Stephen Collins, say it ain't so!

[Loach]

@Jack_Batty

This has got NYPD: SVU:CSI:LMNOP written all over it.

Dude molests a kid; wife releases secretly recorded therapy tape; evidence is ruled inadmissible, dude gets off (no pun intended).

I wonder who will play Collins on TeeVee?

I hear that Stephen Collins’ calender just opened up.

@spifflog

Wow. “Alleged errors?” If you are so concerned about this, why are you pissed she didn’t do more sooner? They can both be wrong. Just because his crime (noticed you didn’t use “alleged” there) is most probably worse, doesn’t mean she should get a pass for her piss poor actions. Seems obvious to most her most pressing goal was to stick it up is ass, not to help the children.

And I’ll stand by my comment. If we make it less likely for people to get help with their problem (drug, alcohol, sexual, etc.) the worse off we all are.

Do what sooner? Supposedly the authorities in New York had the tape long ago. It was turned over to them shortly after it happened. They had an investigation. It was found to be past the statute of limitations. The tape got released now. Who really knows who released it. I don’t know how many had access to it. I do know that TMZ pays and will not reveal who gave it to them. That is a big motivator.

Late Tuesday, ET reported obtaining the document referred to in the alleged Collins audio. In it, ET says that Collins’ estranged wife, Faye Grant, stated, “I had no knowledge of Stephen’s secret life until January 2012. I never witnessed anything first-hand that would have given me any indication of what Stephen was doing. After Stephen admitted to molesting the three young girls, I reported his acts to the police in both Los Angeles County and New York City.” The document also asserts, “I received two letters from a man who identified himself as the husband of one of Stephen’s three aforementioned victims. He berated me for my cowardice in not turning Stephen in to the police.” Also on Tuesday, TMZ reported that a source within the LAPD said it had received the audiotape two years ago but that there was “no verified victim,” implying “the probe was triggered by a tip.” Los Angeles Police Department Commander Andrew Smith tells KTLA that “allegations of possible criminal misconduct” were made in 2012 but that “Until we are able to locate a victim, that case is basically at a standstill,” and that “We’re looking at our investigation again and making sure we covered everything.” In New York, meanwhile, authorities said that a young woman who said she’d been sexually assaulted by Collins approached law enforcement in 2012 but that the claim had arrived past the statute of limitations. Collins is currently the subject of an “active” investigation in New York.

Actor Stephen Collins' harrowing reported sex abuse confession

[brickbacon]

@Drunky_Smurf

Using this logic if a wife murders someone and her husband was a rapist the alleged errors of the husband are barely worth talking about given the seriousness of the wifes crime.

Are you high or something? You think the gulf between rape and murder is even close to the gulf between legally recording a therapy session and molesting kids? The point is that impugning her motives and blaming her for not reporting it sooner is completely ridiculous. Her “crime”, which is not even a crime, barely registers on the immoral scale in it’s own right, and especially not when you consider it allowed for the greater societal benefit of outing a pedophile.

[The_Second_Stone]

@even_sven

I don’t care if she is a vindictive bitch or not. Whatever her motivations, she no doubt saved some kids from harm.

This trope has been repeated a number of times in the thread. While I have heard conclusive citations of “all child molesters compulsively repeat forever” on Law & Order SVU for years, and it is repeated all over the internet and by lay people, it isn’t actually true. While it is true that some child molesters do repeat their crimes carefully and when the opportunity arises, the notion that a child molester has a compulsion to go around committing sexual assaults like a teenage boy jacking off five times a day is a load of nonsense.

[Sampiro]

@GuanoLad

Scott Bakula.

Or Gary Cole, with Ryan Kwanten for flashbacks to when he was a young Australian actor in Louisiana.

[brickbacon]

@The_Second_Stone

This trope has been repeated a number of times in the thread. While I have heard conclusive citations of “all child molesters compulsively repeat forever” on Law & Order SVU for years, and it is repeated all over the internet and by lay people, it isn’t actually true. While it is true that some child molesters do repeat their crimes carefully and when the opportunity arises, the notion that a child molester has a compulsion to go around committing sexual assaults like a teenage boy jacking off five times a day is a load of nonsense.

