She was a certified public accountant in Indiana, upstanding member of her community and also apparently delusional. Her claims were grotesque, but they were highly specific. The assault she said took place in the back room of a restaurant in Louisville on a specific day at around 10:30 p.m. She included loads of graphic and horrifying detail. It was stomach-turning.
And, yet, none of it, none of it was true. I spent the next two months trying to stay out of jail.
I couldn't tell my children because I knew they would be ashamed. I couldn't tell my employer because I knew I would be fired immediately.
I spoke only to lawyers and I paid them a fortune. I took a polygraph exam from the former head polygrapher at the FBI.
I never stopped worrying that the charges would become public and destroy my life.
Everyone accused of sex offense did something wrong. Everybody knows that. And I knew no one would believe otherwise. This isn't a defense of sexual harassment or misbehavior, obviously. It is just a reminder that real life is complicated. More complicated than sermonizing on Twitter.
Sometimes the mob is wrong. Sometimes the innocent are crushed. That's always a tragedy, no matter what the charge is.
Of course, crushing the innocent also may be the point of the exercise and we are seeing that.
Last week a feminist called Emily Lindin announced on Twitter that she was, "not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs in the search for perpetrators of sexual harassment. If some innocent men's reputation have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is a price I'm absolutely willing to pay."
Lindin not surprisingly is a columnist at Teen Vogue. We asked her to come on our show to talk about her views, but she refused.
