TCNJ student charged with dorm-room rape
EWING >> A student at The College of New Jersey is accused of raping a drunken female student inside her dorm room last week, officials said Wednesday.
Emmanuel Castillo, 21, of Trenton, who attends the Ewing college along with his accuser, was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of sexual assault.
He is accused using his fingers to penetrate the woman and raping her in the early-morning hours of Sept. 14, while she was “physically helpless due to intoxication,” prosecutor spokeswoman Casey DeBlasio said in a statement.
Castillo was charged this week, following an investigation led by campus police and the prosecutor’s special victims unit.
Castillo was held at the county detention center in Hopewell but posted $150,000 bail Tuesday, prior to his first court appearance Wednesday.
The students were inside the victim’s dorm around 4 a.m. Sept. 14 when Castillo allegedly took advantage of the woman. The victim’s age was not provided by prosecutors.
A college spokesman said campus police are cooperating with the prosecutor’s office but declined further comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
The College of New Jersey does not appear to be among several New Jersey colleges under investigation by the feds for the way they handle sex misconduct complaints, according to the most recent list of schools provided to The Trentonian by a spokesman from the Department of Education.
The list is updated each Wednesday, so it’s possible TCNJ could be added to the list in the future.
Four New Jersey institutions – Princeton, Seton Hall, Rider and Monmouth universities – are among the 207 colleges being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights over allegations they violated Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex and requires universities and colleges to address campus sexual violence.
A Rider University freshman sued the college earlier this year after he contended he was falsely accused of raping a female student in October.
Prosecutors investigated this case but determined there was “insufficient evidence” to pursue criminal charges against the student.
The student sued after the university “blindly accepted” two female students statements about the alleged sexual assault and expelled him.