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.
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