Avery Bradley accused of sexual assault; denies allegations

[RJ87]

Do we know who approached the other with the idea of payment for silence? Has it been verified it was Avery?

Here’s what TMZ says:

After the incident, the woman contacted Bradley and accused him of assaulting her. The two sides came together to work out a deal to keep her quiet and prevent her from releasing any video, photos or audio.

So, it’s not clear.

That seems bizarre that she would contact him before contacting the police if it was assault. Who does that?

But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, and besides, I don't trust TMZ too much to begin with. I just don't understand why she would do that.

That certainly needs to be cleared up.

It's not unusual. Based on the fact that she was able to contact him, it's reasonable to assume they had some sort of social relationship prior to the incident. The TMZ reports claims she was inebriated at some point - it could've been as simple as she called him to get more clarity of what happened that evening. You've never had a drunken night and called a friend the next day to ask what the heck happened?

[Roy H.]

Do we know who approached the other with the idea of payment for silence? Has it been verified it was Avery?

Here’s what TMZ says:

After the incident, the woman contacted Bradley and accused him of assaulting her. The two sides came together to work out a deal to keep her quiet and prevent her from releasing any video, photos or audio.

So, it’s not clear.

That seems bizarre that she would contact him before contacting the police if it was assault. Who does that?

But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, and besides, I don't trust TMZ too much to begin with. I just don't understand why she would do that.

That certainly needs to be cleared up.

It’s hard to guess facts. Let’s say a woman goes out on a date and wakes up, knowing that she’d had intercourse without her recollection. It might make sense to contact the accused, especially if there was a pre-existing relationship.

[KGs Knee]

Do we know who approached the other with the idea of payment for silence? Has it been verified it was Avery?

Here’s what TMZ says:

After the incident, the woman contacted Bradley and accused him of assaulting her. The two sides came together to work out a deal to keep her quiet and prevent her from releasing any video, photos or audio.

So, it’s not clear.

That seems bizarre that she would contact him before contacting the police if it was assault. Who does that?

But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, and besides, I don't trust TMZ too much to begin with. I just don't understand why she would do that.

That certainly needs to be cleared up.

It’s hard to guess facts. Let’s say a woman goes out on a date and wakes up, knowing that she’d had intercourse without her recollection. It might make sense to contact the accused, especially if there was a pre-existing relationship.

Ok.

I had read that to mean she already knew what happened and was calling him to specifically accuse him.

[KGs Knee]

Could be I just misinterpreted what they meant there.

[Eja117]

This just strikes me as really different than say the Rothlisburger thing. That woman was held behind a locked door with guards and went to the police within 24 hours I thought.

I see this as hush money at absolute worst and hush money isn't sexual assault.

Hush money could be sexual assault. Look at all the Weinstein stuff.

Then go to the police. If you don't go to the police not only was he not convicted, not only was he not charged, not only was he not arrested....I mean did she even file a complaint or anything at all? Just tells me she didn't think he had committed a crime serious enough to pursue at the time.

You realize statistics show that only a fraction of sexual assaults are reported, right? There's a multitude of reasons behind that but one of the biggest reasons is the fear of not being believed. This thread is really a perfect microcosm. We have no facts about the victim or the incident, but people think they "know" Avery and can speak to his character, and therefore bend over backwards to believe he couldn't possibly do something like this.

Sexual assault cases are the only crimes where the victim is put on trial. No one has to prove that they were robbed and then explain what they did to get themselves robbed. No one asks what murder victims do to get themselves murdered.

People ask what people did to get murdered all the time. Maybe you missed the whole Black Lives Matter thing.

This is really simple. We have a justice system. In it people get charged with crimes. Then evidence is presented to a jury assuming it goes to trial.  There is a presumption of innocence until that happens.

Either we live in that world or we live in a world where we presume guilt because of a TMZ report with an anonymous source.

I'm comfortable with my choice. 

One thing we can't do is start picking and choosing based on convenience, virtue signaling, and bias. We can't choose to demonize this guy over here, but in the mean time completely ignore that the Clintons have been accused of far worse.   

You have to look at the actions of the accuser. People that choose not to go to the police or have no evidence or have evidence to the contrary can't possibly be expected to be believed on the same level as accusers that reacted immediately and clearly.

