The Democratic candidate for Nassau County’s top elected spot claimed some women false report rape because of a “fantasy” – as one murder victim’s family shot back over the resurfaced comments.
Seth Koslow, the Democrat running for Nassau County executive, criticized laws that protected alleged rape victims as going too far in a 2013 Touro Law Journal.
“There are a myriad of reasons why a woman would fabricate a rape; some of those reasons include a desire to hide her own promiscuity, a desire/fantasy to be raped, or a desire for vengeance,” Koslow wrote.
But the sisters of 21-year-old murder-rape victim Sarah Goode unloaded on Koslow in a hard-hitting TV ad paid for by his Republican opponent, incumbent County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
“Sick and disgusting,” sister Tabitha Miller said of Koslow’s opinion. “My sister Sarah didn’t ask for this. She didn’t fantasize about her rape. She’s a victim. Don’t vote for Seth Koslow.”
She and her sister, Jennifer Driver, appeared in the emotionally charged ad after Sarah Goode’s disturbing death in 2014.
Koslow’s controversial piece also discussed rape shield laws that bar women’s sexual history from being used against them in sexual assault cases.
“Allowing defendants to discuss a woman’s sexual history was unfair and unjustifiable,” Koslow, a former prosecutor turned criminal defense lawyer and current Nassau County legislator, said.
“However, as a result of current rape shield rules, the pendulum of proof required in rape cases has swung in disfavor of the defendant, to the extreme.”
The Koslow article discussed the “impact of rape shield laws on the accused.”
“Men have faced false rape accusations since biblical times,” he said
Koslow also penned a 2017 article in Nassau Lawyer headlined, “Sealing of Criminal Records: Apply Alone, at Your Own Risk,” stating, “This article endeavors to explain…how to apply for sealing of a conviction…and where the pitfalls lie.”
Blakeman said, “Seth Koslow’s pro-criminal agenda is sickening, and his reckless claim that women fabricate rape because they ‘desire it’ makes him morally unfit to represent us.
“Voters face a clear choice: my record of hiring 400 new law enforcement officers and making Nassau the safest county in America—or Koslow’s record of keeping thugs out of jail and helping criminals erase their records.”
Nassau County Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs, responding on Koslow’s behalf, accused Blakeman of smearing his candidate to deflect from his record, including the closure of the county’s domestic violence center on his watch.
“This attack-to-distract tactic shows how desperate Bruce Blakeman is for county residents to look away from his dismal record on keeping our communities safe and standing up for women,” Jacobs said.
“Under Blakeman, the Safe Center — the only non-profit organization providing support to victims of sexual violence — closed due to a lack of county support.”
Jacobs also said 90 prosecutors left the Nassau district attorney’s office under his watch, and the Nassau Police Department has remained understaffed by 40 detectives while claiming crime is up.
“This only proves that Blakeman will do anything to cover up his administration’s complete and utter failure — including completely distorting Seth Koslow’s writings from over a decade ago, when he was a law student — to distract from his own record of turning his back on vulnerable women. He is not fooling anyone – Blakeman has failed the women and residents of Nassau County,” Jacobs said.
Blakeman has been endorsed by all the law enforcement unions and Nassau County and US News and World Report last year ranked Nassau the safest community in America.
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