Palin Rape Kit Controversy: New Evidence (VIDEO)

I've been hearing about this for a while. Wikipedia claims it was true.

You're right. It was Todd.

There seems to have been a typo in the Headline. Obviously it was meant to say "Palin Rape Kit Controversy: NO Evidence (VIDEO)"

Thank you for this video. The facts are available and Palin is a not above lying or abusing her power. This is someone McCain has shown the poor judgment to have as VP.

who is the real sarah palin?

I concede on the "facts". However...

First, local hospitals administered the post-assault examinations, which means hospitals likely generated the bills sent to the victims or their insurance companies, not the town of Wasilla. But it was the town of Wasilla that set the policy instructing the hospital to bill the victim. (And naturally, the hospital/patient records in question remain confidential.) So the fact that the town can't find any collection records is not surprising since the hospital did the collecting.

In other words, for years, the local hospital billed the Wasilla police department when it brought in a rape victim to be tested. After the town adopted a new policy, the Wasilla police instructed the hospital to bill the victim or her insurance company instead.

But secondly and more important, whether the town actually billed anyone during the relatively short time the policy was in place was secondary to the fact that the policy was instituted while Palin was mayor.

A third point regarding the claim that the town never billed anyone. Here's what Palin's hand-picked police chief told a reporter for the local newspaper, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, in 2000 after the state outlawed the practice of billing victims for rape kits: "In the past, we've charged the cost of the exams to the victim's insurance company when possible".

But ask yourself this: If the police chief's comments in 2000 had been some kind of massive misunderstanding and were being foolishly used to fuel the current rape-kit story, wouldn't the former police chief clear the matter up? Wouldn't Palin be able to persuade her former police chief to come forward and explain to the press how his comments in the Frontiersman in 2000 were completely taken out of context and that no, of course not, Wasilla never charged the insurance companies of rape victims when Palin was mayor?

Instead, we've heard radio silence from the former police chief, who seems to have no interest in walking back his rape-kit comments from 2000, comments that frustrated bloggers just cannot make disappear.

Former state Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat, sponsored a state law requiring cities to provide the examinations free of charge to victims. He said the only ongoing resistance he met was from Wasilla, where Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002.

"It was one of those things everyone could agree on except Wasilla," Croft told CNN. "We couldn't convince the chief of police to stop charging them."

"Smells" pretty gosh darn smelly to me.

The Finance Department searched all financial records on our system for fiscal year 2000, 2001 and 2002. There are no records of billings to or collections from rape victims or their insurance companies in our system. The financial computer system goes back to the beginning of fiscal year 2000, and accounts receivable backup documentation goes back six (6) years per our records retention schedule.

A review of files and case reports within the Wasilla Police Department has found no record of sexual assault victims being billed for forensic exams. State law AS 18.68.040, which was effective August 12, 2000, would have prohibited any such billings after that date.

Produce evidence of a rape victim being charged for a kit.

That's empty rhetoric. Debunk this with facts please.

This is a complete fabrication. They went to all the trouble to produce this video and couldn't find one victim to say that she was charged for a rape kit? That doesn't pass the smell test. In fact, the police chief, when asked about this, said that he was working on a program to charge PERPS for the kits, not to charge victims.