DECEMBER 20, 2019 BY MICHAEL STONE9 COMMENTS
Despicable: Former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin says he pardoned a child rapist because the 9-year-old victim’s hymen was still intact.
Former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin drew widespread condemnation last week when reports highlighted that he’d pardoned more than 400 convicted criminals in his final days in office. Bevin justified his actions by telling The Washington Post, “I’m a believer in second chances.”
In a wide-ranging interview with Kentucky’s WHAS on Thursday, Bevin offered a fresh defense for perhaps his most controversial pardon, that of Micah Schoettle, a 41-year-old man who was convicted of raping a 9-year-old last year.
Bevin’s justification: there was no physical evidence of abuse and the girl’s hymen was “intact.”
The Guardian reports:
When the former Republican governor of Kentucky Matt Bevin was asked in a recent radio interview how he could justify having pardoned on his last day in office a child rapist, he replied: “Which one?”
The interview went downhill from there. Bevin said he had allowed Micah Schoettle, 41, who was serving a 23-year sentence for rape, incest, sodomy and other sexual offenses to walk free last week after less than 18 months in prison because his nine-year-old victim had been found to have her hymen intact.
Trying to justify his horrific decision to pardon Micah Schoettle, who was convicted of raping the 9-year-old last year, Bevin claimed there was no physical evidence of abuse and that the girl’s hymen was “intact.”
There was zero evidence of that. This man was convicted purely on something that there’s no corroboration for.
Both their hymens were intact. This is perhaps more specific than people would want, but trust me if you had been repeatedly sexually violated, as a small child, by an adult, there are going to be repercussions of that physically and medically.
After Bevin’s ridiculous justification for his pardon, medical and legal experts were quick to denounce Bevin’s willful ignorance. For example, George Nichols, former chief medical examiner for Kentucky, told the Courier Journal:
Rape is not proved by hymen penetration. He not only doesn’t know the law, in my humble opinion, he clearly doesn’t know medicine and anatomy.
Before being pardoned, Schoettle was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2018 on charges of rape, incest, and sodomy.
As for Bevin, he is no stranger to controversy, and has proven himself to be a dangerous Christian extremist. For example:
- Instead of vaccination, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin deliberately sent all nine of his kids to a chickenpox party to be infected with the disease because he doesn’t like vaccines.
- Bevin blamed zombies on television for the epidemic of mass shootings plaguing the country.
- After 17 people were killed in a mass shooting at a public high school in Parkland, Florida, Bevin claimed that violent video games, and not guns, are to blame for the tragedy.
- Bevin claimed that those who criticize his crime fighting “prayer patrols” are destined for Hell.
- Bevin said he wasn’t worried about denying poor people Medicaid because he believes health insurance makes people unhealthy.
- Bevin’s plan to fight violent crime in the city of Louisville was calling for volunteer prayer patrols that would not report or stop criminal activity, but would instead pray the crime away.
- Bevin signed an informed consent bill into law that degrades and humiliates women seeking an abortion by forcing them to listen to a patronizing lecture about the supposed perils of the procedure.
- Bevin declared open season on gay kids by signing a bill legalizing discrimination against LGBT students.
Despite strong support from President Donald Trump, Bevin lost his bid for re-election last month.
Bottom line: Former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, a dangerous Christian extremist, says he pardoned a child rapist because the 9-year-old victim’s hymen was still intact.
