I have been waiting for outrage over the decision by District Attorney Kathleen Rice (Nassau, N.Y.) not to file so much as one criminal charge against Danmel Ndonye – the Hofstra student who falsely accused five men of gang-raping her. Four young men were arrested on $500,000 bail, jailed for days, publicly IDed and villified. A fifth man was being sought by police when a videotape appeared and confirmed the consensual nature of the sex act in question. Ndonye recanted immediately.

What did Ndonye receive? She was sentenced to undergo mental health counseling and to perform 250 hours of community service. Rice explained ‘the walk’, “This agreement is the only way we guarantee that this woman gets the help that she needs and is held publicly accountable for what she’s done to our community." This is the same D.A.’s office that rushed to judgment about ruining the lives of 4 young men, hardly pausing for due process. As one of the men commented, "I think they should have gathered more evidence . . . looked at camera footage and tried to match up times and things like that before throwing us in and letting the wolves get us." Now the D.A.’s office is oh-so concerned about helping a "troubled" perjurer whose lies could have sent 4 innocent men to prison for decades, where they would have been raped, brutalized and then, afterward, forced to register as sex offenders in perpetuity.

My read on the situation? With elections for D.A. looming in November, Rice (a Democrat) was trying to avoid the explosion of racial politics that would have likely surrounded the prosecution of a black woman for accusing five Latino men of rape. In this, Rice may have miscalculated. Her main opponent Joy Watson (a Republican) is using the ‘free pass’ given to Ndonye against Rice. Watson told Newsweek that “Rice ‘avoided the judicial process’ in deciding not to prosecute the woman who falsely reported she was gang-raped at Hofstra University two weeks ago.”

It will be interesting to watch an election spin out which is based largely on whether or not to prosecute false rape accusers. I hope the outrage I've been waiting for arrives in the form of a voter backlash against Rice and her ass lands on the cold, hard N.Y. pavement.