This headline is shit. It’s just a masked type of victim blaming. What actually happened is that many town employees must have known about the SA, considering there were 14+ victims and SA doesn’t happen overnight, and they did nothing for quite some time… So the real story is that the town faces a huge tax hike because its employees decided to cover up SA.
If they’d caught the shady bastard after the first or second assault, the legal bills would have been millions of dollars less. But they didn’t, because it wasn’t a priority.
As for who knew or should have known but did nothing, we don’t know, but the town residents might want to dig into that.
might need to be even more reductive or more expansive, but remember: somebody will twist this for clicks
I’d bet many members of this community ignored, dismissed and even helped cover up these abuses because that’s what little conservative communities do: ignore and enable sexual assault because they can’t admit that it’s happening, and they’ll sacrifice their vulnerable community members to keep up appearances for as long as possible.
This is why comprehensive, single payer public health (and education, infrastructure, police de-escalation and oversight, jobs, transportation, food, and and and) are an investment with incalculable ROI. This is why “render to Caesar.”
We here in Kansas City are voting today to potentially recall our county executive over massively inflated property taxes.
This seems to be happening all over the place.
This specifically is literally a town of 800 still owing 6 million dollars after they spent their little coffers and their insurance paid out what it was going to pay. They are literally taxing the home owners exactly what it cost to pay the settlement I doubt that is happening all over the place.
I don’t think Frank White was raising taxes for sex abuse tho right? Probably just all those police lawsuits. -_-
How much longer can the people be robbed by the 1% before we take a stand? We’re already at a tipping point and I believe things are only going to get more violent and deadly. This is trumps America and his administration is gutting the working class. While this isn’t directly related to him, the town is taking a play out of his sex scandal playbook
That’s a really good way to put the victims in danger
14 claimants, town of 800… This guy molested 1.75% of the population, or 3.5% of the women/girls in town if averages hold. Jesus.
What are the odds there is another victim, or two, who were too embarrassed, ashamed, or traumatized, to come forward?
It could even be they were brave enough and there wasn’t enough evidence. These are the ones that the prosecution could prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
I mean, there are probably some who didn’t come forward too.
0 or 100%
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The former coach and alleged abuser
… then goes on to document a guilty plea and some horrific detail, I think at this point “alleged” is a bit
He raped 14 girls and it states he was allowed to do this for years and is only receiving 15 years in prison.
Soo… counts fingers about one per year?
Journalistic habit. You’re supposed to say alleged until the sentence but afterwards you’re just used to the phrasing.
The amount set a new record for abuse cases against school districts in Oklahoma, topping a $5-million settlement reached by Kingfisher Public Schools in 2023. […] the district paid $500,000 from the school’s general fund toward the settlement, while their liability insurance paid $1 million.
Sounds like they were under-insured. The Catholic Church got away with it by having their insurance pay everything, and then declaring bankruptcy whenever someone went against the Church’s actual assets.
Only $1,000,000 in coverage which isn’t much.
Which is such bullshit because I remember reading in the early 2000s that the Catholic Church had over $4 trillion in assets, they could afford to settle all of their claims for a fraction of that, a very small fraction of that, less than 1% of that.
The thing that pisses me off is that, back in the late 1970’s / early 1980’s, the Church became aware they had a sex abuse problem and could be held liable. And instead of mocking the priests to places where they couldn’t commit harm, they:
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Increased their movement of assets away from individual churches and dioceses info separate ownership, so those assets wouldn’t be forfeit in case of lawsuits;
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Purged a bunch of documentation about abusive priests, shredding, burning, or throwing it away;
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Moved the documentation that remained to secret local archives supposedly sealed by the confessional and clerical privilege, and then away from local churches and dioceses to the Papal Nunciature (Embassy) in DC where they’re covered by diplomatic immunity;
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Went out and bought a massive amount of specific insurance to cover any sex abuse claims that might arise - and got a very cheap price for it, too.
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Continued their practice of moving abusive priests between dioceses and parishes, denying there was a problem to anyone who might ask and giving those priests the opportunity to give other victims.
Probably other shitty stuff, but those are the points I remember offhand (and it’s more than enough). They never cared about their victims, only preserving their money and power.
Over a thousand years of experience in legal maneuvering, they existed before the laws and watched them form over the years.
