Lawyer Says 11-Year-Old Gang Rape Victim Was a 'Spider' Luring Men Into Web

We cover a lot of depressing stuff on this site: rape, anti-abortion laws, more rape, etc. But this article on a defense attorney who likened an 11-year-old survivor of gang rape to a conniving spider who lured her rapists into a web might actually be the most soul-suckingly disheartening story I’ve ever read.

20-year-old Jared Len Cruse is accused of gang-raping an 11-year-old Cleveland, Texas girl along with twenty of his male friends over the course of four months; you may remember our coverage of the story last year. But because she said “yes” when defense attorney Steve Taylor asked if she had been a “willing participant” and acknowledged that she hadn’t made an “outcry” until questioned after sex tapes of the assault started circulating around Cleveland High School, Taylor argued that she was “the reason” that twenty teenagers and adult men raped a child on videotape.

“Like the spider and the fly. Wasn’t she saying, ‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly?'” Taylor asked.

I actually feel nauseous.

Former Cleveland Police Department Sgt. Chad Langdon, the lead investigator on the case and a much-much-MUCH-needed voice of reason, testified that an 11-year-old cannot legally give consent for a sexual encounter, because she is eleven years old.

Prosecutor Joe Warren asked Langdon what he would say if it had been his own sons involved in the case. “Oh, then it would have totes been the little girl’s fault,” he said. Just kidding! “I would not whitewash it or sweep it under the rug,” he responded.

Oh, by the way? Cruse is already serving an eight-year sentence on convictions for aggravated robbery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. But that’s irrelevant, right? Given that the child he raped is a total devious slut.

According to the Houston Chronicle, he’s the second of the 20 male defendants who are being tried for sexually assaulting the girl; the first, Eric McGowen, was convicted and received a sentence of 99 years in prison, so at least that’s promising. Seven juveniles have received probation and six adults got 15 years in the slammer after pleading guilty in exchange for plea deals. Is there anyone in the area who wasn’t involved in assaulting this girl, I mean, anyone who wasn’t lured in to her whorish web?