Not all people have faith in the justice system - hence the BLM movement. Any supporter will tell you the outrage is over cops acting as judge, jury, and executioner in one fell swoop. But politicizing this issue is not what this thread or my initial comment was about.

You seem all to comfortable to say that because she accepted money, she must not believe a crime had occurred while completely dismissing his willingness to actually shell out said money to buy her silence. He agreed to a settlement, why aren't we questioning why such a high character guy not seek his day in court to prove innocence?

Because he was never arrested or charged with a crime and the accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence.

Correction: the accused doesn’t want us to see the evidence.

No. The accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence. Or at least the evidence isn't so important to her that she can't be paid to not show it to us. Easier to take the money than be cross examined. I guess you could say the accuser is not invested in showing us the evidence. Or rather she is invested in not showing us the evidence.

[Eja117]

This just strikes me as really different than say the Rothlisburger thing. That woman was held behind a locked door with guards and went to the police within 24 hours I thought.

I see this as hush money at absolute worst and hush money isn't sexual assault.

Hush money could be sexual assault. Look at all the Weinstein stuff.

Then go to the police. If you don't go to the police not only was he not convicted, not only was he not charged, not only was he not arrested....I mean did she even file a complaint or anything at all? Just tells me she didn't think he had committed a crime serious enough to pursue at the time.

There are plenty of reasons victims of abuse don't go to the police. Here's a good article about it:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-compassion-chronicles/201711/why-dont-victims-sexual-harassment-come-forward-sooner

which is a huge problem.

Tough one to solve too.

Totally. And claiming that not going to the police is evidence that an accuser didn't think the attacker had committed a crime, as eja has done, is part of that problem.

I'm kinda a "show me" person.  Another way to say is "Trust but verify".   If we started believing every accusation simply because it is an accusation then we could live in Salem in the late 1600s and I think that was probably a terrible time and place to be. A great time for accusers. But not anyone else.

Nowhere did I say that all accusations should be believed.

Claiming that not going to the police is evidence that a victim didn't think a crime occurred is a well-debunked misnomer. By doing so, you are the one making a baseless assumption.

Going to the police is evidence you think a crime was committed. So...not going to the police....is at the very least not evidence that you think a crime was committed and may very well be evidence that you think a crime wasn't committed.

I don't owe the accuser my blind belief without seeing evidence. So if you choose not to show it to me by not going to the police......presumption of innocence goes to Mr. Bradley.

[Roy H.]

This just strikes me as really different than say the Rothlisburger thing. That woman was held behind a locked door with guards and went to the police within 24 hours I thought.

I see this as hush money at absolute worst and hush money isn't sexual assault.

Hush money could be sexual assault. Look at all the Weinstein stuff.

Then go to the police. If you don't go to the police not only was he not convicted, not only was he not charged, not only was he not arrested....I mean did she even file a complaint or anything at all? Just tells me she didn't think he had committed a crime serious enough to pursue at the time.

You realize statistics show that only a fraction of sexual assaults are reported, right? There's a multitude of reasons behind that but one of the biggest reasons is the fear of not being believed. This thread is really a perfect microcosm. We have no facts about the victim or the incident, but people think they "know" Avery and can speak to his character, and therefore bend over backwards to believe he couldn't possibly do something like this.

Sexual assault cases are the only crimes where the victim is put on trial. No one has to prove that they were robbed and then explain what they did to get themselves robbed. No one asks what murder victims do to get themselves murdered.

People ask what people did to get murdered all the time. Maybe you missed the whole Black Lives Matter thing.

This is really simple. We have a justice system. In it people get charged with crimes. Then evidence is presented to a jury assuming it goes to trial.  There is a presumption of innocence until that happens.

Either we live in that world or we live in a world where we presume guilt because of a TMZ report with an anonymous source.

I'm comfortable with my choice. 

One thing we can't do is start picking and choosing based on convenience, virtue signaling, and bias. We can't choose to demonize this guy over here, but in the mean time completely ignore that the Clintons have been accused of far worse.   

You have to look at the actions of the accuser. People that choose not to go to the police or have no evidence or have evidence to the contrary can't possibly be expected to be believed on the same level as accusers that reacted immediately and clearly.

Not all people have faith in the justice system - hence the BLM movement. Any supporter will tell you the outrage is over cops acting as judge, jury, and executioner in one fell swoop. But politicizing this issue is not what this thread or my initial comment was about.

