Community | May 24, 2011 | 49 comments

Tim Pawlenty wiped a serial child molester’s record clean in 2008

source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/23/tim-pawlenty-wiped-a-serial-child-molesters-record-cle...

Image
treewolf39

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/23/tim-pawlenty-wiped-a-serial-chi...

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty formally announced his campaign seeking the GOP nomination for the presidency Monday morning, but by midday, his political past had already caught up to him. Reporting by Minneapolis City Pages' Nick Pinto brought to attention a pardon then-Gov. Pawlenty granted to a sex offender in October 2008, which is sure to haunt the candidate throughout his campaign: the man Pawlenty pardoned was later arrested again for molesting his daughter more than 250 times in an eight-year span, including six years prior to his pardon.

Jeremy Giefer served 45 days in prison in 1994 after being convicted of statutory rape. However, because he married the then-14-year-old girl and stuck around to father the child they conceived together, he begged the state for an extraordinary pardon, which would no longer require Giefer to report himself as a sex offender.

The board — which includes the Minnesota attorney general, the chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and the governor (Pawlenty, at the time) — voted unanimously to pardon Giefer.

The damning details came in November 2010, when Giefer was again arrested on counts of sex with an underage girl — this time with the daughter he had conceived with Susan before his first rape charge. According to the complaint his daughter, identified in court documents as C.G., filed, Griefer would often make her have sex with him or perform oral sex on him as a favor before he would give her permission to do things, and that he put her on birth control when she was 15 years old so that she wouldn't get pregnant when he raped her without a condom. The abuse started when she was 9 years old.

Pawlenty soon proposed cracking down harder on sex offenders, and said he would never have granted Griefer pardon if he had known he was molesting his daughter.

Pawlenty's fledgling presidential campaign has already seen drama, when Benjamin Foster, a campaign consultant for Pawlenty, was arrested for trespassing and public intoxication when he vomited in an Iowa voter's yard and woke up the family's teenage daughter by banging on the back door.

Another campaign staffer, campaign manager Nick Ayers, brings a boozy whiff of controversy as well: It's widely known that he was arrested for drunk driving in 2006.

Running a presidential campaign ensures that skeletons will come tumbling out of closets left and right, but it's too early to say which past missteps may ultimately prove damning for candidates.
  1. groups:
    Community,   Collective Journalism,   Current Cultural Issues,   Educating America,   2 more
  2. tags:
    Tim Pawlenty
  3. recommended by:
    Vierotchka
  4.     
    |

49 comments // Tim Pawlenty wiped a serial child molester’s record clean in 2008

  • artemis6
  • letsliveinpeace
  • iowawashington
    • +2
      iowawashington  

    • I saw this headline and immediately thought of Willie Horton. What the GOP did with that story was wrong. While it would feel good, like we were getting justice, to punish the GOP when they are guilty of the same thing, that doesn't make it right.

      Sucks being a grown up, because I sooooo want to rub this in.

    • 1 year ago
  • aj727b
    • +9
      aj727b  

    • Don't you guys know that the marriage can be as bogus, wrong, and abusive as you want... as long as it is a MAN and a WOMAN. They'll pardon child rapers as long as they can abuse the girl into being a barefoot and pregnant "traditional" wife. In THEIR world that is less "deviant" than a loving gay couple or a working mom or a working single woman who doesn't absolutely NEED a man to do and decide everything for her.

    • 1 year ago
  • jennilamb007
  • GRC54
    • +9
      GRC54  

    • Use the old Rethug plan. Blame the daughter it's her fault not his.
      Don't put it past them to do it either as they have no morals.

    • 1 year ago
  • jennilamb007
    • +8
      jennilamb007  

    • First of all, where was this girl's parents when he married the child he had been raping? Secondly, what minister or justice of the peace was smarmy enough to perform the ceremony. Thirdly, this piece of shit needs to be taken out and hanged. Republican candidates just get worse and worse in their calls of judgment. Is he the best the Repubes have to offer? Then I am here to say the GOP is DOA.

    • 1 year ago
  • Leen61
  • jennilamb007
  • Leen61
  • tlbuffin
  • jennilamb007
  • VFORVENDETTA
    • +7
      VFORVENDETTA  
    • tlbuffin:

      Do not be fooled, a good friend of mine lives in Minneapolis (where I used to live, also in Eau Claire Wisconsin) Pawlenty is a very very easy-going character, part of his reason for being elected, is that he's very very good at disguising his true Republican agenda, and during the campaign, it was very hard to get him to "stick to any of the issues" hence he got the nickname-the Teflon governor- Pawlenty is a snake, But a far cleverer snake than the one in Wisconsin, his style is very non-combative, reminiscent of vintage "I feel your pain" Clinton, keep a close eye on this fucker.

    • 1 year ago
  • jennilamb007
  • EdJoyProductions
  • jennilamb007
  • jennilamb007
  • tlbuffin
  • jennilamb007
  • northernexpat
    • +4
      northernexpat  
    • VFORVENDETTA:

      Let's hope the people in Minnesota let everyone know what a rotten Governor he was. People need to remember that it was under his stewardship that that bridge collapsed. I heard he spend the last year taking his eye off the state to work on the national scene for the GOP. Seems like he is Palinlike with a brain. A very dangerous combination.

    • 1 year ago
  • Demtothecore
  • EdJoyProductions
  • tlbuffin
  • EdJoyProductions
    • +5
      EdJoyProductions  
    • tlbuffin:

      Well, it is usually a sign of evil more than poor judgement, but in Pawlenty's case, I am siding with stupid. If he did not know this little pardon was not going to jump up and bite him on the ass, he has the IQ of a pillow case.

