Lies and threats -- a personal note

In assessing the drama around Brett Kavanaugh, the key question is whether one believes his accusers are telling the truth or not.  In my two postings on the topic this week, I've said that while I recognize that it's impossible to know for certain, I tend to find the accusations credible.  More importantly, I've said why.  Others may reach a different conclusion, of course.  But having expressed that judgment, it's perhaps relevant -- maybe even obligatory -- to mention that I myself was once the target, not of an actual false accusation, but a threat of one.

This happened in 2000 or 2001 -- I can't narrow it down any further -- and involved a woman I'll call LL who lived across the street from me.  She was also a co-worker at the company where I worked at the time.  I had gotten to know her fairly well, and when she asked to borrow $150 from me because she needed to buy some stuff for her kids, I loaned it to her without much hesitation.  (Yes, there had been a number of "red flag" clues about her actual character which I had ignored.  I've had something of a history of being naïve in my judgments of people -- which is why I don't trust people easily now.)

After some weeks went by without LL paying me back or saying anything about doing so, I started asking her about it.  Her reactions were evasive and rapidly became aggressively hostile.  Eventually, she told me that if I didn't stop asking me about the money, she would call the police and tell them that I had been "peeping" at her through her windows.

To be clear here, I had never done anything that she could even remotely have honestly mistaken for such behavior.  She was flatly threatening to tell an out-and-out lie.

Needless to say, I stopped asking about the money.  For $150, it wasn't worth the risk.  I avoided any contact with LL and even stopped going out in the street unless necessary, to minimize the risk of running into her unexpectedly.  I do remember that some time later, when the company got into financial trouble (she was no longer working there, but I was), she gloated that I was going to lose my job and get evicted.  I can't remember the circumstances under which I heard her say this, since we were no longer on speaking terms, but it definitely happened.  In any case, I didn't get evicted, and it was she who moved out soon after -- whether voluntarily or by eviction, I have no idea.

After LL was gone, one day I was talking to another neighbor and mentioned this incident, and the neighbor said, "Oh, she borrowed money from everybody on this street and never paid it back."

In hindsight, I doubt that LL's threat to call the cops on me as a "peeping tom" would have done me much harm even if she had carried it out.  I had never been accused of any such thing before -- because I've never done any such thing -- and since she had ripped off other neighbors (though I didn't know that at the time), the police might have found my explanation more credible.  But at the time, the threat was quite frightening.  And what if she had conveyed the same accusation to the company where we both worked?

The point is, I'm not blind to the reality of false accusations being made by malignant people for whatever reason.  I know from experience that it's a real possibility.  I don't approach a story like the Kavanaugh saga with a fixed idea that accusations of sexual aggression by a man are always true and must be believed without question.

In such a case, all we can do is look at whatever other evidence is available, and how logically plausible it is that someone would lie.  In this case, accusations by multiple people are more credible than just one person; the accusers have a great deal to lose by coming forward, in the form of threats and disruption of their lives; Ford's testimony has been judged credible even by people ideologically inclined to side with Kavanaugh; and in the case of Swetnick, Avenatti potentially has even more to lose by putting the full weight of his reputation behind such serious charges against a powerful man with powerful allies.  So I tentatively judge it most likely that the accusers are telling the truth.  I'm certainly open to new evidence to the contrary, of course.  But I don't believe I'm biased in the accusers' favor.