In 1992, boxer Mike Tyson was convicted of rape and imprisoned for three years. Incredibly, Tyson may not have been a rapist. According to a 1993 column by Pete Dexter (in the Sacremento Bee), Desiree Washington, the alleged victim in the case, had previously accused another man of rape (in order to explain a pregnancy to her father). Moreover, jurors -- two of whom later agreed that Tyson, rather than Washington, had been given the shaft -- were denied (as inadmissable) other information which might have led to Tyson's acquittal. Washington, for example, had been seen by several witnesses being physically affectionate with Tyson before accompanying him to his hotel room.
Nonetheless, Tyson was doomed from the very beginning, when his legal team adopted an unusual tactic. Their defense? That Tyson (who glowered from the docket "like a pit bull in a suit") was obviously a thug -- and that Washington should have known what to expect when she went to his room!
Sources
Details, Nov. 2002, p. 126