    • 1 year ago
  • jennilamb007
  • EdJoyProductions
  • wtthfkovr
    • +7
      wtthfkovr  

    • Ahh Republican family values if he had known that he was raping his daughter he wouldn't have pardoned him. So it must be OK with Pawlenty if it was some one else 9 year old daughter

    • 1 year ago
  • littlwarrior
    • +3
      littlwarrior  

    • Ya know I dont think at the time this pardon was issued Mr. Pawlenty made that terrible of a decision. Granted what happened later is disgusting and if that knowledge had been possessed I doubt such a decision would have been made that being said this guy was only 19 when convicted of his initial crime, at least thats what this article says (http://my.firedoglake.com/phoenix/tag/jeremy-giefer/) no one else seems to mention his age, but really if he married the girl I would be inclined to consider pardoning the guy, thats really not a big age difference. Now there could have been other factors not being discussed but really without knowing those I wont be holding this particular incident against him as a voter. Course I will most likely be voting for Obama anyways so in the end what does it matter.

    • 1 year ago
  • treewolf39
  • northernexpat
    • +6
      northernexpat  

    • To allow a pedophile a pardon is inexcusable. They obviously did not do a very good background check on this person before issuing the pardon. Just because he had married the 14 year old did not make it right, he should have been in jail for rape instead. Now he has ruined two lives (his wife and his daughter). I bet there are other as well. A pedophile doesn't change his spots. It really shows poor judgement and reflects badly on Pawlenty in my opinion.

    • 1 year ago
  • jennilamb007
  • northernexpat
    • +2
      northernexpat  
    • jennilamb007:

      Oh my God. That is even worse. Where was the investiagtion into whether they even qualified to have a daycare? I can see him licking his chops when he got the pardon. It looks like a lot of people dropped the ball on this one.

    • 1 year ago
  • nikonwilly
  • Leen61
    • +6
      Leen61  

    • Is this sick! First off, the girl this Griefer married was 14! Where was the state and the parents on this allowing him to marry the girl and basically carry on pedophilia on a daily basis? Marrying her didn't make him any less of a child molester. Now he's doing his own daughter? If this doesn't deep six Pawlenty's
      political aspirations, then what will? But the Reps have an excuse for everything. Those "family values", you know. The situation is always different when it involves Reps.

    • 1 year ago
  • littlwarrior
    • +3
      littlwarrior  
    • Leen61:

      I would just like to point out at the time of the crime he was 19 and she 14, in another time that would have been considered the perfect ages for marriage in this country as well as many others. Thats not to say the man shouldn't be murdered in the streets for what he did to his daughter. Just I can see why the pardon was considered.

    • 1 year ago
  • Leen61
  • littlwarrior
    • +1
      littlwarrior  
    • Leen61:

      That's true and I genuinely see where you are coming from, all I'm saying is dont forget there are two sides to every story, and I can really see where the governor was coming from on this one. I have personally watched as young men I knew and loved were convicted and hauled off all for the simple reason that he was 18 and she was 16, no rape was involved, no force, just a 17 year old guy turned 18 had a good night with his 16 year old girl friend of almost 3 years at the time, and now sits in prison becuase of it. I do not feel that this article or most of the other articles I found really took the time to research the initial case, most dont even mention that he was only 19, no one talks about how they met, why he was convicted, what happened with the marriage. Most of the journalists have not explored the entire story they just hopped on the bashing band wagon with little or no effort to report the actual story. I think that many here are jumping to conclusions based on insufficient information, judge the creepy bastard all you want but I dont know at this point if the Mr. Pawlenty is really at fault on this one.

    • 1 year ago
  • Leen61
  • littlwarrior
    • +3
      littlwarrior  
    • Leen61:

      Im not defending him, he is an ass who should die a terrible death, Im just asking that you look at this from where the Governor was at before judging him for giving the pardon in the first place. You know I am generally the last person to defend a Republican and this article feels like just more muck to be raked, where Pawlenty is concerned. This greifer fella, well someone should probably just shoot him to simplify things, or cut off his dick and choke him with it. That might be more fitting than a simple bullet.

    • 1 year ago
  • jennilamb007
    • +3
      jennilamb007  
    • littlwarrior:

      I see what you are saying, but I think in this man's case, they were right in the first place to put him in prison. I know a few people who have been wrongfully imprisoned and it is awful. I just don't think it applies to this guy given what he has went on to do. You are right, at the time of the pardon they couldn't predict the future and what he would end up doing. Doesn't help the 9 year old any though.

    • 1 year ago
  • littlwarrior
    • +2
      littlwarrior  
    • jennilamb007:

      I get that and really I'm not 100% on what I would do if the decision to pardon had been mine, but then again we dont know everything that the Governor would have known. Of course it doesn't help the 9 year girl, of course we could always go with option of selling him as a slave to fight as a gladiator and all the profits from his sales and a chunk of profits from his future career go to his daughter, who is actually 15 now, she was 9 when it started.

    • 1 year ago
  • jennilamb007
  • samthesixth
  • UtopianSky
    • +10
      UtopianSky  

    • And what will the Conservative press make of this?

      Remember, that they made a HUGE deal over the fact that Obama was friends with a University Professor who, when Obama was 9 years old, was a campus radical.

      Now compare that to letting a child molester go because he married his victim.

    • 1 year ago
  • treewolf39
  • freehit
    • +7
      freehit  
    • treewolf39:

      I agree, since he's a rethuglican, there's nothing to see here. Should a Dem so much as sneeze, Faux News would accuse them of starting a pandemic....a socialist communist fascist pandemic at that. :)

    • 1 year ago
  • princefeliz
  • northernexpat
  • northernexpat
more from Community:
from the community

top videos