Activists decry no-jail sentence for ex-frat prez in sex assault case
HOUSTON — In a case with echoes of the furor involving a Stanford University swimmer two years ago, advocates for sex-crime victims say the plea bargain that enabled a former Baylor University fraternity president to stay out of jail is another failure by the legal system.
“What’s similar is that violence against women is not taken seriously by the legal system,” said Michele Dauber, a Stanford law professor who led the successful campaign to recall the judge in the swimmer’s case. “The handling of sexual assault in the criminal justice system has been inappropriate, and sort of shockingly so, for a really long time.”
In the Texas case, Jacob Walter Anderson, 23, had been charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old fellow Baylor student outside a 2016 fraternity party. The woman told police she was given punch and became disoriented. She said Anderson led her behind a tent and raped her while choking her. Prosecutors offered him a deal in which he pleaded no contest to unlawful restraint. State District Judge Ralph Strother sentenced him under the terms of the deal Monday to probation, counseling and a $400 fine. He will not have to register as a sex offender.
The woman’s lawyer, Vic Feazell, said she and her family found out about the plea bargain from reading the newspaper.
“He stole my body, virginity and power over my body,” the woman said in a statement she read in court Monday. She said the outcome shows that the justice system in McLennan County is “severely broken.”
In the Stanford case, college athlete Brock Turner was convicted of sexual assault, and California Judge Aaron Persky sentenced him to six months in jail, which was widely criticized as too lenient. Voters eventually removed the judge from the bench.