Category: The Washington Free Beacon
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Convicted sex creep working as college professor in Michigan nabbed by ICE
A convicted sex offender college professor whose criminal past made him “ineligible for legal status in the United States” has been arrested by ICE, according to a DHS press release published earlier this week.
On November 12, ICE officers arrested Sumith Gunasekera of Sri Lanka in Detroit. According to the press release, he told officers that he was employed as an associate professor at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, about 200 miles northwest of Detroit.
He was arrested for invitation to sexual touching and sexual interference. He told officers at the time that the … incident involved a minor, DHS reported.
Gunasekera first came to the U.S. in February 1998, spent some time in Canada, and then returned to the U.S. later that year on a student visa, the press release said.
During his stint in Canada, he was arrested in Brampton, Ontario, on two separate occasions just three days apart. In the first instance, he was arrested for uttering death threats. In the second, he was arrested for invitation to sexual touching and sexual interference. He told officers at the time that the second incident involved a minor, DHS reported.
In November 1998, a Canadian criminal court convicted him of utter threat to cause death or bodily harm and sexual interference and sentenced him to one month of incarceration and one year of probation, DHS said.
Gunasekera — who earned a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Nevada, according to the Ferris State website — also ran afoul of the law in Las Vegas a few years after his trouble in Canada, the press release said. Cops arrested him for open and gross lewdness in September 2003, and just four months later, he was convicted of disorderly conduct and sentenced to fines.
In 2012, Gunasekera filed for a change in immigration status with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, at which point his Canadian convictions came to light. Those convictions rendered him “ineligible for legal status in the United States,” the press release said. Despite his ineligibility, Gunasekera “repeatedly attempted to manipulate our immigration system between applications, denials, and appeals,” it added.
“It’s sickening that a sex offender was working as a professor on an American college campus and was given access to vulnerable students to potentially victimize them,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Thanks to the brave ICE law enforcement officers, this sicko is behind bars and no longer able to prey on Americans. His days of exploiting the immigration system are OVER. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, criminals are not welcome in the U.S.”
Bill Oxford/Getty Images
As of Sunday evening, Gunasekera remains listed on the Ferris State website as an assistant professor of marketing. According to a statement from Dave Murray, Ferris State associate vice president for marketing and communications, he has since been placed on administrative leave.
“Ferris State University leaders on Tuesday became aware of accusations regarding professor Sumith Gunasekera. He has been placed on administrative leave while the university gathers more information. This is a personnel issue and it would be inappropriate for the university to further discuss the matter,” Murray told the Detroit News.
A federal immigration database states that Gunasekera remains in ICE custody at a federal facility in Baldwin, Michigan, about a half-hour from Ferris State. Further immigration proceedings are pending, DHS said.
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‘Conspiracy theory’ is just media code for ‘we hope this never comes out’
Here are the basic rules.
First: If the corporate left-wing press doesn’t like a claim, it invariably becomes a “right-wing conspiracy theory,” usually with the tag “without evidence.” The evidence may exist. It may even sit in plain sight — but the press decides what counts.
The ruling class wants your trust back. It hasn’t done the first thing to deserve it.
Second: Some claims get taken seriously no matter what. Those become “allegations.” Allegations quickly morph into “fact.”
Take the recent example of Democrats who alleged on X that President Trump spent Thanksgiving in 2017 with Jeffrey Epstein. The story collapsed in minutes — presidents don’t slip away unnoticed on major holidays to meet notorious sex criminals — but the claim still got ample attention. Point it in the right direction, and it gets a hearing. Point it at the wrong people, and it gets the back of the hand.
Sharon Waxman’s recent column at the Wrap follows the script. The former Washington Post correspondent was shocked to discover the Epstein emails prove that “conspiracy theorists were right.” She writes as if she uncovered some long-lost truth.
Hardly.
Waxman’s column is less revelation than admission: For years, the people who run newsrooms turned a blind eye to the obvious. Donald Trump wasn’t the big fish in those files. Their sources were.
The Epstein email cache runs more than 20,000 documents. Nothing in it should shock any honest observer. The messages show politicians, financiers, academics, diplomats, think-tankers, and media figures seeking introductions, favors, and even dating advice from a convicted sex offender.
Some wanted Epstein’s contacts. Others wanted his money. Some wrote to him while serving in public office. This is not rumor. It is record.
And yes, Epstein talked a lot about Trump, which should surprise no one. They ran in the same social circles. They were friends until they fell out.
Waxman’s piece matters because of what it shows about her profession. Reporters are oddly incurious creatures. They love the line: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. In practice, the checking stops the moment a story threatens the wrong interests. Then skepticism fades. The questions stop. The story dies.
Epstein proved this in real time. His 2008 sweetheart deal with the feds should have made him untouchable. Instead, it signaled that he was protected.
After that deal, Epstein did not retreat. He didn’t slink off into the shadows. He worked the same world that lectures the rest of us about “norms” and “Our Democracy.™” He gave the very married Larry Summers advice on how to seduce a colleague who happened to be the daughter of a high-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party. He dined with Bill Gates. He hung out with Ehud Barak and ex-Prince Andrew.
Americans saw this and reached the obvious conclusion: rules for the public, exemptions for the powerful.
Say that aloud, though, and the press rolled their eyes and muttered “conspiracy theory.” The famous rule about checking every claim never applied to Cabinet officials, donors, university presidents, or tech titans until the obscenities were too outrageous to let pass.
The press know their own history. They know the government lies. They know institutions close ranks. They know networks protect themselves.
They know about the Tuskegee experiments and MK Ultra and the Gulf of Tonkin sham. They watched the Wuhan “lab leak” go from preposterous to plausible. “You will own nothing” and the “Great Reset” aren’t right-wing fever dreams — they’re actual publications.
But when a live case of elite protection appeared in Jeffrey Epstein, suddenly none of this counted. Suddenly it was unthinkable — not in their circles, not involving their friends, not touching their institutions.
Waxman’s column accidentally exposes the pattern: Our establishment manufactures ignorance and then uses that ignorance as proof that nothing is wrong.
Remember the 2017 Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity? The same experts who drone on about “no evidence of widespread fraud” attacked the commission for probing “unsupported claims” — while states withheld the data needed to determine the truth. When a system blocks audits and then declares itself clean, it isn’t proving confidence. It is proving fear.
That is how Epstein was protected. Not through lack of evidence, but lack of curiosity. Evidence didn’t vanish. Inquiry did. And anyone who noticed was treated as the problem.
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Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
But trust isn’t owed. Trust is earned.
And the people who demand it have done the most to destroy it. The loss of trust didn’t come from memes or bots. It came from watching Jeffrey Epstein remain welcome among the same people who so archly declare that “democracy dies in darkness.” It came from watching the press spend more time policing public suspicion than scrutinizing powerful friends. It came from institutions that treat questions as insults.
Now Sharon Waxman tells us the “conspiracy theorists” were right.
Gee, thanks, Sharon. Better late than never, I guess.
America didn’t need that revelation. The country has seen it time and again, as the “conspiracy theorists” turn out to be right. The only people who pretended otherwise were the people paid to find the truth.
The ruling class wants your trust back. It hasn’t done the first thing to deserve it.
A Kinder, Gentler Feminism
Leah Libresco Sargeant’s latest book, The Dignity of Dependence, carries with it the subtitle: “A Feminist Manifesto.” Where that word may conjure a certain harshness, however, Sargeant’s book illustrates something much more gentle: a humane vision of the givenness of womanhood.
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