They’ve got the asset strategy down pat, what they’ve never had a handle on is their human factors - since we’re all such flawed and sinful individuals, and they have a tendency to recruit from the damaged end of society to start with… denial is their weapon of choice against the Devil.
Never mind Citizens United; the fact that corporate entities (and yes, churches count) are able to do shit like this just proves that they’ve been out of control going way further back.
Limited liability, as a concept, is a moral hazard. It should be abolished in all but a very limited set of circumstances where it serves the public’s (not the shareholders’ or any other private entity’s) interest.
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You don’t get $4T in assets by giving it away to every altar boy who tattles…
We should take it all away from that pedophile ring. Why do they deserve to have tax free rape dens?
There are no Epstein files.
Er, I mean, it’s a hoax.
That is, only Epstein is in the Epstein files.
Signed, Epstein’s mom.
Ah yes the holy loophole.
Wonder how many complaints were ignored before he actually got charged. Probably would have been much cheaper to act the first time, before he had dozens of victims for them to compensate.
This 2021 article paints a damning picture.
Oklahoma coach preyed on players while school looked the other way, lawsuit alleges — The Oklahoman
Back in the bad old days of the 2009 recession, I got caught in the churn and wound up at a temp agency to make ends meet.
One of my assignments was driving about 6 hours a day, from gas station to gas station to “buy” cigarettes. I never actually bought anything. What I did do, however, was wait until they asked me for either my ID or money. If they asked me for ID, they got a green card. If they asked me for money with no sign of ID’ing me, they got a red card.
It was a voluntary program by Philip Morris to curtail underage smoking. I don’t know what actually happened to the cashiers. I was told no one got punished. (And folks reacted with disappointment, but not sadness or anger. Folks with green cards reacted happily, though. So I assume it was an Incentive-based program.) These interactions got logged, and I turned in the log sheet at the end of the day.Because we’re victims of our own experience, that immediately came to mind. I feel like we need to start blindly testing if mandatory reporters are reporting things they witness. I mean - no idea how that gets worked out. Seems horrible.
Sounds about right. How many more victims were abused between 2015 and the charges being filed? Everyone who refused to take the first victim seriously should go to jail for enabling him.
How does a school property tax increase just happen without it being voted on and passed by the community?
Because they voted to elect these people as representatives and do it for them.
This is a case of FAFO: the school system took on huge liability (in payment of the judgement) and the school system is funded by property taxes.
I get that, but every time the school district in my area wants more money it gets voted on for a property tax increase.
Those would be optional, before the expense, votes for the choice to spend the money or not.
This is a case of necessity, they’ll be in violation of various laws and judgement decrees if they don’t raise the money.
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how funding for schools works.
The school says to the city, “I need more money because properties are getting more expensive here” and the city bills the residents? Where does federal funding come in? Why do the residents pay for this?
Federal funding is just a drop in the bucket compart to local and state taxes that support public schools. 30 billion from the Fed to 13000 districts would be only 2 mil before accounting for federal staff to audit and distribute. And for a school 2 mill is only about 10-25 staff depending on district.
The military gets a cool Trillion a year.
When they don’t misplace it.
is “30 billion from the fed” the amount they are currently getting? and is it every year?
what is that compared to? ie. how much does a school get from local residents?
It is highly dependent on local, state, and federal funding sources, usually in that order. Property taxes are usually where most of the money comes from in most places, but that is not universally true. For example, in Colorado property taxes are not as much of a direct source of funding for schools as they are in other places. So despite having some of the most expensive property values in the country, Colorado has some of the worst funded schools and worst paid teachers in the country as well.
I live in one of the highest property value areas anywhere in the entire country, and the local district’s primary source of funding is municipal sales taxes. It’s truly absurd.
At the state level, many states use lottery money from any given area to supplement other funding. Which sounds great on its face, but the reality is that the lotto is effectively a regressive tax of sorts. Areas that have high property values save money from lotto contributions. Areas with low property values tend to have more people playing the lotto, but that money is rarely enough to make up for a lack of funding. What most people dont understand about those programs is that they dont take the lotto money from rich areas (or pool it) and provide it to poorer area schools that need it more. The money is geographically limited to the areas it comes in from
I live in one of the highest property value areas anywhere in the entire country, and the local district’s primary source of funding is municipal sales taxes. It’s truly absurd.
