Justice Achieved or Overlooked?

As reported here at The Patch on May 24th, 2012; Brian Banks, a 26 year-old former Long Beach Poly High School football star and once-convicted rapist, has now been fully exonerated and Long Beach Superior Court Judge Mark C. Kim has overturned Banks’ conviction.

http://belmontshore.patch.com/articles/onetime-pro-football-prospect-exo...

Why?

The accuser, Wanetta Gibson, a fellow student of Banks at Poly at the time, is now on record as having recanted her accusation but she apparently had no intention of doing so publicly. It seems Gibson contacted Banks in 2011, reaching out to him on Facebook. She eventually indicated she was willing to change her story but worried about having to pay back what she called a very large civil court settlement from LBUSD.

You see, Gibson apparently wasn’t satisfied to file a false rape report with police or to achieve a conviction against Banks under completely fraudulent pretenses. Gibson also sued the Long Beach Unified School District citing what the Press Telegram called “lax security and an unsafe environment” on the Long Beach Poly campus. LBUSD settled the lawsuit and paid Gibson $1.5 million of the taxpayers’ money.

In communicating with Banks, Gibson was apparently willing to come clean about
her false court testimony (more commonly known as “perjury” and punishable as a felony) but was seemingly most concerned about losing $1.5 million settlement
she had, in essence, defrauded Long Beach taxpayers out of.

So where is the community outrage over this despicable damage done to the person of Mr. Banks? Where is the clamor for justice for this gross abuse of our criminal justice system? How about the outright bilking of Long Beach taxpayers out of $1.5 million dollars?

As of this writing (5/25/12 at 1:00pm) there are only 26 comments to the PT’s online article on the story.

http://www.presstelegram.com/ci_20699928/updated-rape-conviction-vacated-long-beach-football-star

The Patch’s amended story has two comments so far. If this level of reader response is to any degree indicative of the level of outrage over this travesty in the larger community, then I fear many who may be (quite rightly) celebrating Judge Kim’s decision may be missing something at least equally important.

If justice is truly blind, then we should conclude that the City Prosecutor’s office should spend no less energy and effort now prosecuting Wanetta Gibson for false report of a crime (a misdemeanor under CPC 148.5[a]) and the District Attorney’s office should spend no less energy and effort now prosecuting Wanetta Gibson for perjury (a felony under CPC 118[a]) as was expended in prosecuting Mr. Banks for rape.

If people, including taxpayers, truly have a constitutionally-guaranteed right to a redress of grievances, then Long Beach Unified should not waste a second in filing a civil suit against Wanetta Gibson seeking the return of the $1.5 million it agreed to settle with her for, over a campus safety claim that was founded entirely upon a lie.

According to the PT article: "Brentford Ferreira, head of the habeus (sic) corpus section of the District Attorney's Office, said as far as he was concerned the Banks case was over and he didn't foresee charges against Gibson."

What? And, perhaps more importantly, why not?

As to what LBUSD may or may not be planning, The Patch article reports: "Asked Thursday whether Long Beach Unified School District would seek to get back what has been reported as a sizable settlement paid under now-false pretense, LBUSD spokesman Chris Eftychiou said, "The school district cannot comment, due to the confidential nature of a matter that involved minors."

Interesting.

Does a matter that once involved minors remain confidential long after the minors have reached and exceeded the age of majority and are no longer K-12 LBUSD students? I don’t know, but my guess is it does not, particularly since the matter has now been fully adjudicated in both criminal and civil courts and whatever confidentiality Gibson might have claimed as the victim of a violent sex crime went out the window when she was found to have lied about the whole thing.

I think Wanetta Gibson should be prosecuted criminally for filing a false report of a crime and perjury and, if convicted, ordered to pay restitution to Mr. Banks.

I think LBUSD should sue Gibson in civil court to attempt to re-coup the $1.5 million that she bilked Long Beach taxpayers out of.

What do you think?