Rape story unsubstantiated
A police inquiry finds no evidence of an attack at a University of Virginia fraternity.
Charlottesville, Va., police announced Monday that they could find no evidence that a rape happened at a University of Virginia fraternity as described in a Rolling Stone article and were suspending their investigation.
Police Chief Timothy Longo said in a televised news conference that the college student who alleged she was gang-raped declined to cooperate with police and that investigators found inconsistencies in the stories she told Rolling Stone and campus officials. In the article, the student is identified only as Jackie.
“That’s really the extent of this investigation,” Longo said. “Unfortunately, we’re not able to conclude to any substantive degree that an incident consistent with the facts in that article [occurred at that fraternity house] or any other fraternity house, for that matter.”
He added: “That doesn’t mean that something terrible did not happen to Jackie.... I can’t prove that something didn’t happen.”
The police investigation centered on an incident described in the explosive Rolling Stone article, published Nov. 19, that said Jackie had been gang-raped in 2012 at Phi Kappa Psi.
After critics raised questions about the accuracy of the account, Rolling Stone issued an apology on Dec. 5 saying the magazine no longer trusted the story told by Jackie.
The saga rocked the University of Virginia, which the article accused of having a rampant culture of sexual violence, as well as the world of journalism, in which observers criticized the story’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, for what they saw as lax and flawed reporting techniques.
Erdely did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday. Investigators said she had cooperated “as best as she could” with police without compromising her sources for the story. A spokeswoman for Rolling Stone could not be reached for comment.
University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan had moved quickly, asking law enforcement to look into the rape accusation. This came amid mounting concern that such a criticized story would damage the credibility of rape survivors elsewhere, who advocates say are often not taken seriously by law enforcement officials or the public.
Sullivan said in a statement Monday that the police investigation “confirms what federal privacy law prohibited the university from sharing last fall: that the university provided support and care to a student in need, including assistance in reporting potential criminal conduct to law enforcement.”
She added, “There is important work ahead as the university continues to implement substantive reforms to improve its culture, prevent violence and respond to incidents of violence when they occur.”
Investigators proceeded without cooperation from Jackie, who had told a campus dean and a Charlottesville police detective about the alleged 2012 gang rape in April 2014, when she reported a separate incident of being physically attacked by four men on campus, Longo said. (Police found inconsistencies in Jackie’s account of the April attack, but Jackie did have an abrasion on her head, Longo said.)
Jackie didn’t want to push for an investigation into the 2012 accusation at that point, the chief said, and again declined to do so after investigators contacted her after the Rolling Stone article.
Campus deans, fraternities, employees and friends of Jackie provided documents and accounts to police that did not support Jackie’s claims of an attack at the fraternity on Sept. 28, 2012, Longo said.
Charlottesville police in January had cleared Phi Kappa Psi of involvement in the alleged rape after finding “no basis to believe that an incident occurred at that fraternity.”
In a statement Monday, Phi Kappa Psi criticized Rolling Stone for “recklessly and prejudicially” featuring the fraternity in its article and for leaving the story on its website.