Why is this absurd?
Sales taxes are regressive by design, and are ultimately a way to fuck over poor neighborhoods if you drop it to the municipal level.
The only time sales taxes tend to serve the local citizens well is when there’s a large tourist or traveler population and even then it usually mostly goes to making sure their required infrastructure isn’t a burden because if it’s too high then they just don’t spend money.
Why is @ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 's experience of local schools being funded sales taxes absurd?
Because when it exists in wealthy districts it not only primarily serves to makes sure none of the filthy poors in other districts benefit from their taxes, it’s even targeted within the district, as the middle and lower class residents will be using public schools and the truly wealthy will be sending their kids to private schools and demanding a tax credit for doing it, even if the local area is funding it with the sales taxes they don’t even pay into.
Plus it’s just a self defeating tax scheme in the first place. You don’t want to discourage local spending or encourage people traveling to other areas to avoid it.
I’m shocked that it wasn’t a cop.
They need $7,500 per resident and, according to the article, they intend to raise that money over three years. I don’t know what their property values are like but if I assume an average house price of $300k, a current tax rate of 2%, and three people per house then they’re currently getting $6,000 in property taxes per person over three years (which they need to spend on other things) and so an enormous tax increase really is necessary.
(I’m neglecting non-residential property tax payers. A tiny town like this probably doesn’t have many.)
And there’s not really any guarantee that they’re going to stop charging that money after the three years has passed because people will be used to paying it at that point.
That aside, can you imagine having to pay an extra $200 a month for your mortgage for at least three years to cover over the fact that people that work for your city sexually assaulted other people?
I don’t know the details of the case but I expect that almost everyone who works for the city is as opposed to sexual assault as any normal person is. The mistake of the city government as a whole was having so little insurance - just one million dollars. I had 500k in liability for my house and I’m only one guy.
Some coach diddles kids and the families and kids have to pay for it through insane tax hikes and less school funding? In what world does that make sense?
They already put the coach in prison for 15 years and probation for 25 years after that. Why punish the local community too? Yes, the families should be made whole, but not at the expense of objectively innocent tax payers and schoolchildren.
That’s the way the System supposed to work though. The local school district is supposed to be run by those citizens. They elect the school boards that set the policies and appoint the administrators. It’s supposed to be representative government. The citizens are supposed to monitor what this board is doing and if they don’t like it vote them out. Make their voices heard. Show up at school board meetings. That’s their responsibility. If they don’t want to do it then they have to live with the consequences.
The school was likely complicit in ignoring warnings. This is why board members should be held personally liable if they are negligent in their duties.
In a community that’s small, there is no way many of these same families and homeowners weren’t aware of that predator.
The community enabled him and now the community has to pay for that choice.
What’s your alternative solution?
The families that sued him and settled for $7.5M were from the community. Did they enable him? What about the children that attend the same school and will now have less funding for their education? Did they enable him? Do they deserve to partake in the punishment?
Make the people that did the offense pay for it.
So your proposal is to completely scrap how American liability laws work and create something new?
I don’t think that would be all bad, definitely ambitious.
What about the the current victims? How should they receive their restitution in the meantime?
That’s a very judgmental take… you have insider knowledge or are talking you arse out? Man I wish that kind of shit never happen in my village because I’d be bundled with other peasants I might have seen at the baker for a brief 30 seconds while fetching bread once over 8 years and suddenly I would be enabling someone…
The four officials — the former principal of Ninnekah High School, a former superintendent, a former athletics director and a former secretary — were dismissed from the lawsuit as part of the settlement.
^Word of Akins’ relationship with Jane Doe No. 2 began to spread in the school district. Multiple adults and former students told authorities district staff were aware of the rumors but brushed it off, according to law enforcement reports.
I currently live in OK, Ninnekah is a tiny shithole in the middle of nowhere with like 700 people in it. If more than a couple of adults knew about it, the whole town knew about it.
I do not think any elected official would go around telling any member of their constituency that they diddles their kids. Not even Trump, nor his appointed cabinet. I don’t see how the town would know about it if the adults do not tell others.
It says “former”. I take that to mean the people did hold the officials accountable after finding out.
I do not think any elected official would go around telling any member of their constituency that they diddles their kids. Not even Trump, nor his appointed cabinet. I don’t see how the town would know about it if the adults do not tell others.
