https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-18/eclipse-turning-day-into-night-to-send-temperatures-tumbling
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The University of Alabama Is "Baffled" By My Reporting In The Megan Rondini Rape Case - Donald V. Watkins
https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins/posts/10213882152350118
The University of Alabama Is "Baffled" By My Reporting In The Megan Rondini Rape Case
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on August 16, 2017
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on August 16, 2017
I got a back-channel call yesterday. It was similar to the call I received last month. The University of Alabama does not understand why I am reporting stories on the Megan Rondini rape case. They are "baffled" about my motive for doing so. According to the message, the University is concerned that my news stories on Megan Rondini are hurting the institution's "brand".
All of the state's other media organizations, including the Huntsville Times, Birmingham News, Tuscaloosa News, Montgomery Advertiser, and Mobile Press Register, have turned a blind eye to the injustices in Megan's rape case. These entities survive on ad revenues, which have been in decline in recent years. They cannot afford to offend the "big-mules" who control The University of Alabama and their advertising dollars.
The Tuscaloosa News even profiteered from Megan Rondini's rape case when it ran a full-page attack ad against Megan and her family on July 27, 2017. The ad was place by an attorney for Terry Jackson "Sweet T" Bunn, Jr., the man Megan accused of raping her.
This was my response to the University's back-channel inquiry:
1. The Megan Rondini rape case and subsequent police cover up of this reported crime is the biggest law enforcement scandal I have seen in the 44 years of my work in exposing police cover ups of crimes involving protective classes of criminal suspects. It eclipses the Bernard Whitehurst scandal that was headlined in the April 3, 1977, edition of the Washington Post as "Alabama's Watergate". The Whitehurst scandal involved the 1975 fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in the back and a subsequent cover up of this shooting by the Montgomery police department. The scandal resulted in the resignations of Montgomery's mayor and police commissioner, the indictment of three police officers, and the firing or resignation of eight others.
2. I am the father of a daughter who attends The University of Alabama. What happened to Megan Rondini could have easily happened to my daughter.
3. In my professional opinion as a former Special Assistant Alabama Attorney General and a successful criminal defense attorney, the evidence establishes "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Megan Rondini was unobtrusively administered a "date rape" drug and was subsequently raped by Sweet T during the early morning hours of July 2, 2015.
4. The evidence in this case overwhelmingly suggests that law enforcement officials "fixed" this rape case for the benefit of Sweet T. In the Bernard Whitehurst case, they planted a pistol by Whitehurst's body after his death to make it look like he had been involved in a shootout with police. In Megan Rondini's case, they avoided the forensic testing of Megan's urine for the presence of GHB, which Sweet T was known to use. They also gave Sweet T a two-hour window of opportunity to alter the crime scene at his residence and to destroy potential evidence at the scene after he was officially notified that Megan reported him as her rapist.
5. Megan Rondini was a University of Alabama honors student. Every student's life and safety should matter to the University. Megan Rondini's life matters to me as a human being. She was Mike and Cindy Rondini's daughter and Samatha's sister. She died because of a failure of justice in her rape case.
6. The University should be standing up for Megan Rondini rather than trying to figure out how to get me off of her rape case.
7. My actions are not hurting the University's "brand". Their actions in failing to stand up for Megan Rondini and in openly embracing Sweet T are killing the "brand".
8. I care about crime victims, especially victims of rape. Megan Rondini was a victim of rape.
9. I am an officer of the court, as well as a journalist. I have an affirmative duty to make sure that there is no failure of justice in Megan Rondini's rape case and/or the subsequent police cover up of this crime.
10. Lastly, I am "unbought" and "unbossed". My loyalty is to the truth, and only the truth.
My news articles will continue in Megan Rondini's rape case. I have plenty of facts and evidence for upcoming stories of public interest in this case.
Finally, I am firmly convinced that we can achieve criminal justice in Megan Rondini's rape case when the full truth is exposed about all of the participants in this massive police cover up of a reported crime.
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
In The Span Of 59 Minutes, Megan Rondini’s Life Changed Forever - Donald V. Watkins
https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins/posts/10213873429492052
In The Span Of 59 Minutes, Megan Rondini's Life Changed Forever
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on August 15, 2017
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on August 15, 2017
It was the 2014 Iron Bowl weekend in Tuscaloosa. Megan Rondini and her 18-year-old friend were hanging out at Innisfree Irish Pub on University Boulevard in Tuscaloosa. The mood in the Pub was festive. After all, the Alabama-Auburn football game was being played that Saturday.
Terry Jackson "Sweet T" Bunn, Jr., was also in Innisfree having a good time. He spotted Megan's young friend and made a move on her. The photograph below captures this moment.
