No jail term in Baylor assault decried
Activists condemn judge; prosecutor defends plea deal
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-yearold 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 in October 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.
According to The Lariat, the Baylor campus newspaper, the woman took the stand Monday and told the judge she was “devas-
tated” by his decision to accept the plea deal instead of sending the case to trial.
“He stole things from me, and I will never be the same,” the woman said of Anderson. “He stole my body, virginity and power over my body,” the woman said in a statement she read in court Monda. She said the outcome shows that the justice system in McLennan County, where Baylor is located, is “severely broken.”
In the victim impact statement she submitted to the court, she said she feared that Anderson could attack again.
“What will they tell the next victim when she questions why she did not know Jacob Anderson was a sex offender?” the woman wrote in her statement, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “How does she think the girls in his current college classes feel, knowing they could have been his next victim? I am writing this letter to hold the D.A. accountable to do their job and seek justice. To hold Jacob Anderson accountable for his crimes. He raped me. He almost killed me.”
After the plea deal was approved, one of the prosecutors, Hilary LaBorde, issued a statement defending it, saying the case was not as simple as it appeared, and that if it had gone to trial, there was a real possibility that Anderson would be acquitted.
‘Many facts’ in case
“Conflicting evidence and statements exist in this case, making the original allegation difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” LaBorde’s statement said, according to the Star-Telegram. “As a prosecutor, my goal is no more victims. I believe that is best accomplished when there is a consequence rather than an acquittal. This offender is now on felony probation and will receive sex offender treatment, a result which was not guaranteed, nor likely, had we gone to trial.”
“Given the claims made publicly, I understand why people are upset,” LaBorde wrote. “However, all of the facts must be considered, and there are many facts that the public does not have.
“It’s my opinion that our jurors aren’t ready to blame rapists and not victims when there isn’t concrete proof of more than one victim.”
‘Men protecting men’
LaBorde has been recognized by Texas prosecutors for her expertise in sex-crime cases. As Baylor was embroiled in a scandal a few years ago that led to the football coach’s firing and the president’s removal, she won convictions against two football players for sexual assault.
Toni Van Pelt, president of the National Organization for Women, said Anderson should have been sent to jail and required to register as a sex offender.
“File that under men protecting men instead of victims and women,” she said.
The judge, Anderson’s lawyers and prosecutors did not return calls for comment. But District Attorney Abel Reyna defended the plea bargain back in October, saying prosecutors “achieved the best result possible with the evidence at hand.” He said the evidence did not support the allegation that the victim may have been drugged.
Many were particularly outraged by the judge’s grant of probation to at least two other men accused of sexually assaulting Baylor students, as well as an email one of the prosecutors sent the woman’s lawyer in which she suggested jurors would take Anderson’s side because there was just one alleged victim.
Stanford’s Dauber said the judge should have rejected the plea agreement. The defendant could have gotten up to 20 years if convicted of sexual assault.
Instead, Dauber said, “the crimes are systematically minimized, the harm is minimized. The message is somehow sent that this is not that serious.”
Anderson was expelled from Baylor.
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 criticized as too lenient. Voters eventually removed the judge from the bench after a campaign that raised more than $2 million in contributions nationwide.
Texas does not have recall elections for judges, but Strother’s term expires in 2020.