Then you are probably unaware of how proud pedophiles often are of their behavior, how much they like to find and even team up with others of the same tastes, how any iota of self-awareness they possess that might stop them from bragging is generally rendered irrelevant by both their arrogance and mountainous sense of entitlement, how much everyone who actually knows what is going on has a strong disinterest in interfering, and how much non-pedophiles do NOT want to believe or acknowledge even the possibility of the truth of such statements even when they hear or overhear it directly for themselves.
From Jerry Sandusky to Jeffrey Epstein, it’s the same story, over and over again.
In other words, these people talk, sometimes in lightly coded language but often not even bothering, because they do not believe they are in the wrong, they do not believe they will be caught, they think they have every right to do what they do, they like feeling invincible, and if you are the one person who actually has enough of a problem with it to make a stink out of all the countless others who are silently in the know, they’re sure no one will believe you. . . because if someone cares to ask, there’s nothing they can’t talk their way out of. Far too frequently, they are 100% right on all counts.
EDITED to add link that demonstrates the significant number of people that heard, saw, or knew and did nothing, or worse, quietly stood in the way of anyone who wanted to do anything about it, including making the police files go away from the first victim who reported: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2021/08/14/lawsuit-alleges-ronald-gene-akins-preyed-on-former-basketball-players/8122541002/
a very judgmental take
This is a very judgement based situation. Schools I attended in the 1970s left single adults alone with kids in all kinds of situations that make this kind of abuse possible. Changing how they operate, making less private spaces available for abuse on school campuses to occur in, placing less trust in the individuals and relying on larger groups to ensure that behavioral norms are followed… all those are things that should have been happening 50 years ago, but apparently didn’t in this small town. Maybe now they will, or maybe they’ll just bury their heads in the sand until the next case comes along and slaps them with another tax hike.
“…the alleged abuses were allowed to continue for years…”
If you’ve lived in a small town than you know that word of this was in many households that stayed silent.
That’s just how small rural towns in America work on issues of abuse.
If you believe this was a completely contained secret, then I have a bridge to sell you.
But yes, many people who are completely innocent will be impacted. What’s your alternative solution?
I’ve lived in a village of 600 people for about 6 years and I don’t know anyone here, and don’t want to.
many people who are completely innocent will be impacted.
And motivated to make changes for the better, as opposed to ignoring the problems.
Here’s the full quote:
Not only has the case caused outrage among the community, who discovered that the alleged abuses were allowed to continue for years, but it is now going to weigh financially on their shoulders.
It’s clearly saying that the community did not know about the abuses and that the administration was allowing the abuses to continue for years.
Just asserting they know without citing evidence or precedent like a witch hunt is not enough to convince me. Keeping up appearances with outsiders is how these predators survive.
Boo fucking hoo.
The citizens voted for an abuse-enabling school board that hired the abuse-enabling administration, so they deserve what they get.
Don’t like it? Fucking vet your political representatives better!
New York’s 3rd is one of the nation’s most wealthy and educated districts. They elected George Santos.
It could happen to you.
How could you vet that your representative without any history of doing so would commit or allow sexual abuse?
It’s never guaranteed, admittedly. But given which party people in rural Oklahoma, of all places, likely support, and given that party’s pervasive, to the last man support for pedophiles, I think there are some pretty fucking obvious changes they could make to start off with. Don’t you agree?
Edit: and if you don’t believe me about the “pervasive, to the last man support for pedophiles” part, Ted Cruz just confirmed it. Holy fucking shit.
Another commenter already provided a good answer dealing with that issue.
thanks, replied below
Thanks for bringing the whole quote. It’s sad that we are seeing the above behaviour / selective quoting here on the fediverse.
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In what world does that make sense?
OK logic. I have to admit: school districts in the state would more likely ignore other potential problems without this kind of example being set. God knows that sending one offender to jail doesn’t deter future offenders, it only heightens the thrill…
At this point I’d move across county lines to somewhere nearby that won’t have double the property tax rate.
You’d have to find someone to buy your house, which will probably be difficult, seeing as there’s a massive property tax increase heading that way.
Burn it down then.
While arson and insurance fraud to save $7,500 over 3 years, may not sound reasonable, but…
It’s be pretty hilarious and they should do it.
Great point
