A 16-year old Tucson girl was upset because her parents were getting divorced, and she went to a friend’s house and got drunk. As she was passing out, Yahya Yuksel, a teen virgin who was ready with a condom, had sex with her even though she said, “no, I don’t want to.”
Flash forward to yesterday, when Yuksel — in a public display of narcissism — was confronted with the allegations of rape and a furious crowd of rape survivors and other women — and he refused to drop out of his race for Democratic CD2 Congress member. See Rape Allegation Surfaces Against CD2 Democratic Candidate Yahya Yuksel.
Back in 2007, the unnamed 16-year old girl regained consciousness and started crying. She told a friend who had listened in on the sex act that Yuksel raped her. He would later cover for Yuksel in a Sheriff’s interview. She finally told her parents who basically told her, “you should have known better.” It was only when she told her school counselor she had been raped that somebody finally believed her.
The counselor called 911. A Sheriff’s officer interviewed the girl, but the officer didn’t even bother to interview Yuksel, the alleged perpetrator, and closed the case. No charges were ever filed. Click to see the photos of the documents: PDF with legal motion, sheriffs report and court ruling.
We can imagine what the boys were saying about Yuksel’s first sexual success. How could Yuksel not know that the girl was telling people she had been raped? Certainly, the creep who listened in told Yuksel what she said.
Flash forward to March 2018 when Yuksel claims he discovered the police report. He was about to start a run for Congress and needed to get rid of the police report. He filed a “Petition for Clearance of Criminal Record” legal motion to cover up the offense. The motion said it would be “disastrous” to his campaign and even anticipated that the Sheriff’s report would be made public. Confronted with the bizarre motion, a judge denied it.
In an act of egotism, Yuksel announced his run for Congress last March, never having been elected to office before. It came to an end yesterday when he surprisingly refused to quit the race, and the crowd chased him out of the room with a shout of “Coward,” and chants of “Shame on You” and “You are done.”
Watch the videos of the disastrous event at As Crowd Chants “You Are Done” CD2 Candidate Yahya Yuksel Refuses to Quit Race for Congress. His campaign is over but the candidate and his advisors refuse to admit it.
Represent Me AZ revoked their invitation for Yuksel to appear at Thursday’s candidate forum and implored him to drop out of race.
It’s not about politics
This debacle is not about politics and who can win the primary. It’s about women that nobody would believe about being targets of rape, sexual harassment, and assault.
It’s about men who can’t keep their dick in their pants and take advantage of their power — or the drunkenness of a teenage girl — like President Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Wiener, John Edwards and other assholes.
Yahya — for the sake ignored victims of a sexual attack, for the sake of the voters in CD2, for the sake of the Democratic party, and for your own sake and future — get the hell out of the race for Congress.
I feel compelled to share this because it was just updated today. This is a summary of how much money each of the CD2 candidates has raised and what they have left on hand as of 6-30.
https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2018&id=AZ02
Correction–I indicated in previous comment that Yahya knew about this report from 2012. That comment was based on the original AZ Daily Star re this matter which indicated that Yahya learned of the allegation/police report when applied to law school. The reporter who wrote that article checked his interview tape and Yahya had indicated that he learned of the allegation/report when he applied for the California bar, which wouldn’t have been until at least 2015 (law school graduation)–I haven’t seen the date of his application to the bar. He was admitted to the bar in March 2018.
Mr. Edip Yuksel states that there has been a “retraction”. If there HAD been a “retraction”, I’m certain that the candidate would have produced it. Thus, at least at this point, one logically must assume that there has been no “retraction”. The desire to avoid the hell that (alleged) rape victims are put through if they press charges results in the vast majority of victims not pressing charges. Not pressing charges does not constitute a “retraction”. The government is not going to investigate further and press charges without the victim’s consent. So the fact that the government didn’t press charges does not mean that rape didn’t happen. I do understand re the problem of fairness/due process. Yahya should have “addressed” (if possible) this police report long before running for Congressional office–in 2012 when he first learned about it (OR in 2008 when his friend most likely told him re the sheriff’s interview).
