Ohio Judge Lance Mason and Brooklyn rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine don’t obviously share much in common. Mason served in both the Ohio State Senate and House of Representatives (as a Democrat) before becoming an assistant prosecuting attorney and then a judge. Tekashi was expelled from school in eighth grade and never returned, selling street dope and hanging with members of the Bloods, eventually becoming a rapper instead.
Both Mason and Tekashi abused women. They graduated from that, and are now accused of killing or trying to kill.
In both cases, the women abused by these monsters didn’t stay silent. The crimes against them made it to the police and were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In 2015, Mason pleaded guilty to beating his ex-wife, Aisha Fraser, punching her 20 times and slamming her head into a car dashboard five times. The beating was so bad that she required facial reconstructive surgery. That same year, Tekashi also pleaded guilty to using a child in a sexual performance. (The girl in question was 13, and the sexual performance was essentially a sex tape.)
Mason served nine months in jail, over a year less than the face-value of his sentence. That’s because Rep. Martha Fudge, D-Ohio, who is now considered a possible alternative to Nancy Pelosi as speaker, wrote a letter to help Mason secure an early release. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson then hired him as Cleveland’s minority business director not long after his release. Tekashi never served any jail time for pedophilia. He was sentenced to probation instead, all while the rap industry, from Nicki Minaj to Kanye West, has continued to embrace him.
As it turns out, issuing slaps on the wrist to predatory men sends a pretty clear message that they can get away with more. And as it turns out, both of these abusers did.
Mason graduated from beating his ex-wife to killing her. He’s being held in custody for fatally stabbing Fraser and will likely face murder charges. Tekashi was arrested on federal charges on Sunday for crimes including conspiracy to murder, armed robbery, and firearms offenses. He faces 32 years to life if found guilty.
It’s always the ones you least suspect, right?
Criminal justice reform goes both ways. While nonviolent drug offenders spend far too long in prison, likely impeding their ability to reintegrate into civil society, the most predatory criminals, especially the famous and powerful, frequently get away with or get off light for their crimes. A Psychology Today survey found that out of 517 reported cases of domestic violence, 16 abusers went to trial and were found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Even then, more than a third of those 16 never spent a single day in jail.
We’ve seen this story play out time and time again. The Los Angeles Police Department had been called to Nicole Brown Simpson’s home eight times to rescue her from O.J. Simpson’s beatings before he murdered her. Even the Charlottesville white supremacist who murdered Heather Heyer beat up his own mother before he escalated his violence to terrorism.
Red flags mean nothing if law enforcement doesn’t do anything about them. The #MeToo movement has done wonders for bringing victims of abuse forward and making them more willing to tell their stories. But the people in power to hear them have to actually respond in kind and stop abusers before they become killers.
