Mary Mitchell

Mitchell column: Black principal caught on sex tape

I've heard some sorry excuses for adultery, but Leroy Coleman's excuse takes the cake.

Coleman, 55, is the former Sandridge school principal who -- along with a former teacher, Janet Lofton -- starred in an X-rated DVD secretly taped and sent anonymously to students' parents.

Monday, Coleman publicly apologized for hurting his wife of 30 years while trying to defend his reputation.

"The video does not reflect that I am a compassionate, hardworking and successful administrator," but "It does say that I am human and I have weaknesses," Coleman told reporters.

Let's just call that the Marion Barry defense.

The fact that Coleman is trying to pose as just a hardworking black man is offensive. Even a poorly rated school administrator would know better than to have sexual romps in the office, especially with someone who can later claim sexual harassment.

But Coleman apparently believes that the DVD of him and Lofton are to blame for his wife's public humiliation.

"[W]however planted the 'invasive video'. . . hurt my family, friends and a lifetime of educating children," Coleman said.

Oh really.

Loyal wife
Even if the unknown camera person was a pervert on a mission to out the philandering principal, Coleman is the idiot for not going to a hotel. These were not simple nooners or midday quickies. These were hours-long sexcapades.

I also got the sense that Lofton, who rifled through papers on Coleman's desk whenever he wasn't in the room, was using sex to further her career.

She performed the most intimate sex acts like a wind-up toy while Coleman never bothered to take off his jacket.

Frankly, after the DVD surfaced, I don't know how Coleman had the nerve to go home. And once he got there, I don't know why his wife hadn't thrown his clothes into the street.

It's bad enough that he disgraced himself, but, come on. Lofton looked a lot younger than his wife, and that must have cut her to the bone. But like a lot of other wives who have been publicly disgraced, Coleman's wife, Krisha, was at her husband's side when he faced reporters.

I was embarrassed for her.

It's one thing for a married man to get caught in an affair, but in a sex tape?

Although I understand why wronged women choose to stay with their unfaithful husbands, every time one of them puts their wounded pride on display, it affirms the myth that men just can't help themselves.

Still, the most distressing element of this scandal is yet to come

Since the DVD captures sexual activity dating to December and January, but was only recently released to parents and the media, the speculation is that whoever is behind the tape wanted to use it to derail incumbents in Tuesday's school board elections.

Black board members ousted
All three of the ousted incumbents in the Lynwood School District are black, as are Coleman and Lofton. At least one of the ousted board members suggested there are racial overtones surrounding the incident.

But white opponents didn't force Coleman and Lofton to play to sexual stereotypes. And white opponents didn't follow these school officials to a hotel and watch from a hole in the wall next door.

If someone had an agenda to get rid of Coleman or black school board members, then Coleman gave that person the ammunition. Again, that makes him the idiot.

Coleman isn't the first man to get caught in a sex scandal.

But he's probably the first to argue that the white man made him do it.

Posted by Mary Mitchell at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (34) | TrackBacks (0)

Mitchell column:

Despite the divisive nature of the Duke lacrosse rape case, some good can come of it.

The flawed case exposed the worst elements of the criminal justice system and showed how easily an innocent person can be railroaded into jail.

Most often, it is African Americans and other people of color who find themselves in this predicament. That has made it too easy for some of us to dismiss their complaints of being railroaded.

But the Duke defendants were young, white males from affluent families, battling a system that sometimes runs like a car without brakes.

"This entire experience has opened my eyes up to a tragic world of injustice I never knew existed," Reade Seligmann said at a news conference last week.

In denouncing the rape prosecution as a "rush to judgment," the attorney general in North Carolina dropped all charges against Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty.

"If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they'd do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves," Seligmann said.

"So rather than relying on disparaging stereotypes and creating political and racial conflicts, all of us need to take a step back from this case and learn from it."

Why no DNA evidence?
Still, the Duke defendants were luckier than most defendants who face similar situations.

Five years ago, I raised questions about the charges leveled against Carl Chatman, a homeless man accused of raping a woman in the Daley Center.

Why was there no DNA evidence to link Chatman to the crime? How did Chatman manage to slip into the Daley Center and sleep under a bench all night? Why did a traffic cop pick the indigent Chatman out on the street and take him back to the scene of the crime? And why would Chatman, who is mentally ill, dictate a detailed confession to a detective?

But two years later, a jury took a half hour to convict Chatman of raping the clerk in her office. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

"It was the fact that the victim was detailed in her description of what happened, and the defendant had a written, signed, nine-page statement with all the details," a juror told reporters after the conviction.

The woman and her husband have filed civil suits against Cook County, the Public Building Commission, Aargus Security Systems, the Cook County sheriff, ANR Janitorial Service, MB Beitler Management Corp. and Carl Chatman.

Apparently, those suits have led lawyers to do a little more digging.

Filed civil suits then, too
It turns out that in 1979, the Daley Center victim was also raped early in the morning (7 a.m.) at another downtown office building -- allegedly in a washroom by a janitor.

The victim identified a Polish immigrant from a photograph as the man who raped her. Because the suspect spoke very little English, he was given an interpreter and was subsequently arrested.

The accused fled the country before going to trial. But he left a letter behind with his sister, telling her he had no idea what the charges were all about but that the accusation had ruined his life.

The Daley Center victim filed civil suits in that case as well, naming the owners of the office building, the maintenance service, security company and the alleged rapist.

As incredible as it may sound, the information about the first rape and resulting lawsuits was not brought up during Chatman's trial.

Lawyers representing Chatman are now attempting to get him a new trial based on ineffective representation.

"The evidence will show the injustice of this case," said Russell Ainsworth of Lovey & Lovey, lawyers who are representing Chatman in the civil case.

"You have a 50-year-old veteran who is homeless with mental illness who is taken advantage of by this alleged victim solely to make a dime off the taxpayers of Cook County," he said.

Because rape victims are given a shield of protection, I am not identifying the woman. But I did attempt to contact her attorney, Joe Powers.

Maybe it is just a tragic coincidence that this woman was raped twice under similar circumstances. But I'm concerned that Chatman was simply another example of a "rush to judgment" who did not have the means to defend himself.

Hopefully, the Duke lacrosse case has made more of us sensitive to the plight of people like Chatman.

Posted by Mary Mitchell at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBacks (0)

Don Imus needs to go home, permanently.
And while he's at it, he can take his radio producer with him. Although Imus deserves all the bombs being tossed his way for referring to black members of the Rutger's basketball as "nappy-headed hos," McGuirk led off by first referring to them as "hardcore hos." Neither one of these men would dare call white women soccer players hos on air.

I don't know what pisses me off the most--the fact that Imus and his sidekick get paid for entertaining white listeners by bashing black people, as was pointed out by the Rev. Jesse Jackson , or the fact that black people had to protest before CBS Radio and MSNBC took any action against Imus. Didn't one executive at either outlet know all hell was about to break loose?
Obviously they don't care how many racially offensive remarks hosts make as long as people tune in. So it's not just Imus. Anyone who supports this garbage is part of the problem.

Posted by Mary Mitchell at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (117) | TrackBacks (0)