You seem all to comfortable to say that because she accepted money, she must not believe a crime had occurred while completely dismissing his willingness to actually shell out said money to buy her silence. He agreed to a settlement, why aren't we questioning why such a high character guy not seek his day in court to prove innocence?

Because he was never arrested or charged with a crime and the accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence.

Correction: the accused doesn’t want us to see the evidence.

No. The accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence. Or at least the evidence isn't so important to her that she can't be paid to not show it to us. Easier to take the money than be cross examined. I guess you could say the accuser is not invested in showing us the evidence. Or rather she is invested in not showing us the evidence.

It’s a weird way to describe it.  The accused paid her a huge amount of money to maintain her silence. Interpreting that as “the accuser didn’t want us to know” is a stretch.

[RJ87]

Correction: the accused doesn’t want us to see the evidence.

No. The accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence. Or at least the evidence isn't so important to her that she can't be paid to not show it to us. Easier to take the money than be cross examined. I guess you could say the accuser is not invested in showing us the evidence. Or rather she is invested in not showing us the evidence.

He's invested. He gave her money to not show the evidence. He's presumed innocent, sure. But what innocent man buys someone's silence? He didn't have to pay her, but whatever she claimed or accused him of was worth it for him to pay to keep from the public.

[KGs Knee]

Correction: the accused doesn’t want us to see the evidence.

No. The accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence. Or at least the evidence isn't so important to her that she can't be paid to not show it to us. Easier to take the money than be cross examined. I guess you could say the accuser is not invested in showing us the evidence. Or rather she is invested in not showing us the evidence.

He's invested. He gave her money to not show the evidence. He's presumed innocent, sure. But what innocent man buys someone's silence? He didn't have to pay her, but whatever she claimed or accused him of was worth it for him to pay to keep from the public.

I can easily see an innocent man foolishly thinking money could actually make it go away, and see value in doing this because he knows in some people's minds even if he is innocent he'll always be viewed as guilty anyway. It happens.

[Eja117]

This just strikes me as really different than say the Rothlisburger thing. That woman was held behind a locked door with guards and went to the police within 24 hours I thought.

I see this as hush money at absolute worst and hush money isn't sexual assault.

Hush money could be sexual assault. Look at all the Weinstein stuff.

Then go to the police. If you don't go to the police not only was he not convicted, not only was he not charged, not only was he not arrested....I mean did she even file a complaint or anything at all? Just tells me she didn't think he had committed a crime serious enough to pursue at the time.

You realize statistics show that only a fraction of sexual assaults are reported, right? There's a multitude of reasons behind that but one of the biggest reasons is the fear of not being believed. This thread is really a perfect microcosm. We have no facts about the victim or the incident, but people think they "know" Avery and can speak to his character, and therefore bend over backwards to believe he couldn't possibly do something like this.

Sexual assault cases are the only crimes where the victim is put on trial. No one has to prove that they were robbed and then explain what they did to get themselves robbed. No one asks what murder victims do to get themselves murdered.

People ask what people did to get murdered all the time. Maybe you missed the whole Black Lives Matter thing.

This is really simple. We have a justice system. In it people get charged with crimes. Then evidence is presented to a jury assuming it goes to trial.  There is a presumption of innocence until that happens.

Either we live in that world or we live in a world where we presume guilt because of a TMZ report with an anonymous source.

I'm comfortable with my choice. 

One thing we can't do is start picking and choosing based on convenience, virtue signaling, and bias. We can't choose to demonize this guy over here, but in the mean time completely ignore that the Clintons have been accused of far worse.   

You have to look at the actions of the accuser. People that choose not to go to the police or have no evidence or have evidence to the contrary can't possibly be expected to be believed on the same level as accusers that reacted immediately and clearly.

Not all people have faith in the justice system - hence the BLM movement. Any supporter will tell you the outrage is over cops acting as judge, jury, and executioner in one fell swoop. But politicizing this issue is not what this thread or my initial comment was about.

You seem all to comfortable to say that because she accepted money, she must not believe a crime had occurred while completely dismissing his willingness to actually shell out said money to buy her silence. He agreed to a settlement, why aren't we questioning why such a high character guy not seek his day in court to prove innocence?

Because he was never arrested or charged with a crime and the accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence.

