This is one of the most shocking and depraved false allegations of sexual abuse in this database.
On Saturday, August 25, 1984, the 81 year old Harry Gerson of Cranston, Rhode Island was arraigned before Judge Robert Pirraglia on 21 counts of first degree sexual assault and five counts of assault with a dangerous weapon between August 12 and August 18, 1984.
His alleged victims were two young girls, aged 6 and 7. He was said to have taken nude photographs of them and given them drugs. The dangerous weapon was a knife.
He was released on a surety of $100,000 against the objections of Cranston Police.
The truth was announced to the world on December 8 by M.J. Andersen in The Providence Journal-Bulletin; the previous day, the real culprit was indicted.
Vincent F. Rossi Junior faced charges of obstruction of justice, soliciting perjury, and child molestation.
Gerson was Rossi’s landlord. Rossi had recently married the mother of one of the girls, and appears to have been unhappy with the rent, or had some sort of grudge against Gerson.
Gerson refused to take a polygraph on legal advice. This can give the appearance of guilt, but here is the truth about lie detector tests.
On October 12, one of the girls told the police Gerson had tried to entice her into his car. And on November 8, she said Gerson had forced her into it, taken her to his home, and sexually assaulted her.
The police didn’t believe Gerson had access to a car at that point, and due to his physical condition they doubted he would have had the strength to overpower even a girl of this age.
They brought in the two girls, questioning them separately and out of the presence of their mothers. Then the truth came out: Rossi had put them up to it. At his trial, Rossi’s stepdaughter told the jury he had threatened to kill her mother if she didn’t lie. And to make sure she knew exactly what to say, he sexually assaulted her himself. What a douchebag.
Rossi was given a twenty year sentence for this sexual assault, and a ten year sentence for his other crimes TO RUN CONSECUTIVELY.
His appeal against conviction and sentence was dismissed as totally without merit.
A truly shocking case. File it under FALSE AND TRUE.
One can only imagine what would have been the outcome had Rossi not over-egged the pudding so badly.
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