Arin Dotson

August 23, 2019 -

John Paul Alexander is a fellow in Constitutional Studies at NYU and a staff writer for The Hill where he covers media issues. This op-ed was adapted from his op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and PJ Media.

The “epidemic” of sexual predator attacks on women has rocked the nation again. But the second wave of assaults has emerged as a far more menacing phenomenon: with accusations mounting well beyond the time of the original attack.

In the most egregious examples, both men — “multiple victims,” as Donald Trump’s former personal doctor has described them, “some of them from outside the country” — were convicted and subjected to “crimes against humanity” for their attacks. At least three others have been detained or jailed in connection with the assaults.

The president has named names of the men, has noted there are at least three others in custody, and defended the use of criminal charges against them. So how had the first wave of assaults begun and ended? To understand that, you need to understand what has led to the outbreak.

A look at the origins of the sexual assaults

Even as most attacks began at the fringes of society, this past spring — which began with the arrest of Tawakkul Karmanov, a 40-something Uzbek man with a history of violence toward men, or the cases of Richard Allen, Ian Marriott, and Josh Dugal — led to the arrest and detention of others, including several of just one dozen men from Central Asia who had committed only minor offenses.

The men all resided in the U.S. and are either U.S. citizens or permanent residents. The men were mostly middle- or upper-middle class, but none of the men have demonstrated any previous public infractions. All are ethnic citizens of Kazakhstan. All have male offspring in the U.S., with all the youngest having American mothers. Thus, every case brings the issue of “homosexuality” back into the mainstream in the age of Trump and Brexit, a measure that some observers even suggest resonates with contemporary anti-Semitism.