Former judge accuses recall leader of rape threat hoax

CORRECTION: The following story on the campaign to recall Judge Aaron Persky included a statement by retired Judge LaDoris Cordell about a letter containing white powder that was sent to campaign leader Michele Dauber. Cordell’s statement made an inaccurate implication about Dauber. The FBI has arrested the man suspected of sending the powder. (Correction added March 15, 2018)

BY ALLISON LEVITSKY
Daily Post Staff Writer

Retired Palo Alto Judge LaDoris Cordell, a vocal opponent of the movement to unseat Judge Aaron Persky, has accused recall leader Michele Dauber of staging a mailed rape threat containing white powder, which caused two rooms at Stanford Law School to be evacuated yesterday (Feb. 14).

“I’m glad that the powder was harmless. I also question the timing of all of this. This has the hallmarks of a publicity stunt,” Cordell said. “I say that because it is clear that the tide has turned.”

Dauber said one of her former students opened the envelope, which appeared to have been mailed from the Boston area, to find the note reading, “Since you are going to disrobe Persky, I am going to treat you like ‘Emily Doe.’ Let’s see what kind of sentencing I get for being a rich white
male.”

Emily Doe is the courtroom pseudonym given to the unconscious 22-year-old woman who former Stanford student Brock Turner, then 19, sexually assaulted outside a fraternity party in 2015.

The recall campaign launched in response to the six-month county jail sentence Persky gave Turner for sexual penetration with a foreign object and sexual assault with intent to commit rape.

Dauber tweeted a photo of another note bearing an identical message on Feb. 5. She said that note had been mailed to her via the service ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, which delivers letters containing “glitter bombs” as a prank.

Dauber said the note she received yesterday was likely a “copycat” of the Feb. 5 note, since she posted the earlier note online.

Dauber says she gets threats regularly

Dauber said she gets threatening letters on a regular basis, but that she’s received more since the recall campaign turned in more than 95,000 signatures to qualify for the June 5 ballot last month.

“I believe it’s increasing because of the increasingly personal attacks and smears that Judge Persky’s campaign has been aiming both at Emily Doe and me in recent weeks,” Dauber told the Post. “I think that those kinds of comments have really inflamed some disturbed individuals who are interested in engaging in sending threats and so forth.”

Cordell has made statements on the CNN show “Smerconish” and in an endorsement interview with the South Bay Labor Council this week about the fact that Dauber has never been licensed to practice law and doesn’t have a background in criminal law.

Before the labor council, Cordell also criticized Dauber’s tweeting of a song called “F*** Brock Turner,” which Dauber later deleted, and accused Dauber of lying about Persky’s record.

Cordell also said on CNN that both Turner and Doe were intoxicated at the time of the 2015 assault as one factor that any judge would have considered in deciding whether to sentence Turner to county jail or state prison.

‘Unhinged’

Dauber then accused the Persky campaign of using Doe’s intoxication to “blame the victim and excuse the perpetrator.”

But Cordell denies that any of her statements have been personal attacks on Dauber or Doe.
“I think that she is coming unhinged, quite frankly,” Cordell said. “What is disturbing Michele Dauber is that there is an opposition that is daring to speak out.”

4 Comments

  1. Bonkers. Bullying. He was following guidelines
    For clemency on young first time offenders. Yes
    He was busted molesting a totally passed out girl.
    Why run awAy if it was ever consensual? The
    World forgot oj running and gave a wealthy black athlete star pass to a domestic abuser and very likely double murderer
    You’re going to end up w harsh judges. Persky deserves judicial independence. Brock turner has paid a huge price for his crime. He lost everything and is a lifelong sex offender with bored nasty activists to harass him forever.

  2. Now that the FBI has busted Daniel Frisiello for doing this, think our wonderful LaDoris Cordell will apologize for her false accusation of Michele Dauber?

    Don’t count on it. Cordell sold her conscience ages ago.

  3. Now that an arrest of a MA man has been made in this incident the Judge owes Professor Dauber a public apology.

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