Kathy Shelton

Early life

Shelton was raised by a single mother in Springdale, Arkansas, who was "very strict about her relationships with members of the opposite sex."

1975 attack

In 1975, at age 12, Shelton was raped by two men in Arkansas. One of the men accused of raping her was 41-year-old defendant Thomas Alfred Taylor whose court-appointed criminal defense lawyer was 27-year-old Hillary Clinton (then known as Hillary Rodham) in her first-time appearance as courtroom litigator (courtroom lawyer) who had, according to Clinton, previously requested removal from the case.

Appointment of defense attorney

Clinton said that she was initially asked to do the job as a favor to prosecutor Mahlon Gibson who recommended her to the trial judge Maupin Cummings since the defendant wanted a female defense attorney.

"I had some really tough clients. I had one appear, a prosecutor called me years ago, said that he had a guy who was accused of rape...and the guy wanted a woman lawyer... Would I do it as a favor..."

Gibson stated in 2014 that Clinton had no choice but to defend the defendant after she was appointed by the judge in the case. At the time, she was working at the legal aid clinic at the University of Arkansas and represented the defendant for free. Clinton has said that she requested removal from the case.

Pretrial proceedings

Clinton stated in an affidavit she had received information that Shelton was emotionally unstable and had a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing.

"I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing. I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way."

Moreover, in this same affidavit, Clinton stated:

"I have also been told by an expert in child psychology that children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents with disorganized families, such as the complainant, are even more prone to such behavior."

Trial proceedings

Based on court documents obtained by CNN and Clinton's account in her 2003 memoir "Living History," Clinton won a plea deal for Taylor, securing a significantly reduced charge and sentence, based on the prosecution's loss of critical items of evidence so that the semen and blood samples found in the defendant’s underwear could not be used as evidence at the trial for the patch of underwear tested had been discarded.

Taylor, who pleaded to unlawful fondling of a child, was sentenced to one year in prison, with two months reduced for time served. He died in 1992.

After trial effect on Clinton

After the case, Clinton went on to found Arkansas' first rape crisis call center because of the impact it had on her to not be released by the court from defending an accused whom she personally believed was guilty of the rape charge.

Shelton's adulthood reaction

After Shelton became aware that Clinton had been the criminal defense lawyer of the defendant in her case decades earlier, Shelton stated in 2007 that she herself bore no ill will toward Clinton for having had to act as her assailant's court-appointed criminal defence lawyer in the rape case, saying "I have to understand that she was representing Taylor... Hillary was just doing her job.”

But as she re-examined the case her opinion shifted. “I started seeing where I had really been stomped in the ground. I didn’t really know what to do about it. I just figured life would have to go on and I would have to live with it,” she said. It was after hearing Clinton discussing the case in previously unpublished tapes that Shelton decided to speak out publicly.

Shelton says the assault left her afraid of men for years and angry and has compounded ongoing issues with depression and anxiety.

Leaked audio recording

In the audio Clinton is heard laughing not at the victim, as had been inaccurately stated by Clinton's political adversaries, but laughing once after Clinton recounted that the defendant's passing of a polygraph test "forever destroyed" her faith in such tests (due to her personal belief that the defendant was guilty), and laughing again at the prosecution team as Clinton recounted her disbelief at their procedural failures which she believed they should not have made to enable them to convict the defendant for the original charge of rape as she had hoped:

"But you know what was sad about it was that the prosecutors had evidence, among which was his underwear... His underwear, which was bloody. Sent it down to the crime lab... [unintelligible]. The crime lab took the pair of underpants, neatly cut out the part that they were going to test... tested it... Came back with the result of what kind of blood it was, what was mixed in with it, then sent the pants back with a hole in it as evidence.

So I got an order to see the evidence and the prosecutor didn't want me to see the evidence. I had to go to Maupin Cummings and convince Maupin that yes indeed I had a right to see the evidence before it was presented. So they presented the underpants with a hole in it. I said, "What kind of evidence is that!?" You know, a pair of underpants with a hole in it. Course the crime lab had thrown away the piece they'd cut out. It was really odd. I mean, I plea bargained it down because it turned out they didn't have any evidence... But I took, I happened to be going to New York and I took the underpants with me, I got a special court order. And I went to Brooklyn, where this man whose name I now cannot remember who had shared in the Nobel Prize for his work on the RH factor and was one of the premiere investigators who deal with blood, who had retired from Sloan-Kettering or some place up there... And so the, sort of the story through the grapevine was if you get him interested in the case then you know you had the foremost expert in the world willing to testify so that it came out the way you wanted it to come out. So I wrote him and got an appointment to see him and took a taxi over... Got through the gates, got into his office... And he sat at his little desk and I pulled out my underpants you know, gave it to him and he started analyzing, looking for fibers, you know magnifying glass and all that stuff. He said, you know, "Can't prove anything!" Can see a slight trace but it wouldn't be enough to test, all that.

Shelton's story was the focus of a 2014 CNN special.

Politics

In 2016 Shelton received worldwide media attention when she changed her stance and spoke out against Clinton in a surprise press conference held by Donald Trump before the second presidential debate between him and Hillary Clinton. Also attending the conference were Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey.

It has been reported Shelton was paid $2500 by a super PAC (Political Action Committee) ally founded by former Trump campaign senior advisor Roger Stone. Stone told the AP that Shelton "was extensively interviewed on video about her experience with Hillary Clinton and was paid for her time." After the press conference, she attended the debate as Trump's guest.