Good thing no one suggested your absurd hyperbolic concluding statements. The evidence is that the recidivism rate is pretty high:

Estimates of recidivism vary because studies define this term in different ways. One review found recidivism rates of 10% to 50% among pedophiles previously convicted of sexual abuse, although this could include anything from an arrest for any offense to reconviction on a crime against a child. One long-term study of previously convicted pedophiles (with an average follow-up of 25 years) found that one-fourth of heterosexual pedophiles and one-half of homosexual or bisexual pedophiles went on to commit another sexual offense against children.

Note that these numbers are for convicted pedophiles. The number is almost assuredly higher for those who haven’t been. Even if there was a 50% chance he would do it again, that is FAR too high. It’s also perfectly reasonable to suggest he would likely have additional victims absent being arrested or outed.

Furthermore, as his wife stated, his position enabled him to have contact with children on a regular basis. Those opportunities for abuse would have been numerous. But don’t let the facts get in the way of your rant about what a worthless bitch his wife is for recording him.

[Shodan]

@Loach

I wonder who will play Collins on TeeVee?

I hear that Stephen Collins’ calender just opened up.

I guess he doesn’t need to worry about getting typecast.

Regards,
Shodan

[The_Second_Stone]

Furthermore, you seem to have some misunderstanding of how this thing happened. It’s been reported that Grant found all this out when she was contacted by any family member of one of the victims. This happened in Jan 2012. After which, she confronted Collins and subsequently reported him to authorities.

Quote:
According to the document, the couple separated in 2012 after Grant allegedly learned “for the first time that Stephen had been living a secret life.” The declaration claims, in the presence of a therapist, Collins admitted that he had “engaged in a long term pattern of sexually abusing minor children, including sexually molesting three young girls over a decade ago.”

Grant, 57, insists in the papers that she had no idea of her husband’s alleged behavior. “Again, I had no knowledge of Stephen’s secret life until January 2012,” the document reads. “I never witnessed anything first-hand that would have given me any indication of what Stephen was doing. After Stephen admitted to molesting the three young girls, I reported his acts to the police in both Los Angeles County and New York City.”

adf

The documents also claims that the 67-year-old actor’s mental state, “Stephen’s therapist subsequently disclosed to me that Stephen has narcissistic personality disorder with sociopathic tendencies.”

Grant also makes allegations regarding the 67-year-old actor’s mental state: “I have urged Stephen multiple times to seek proper treatment for pedophilia,” Grant, who’s an actress herself, says in the doc. “I am particularly afraid of what may happen if he does not seek treatment, because he may be working or interacting with children in connection with his employment.”

I believe she reported him prior to the recorded session in November 2012, but that is unclear in the reporting I’ve read.

You do realize that her multiple claims of just learning of the child molestation in 2012 is neither consistent with her statements or with her actions? When she says that the therapist disclosed to her his diagnosis after the sessions, that would be a breach of ethics, and that “sociopathic tendencies” isn’t a diagnosis at all? She says that she urged him multiple times to seek treatment, yet interferes with treatment by treating it as an interrogation session to be released to the police and discussed in the press.

He has molested children in the past, she is a monster.

JDRDelerious

Can someone who knows the law in the jurisdiction address if it covers an individual citizen motu proprio initiating such evidence gathering? Because the “informant with wire” analogy would make people think of some sort of formally authorized investigation. OTOH if a Private Eye can do it, then she probably can too.

If the molestations are ruled “violent”, then the recording part might be legal. That is a stretch. First, the cases do not support the syllogism that child molestation is always violent. It certainly can be, but that leads to charges of sexual assault and rape. (I’m not a criminal practitioner and defer to those who are.) In California, therapy sessions are in themselves privileged, and Ms. Grant seems to have tricked the patient and the therapist into participating in a covert interrogation, not therapy. In a criminal prosecution in California the evidence may come in, but not in a civil prosecution as criminal exclusions in California cannot be more restrictive than federal law. If it is out under federal law criminally, it is out under California law. We have the somewhat novel situation that the therapy session is confidential and that the recording of the therapy session is secret from the patient and therapist.

