| CNN: Is Reese Hopkins Innocent?
 CNN’s Rick Sanchez did a segment last week on Reese Hopkins (pictured, right), a former Boston-area radio talk show host who is charged with raping an 11-year-old girl in 2004 in the Manhattan apartment he shared with his fiancée. The alleged victim was a friend of his fiancée’s daughter. Hopkins has been imprisoned for 18 months, most of it on Rikers Island, on $100,000 cash bail.
We’ve covered this case on and off for 15 months, and I’ve spoken with Hopkins from prison. In Glenn Sacks eyes Reese Hopkins case (Boston Herald, 1/16/09), I explained: I’m not going to declare [Hopkins] innocent and white as snow, but I think there are a lot of very tangible problems with the prosecution’s case that point to possible innocence. My position is still the same, except that I now believe there is increasing reason to believe that Hopkins may be innocent.
 Fathers & Families helped CNN’s producers put together their recent segment I didn’t rape anybody, and Sanchez (pictured, right) and CNN reporter Brooke Baldwin did a good job. Evidence pointing to Hopkins’ innocence includes: 1) According to the criminal complaint, the alleged rape(s) occurred “from September 1, 2004 to October 31, 2004." Hopkins and his fiancée Claudia Tessler assert that they moved out of the apartment where the rapes allegedly occurred in June, 2004, moving from New York City to Manchester, Connecticut. Substantial documentation in our possession supports this claim. This includes: a) A sworn affidavit from the sole proprietor of the apartment stating that the apartment was vacated June 30, 2004 and was bare at the time of the alleged crimes.
b) A letter from the broker for the apartment stating “During the period specified...I visited the apartment approximately twice a week...and always found the apartment to be uninhabited, vacant and bare of any possessions/property.”
c) A copy of a lease Hopkins and Tessler signed in Manchester, Connecticut in June, 2004 which runs from June 2004 to June 2005.
d) A report card for Tessler’s son Ethan from an elementary school in Manchester, Connecticut for the fall semester 2004 to 2005 for .
e) Two dozen pages of bank statements for Hopkins and Tessler that indicate that both of them were using their bank cards regularly in Manchester, Connecticut throughout the second half of 2004. 2) According to CNN, there were no hospital records after the alleged rape. This is unusual, if, as the prosecution claims, Hopkins, a large adult male, raped an 11-year-old girl. The CNN piece adds a couple more facts in Hopkins’ favor, including: 1) CNN offered the District Attorney the chance to give their side of the story but the only evidence the DA cited/produced was the simple fact that they had been able to get an indictment against Hopkins. This means little–as they say in the legal profession, “You can indict a ham sandwich.”
2) According to CNN, the District Attorney offered Hopkins a plea deal. The details of the deal indicate that they have little faith in their case. According to CNN’s Baldwin, “They offered last year this plea deal. They say, hey, Reese, you can get out of jail — essentially, it’s called time served — plead guilty to a lesser felony charge, walk out of jail today, but register as a sex offender. Or the alternative, stay in jail, go to trial, fight this thing. But if you’re found guilty, you could be spending up to 25 years in prison.”
Hopkins told CNN he would rather die in prison than plead out, explaining, “You don’t know how many times I thought about that plea deal, because it became more about waking up every day in a jail cell instead about what was right. And that’s what this place is built to do. Beat you down until you give in. Nobody hands you a deal like that if they believe that you raped a child. Who hands you a time-served deal?”
CNN's Sanchez observed “[Hopkins] makes a heck of a point. If they really believe that he raped a child, why in the world would they be giving him this deal saying, you've done enough time, go ahead, you can walk? Something sounds a little fishy here." Watch the full segment here. To read the full transcript, click here.
Dedicated Stepmom Sandra Bullock Deserved Better
If one searches in the dictionary for the world "ingrate," one might find a photo of TV personality Jesse James. A brief review: 1) James is married to actress Sandra Bullock. James' ex-wife, porn star Janine Lindermulder, is an ex-con who lives in a halfway house. Her husband is also a felon, and allegedly has a drug problem. (James and Bullock are pictured above.)
2) James and Lindermulder have a 6-year-old daughter named Sunny together, who James has custody of. When Lindermulder got out of prison, she tried to take custody of Sunny away from James. James argued that Lindermulder's home would not be a good environment for Sunny, and managed to retain custody, with visitation for Lindemulder. Bullock stood by James during the custody battle.
3) Bullock has played a major role in raising the young girl, and her parenting has even been praised by Lindermulder, who says, "If I could wish any step-mom for my daughter, it would be Sandra." So what does Jesse James do? He apparently had an 11-month affair with tattoo model/stripper Michelle McGee while Bullock was on location filming The Blind Side. What a nice way to reward a good wife.
It also reopens the custody battle, as James should have known it would. Lindermulder has now filed for custody as a result of the alleged affair, possibly putting their daughter through more turmoil.
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Fathers & Families is quoted on the high-profile Miller-Jenkins lesbian child custody dispute in Padraic Maroney’s new The Edge article 
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