4.2.12 WC: 191694 The 99-pound rapist The great violinist Itzhak Perlman called me one day and asked if I would look into a disturbing case involving a young violinist he knew who attended college in the Boston area. The young violinist—who was 5 feet tall and weighed 99 pounds, and whose only exercise was lifting a bow—had been accused by a 5 foot 4, 140-pound lacrosse player of raping her. Itzhak did not believe that the allegation could be true. The circumstances of the case certainly didn’t lend credence to the charge. The young man and woman had been close platonic friends. She had a steady boyfriend back home, with whom she regularly had sex. One night she invited the violinist to her dorm room where they had sexual relations. Several weeks later, she invited him to spend the weekend with her family, where he said they again had sexual relations. But soon thereafter she began to experience psychological problems and someone at the college left an anonymous message with her parents that she may have been the victim of an unwelcome sexual encounter. After being confronted by her father, who was adamantly opposed to any premarital sex, she told him that the violinist had raped her in the her dorm room. She then filed a complaint with the police. The young man was immediately suspended from college and subsequently indicted for rape. I referred the case to a small law firm in town that specialized in criminal matters, and the case was assigned by the senior partner to a well-known woman lawyer active in feminist causes. She found the story implausible — so much so that the lawyers decided to waive a jury trial and have the case decided by a judge, whom they believed would be less susceptible to political correctness. They were wrong and they were right. The judge found the young man guilty, but gave him a prison sentence of only 95 days thus suggesting that he didn’t find him shar guilty. I followed the appeal closely, reviewing the briefs and offering suggestions