Posted By: Patriotlad and archived at Prison Planet;
ORIGINAL Post Date: Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2002 21:30:50
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" -- Sherlock Holmes to Dr. John Watson in the "The Sign Of Four."
On January 4th, 2002, former Yale Professor Antonio Lasaga entered a plea of "no contest" to six State felony charges, "including two counts of first-degree sexual assault," on a minor, according to the New Haven Register (reporting on January 5th).
With
this plea, the fifty-two year old expert in geology and geophysics
reversed his prior court strategy of stalling and delaying, and
maintaining his innocence. The crucial event which caused the disgraced
former Professor -- who was convicted on federal charges of distributing
child pornography -- was the decision by the presiding judge to admit
"overwhelming and often graphic evidence of Lasaga's sexual misconduct".
The
young victim of Antonio Lasaga's warped passion, now sixteen years of
age, was first molested approximately ten years ago or at about the age
of six. Lasaga had actually made videotapes of the child "in sexual
poses and performing sexual acts", over a period of years. So writes
reporter William Kaempffer of the Register's staff. At least three
different videos were to be admitted into evidence, which apparently
tipped the scales so drastically against Lasaga that he decided to plead
'no contest,' thus avoiding a dangerously provocative jury trial.
Whatever does this seemingly local-only story have to do with the issues and controversies which appear here at Rumor Mill News?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating Antonio Lasaga on November 4th, of 1998, ostensibly because a graduate student and computer technician reported to them that Lasaga was using the University's internet connections to download child pornography. He was then discovered to have used Yale's equipment to capture these images, which he then transferred to his home computer.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating Antonio Lasaga on November 4th, of 1998, ostensibly because a graduate student and computer technician reported to them that Lasaga was using the University's internet connections to download child pornography. He was then discovered to have used Yale's equipment to capture these images, which he then transferred to his home computer.
When he finally did plead guilty to the federal
charges, it was revealed that Lasaga had accumulated some 250,000
pictures of young men and boys, and some girls, in sexual or
pornographic poses.
Compare the favorable, deferential treatment
afforded to this convicted pornographer, and child molester, with the
rancid and disgusting campaign of rumors and innuendo which were mounted
against a lecturer in political science at Yale, when one of his prize
students was murdered. Police department investigators deliberately
leaked speculative information about James Van de Velde just a few days
after a Yale senior named Suzanne Jovin was murdered in New Haven
proper, on December 4th, 1998.
Without an eyewitness, without
any tangible linking evidence -- like the computer-transmitted images of
boys and young men that cooked Lasaga's goose -- and without anything
more than some assertions and implications, James Van de Velde was
basically "hung out to dry." He was put on leave by Yale in 1999. He was
dumped from his graduate studies program. Suzanne Jovin was both his
student in a seminar on political science, and his charge -- as she had
selected him to evaluate her Senior Thesis, a necessity for graduation
from Yale College.
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