AG Maryland Frosh’s Weak Record Combating Sexual Violence
By Mark Uncapher
Earlier this month New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned from office following news reports that between 2013 and 2016 he had committed acts of violence against four of his romantic partners.[1]The women said that Schneiderman had repeatedly choked, hit or violently slapped them, all without their consent.
Since President Trump’s inauguration, Schneiderman has filed scores of lawsuits and administrative actions against the Administration. [2] Arkansas AG Leslie Rutledge, chairwoman of the Republican Attorneys General Association, called Schneiderman the “ringleader” of anti-Trump activist AGs fighting the President in the courts.
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh has followed close behind Schneiderman with his own use of the Maryland Attorney General’s office resources to pursue his personal political agenda of non-stop opposition to the Trump Administration. In 2017 alone Frosh filed twenty separate legal actions aimed thwarting national policy.
However, Brian Frosh’s similarities with the disgraced New York Attorney General do not end there. As a State Senator and as Chair of the Maryland Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee, Frosh has been a recurring opponent of efforts to bring the perpetrators of sexual violence to justice.
In the State Senate, Brian Frosh:
- Voted against legislation establishing mandatory minimums for sexual abusers of children in 2006. [3]
- Voted against legislation strengthening penalties for sexual abusers of children in 2007.
- Killed a bill that would increase mandatory minimums for those convicted of 2nd degree child rape in 2010. [4]
- Opposed a bill significantly increasing the amount of time a victim of sexual abuse has to file for damages. [5]
- Killed a bill making it a crime for therapists to sexually abuse their patients. [6]
- Opposed a bill strengthening “person of authority” laws to protect students from school employees. [7]
- When Maryland’s General Assembly passed Jessica’s Law, Frosh was again in opposition. Out of step with his fellow Democrats, only two Senators joined Frosh in the Senate in opposing the bill, which passed unanimously in the House. [8]
Jessica’s Law provides for a mandatory 25-year minimum sentence, with no possibility of parole for a first-degree conviction of an adult for the rape of a child under age 12. It is named for Jessica Lunsford the nine-year old Florida girl kidnapped, raped and murdered by paroled sex offender John Couey.
In contrast to Frosh, Republican Attorney General candidate Craig Wolf spent five years as Assistant States’ Attorney for Allegany County, where he specialized in the prosecution of child abuse, rape, and domestic violence cases. As a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, he successfully prosecuted some of the first online child pornography cases and supervised a large-scale investigation into the international trafficking of women and children.
After the Schneiderman resignation, Wolf said:“For most of his career, Brian Frosh has been absent on issues regarding sexual assault. Even as Chairman of the powerful Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, Frosh was on the wrong side of several bills put forward to protect victims of sexual assault and strengthen penalties for their attackers. While Eric Schneiderman could likely be prosecuted under the very laws he helped pass, Brian Frosh spent his time in the State Senate opposing – and even killing – bills that strengthened sexual assault laws in Maryland."