The View From Here

The most commonly heard phrase at DUI checkpoints is undoubtedly, “I swear I’ve never done this before.” Most cops, judges and AA sponsors will agree that most people who get caught are driving while hammered quite routinely, setting up a glorious 'matter-of-time' situation that those more religious than myself would call fate. The same is true of drug overdoses. If you follow the wise words of Dr. Drew Pinsky on one of his several hundred rehab shows, you’ll know the deaths of Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger and Len Bias were probably not their maiden forays into chemical fun-times.

Is the same true of rapists?

The Ben Roethlisberger story has implications so far reaching that it’s still too early to truly examine all of them. But we’ll start with what we already know.

Ben’s kind of an idiot, dense as lead to warning signs and close calls. We knew this after he smashed the hell out of his face after getting tossed off a motorcycle and he immediately said through tons of gauze, “I don’t think it's as much of a risk as people make it out to be” and vowed to continue riding sans helmet. So it’s within his insane judgment to, Nevada accusations still fresh, put himself in a similar position. That’s the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is after getting nearly busted for rape (despite Harrah’s attempts to cover it up), he decided to rape somebody else. Allegedly.

If this is true, then it’s his second time. That sort of erases the “in a moment of weakness”/ “bad judgment” defenses reserved for one-time offenders. If guilty, Roethlisberger is a rapist. That’s what he does. Not a guy who made a mistake, but an honest, card-carrying sex offender who enjoys his craft.

The next element is his excuse, and it’s not a great one. He admitted sexual contact with his accuser. ‘There was sexual contact, but not intercourse.’ He apparently went to the Bill Clinton Memorial School of Innuendo. And then stated that the victim fell down and hit her head. He moonlighted at the Battered Wife From The 50s Academy for Poor Excuses and Needlepoint. He trotted out two Pittsburgh area police officers, who were not there in an official capacity but as friends and fellow partiers of Roethlisberger. While this may have worked as a character stunt, neither one of them saw or could recognize his accuser. But Ben already said there was some contact. So what’s the point of bringing up character witnesses who didn’t see something that has been confirmed as happening?

Finally, Roethlisberger has hired big shot defender Ed Garland, the same guy who famously defended Ray Lewis in the 2000 murder trial of the same name. Here’s the trick, you don’t hire a guy like Garland if you’ve done nothing wrong. Ray Lewis didn’t commit murder, but he was definitely there when two of his buddies did. Roethlisberger was alone in a bathroom with his accuser; how’s the third man defense going to work here, Martin Vale?

There aren’t charges yet, but Ben’s got a prominent defense attorney and ESPN, who steered clear of the previous allegation for fear of losing access to Roethlisberger as a spokesman and interviewee, is all over this as well. We won’t know for a while what actually happened, but Adam “Pacman” Jones was suspended from the league for far less than this, and he wasn’t charged either. Stay tuned, because one accusation wasn’t enough to stop Roethlisberger from cruising. Maybe he’ll go for the hat trick.