On November 28, 1987, Tawana Brawley, who had been missing for four days, was found lying conscious but unresponsive in a garbage bag several feet from an apartment where she had once lived. Her clothing was torn and burned, her body smeared with feces. When she vanished, Miss Brawley had been wearing a hairpiece woven into her own short hair; the hair-weave was gone when she was found, and her three-inch hair was matted by perspiration and fecal matter.

A detective from the Sheriff's Juvenile Aid Bureau, among others, was summoned to interview Brawley, but she remained unresponsive. The family requested a black officer, which the police granted. Brawley, described as having an "extremely spacey" look on her face, communicated with this officer with nods of the head, shrugs of the shoulder, and written notes. Through gestures and writing, she indicated she had been raped repeatedly in a wooded area by three white men, at least one of them a police officer. A sexual assault kit was administered, and police began building a case.

But there were discrepancies in Brawley's story.

On the morning after the alleged abduction, she was seen entering the empty apartment at the Pavilion Apartments where she had once lived. Other witnesses claimed to have seen her at parties in a nearby town during the period when she was said to be missing. She had no bruises, contusions, scratches or other injuries except for a small bruise behind the left ear, which was determined to be several days old. One witness claimed to have seen her climb into the garbage bag in which she was found. Her mother, Glenda Brawley, was spotted at the apartment complex shortly before Brawley was seen getting into the garbage bag. The mother waited until that same afternoon to report Brawley as missing to the police.

The investigation turned up evidence that indicated damage done to Brawley's clothing had occurred in the apartment. According to the grand jury report, all of "the items and instrumentalities necessary to create the condition in which Brawley appeared on Saturday, November 28, were present inside of or in the immediate vicinity of Apartment 19A."

The feces had come from a neighbor's dog.

Because of the popularity of movies such as “Silence of the Lambs”, and television shows like “Law and Order” and “CSI”, when we hear the term “profiling”, usually we think of criminal profiling. But there are characteristics common to certain types of victims, too;  part of the study of victimology is understanding the differences in the behavior of people who have actually suffered from, say, physical abuse by a spouse, and that of “pseudo-victims”—those who feign illness or abuse in order to get attention or sympathy, and sometimes, even revenge.

Like most people, I don’t like being lied to.  But I find this type of deceit particularly distressing.  When women like Tawana Brawley make these claims not only does it forever damage the men they name as their attacker, it becomes that much harder for women who have truly been the victims of assault to be taken at their word.

A common element of the pseudo-victim's claim is that the story tends to be bizarre or sensational. Recently, Danmell Ndonye, a female student at Hofstra University, claimed that after being lured by one man to an elevator in a building on the Hofstra campus, another man appeared; she stated that this second man had a cord with him, which was eventually used to bind her. Ndonye told sex crimes detectives she was able to call out, and three other men came on the scene.

I was immediately suspicious of this story, for two reasons.

Pseudo-victims typically claim that overwhelming force was used or that they resisted greatly or that there were multiple assailants.  While gang-rapes do occur, having even one partner, let alone four, is atypical of this type of offender.  One has to take into account the nature of the crime allegedly committed here. The man who feels entitled to take for himself whatever he wants from a woman, is hardly being democratic to begin with; he is not geared toward group dynamics and is unlikely to want or need a partner, unless that partner is not only similarly sexually inclined but also content to be the less dominant, and weaker, of the two.

Notice, also, the use of the word “lured”; the impression it creates is that Ms. Ndonye was somehow enticed, and therefore either entirely, or relatively, blameless.  This stands in contrast to true rape victims, who often blame themselves as a way of taking back the control they feel they’ve lost.

In recounting the event, the pseudo-victim is either overly detailed or very vague; Ndonye said she was separated from the crowded fraternity fund-raiser party she was attending by one young man, and that the other men had apparently either planned to meet up after she was lured away, or simply stumbled upon the rape in progress and decided to participate at that point.  Here we see examples of both vagueness and detail, but perhaps more importantly, the information this supposed victim is supplying is somewhat remote; rape victims generally report more immediate and sensory details, such as how their attacker “smelled”.  But they do not go to the extra step of providing reasons for their attacker(s) presence.

Strangers are more often accused by pseudo-victims, and rather than put themselves under the microscope both literally and figuratively, they often do not report the incident at first; it is usually some well-intentioned friend, or loved one, who insists they must go to the police. Invariably, the pseudo-victim will say her eyes were closed during the attack or that she was unconscious, or passed out, or has no memory of what happened or was drugged, and so cannot provide details.

The disparity in the way men and women are treated by law enforcement and in the criminal justice system is an issue I have dealt with elsewhere at length.  But when I learned these young men spent three days in jail on nothing more than the word of Ms. Ndoyne, I was compelled to address the matter once again.  Authorities were quick to jump and arrested the alleged assailants and were preparing to send them away on sentences that could have ranged up to life in prison.  The prosecutor's case quickly unraveled when it was discovered that one of the alleged rapists videotaped the entire act; one officer later described it as looking more like a "porn movie" and stated that the "victim" appeared to be enjoying herself.

When confronted with the video, Ndoyne recanted her story and stated she did have consensual sex with all five men but claimed it was rape because she did not want her boyfriend to know it was consensual or her family to think ill of her.  Charges were dropped against all the men; however, the prosecutor is not pursuing charges against Ndoyne at this time, stating she is a "troubled young woman who needs help."

I worked in counseling some time ago; I remember sitting in my office one particularly warm afternoon, listening to a terrible tale of abuse unfold. The young lady before me certainly seemed to have the marks to back her up. Unfortunately, the longer we sat there in my poorly ventilated cubbyhole, the "bruises" she had so carefully and artfully applied with pancake make-up and an eyebrow pencil, began to run...admittedly, such things did not occur with regularity.  But from personal experience I can tell you this: that single incident of false reporting of abuse left me with a jaundiced eye, forever.

If the five alleged assailants in the Hofstra case had been found guilty, I am certain they would not be seen by anyone as troubled young men, also in need of help.

In writing this, I hope I have given the reader some points to keep in mind the next time a similar story is in the news.

Because rest assured, there will be a next time.