From purely a politically-pragmatic standpoint, that Yahya would even consider running for public office with a police report alleging rape–a police report that surely would have been uncovered during the Republican opposition research if he were to win the primary–in the public record is stunning.
This is a terrible situation for all, but I was a teenager once, no one ever accused me of forcing myself on them.
Then I was in my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and no one ever accused me of forcing myself on them.
In fact, all the women I dated in my life were intelligent and made their own decisions, and sometimes that was yes and sometimes that was no.
So the problem is that true or not, there was a complaint, and while I would like to be sympathetic to the 17yo, I do not understand how he was in a position where a complaint was ever made, true or not.
And bottom line, with Arizona on the verge of the Legendary Flip to Blue, we can’t have any Roy Moore moments.
Edip, I do sympathize with you in your position, but the “no sex without marriage” stuff is a might bit judgmental, maybe teaching our sons to be respectful of women is a better way of saying it.
1. This is an organized mob attack, defamation and lie.
2. The complaint against the 17yo Yahya was not EVEN investigated
3. The witness denied her allegation
4. She then retracted her complaint
5. Yahya learned about the report just before his acceptance to California Bar
6. All women should be heard. Yet, truth and justice should not be the sacrifice.
7. Politicians who use the MeToo movement for their political end will not help women; it will only help scoundrels/slanderers.
8. The 17yo Yahya was innocent; he will defend himself against mobs.
9. This is character assassination.
10. If it was a Criminal Record, the court would have expunged it from Yahya’s record, and you would not be able to use it.
11. It is irony that the very lack of evidence of the retracted complaint has become your asset.
12. How can you serve journalism if you are lynching a young man based on an accusation which did not even meet the minimum threshold of investigation against him while he was a teenager?
13. This mobbing and political character assassination that violates the basic and universal principles of justice does not serve any victim. It only serves those who exploit raw emotions of abused women.
14. A movement that seeks to defend women against abusers and rapists cannot attack innocent people and remain pro-victim.
15. A movement that acts as a nasty prosecutor, as a prejudicial judge and as vicious executioner, is doomed to experience the fate of McCarthyism.
16. FYI, as a father, I advised both of my sons to adhere the following principles which I followed all my life:
a. Never drink alcoholic beverages.
b. Never have sex without marriage.
c. Never lie.
d. Never gamble.
e. Never use obscene language.
17. We are considering to file a lawsuit for defamation against those who directly or implicitly accuse my son for a crime he never committed.
In politics, if you are threatening legal action for someone else’s speech, you have already lost.
Well, we do not consider “defamation and slander” and “mob rule” as politics.
Manipulating and exploiting the tragedy of victims for political gain is bad politics.
They saw my son’s power and appeal in political debates.
They orchestrated a smear campaign.
Damn with a politics that does not care about truth, justice.
Let them face my son in court of law!
I’m glad to see you’re at least reading Mr. Bodine’s posts, Mr. Bryan.
As a lawyer, I thought you might be concerned with his writing the alleged victim’s account of this incident as fact because this was taken from a police report that never resulted in an arrest and, therefore, was not the basis of any evidence presented by a prosecutor at a criminal hearing. There are documented conflicted accounts and the incident ended there, from the perspective of law enforcement.
So what happened to phrases such as, “According to the report…”.
Maybe I’ve spent too much time watching Dateline, but I would think that reporting this incident without bias would have been the better choice from the perspective of journalism.
I have to say, this just about does it for me. I’m rapidly losing interest in this CD2 primary. The Democratic leaders imported their own candidate months ago and there is probably only one challenger who is better than a long shot. So, I’ll vote for the Democratic nominee whoever that is, and avoid the circus atmosphere that seems to be enveloping this primary.
However, not everyone thinks like I do. So at the very least, since there aren’t very many places to read about these candidates, Mr. Bodine’s writing should be held to a higher standard.
Also, this might seem insignificant given the subject of this post, but why has Mr. Bodine included John Edwards with Harvey Weinstein, etc…? This actually provided some comic relief because Rielle Hunter, Edward’s lover, relentlessly pursued him (by her own admission) and wrote a whole book about what great sex they had. She would still be talking about it if anyone cared.
