Carney walked over to the witness stand again so that I could follow along with a police report he was holding. And I felt confident and empowered enough to ask Carney to rephrase loaded, winding questions and to take my time answering them.Īt 9:15 a.m. Anger was coming with me to the courtroom today. I threw fear in the corner and shoved vulnerability under the bed. I had been on the stand for less than an hour, but I felt bloodied and bruised. He paused dramatically when I answered and then suggested it was time to recess for the day. He was a manipulative bully, just like his client.Ĭarney stopped the pummeling around four p.m., just after asking me for the definition of a blow job. He asked me the same question over and over again. Instead he latched onto Catie’s words like a cat who wouldn’t let go of a dead mouse. And I didn’t just confide in Catie - I told several other friends.īut of course Carney didn’t do that. That I pulled up my bra straps and yanked up my underwear twice. And if Carney had read out loud the rest of Catie’s interview, the people in that courtroom would have learned that I told her I said no. All that mattered was what happened in the mechanical room. I loved Catie dearly, but I knew she could be spacey and say things off-the-cuff. And it wasn’t how I was feeling while he was doing these things to me.” “And if I had - no, I have no recollection of saying that to her. “No, I honestly have no recollection of saying that to her,” I said. “Isn’t that what you told Catie when you were talking about what your expectations were of what you were going to do that night when you were with Owen?” “No, that’s not true,” I responded, completely blindsided. “Did you tell Catie that your expectations were like I’ll probably let him finger me and like at most I’ll blow him and that’s what you would allow to have happen, right?” Carney got so close that I could smell his breath, rotten like sour milk. He showed me a copy of Catie’s interview with the police and pointed forcefully at the page. Then Carney turned his attention to my expectations before meeting up with Owen. “You hadn’t engaged in oral sex with a boy? Or you hadn’t been digitally penetrated by a boy?” “She can explain,” Judge Smukler said, “but if it’s a yes-or-no question, she can answer either yes or no, then explain.”Ĭarney pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and moved on to my prior sexual experience - as if that had anything to do with whether or not I was assaulted. I had zero court experience, but I was pretty certain that I didn’t have to answer with just a yes or no.Ĭatherine approached Judge Smukler: “I object that the witness cannot be restricted to merely yes-or-no questions and that she is allowed to explain herself.” Would you be willing to do that if you can answer a question yes or no?” “Chessy, I think things would go better if I asked a question and if you can answer it yes or no, you do so. I made sure not to let those details slip past the jury, and that pissed off Carney. But he left out important facts - namely that Owen asked a boy to pressure me into accepting his invitation. Did he not think teenage girls are capable of knowing what it means to be objectified? That they can’t understand what empowerment feels like?Ĭarney tried to pave a golden brick road to my meeting up with Owen, lined with romantic French poetry and flirty song lyrics.
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