A ruling on evidence can really come down either way and then get bounced around on appeals like Bush v. Gore, but slower.

It appears to me that she used the therapy session and recording not for the purposes of therapy, but for her own purposes as contradictory as they are. Having consulted a lawyer prior to committing the recording acts indicates she knew it was probably illegal, how the lawyer came up with blessing seems to me to be malpractice. Even if the molestations were violent sexual assaults, which they appear not to be, and she claims the purpose was to turn over to the police in two different jurisdictions, they actually seem to be being used in divorce proceedings and to entertain the public.

What Ms. Grant seems to have accomplished is to undermine the purpose and seeking of therapy by sick fucks like Collins and the public in general who get to argue of whether it is a good idea to secretly record therapy sessions and whip out those recordings when it becomes convenient later. The misuse of therapy to gather blackmail material is not therapy at all. This is great news for people who think therapy is a bunch of crap. For the rest of us, not so much.

[Typo_Negative]

@Sampiro

Or Gary Cole, with Ryan Kwanten for flashbacks to when he was a young Australian actor in Louisiana.

I think Gary Cole may be too short. I like Scott Bakula, but I think Colin Ferguson would be a good fit, if you could pry him away from pretending to be Maytag appliances in commercials.

[The_Second_Stone]

@brickbacon

Good thing no one suggested your absurd hyperbolic concluding statements. The evidence is that the recidivism rate is pretty high:

Note that these numbers are for convicted pedophiles. The number is almost assuredly higher for those who haven’t been. Even if there was a 50% chance he would do it again, that is FAR too high. It’s also perfectly reasonable to suggest he would likely have additional victims absent being arrested or outed.

Furthermore, as his wife stated, his position enabled him to have contact with children on a regular basis. Those opportunities for abuse would have been numerous. But don’t let the facts get in the way of your rant about what a worthless bitch his wife is for recording him.

I didn’t call her a “bitch”. That would be sexist. I called her a monster. And you might want to actually read that article that you cited. Very carefully. There are treatments for pedophiles, and the monster has seriously undermined all pedophiles that learn about what she did from seeking treatment. Pedophiles used to be able to seek treatment and reduce their 10 to 50 percent chance (and good job misquoting to make it look like all studies show 50 percent) of repeating. The conviction of one 70ish year old pedophile who committed acts a long time ago is not worth the thousands who will now not seek treatment and not even likely to result in his conviction. Nor does it address the millions of other people who will not seek therapy for hundreds of other disorders because tapes might be released to the public or police for the entertainment of the masses.

This is a great day for those wanting to destroy mental health therapy.

[Skara_Brae]

@Typo_Negative

I think Gary Cole may be too short. I like Scott Bakula, but I think Colin Ferguson would be a good fit, if you could pry him away from pretending to be Maytag appliances in commercials.

Gary Cole is 5’11 and Stephen Collins is 6’1, so that’s not a huge difference.

Ferguson is a good choice too, but he’s also 5’11. (Who knew? Also, it’s kind of scary that you can immediately find out how tall someone is, or at least claims to be, on IMDB…)

[Sage_Rat]

@JRDelirious

Way to poison the entire well of the rights of the criminally accused. So all that shelf space of constitutional, statutory and case law was brought to us by people who themselves had something to hide? Apologists for crime?

Last I heard, politicians (who create law) are elected to by the people to lead the country, not self-appointed so that they can institute laws favorable to themelves. Having to make decisions such as whether it is more important that doctor/patient rights are preserved or that predators are captured is an artifact of their role, not a specific aim. Or at least, I doubt it is for most.

Similarly, I imagine that most lawyers are in it for the money, like debating things, or (indeed) seek justice for others because they’ve been wrongly accused themselves and have a grudge. But since they have no control over the cases they get, on having accepted one which doesn’t affect them, theirs still professionalism to make sure they show up in court and actually make reasoned arguments.

[Spice_Weasel]

@The_Second_Stone

I didn’t call her a “bitch”. That would be sexist.

