man with forcible sodomy, and not a lesser crime of unwanted touching.

“There was absolutely no evidence of force or him doing anything to make this girl give him oral sex,” McMurray said, “other than she was too intoxicated to consent.”

Unbelievable! There was penetration (oral) and there was no consent! Isn't that the very definition of rape? Good grief! Use some common sense, judges. I mean the girl was stupid to get passed-out drunk, but that shouldn't make her fair game for rape.