Patience Rousseau was 26 years old and living in Winnemucca when she miscarried in 2018. She was convicted under a Nevada law, put on the books in 1911, that makes it illegal to take drugs to end a pregnancy after the 24th week. Civil rights lawyers and abortion rights advocates say the statute is the only law like it nationwide and unfairly targets women who want to end a pregnancy.
Rousseau says the money from Humboldt County is welcome but not enough to make up for years of trauma. She wishes the county had been forced to pay more.
“They fought so much to avoid paying me,” said Rousseau. “I went through so much and so did my children, who are still facing these issues. It’s not fair.”
Rousseau told The Nevada Independent her life was turned upside down by the nearly decade-long ordeal. Already suffering from depression and substance abuse before her miscarriage, in its aftermath she was labeled a “baby killer,” sent to prison and separated from her young children for more than two years before her conviction was tossed out for ineffective assistance of counsel.
“The trauma of all of it was pretty horrendous,” said Paola Armeni, the Las Vegas-based civil rights attorney representing Rousseau. Armeni likened Rousseau’s treatment after her miscarriage to being attacked by a lynch mob, “all the while under a statute that was on the books before women were even allowed to vote in Nevada.”
Her lawyers say the money is a final act of justice in a case that should have never existed. They submitted a demand letter to Humboldt County in March, outlining their view that the county had broken state law, violated Rousseau’s state and federal constitutional rights and intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon her. The settlement was finalized in early August and the money was received last week.
Roughly $1.2 million of the settlement is reserved for Rousseau, who now lives in South Dakota with three sons, aged 4, 7 and 9. She said she will use the money to finance her house, buy her mom a car and open a store selling rare aquatic plants and animals — she’s an animal lover who owns five dogs and three cats.
The rest of the money will go to pay lawyers and to repay the state of Nevada for a $100,000 settlement it awarded Rousseau in February.
She’s been broke and can’t take it to the grave. She lost two years of her life - I really don’t care what she does with that money.
She has three young children to take care of. Being wasteful with that money will make their lives harder though.
The last thing this lady needs is more judgment from the public. Buying a house is not being wasteful.
Assuming she wouldn’t need fiduciary guidance after obtaining a large sum of money when statistically people who gain it tend to lose it quickly is arrogant.
She’s buying a house and then buying a car for her mom. These are practical things to purchase when you’re poor.
What does it do for you to judge this woman from afar after everything she’s been through?
Buying a house is great. Deciding to build a business without consulting anyone about how well it would go would be extremely detrimental to anyone’s finances.
You have no idea if she will hire consultants or not Jesus fucking Christ
Leave her alone ffs.
But, like lottery winners who suddenly get a similarly large amount of money, keeping it at arms’ length is best to ensure she has anything to show for the pain she endured in a year’s time.
I don’t like sitting around judging this woman about what she should do with this money or that she’s making the wrong decisions with it. None of us know what steps she’s going to take to safeguard that money and this is all conjecture. Assuming this woman is going to be irresponsible with it feels gross.
She’s been judged unfairly quite enough.
I’m don’t care what she does with the money. I was just throwing the concern into the ether. It’s unlikely she’s on Lemmy.
She might not be on Lemmy, but the rest of us are. There’s plenty of single mothers here.
Then they should heed this advice if any of them ever end up with a windfall.
This is meant as a, “you’re doing it wrong” since I don’t have enough details to begin making that case.
However, most people who receive a million plus windfall are back to where they started within five years.
I’m also assuming her financial position isn’t great after being imprisoned for 2 years. The starting weath is a key factor, the lower it is the faster the windfall is consumed.
It’s only when it’s over 100 million that it’s essentially hard to out spend it.
Almost all of the comments here are judging this woman for how she’s spending this money and it’s leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
How about everyone get off this woman’s case and let her live her fucking life?
You should heed your own advice then. None of us knew of this situation until you brought attention to it. Now that people are commenting in a way you don’t like you’re complaining about it?
It’s my post, I can cry if I want.
Idk how you read it as that, it’s just advice, you can say that and still have sympathy. Or the comment about conservatives deserving what they do to others, you thought that was an attack on her but they mean that the sort of laws that allow this to happen are terrible, which is a sympathetic comment.
All of the comments on this post were completely bypassing the story and concern-trolling about how this woman is going to waste the money.
I stopped giving any of the men in here spouting off with “advice” the benefit of the doubt.
There are two top level comments concern trolling and then discussion with those people about their comment, out of 150+ upvotes, 2 downvotes, I just feel like it’s a small minority that’s actually being unsympathetic
I’ve seen every comment that’s come in since I’m the OP. It was overwhelmingly men tsk-tsking at this woman for wasting the money without actually knowing how she was going to use it.