<p>From my cultural lens, its obviously sick and disgusting.</p>
<p>But then again, what draws the line of incest? Intercourse obviously is, and I could see why that would be criminal, but with just about anything else its hard to draw the line without a cultual bias. But you can’t have a cutural bias when dealing with these private issues.</p>
<p>I have never heard of someone being arrested for incest with an adult child. (And . . . should the adult child be arrested, too?) Yucky, yes, but rarely a police matter. Probably divorce hardball – and certainly grounds for divorce! no question there – but the police usually resist being used that way. </p>
<p>I’m sure this is going to keep the meters spinning for a whole bunch of lawyers and a whole bunch of therapists. My heart goes out to Columbia’s General Counsel, who probably came into work expecting a light day and got a phone call about this . . . .</p>
<p>I don’t think they were expecting a light day, necessarily</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/1045750-columbia-students-busted-selling-drugs-campus.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/1045750-columbia-students-busted-selling-drugs-campus.html</a></p>
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<p>There’s probably more to the story. Either the first wife (the girl’s mother) or the second wife (the Poli Sci prof) or both must have went batsh-- for this to get on the Manhattan DA’s radar.</p>
<p>Good thing you aren’t a politician - 'Monydad says he envies parents who can coerce their children into having sex with them AND he wants to raise taxes on the middle class"</p>
<p>It’s not necessarily an argument I agree with, and I don’t think the police should be involved for an independent 24-year old, but it’s at least based on something other than moral disgust. There’s definitely pop psychology ideas of emotional dependency caused by the unique childhood relationship. If “daddy issues” cause girls to have lots of random sex, it could certainly cause them to have sex with their actual daddy. There are also problems with incentives - you don’t want abusive fathers warping their dependent daughters for future “consensual” sex.</p>
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<p>This moral diatribe is irrelevant. The NY incest statute isn’t a father-daughter thing and about “daddy issues.” It equally outlaws sex between siblings, half-siblings, uncles/aunts and nieces/nephews, etc.</p>
<p>Yeah, for sure the statute goes too far, but that doesn’t mean some control might not be warranted.</p>
<p>Another possible reason society polices incestuous behavior could be the desire to control the spread of genetic diseases. To elaborate, if one person carries a recessive allele of a rare genetic disorder, it is likely for that disorder to be manifested if this person reproduces with a relative who also has the recessive allele.</p>
<p>“Monydad says he envies parents who can coerce their children ,”
I was thinking more along the lines of coercing them into spending more than ten minutes at home with us when they come home on break.</p>
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<p>Thanks Gregor Mendel for the elaboration, but this isn’t a very good justification for making incest a CRIMINAL act. If we really wanted to control the spread of genetic diseases and other traits we didn’t like, we’d outlaw certain people from breeding.</p>
<p>As the great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said about sterilization, “three generations of imbeciles are enough.”</p>
<p>Between this episode, the drug arrests earlier in the week and the Manhattanville project, I believe Mr. Bollinger and the rest of the administration need to spend more time on public relations with the city and the police department.</p>
<p>I’m not seeking to excuse any bad behavior. It simply seems that police priorities and prosecutorial discretion are currently weighted against Columbia.</p>
<p>The incest and the drug busts may be coincidental, or it may be that they decided to go public with the incest story right after they made the drug bust since it would get more attention. According to Ray Kelly, they didn’t even attend to do the drug bust last week, but a question at an unrelated press conference forced their hand. And the only reason they even set up the sting was because they got a lot of complaints from other students at Columbia that these guys were selling drugs. As far as the police/city being against Columbia, I doubt it. The city has worked with them (illegally, some would say) to help them expand into Manhattanville. While I believe that the drug busts were an attempt to show that the NYPD could go after white, upper-class, privileged “elites” and not just poor black people, I don’t think this means NYPD has anything against Columbia as an institution. They just used some Columbia students to prove a point. Regarding the incest, someone (maybe the daughter?) reported it to NYPD and they had to investigate. Trust me, I’m not a fan of the NYPD at all (especially not when they’re wasting time and money stinging nonviolent drug offenders), but I don’t think they have it out for Columbia.</p>