I think Mr. Bodine appears to be descending into Facebook level journalism.
This is political opinion, not political journalism. If you want those caveats, read a newspaper, not a blog.
Right.
Then how difficult is it to write, “In my opinion…”?
But, of course, it’s your blog.
That is, perhaps, something that Mr. Bodine should consider. But I am not going to exercise such a strict degree of editorial control over the writers here. It should be well understood that this is a blog of political opinion and the writers are therefore to be given the widest possible latitude for expression of their own opinions, in my editorial judgment.
With how drunk she clearly was (even the refuting witness says so) she was unable to consent ergo it was rape. Consent can NOT be given when one is not in full control of their situation. She IMMEDIATELY told the friend she was raped and he said, “that not my version”. Hardly a worthy witness. Its not like she thought about it a few days and regretted it later…or thought, “he might run for office someday so lets ruin him”. She immediately told her friend she was raped. Your son has LITERALLY no excuse or standing in this matter. NONE. At all. He is a filthy pig and a rapist.
I agree, Justice is not served when the truth isn’t told. I abhor the perversion of the metoo movement – it has turned into an instrument of revenge not justice. This will destroy the Democratic party if not mitigated soon. Sexual assault is being used as a weapon twice – once at the original victim then a second time as a means to an end instead of justice. As a victim of sexual violence it angers me that other women who should be confederates are acting like perpetrators themselves by attacking a person who is innocent until proven guilty and should not be tried twice for the same crime.
Larry, did I say “best case??” I hope so. Don’t publish if I said “worse” case.
Thanks
Jenni
asking this man to drop out is absurd at best., the cowards are the fools that chased him out of the room without any facts.
He refused to give facts. He stated he was there to hear his constituents then turned around and leftwithout hearing us. He wasnt chased out he was chased and brought back to have the conversation where he could speak his side. He was given the oppurtunity to be accountable and to be heard. The young woman in the police report was shamed and not heard. The facts are in the police report. Again. No chasing. Lots of facts. Gui where you in all of this?
there are no facts to give, how to does he respond to a lie and an allegation that he was never aware of? You were there to attack a man that had done nothing wrong because you choose to support a lie.
How was the woman shamed? when witnesses stated it was a lie?
You need to take your pitchforks and torches and go home. I refuse to shame anyone for an obvious lie told 17 years ago.
You haven’t read the various articles. Yahya HIMSELF indicated that he learned about the allegations in 2012 when he applied to law school. Six years ago. I think that at least part of the reason the pitchforks “came out” is because Yahya left the room, apparently not wanting/planning to answer questions or listen to comments from non-reporters. During that meeting he could have provided his explanation/accounting of what happened during the night in question–so to speak, to add to the accounts provided to the sheriff’s office by his male friend and the young woman.
I believe that the protesters wanted Mr. Yuksel to confess that he committed the alleged rape, apologize to the victim, and end his campaign. Anything less was not satisfactory, and the pitchforks were ready.
Having a press conference was ill-advised because Mr. Yuksel clearly was not able to confront an organized group of angry protesters. It would have been better if he had just released a written statement or even a video saying whatever he wanted to say. The end result would have been the same except that everyone, including Mr. Yuksel, would have been spared the spectacle.
I hope we’ve seen the last of this. Mr. Yuksel had just over 12K cash on hand as of 6-30. Money wins elections and Mr. Yuksel hasn’t got any. Even without the rape allegations, he isn’t even a long shot in the primary and never was.
Ann Kirkpatrick has plenty of money and is already running TV ads. Matt Heinz and perhaps Mary Matiella have enough money to compete. The remaining candidates haven’t raised enough money.
Exactly Gui,
It was mob manipulated and used by rival candidates. They were there for blood. They did not care about the truth nor justice. They found a retracted complaint while he was teen. They prosecuted him, judged him; and they were there to execute him. All they wanted was to assassinate the character of a young man who performed better than them in debates.
MUCH BETTER THIS TIME, LARRY. ❤