What About “Me Too”
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The “me too“ movement has given women a voice to report sexual abuse, but it can be abused… and that’s exactly what happened on social media to a well-known Houston educator.
Duc Dinh has built a successful business helping kids learn.
But now he has learned a horrible lesson the hard way. What false accusations spread on social media can do to you, destroy your life.
Dinh recently won a defamation lawsuit in a Harris County courthouse, against a woman went online to accuse him of something horrible. A sexual assault of her.
“Basically, she weaponized social media to attack me. The court was the only place that I could get some sort of credibility and my name back,” said Dinh.
It was June of 2020 when Gina Nguyen posted this on twitter, “Duc Dinh is the man who sexually assaulted me”.
She had met Dinh when she was a teenager at his tutoring academy, but she was 19 when the two met again here at the Memory Café.
Afterwards they wound up together at this nearby hotel.
“Once we got inside a room, we started making out, and then, that’s how things, went about,” recalled Dinh.
Dinh says next the two had sex and it was consensual.
But when Nguyen’s cousin couldn’t reach her by phone, she called the cops and they showed up at the hotel. Dinh and Gina Nguyen said everything was fine, so the cops left.
“When did you first know or find out that she was claiming you assaulted her,” asked Dolcefino.
“About two years later when around May, end of May. I was sitting at my friend’s place and that’s when I got messages from some other people saying, hey, there’s some accusation about you online,” recalled Dinh.
Two years later, that’s when Nguyen started posting online that Dinh had sexually assaulted her when she was intoxicated.
The fallout was immediate, his reputation and his business took a hit in Houston’s tightly knit Vietnamese community.
“We lost business because of it,” said Dinh.
The MeToo era, women feeling comfortable enough to report alleged abuse at the hands of men. When it’s true it’s justice but when it’s not, it’s a dangerous weapon.
Dinh did what a lot of us would do too. He went on social media to deny it.
But it was too late, the damage was already done, so he took Nguyen to court, suing her for defamation.
Then Nguyen under the name jane done filed a lawsuit against him for the alleged assault.
“From the moment I met him until now he’s never waved, he’s never changed,” expressed Dean Blumrosen.
The case ended up in the 270th district court. The honorable Dedra Davis presiding.
The fight centered on a key piece of evidence.
Nguyen claimed to have sent this text message to her cousin that night six years ago. Which she said would help prove she had been assaulted.
It says simply “help”, a message supposedly sent after 2 A.M.
But something didn’t look right to Dinh’s lawyer, Dean Blumrosen. He hired an expert to take a closer look.
“One of the pieces of evidence that we discovered in this case is those were manufactured, that she manipulated them,” said Blumrosen.
The expert found these screenshots were actually created long after the incident happened.
“The screenshots that were presented as authentic. Had, last been saved 18 months after they were, supposedly created and the last being saved by photoshop, which is a tool designed for enhancement, manipulation, editing of images,” said David Greetham.
Manipulation of social media messages. The Dinh case provides a disturbing example of just how it easy it is.
“Those text messages were damaging. So, if they’re not true and you’re manipulating them, it really goes to your credibility,” said Blumrosen.
Duc Dinh also took a polygraph exam. They asked him about consent and what happened during the night with Nguyen. The test determined he was telling the truth.
And Nguyen couldn’t keep her story straight on the stand and Judge Davis knew it.
She resisted turning over her phone records, they would prove the texts were never sent.
We know what happened in court because we have an audio tape of Judge Davis that very day dressing down Nguyen’s lawyer. This transparency should spread throughout the courthouse.
“I do not believe this client, I don’t. I have a notepad full of reasons why I do not believe her. On a scale of 1-10, it is like zero credibility,” said Judge Davis.
But Judge Davis wasn’t done, she then sent a message that needs to be sent all over this country because the MeToo movement is being abused.
“As woman we go through a lot and it makes it difficult for women that are actually telling the truth, being truthful, that are being violated for people to believe them when you have the story that your client has told here today, with the holes that she told. It’s infuriating on some levels to the women who were in the MeToo and the women today that are being violated” said Davis.
In this case it was Duc Dinh who was violated.
“I knew everyone was looking at me as the bad guy that’s why I had to sue her, because that was the only place I could like, to help me get my reputation back or my name back,” expressed Dinh.
Judge Davis gave Dinh his justice. It was never about money. Dinh asked for just 1 dollar in damages.
“I tip my cap to her for what she did,” said Blumrosen.
But vindication in court did not solve his real problem, the problem in the community. How could he get his name back?
That’s why he came to us.
“I came to you because I felt like the story needed, I wanted more people to know about it. I felt like, people understand, the other side of the of, quote unquote, the MeToo movement,” expressed Dinh.
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