Child Rape Victim Lambasts Hillary Clinton for Defending Her Rapist
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3729466/Child-rape-victim-comes-forward-time-40-years-call-Hillary-Clinton-liar-defended-rapist-smearing-blocking-evidence-callously-laughing-knew-guilty.html
EXCLUSIVE: Child rape victim comes forward for the first time in 40 years to call Hillary Clinton a ‘liar’ who defended her rapist by smearing her, blocking evidence and callously laughing that she knew he was guilty
- ‘Hillary Clinton is not for women and children,’ says Kathy Shelton, 54, who was 12 years old when she was raped by Thomas Alfred Taylor in Arkansas
- Clinton was the rapist’s defense lawyer, pleading him down to ‘unlawful fondling of a minor’
- The 41-year-old drifter served less than a year in prison
- The plea came after Clinton was able to block the admission of forensic evidence that linked her client to the crime
- Shelton says she’s furious that Clinton has been portraying herself as a lifelong advocate of women and girls on the campaign trail
- Clinton accused Shelton of ‘seeking out older men’ in the case and demanded that she undergo a grueling court-ordered psychiatric examination
- The presidential candidate later laughed while discussing aspects of the case in a recently-unearthed audiotaped interview from the 1980s
A child rape victim says she cannot forgive Hillary Clinton for defending her rapist in court 40 years ago, saying the Democratic presidential candidate attacked her credibility despite knowing that her assailant was guilty – and later laughed about it in a taped interview.
Kathy Shelton was just 12 years old when a 41-year-old drifter raped her on the side of a desolate Arkansas road in 1975.
Now, four decades later, she has agreed to be named and pictured for the first time in this Daily Mail Online exclusive because she is furious that her rapist’s defense attorney – Hillary Clinton – has been portraying herself as a lifelong advocate of women and girls on the campaign trail.
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‘It’s put a lot of anger back in me,’ said Shelton, now 54, in an exclusive interview at her Springdale, Arkansas, home in August. ‘Every time I see [Clinton] on TV I just want to reach in there and grab her, but I can’t do that.’
In 1975, Clinton served as the defense lawyer for Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old factory worker accused of raping Shelton after luring her to his car.
Taylor pleaded down to ‘unlawful fondling of a minor’ and served less than a year in prison after Clinton was able to block the admission of forensic evidence that linked her client to the crime.
In a lengthy interview with the Daily Mail Online, Shelton said Clinton is ‘lying’ when she claims to be a lifelong defender of women and girls.
Shelton said Clinton accused her during the case of ‘seeking out older men’, and demanded that the 12-year-old undergo a grueling court-ordered psychiatric examination to determine whether she was ‘mentally unstable’.
‘I don’t think [Clinton’s] for women or girls. I think she’s lying, I think she said anything she can to get in the campaign and win,’ Shelton said. ‘If she was [an advocate for women and children], she wouldn’t have done that to me at 12 years old.’
While Shelton gave an anonymous interview to the Daily Beast in 2014, she said wants to start speaking out publicly, in part because ‘I think a lot of people would look at [Clinton] in a different way’ after hearing her story directly.
‘I want to speak to the world. Out there at the White House, so everyone can hear me,’ said Shelton. ‘That’s always been my thing since the anger’s built up. I want to speak out like [Clinton] does, and let the whole world hear it.’
For decades, Shelton said she had no idea that Clinton was the same woman as the lawyer who defended her rapist in 1975.
During the case, Clinton accused the 12-year-old of ‘seek[ing] out older men’ and ‘engag[ing] in fantasizing’ in court affidavits, and later laughed while discussing aspects of the case in a recently-unearthed audiotape from the 1980s.
On the audiotape, Clinton indicated that she believed Taylor, her client, was guilty, saying that his ability to pass a lie detector test ‘forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs’.
She also laughed while describing how she was able to get a world-famous New York City blood expert to question the admissibility of forensic evidence that was misplaced by the crime lab after it was tested.
The tape, which Shelton said discredits the notion that Clinton truly cared about protecting young girls, raises new questions that she wants to ask Clinton directly.
‘I heard you on tape laughing,’ said Shelton. ‘I just want to know, you’ve got a daughter and a grandbaby. What happens if that daughter of yours, if that would have been her [who was assaulted at age 12]?’
‘You would have protected her. You don’t know me, so I’m a piece of crap to you,’ added Shelton, who lives in the same small northwest Arkansas town where she was raised by a single mother. ‘Who cares about me, as long as you can win your first case as an attorney?’
I don’t think [Clinton’s] for women or girls. I think she’s lying, I think she said anything she can to get in the campaign and win. If she was, she wouldn’t have done that to me at 12 years old.– Kathy SheltonThe criticism of Clinton comes as Democrats seek to highlight the candidate’s early career legal work in support of women and children.
At the Democratic National Convention last month, the candidate and her surrogates repeatedly highlighted Clinton’s year-long stint at the Children’s Defense Fund after she graduated from law school in 1973.
‘I went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund, going door-to-door in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on behalf of children with disabilities who were denied the chance to go to school,’ said Clinton in her speech.
‘It became clear to me that simply caring is not enough. To drive real progress, you have to change both hearts and laws,’ she added.
Former president Bill Clinton also praised his wife’s work at the Children’s Defense Fund, and Donna Brazile told the convention that during that in the 1970s, ‘Hillary didn’t want to talk about anything other than how to make children’s lives better’.
One year after her job at the Children’s Defense Fund ended, 27-year-old Clinton moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where she married Bill Clinton.
There, she helped launch a legal aid clinic at the University of Arkansas, which provided legal advice to individuals who could not afford it.
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