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California, Monday, April 26, 2004
Calif. Professor
Charged with Hate Crime Hoax
by Reuters
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A
Southern California college professor who received
wide media attention when she claimed that racists
had vandalized and defaced her car with ethnic
slurs was charged on Monday with filing a false
police report and insurance fraud.
David
Irving comments:
I HAVE no idea whether
Ms Dunn is Jewish or not (some reports say
that she is, and her behaviour is
characteristic of the community, some of
whose members have been prosecuted in past
years for defacing their own synagogues,
in order to protest about rising
anti-Semitism).
We have examples of this
in our dossier
on the origins of anti- Semitism.
My concern is however
about the criminal prosecution of this
case. Were it not for the allegedly
fraudulent insurance claim, the behaviour
appers to betoken a clinical disorder
rather than a criminal, and were I calling
the shots I would have called for medical
reports, a period of observation and
treatment rather than criminal
sanctions.
It reminds me of a book
I read in my youth called Erewhon
by Samuel Butler, I believe, in
which the hospitals housed the criminals,
and the prisons housed the sick. From my
own two-week experience
in London's Pentonville on a contempt of
court charge (learn from it, Prof
Deborah Lipstadt!), I can confirm
the latter part.
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 Kerri
Dunn, a professor of psychology at Claremont
McKenna College, east of Los Angeles, portrayed
herself as a victim of racists angered by her
message of tolerance at a campus forum when she
reported the vandalism on March 9. She then put in
a claim with her auto insurer for damages to her
car.
Her story drew media attention and prompted
hundreds of students to rally in her name, joined
by civil rights activists. But police and FBI
agents who investigated the incident began
suspecting Dunn of a hoax after witnesses came
forward to say they had spotted the 39-year-old
professor vandalizing her own car.
She was charged with one misdemeanor count of
filing a false police report and two felony counts
of insurance fraud. She faces three years in prison
if convicted at trial. "False accusations that
imply hate crimes prey on the legitimate concerns
of the public who truly abhor violence based on
race, ethnicity or sexual orientation," Los Angeles
County District Attorney Steve Cooley said
in a statement. "And those who make false claims
should realize there is a penalty for doing
so."
After Dunn's car was found covered in racial
slurs, its tires slashed and windshield shattered,
college officials offered a $10,000 reward for
information leading to an arrest.  Claremont
President Pamela Gann has said the college
would conduct its own investigation before deciding
whether to retain Dunn, whose contract expires
later this year.
Above:
Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League
in New York is unusually coy about the
story
University
Hillel staged an anti-hate meeting with Prof Kerri
Dunn as key speaker
Radical's
Diary: In prison, 1994-
Website
devoted to Kerrin Dunn's activities and the
university's now muted outrage at the alleged
racist attack
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