Correction: the accused doesn’t want us to see the evidence.

No. The accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence. Or at least the evidence isn't so important to her that she can't be paid to not show it to us. Easier to take the money than be cross examined. I guess you could say the accuser is not invested in showing us the evidence. Or rather she is invested in not showing us the evidence.

It’s a weird way to describe it.  The accused paid her a huge amount of money to maintain her silence. Interpreting that as “the accuser didn’t want us to know” is a stretch.

To put it together I suppose the evidence is that she has essentially agreed and behaved in a way that best indicates he didn't commit a crime, but his behavior indicates admission that he harmed her.

So to me he didn't commit a crime that would earn any jail time or probation, but he did probably harm her in a civil way.

Neither of them wanted us to know what they did. But she wanted to get paid. And he wanted her quiet. That doesn't lend itself to him being a criminal for me. But it does lend itself to him making a pretty big mistake. This doesn't happen if he just stays alone in his hotel room.

[RJ87]

Correction: the accused doesn’t want us to see the evidence.

No. The accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence. Or at least the evidence isn't so important to her that she can't be paid to not show it to us. Easier to take the money than be cross examined. I guess you could say the accuser is not invested in showing us the evidence. Or rather she is invested in not showing us the evidence.

He's invested. He gave her money to not show the evidence. He's presumed innocent, sure. But what innocent man buys someone's silence? He didn't have to pay her, but whatever she claimed or accused him of was worth it for him to pay to keep from the public.

I can easily see an innocent man foolishly thinking money could actually make it go away, and see value in doing this because he knows in some people's minds even if he is innocent he'll always be viewed as guilty anyway. It happens.

That indicates a level of naïveté on his part that I can't really buy into.

This is the NBA, married players and players with significant others cheat rather regularly. I feel pretty comfortable saying I don't believe this is a first time situation for him. Also, we've seen higher profile athletes fight to proclaim their innocence whether it be in criminal court or civil court - we've seen it with Kobe and more recently with Derrick Rose. On the contrary, both of the accusers in those cases had their entire sexual histories scrutinized and questioned which may be why the accuser in this case opted not pursue a criminal case.

[Big333223]

This just strikes me as really different than say the Rothlisburger thing. That woman was held behind a locked door with guards and went to the police within 24 hours I thought.

I see this as hush money at absolute worst and hush money isn't sexual assault.

Hush money could be sexual assault. Look at all the Weinstein stuff.

Then go to the police. If you don't go to the police not only was he not convicted, not only was he not charged, not only was he not arrested....I mean did she even file a complaint or anything at all? Just tells me she didn't think he had committed a crime serious enough to pursue at the time.

There are plenty of reasons victims of abuse don't go to the police. Here's a good article about it:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-compassion-chronicles/201711/why-dont-victims-sexual-harassment-come-forward-sooner

which is a huge problem.

Tough one to solve too.

Totally. And claiming that not going to the police is evidence that an accuser didn't think the attacker had committed a crime, as eja has done, is part of that problem.

I'm kinda a "show me" person.  Another way to say is "Trust but verify".   If we started believing every accusation simply because it is an accusation then we could live in Salem in the late 1600s and I think that was probably a terrible time and place to be. A great time for accusers. But not anyone else.

Nowhere did I say that all accusations should be believed.

Claiming that not going to the police is evidence that a victim didn't think a crime occurred is a well-debunked misnomer. By doing so, you are the one making a baseless assumption.

Going to the police is evidence you think a crime was committed. So...not going to the police....is at the very least not evidence that you think a crime was committed and may very well be evidence that you think a crime wasn't committed.

I don't owe the accuser my blind belief without seeing evidence. So if you choose not to show it to me by not going to the police......presumption of innocence goes to Mr. Bradley.

No one is saying you have to blindly believe anything. The problem is you're making assumptions about the accuser's behavior.

Not going to the police isn't evidence of anything. There are plenty of reasons a victim might not go to the police as has already been outlined in this thread. The fact that we don't know what happened is further reason to not jump to the conclusions you are jumping to.

[KGs Knee]

Correction: the accused doesn’t want us to see the evidence.

No. The accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence. Or at least the evidence isn't so important to her that she can't be paid to not show it to us. Easier to take the money than be cross examined. I guess you could say the accuser is not invested in showing us the evidence. Or rather she is invested in not showing us the evidence.

