There are many reasons women don't report sexual assault to the authorities. For 19-year-old Lara McLeod the situation resulted in the complete opposite of what she had expected. According to Buzzfeed, McLeod was forced to have sex with her sister's fiancé, Joaquin Rams, two weeks after her sister Hera gave birth to their baby. She told her parents, who then alerted the Prince William County PD in Virginia. They called her in to come to the station for an interview, but instead of prosecuting Rams they decided—abruptly, she notes—Lara was lying about the whole thing and arrested her instead, while charging her sister Hera for aiding in deceit.
Since the traumatic experience Lara says she gets panic attacks and her reputation was destroyed. But the worst was the judge granting Joaquin unsupervised visits to Hera's child, Prince, after a grueling custody battle. Three months since the ruling Prince was found unconscious in Joaquin's house and died the next day at just 15 months old.
Disturbing details of Joaquin's life also surfaced during custody battle: He was not only 10 years older than he had led them to believe, but he had lied about his employment and had been a suspect in his ex-girlfriend's death as well as his mother's. And yet the state was still on his side in choosing the better parent for the infant child.
This is a tragic, heartbreaking story for the McLeods and showcases the terrifying consequences of what could happen when the law refuses to side with the woman in a sexual assault case. Read the entire story here.