Sweet T was in the mood for action that night. He was 15 years older than this young woman. Megan quickly sized up the situation and intervened on her friend's behalf. Like most sexual predators, Sweet T simply moved on to his next prey.
Megan did not know Sweet T and he did not know her. She did, however, know this type of man.
Megan and Sweet T would not see each other again until the night of July 1, 2015. That night, Megan was hanging out with a group of friends at Innisfree. Sweet T was also there, but not with her group.
Megan only knew Sweet T by his nickname. She remembered him from the Thanksgiving encounter. Sweet T did not know Megan's name, her status as a University of Alabama honors student, or anything else about her.
The 59 Minutes that Changed Megan Rondini's Life
Megan left Innisfree at 12:05 a.m. Fifty-nine minutes later (at 1:04 a.m.), Megan was desperately pleading with her friends for immediate help as she described to them how she was trapped behind the locked doors of Sweet T's second floor bedroom. He was asleep when her pleas for help were made.
By 1:19 a.m., Megan had decided to climb out of Sweet T's bedroom window and jump to the ground. By 1:40 a.m., Megan was frantically and repeatedly pleading for help. Using the location feature in her phone, Megan was able to give her friends the address to Sweet T's house. They, in turn, were desperately trying to reach her.
By 1:55 a.m., Megan thought she would "die" in Sweet T's bedroom. Megan's friends assured here that they were on their way to Sweet T's house to rescue her. They arrived to pick her up at 2:13 a.m.
Megan was driven straight to DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa. Once there, hospital personnel performed a rape kit examination in the emergency room and took a urine sample for forensic testing by law enforcement officials.
Sheriff's investigators arrived at DCH to interview Megan at 5 a.m. Megan told investigators (and her friends) that Sweet T had raped her. Megan remembered him as the "old man" she had met at Thanksgiving.
Investigators located Sweet T at his home and started an interview with him at 5:45 a.m. that morning. He immediately denied that Megan had been to his house and then stonewalled investigators on answering any further questions.
The investigators then left Sweet T's residence. They returned to interview him at 8:37 a.m. The crime scene was left attended and unsecured during this two-hour period. Sweet T, a designated crime "suspect", and Barksdale, a material witness and Sweet T's close friend, were left to themselves inside the residence during this period.
The 59-Minute Timeline Makes Sweet T's Claim of "Consensual" Sex Highly Improbable
After conferring with his lawyer, Sweet T resumed his police interview and stated that he: (a) picked up Megan outside of Innisfree after midnight; (b) drove to Megan's apartment, engaged in small talk with her, and had drinks there; (c) then drove with friend Jason Barksdale and Megan to his house in the county; (d) had unprotected, "consensual sex" with a "outgoing, "friendly", and "flirtatious" Megan, without ejaculating; and (e) fell asleep until he was awaken by investigator Josh Hastings at 5:45 a.m.
Only 59 minutes elapsed from the time Megan left Innisfree at 12:05 a.m. until the time she texted her friends for urgent help at 1:04 a.m. Both sides agree that Sweet T had unprotected sex with Megan at his house during this period. Megan says it was "rape". Sweet T says it was "consensual".
According to Megan, she was not impaired when she left the Pub. Yet, Megan had no memory of going to her apartment with Sweet T and Barksdale. When she returned to her apartment later that morning, there were three drink glasses sitting on her kitchen counter. During his police "interrogation", Sweet T was very evasive when answering questions about whether Megan had been drinking.
Megan's behavior and memory lapses during the 59 minutes she was with Sweet T was consistent with the behavior of a victim who had been unobtrusively administered a "date rape" drug. Yet, investigators never questioned Sweet T about drugging Megan. Furthermore, investigators never questioned Sweet T about any prior reported rape incidents under similar circumstances in which he was designated as the accused rape suspect.
Fifth-nine minutes after she left Innisfree, Megan was frantically pleading with friends to come rescue her from Sweet T's house. The sexual encounter that Sweet T labeled as "consensual" was over, and he was asleep. Megan immediately reported to her friends, hospital personnel, investigators, and family members that she had been "raped".
Megan gave hospital personnel a urine sample for the purpose of confirming the absence or presence of a "date rape" drug in her system. Law enforcement officials never tested her urine sample.
With the help of Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ron Abernathy, his criminal investigators, and former District Attorney Lyn Head, Sweet T was able to escape criminal justice in Megan's rape case.
Megan Rondini eventually committed suicide by hanging herself. She died on February 26, 2016 -- the same day Sweet T got arrested for his second DUI offense.
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