To be fair, I called her a bitch. He was probably conflating the statements. I don’t think I’m sexist. I’m not sure if I still stand by calling her a bitch because the facts of this case as we understand them don’t really add up to me. I’m not sure what to believe.

Since statement conflation seems to be happening a lot in this thread, let me be very clear I don’t think what she did is worse than what he did. I think it’s more interesting though, as a topic of conversation, and I feel more personally threatened by it, as a mental health consumer.

[QUOTE=even sven]
I knew we had our rape apologists on the board, but I’m pretty surprised at this conversation.
[/QUOTE]

I’m surprised people are failing to see the nuance of the argument here. NOBODY IS SAYING MOLESTING CHILDREN IS ACCEPTABLE. What some people are saying is that the breach of confidentiality will ultimately harm more people than it helps. You might not agree, and that may in fact be legitimately debatable, but the idea that people who have a problem with this woman’s actions are mustache-twirling rape apologists is intellectually lazy and offensive.

[QUOTE=needscoffee]
It seems like you may be projecting your own issues into this thread where they don’t really pertain.
[/QUOTE]

You may not think this case is pertinent to my own experience, but I do. Because

[QUOTE=The Second Stone]
…the millions of other people who will not seek therapy for hundreds of other disorders because tapes might be released to the public or police for the entertainment of the masses.

This is a great day for those wanting to destroy mental health therapy.
[/QUOTE]

[Typo_Negative]

@Skara_Brae

Gary Cole is 5’11

Really! I assumed him to be much shorter. Must be a preception thing. He looked short when playing Mike Brady in the Brady Bunch Movie. (underrated, I might add)

[bup]

@Spice_Weasel

I’m surprised people are failing to see the nuance of the argument here.

Please never extrapolate from even sven to people in general.

[Son_of_a_Rich]

Why would he want his wife to know he was a pedophile in the first place? That’s not the kind of thing that brings couples together.

[Zebra]

Can anyone fill in the timeline for me.

19?? abuse happens

2012 tape given to cops. (when was the therapy session?)
After session in 2012 they file for divorce
2014 tapes ‘released’ by someone to TMZ.

I’ve read that one victim in 2012 came to the Police in New York in 2012. Saying when she was 14 she was abused by Colins. But that was after the statue of limitations ran out. (after her 23rd birthday) and even with an SOL extension (possible in NY) it would not be covered. I don’t know how long the extension would cover. Anyone have a ballpark year as to when the abuse took place?

[Typo_Negative]

@Son_of_a_Rich

Why would he want his wife to know he was a pedophile in the first place? That’s not the kind of thing that brings couples together.

Maybe he genuinely wanted help to change.

I don’t know if that rings in my head because he’s an actor that has been in stuff I like or not. I really do not know.

In the first story, she claimed he had no remorse, then mocked him for whining about ‘being in so much paaaaiiinnn’. Maybe he was in a lot of pain. I do not know for sure, but I have heard it said that many molesters are just acting out the abuse that they themselves suffered as children. Maybe he WAS remorseful and wanted help change his life and get out of pain.

Or maybe he was a manipulative bastard.

[The_Second_Stone]

Originally Posted by The Second Stone
…the millions of other people who will not seek therapy for hundreds of other disorders because tapes might be released to the public or police for the entertainment of the masses.

This is a great day for those wanting to destroy mental health therapy.

This is why I think she is worse. He committed the crime of molesting a few children. Really bad, mkay? She destroyed treatment for millions. Worse.

[Loach]

@The_Second_Stone

This is why I think she is worse. He committed the crime of molesting a few children. Really bad, mkay? She destroyed treatment for millions. Worse.

Your hyperbole is suffocating.

The California statute already has the exception for making a tape like this legal. Whether or not this case falls under that is up for debate. But she destroyed nothing. Hell it’s not even clear who released the tape.

[spifflog]

She is helping to destroy the belief in some of those, who would have gotten help, that they can do so without putting themselves in danger. This is a high profile issue that many are watching.

She didn’t do the world any favors.