He's invested. He gave her money to not show the evidence. He's presumed innocent, sure. But what innocent man buys someone's silence? He didn't have to pay her, but whatever she claimed or accused him of was worth it for him to pay to keep from the public.

I can easily see an innocent man foolishly thinking money could actually make it go away, and see value in doing this because he knows in some people's minds even if he is innocent he'll always be viewed as guilty anyway. It happens.

That indicates a level of naïveté on his part that I can't really buy into.

This is the NBA, married players and players with significant others cheat rather regularly. I feel pretty comfortable saying I don't believe this is a first time situation for him. Also, we've seen higher profile athletes fight to proclaim their innocence whether it be in criminal court or civil court - we've seen it with Kobe and more recently with Derrick Rose. On the contrary, both of the accusers in those cases had their entire sexual histories scrutinized and questioned which may be why the accuser in this case opted not pursue a criminal case.

Yes, but you're not a man, and really couldn't understand a man's perspective. But it's absolutely plausible Avery did think exactly that.

Using you're Kobe example, many people still think Kobe assaulted that woman, yet he was acquitted.

[Eja117]

This just strikes me as really different than say the Rothlisburger thing. That woman was held behind a locked door with guards and went to the police within 24 hours I thought.

I see this as hush money at absolute worst and hush money isn't sexual assault.

Hush money could be sexual assault. Look at all the Weinstein stuff.

Then go to the police. If you don't go to the police not only was he not convicted, not only was he not charged, not only was he not arrested....I mean did she even file a complaint or anything at all? Just tells me she didn't think he had committed a crime serious enough to pursue at the time.

There are plenty of reasons victims of abuse don't go to the police. Here's a good article about it:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-compassion-chronicles/201711/why-dont-victims-sexual-harassment-come-forward-sooner

which is a huge problem.

Tough one to solve too.

Totally. And claiming that not going to the police is evidence that an accuser didn't think the attacker had committed a crime, as eja has done, is part of that problem.

I'm kinda a "show me" person.  Another way to say is "Trust but verify".   If we started believing every accusation simply because it is an accusation then we could live in Salem in the late 1600s and I think that was probably a terrible time and place to be. A great time for accusers. But not anyone else.

Nowhere did I say that all accusations should be believed.

Claiming that not going to the police is evidence that a victim didn't think a crime occurred is a well-debunked misnomer. By doing so, you are the one making a baseless assumption.

Going to the police is evidence you think a crime was committed. So...not going to the police....is at the very least not evidence that you think a crime was committed and may very well be evidence that you think a crime wasn't committed.

I don't owe the accuser my blind belief without seeing evidence. So if you choose not to show it to me by not going to the police......presumption of innocence goes to Mr. Bradley.

No one is saying you have to blindly believe anything. The problem is you're making assumptions about the accuser's behavior.

Not going to the police isn't evidence of anything. There are plenty of reasons a victim might not go to the police as has already been outlined in this thread. The fact that we don't know what happened is further reason to not jump to the conclusions you are jumping to.

I shouldn't give Bradley presumption of innocence? Technically I should give him the presumption of evidence even if she did go to the police. But she didn't. 

[Roy H.]

Correction: the accused doesn’t want us to see the evidence.

No. The accuser doesn't want us to see the evidence. Or at least the evidence isn't so important to her that she can't be paid to not show it to us. Easier to take the money than be cross examined. I guess you could say the accuser is not invested in showing us the evidence. Or rather she is invested in not showing us the evidence.

He's invested. He gave her money to not show the evidence. He's presumed innocent, sure. But what innocent man buys someone's silence? He didn't have to pay her, but whatever she claimed or accused him of was worth it for him to pay to keep from the public.

I can easily see an innocent man foolishly thinking money could actually make it go away, and see value in doing this because he knows in some people's minds even if he is innocent he'll always be viewed as guilty anyway. It happens.

It does. There’s such a thing as nuisance value, and civil litany’s will often settle a case for more than its “worth” to avoid risk, attorneys fees, loss of reputation, etc.

It’s not the strategy I would personally recommend, although the post-November 2017 climate would definitely factor into my analysis. I wonder, if the Derek Rose trial was today, would the jury reach the same result? (Probably, since the judge and jury were star struck, but who knows?)