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<p>What’s the basis for this statement? It appears that these dudes (particularly the one who faces the most serious charges - Harrison, I think) were allegedly involved with a larger drug ring / kidnapping thing that the NYPD was investigating. It isn’t the case that these dudes are the ‘big fish’ in some drug ring that exists entirely on the Columbia campus that was ratted out by fellow Columbia kiddies.</p>
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<p>NYPD had to investigate, but the NYPD / Manhattan DA didn’t have to prosecute and make the whole thing public. The DA’s office can choose to let something go if it darn well feels like it – it’s called prosecutorial discretion. I personally think this is the classic example of prosecutorial discretion gone bad (or maybe the Duke lacrosse case is a better example), in charging some non-violent sketchbag with one low-grade offense that they knew would make NYPost/Daily News headlines.</p>
<p>Obviously one of the guy’s ex-wives ratted him out. The interesting question is whether the relationship was discovered by the girl’s mother or the guy’s wife at the time.</p>
<p>Incest is a Class E felony in NY. There is nothing consensual when it comes to incest.</p>
<p>The man could have been wrongfully accused, and it is appropriate to wait until the truth comes out before we all assume he is guilty. But if he is guilty, then it is the worst crime a parent could commit, it is the ultimate betrayal of trust between a parent and a child.</p>
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<p>Class E is the lowest-grade felony. It’s a relatively minor offense and there’s no way this guy is going to serve a day in jail when his attorney negotiates a plea. </p>
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<p>Are you trying to articulate your personal opinion, or are you attempting to describe the current state of NY law? If the latter, you’re wrong. If the relationship were not consensual, more severe non-consensual charges would be appropriate. The incest law doesn’t imply that any incest is non-consensual. In contrast, the law says there’s nothing consensual when it comes to having consensual sex with a minor (i.e., statutory rape laws exist because a minor can’t consent).</p>
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<p>Seriously? Having consensual sex with an adult son or daughter is the WORST crime a parent could commit? It’s obviously sick. But that’s a bold statement you make – and I wonder if it was really thought out. Do you really believe what this guy allegedly did is worse than molesting/torturing/abusing/murdering one’s own children?</p>
<p>"Harvard senior charged with fabricating life history, stealing grant money "
"Yale student A.Le murdered …
"Columbia Poli Sci Prof Arrested For Incest With His Daughter! "</p>
<p>==> what’s wrong with these schools? of course it is not the schools but those individuals. but then these schools are the people in it. maybe the alumni from these schools should be banned from participating in the college ranking process for a couple of years, as a punishment. lol</p>
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Could it be that she was significantly younger when the alleged incest took place?</p>
<p>There really seems to be a problem with the elites, doesn’t there? Politicians are morally depraved; that’s obvious from all the news scandals covering their scandals. The salt of the earth people living in small towns in Real America, though, never end up in the Times (or even tabloids like the Post) due to their moral indiscretions. Clearly, if they ever did anything immoral, the major newspapers would report on it to the same degree they would if it was a major politician, so the fact you never see them in the Times must mean that they’re morally pure.</p>
<p>It’s the same thing with colleges. You hear all these problems with elite schools like the Ivies, but I never see scandals from small-town private colleges in the middle of nowhere exposed in major newspapers. It must be that non-elite schools are just that much more moral than the elites!</p>
<p>I am a mother with 2 girls. I could wrap my head around physically abusing or murdering a child (in this case the pain would be gone), but with incest the pain would never go away for a child. I am speaking as a woman and a parent. </p>
<p>Of course, I know the law never says incest needs to be consensual or not, because it doesn´t matter (it is just wrong). I was only addressing the fact that someone thought it would have been ok if it was consensual, and I wanted to say that incest is never consensual, it is always because one has more power than another.</p>
<p>Incest (between parent and a child) is molesting/abusing/torturing one´s child.</p>
<p>I would just say, though, that if the “child” is 24, it’s a bit more complicated.</p>