"What, Don't You Always End Up In Need Of Reconstructive Surgery After A Night Of Good Consensual Sex?"

Crappy hour indeed.This is Jamie Leigh Jones of Houston, Texas. She's only 22 and already she's had the pleasure of going to Baghdad and being harrassed, drugged, brutally gang-raped and imprisoned by her Halliburton co-workers on the job. The dudes — Charles Boartz and a bunch of Halliburton firefighers — roughed her up so bad she ruptured a breast implant. But really, is all this so surprising? Well, here's where it gets better: after she went for a rape kit at the State Department hospital, her superiors banished her to a small locked trailer with no phone and told her to "get over it" or return to the US with "no guarantee of a job" when she got back. Where do they get off? Well, the same way government contractors in Iraq are allowed to kill unarmed Iraqis while drunk on eggnog, it also turns out they're legally allowed to rape their co-workers. So she finally had to sue in civil court. After the jump, Megan and I parse the lawsuit while intermittently taking breaks to spit out the coffee-flavored bile that keeps accumulating in our mouths.

Moe: hey crappy hour is all about Jamie Lee Jones today
Megan: Well, when I first read that, I was like, I love Jamie Lee Curtis! And then I realized I had no idea what you were talking about.
Moe: That's because I spelled her name wrong
Jamie Leigh Jones. She's cute! She's blonde! She's Texan! It's almost like that Stephen King fantasy of Jenna Bush herself getting waterboarded, only waterboarding is obvs, like, kinda getting played. She was gang raped by her Halliburton coworkers and locked in a shipping container! And ha ha ha, the rapists all get immunity.
Finally, according to the ABC News story, "she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas. 'I said, 'Dad, I've been raped. I don't know what to do. I'm in this container, and I'm not able to leave,'" she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas. "
Megan: He doesn't like to go by Congressman, though, he goes by Judge Poe because he was a judge first.
A hanging judge, word is. He may not be new, but he's probably really, really pissed off.
9:01 AM Also, way to make me not need coffee or food this morning.
Moe: Oh i KNOW. isn't Rep. Ted Poe's involvement the BESTEST
Megan: Oh, Jesus, and KBR wants he to submit to arbitration.
Because it's part of her employment contract.
Moe: Here, Rep. Ted Poe quotes a founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Only apparently he's misquoting him. Anyhowz
Megan: I love how getting FUCKING RAPED by your co-workers and held in a shipping container so that a rape exam can't be performed is covered by the arbitration clause in your employment contract.
Moe: No, I know. It's insane. It's the most insane thing that could have happened. And you know how Jessica Lynch was, like, too good to be true? I feel like this woman's story is too bad to be true. It's so insane, and grotesque and mind-blowing.
And she's so blonde and Texan and her congressman is fucking TED POE.
Are you speechless? So to speak, I mean?
Megan: Yeah, kinda
Yeah, kinda
It's like, who the FUCK thought, oh, it's cool, we'll just drug her and gang rape her and then lock her away until she doesn't want to report us anymore?
Like, how does that thought even form in someone's head?
Moe: Well she seems to suggest in the story that these fine young government contractors seem to think they are "above the law." I wonder what gave them that idea? Oh yes! The fact that they ARE.
Megan: I mean yes, but, then again, no. I mean, if you're honestly judging the rational outcomes of a situation, YOU DON'T RAPE SOMEONE
Moe: And it's not just brown people they're allowed to rape/kill/torture etc.!
Megan: Like, the fact that they're able to get away with it because of a variety of USG and KBR fuck ups is probably just a "happy" coincidence for those cretins
If they thought they weren't going to get in trouble, they wouldn't have basically held her in fake detention to keep her from reporting it
Also, court docs including the names of KBR's fucked up asshole lawyers who deserve... something are here
One of her lawyers is charmingly names "Christ"
Moe: That's a good point. But I think the "culture" issue is important here. And the fact that no one knew what laws do and don't apply ... and the fact that it's the Green Zone ... and shit like Abu Ghraib, let's just throw it all in... there was clearly an issue of culture here. Gang rapes are a little more complicated than regular one on one more intimate setting type rapes...
Megan: Also, I love how her complaint specifies that she's not talking "about a pinch on the butt." Fucking Texas. Like that would be ok?
I'm stabby and it's barely 9:00
Moe: I KNOW.
Thanks for these legal filings.... um, were they public before now?
Megan: Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that there wasn't a culture that they could get away with it, but that I don't think they knew how easily KBR and our FUCKING government would let them.
I actually got them by linking through Wikipedia
They're court records. Public information. Some of them are sealed.
Moe: She now has a foundation dedicated to helping victims of sexual harrassment, rape and sexual abuse while working abroad for federal contractors, corporations or government entities but they have to be US Americans. Or at least legal residents. I guess that's how they got Ted Poe to agree!
Hahaha. "For clarification, this case is not about a pinch on the backside, or a few politically incorrect jests at the office."
Megan: I know!
Moe: "This attack never would have occurred but for the 'boys will be boys' attitude that permeated the environment that defendants first created, then failed to warn Jamie about."
Whoa she's married.
Ok Charles Boartz is the name of the main asshole
and then the rest are John Doe rapists. She doesn't know their names? Shit...
Megan: Also, the attack ruptured her breast implants and tore her pectoral muscles
They gave her roofies
Page 8
Moe: on page six there's the backdrop: a supervisor who "utilized his influence over her employment to extract sexual favor."
ugh, her breast implants were ruptured.
Megan: She basically woke up covered in blood, Boartz is just the guy who was there when she woke up for the second time COVERED IN BLOOD with her breast implants ruptured like, no, we totally had unprotected consensual sex, don't you always end up covered in bruises and bleeding profusely and in need of reconstructive surgery after a night of good consensual sex?
Also, the way I wanted Google images to provide me with one of him cannot be measured
Moe: Okay, I'm still looking for what happens after the rape kit is administered.
Megan: oh, it's like in the 20s
page 21
Moe: Okay, so it's not so bad! Sorry guys, I misinformed you: it wasn't a shipping container but a trailer with a bed, a shower and a sink. Just no telephone!
Megan: Makes it totes better, right?
Moe: And her KBR supervisors said she could either stay and get over it, or return home without "guarantee" of a job.
Megan: Right. Medical care=not necessary
Also, am I allowed to be a little teeny bit skeeved that her husband is additionally a plaintiff, and he's suggesting that he has the same damages as her? Like, a little? (page 34)
Moe: Huh! Um, he feels her pain???
Maybe it's just a good way to get money.
Megan: I would assume, but it makes me feel a little icky inside
Moe: Okay, so the last known address of Charles Boartz was 9853 Creek Circle, Navarre, Florida
Wanna do a Myspace search?
Megan: ooh, yes, yes. i'm still going through google. there aren't that many Boartzes in the world
Also, the locks on her door were for shit
Moe: Do you think it helps her that her husband is in the Navy?
is that why he's a plaintiff?
Megan: I think he's a plaintiff because under some patriarchal Deuteronomial law, the husband is damaged if his wife is raped
Moe: I love how the Deuteronomial laws apply where the US American laws don't.
Megan: Or something.
But Deuteronomy also says if a woman gets raped and doesn't scream enough, she gets stoned along with her rapist
If she does scream loud enough, she gets to marry him

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