Kansas: charges dropped against student accused of falsely reporting rape
Prosecutors are dropping all charges against a University of Kansas student accused of falsely reporting a rape, saying they fear publicity surrounding the case could discourage sexual assault victims from coming forward.
Douglas county district attorney Charles Branson said on Monday three felony counts of making a false report were dropped after much discussion.
His office believed in the merits of the case, he said, but the “cost to our community and the negative impact on survivors of sexual violence cannot be ignored”, the Kansas City Star reported.
“We are concerned this case, and the significant amount of misinformation surrounding it, could discourage other survivors from reporting their attack,” Branson said. “That is unacceptable.”
Cheryl Pilate and Branden Bell, attorneys for the woman, said that though they were pleased their client could “finally put this nightmare behind her”, they were “disappointed that the DA’s office continues to promote the fiction that this case was supported by the facts”.
The statement added: “It was not.” Police first spoke to the woman in September 2018 outside a Lawrence hospital before she went inside to undergo a rape examination, according to court records. The woman said she had been raped by a friend of her ex-boyfriend, but the details were fuzzy because she was drunk at the time. She said she didn’t want to press charges but allowed officers to look through her phone.
Police interpreted text messages as an acknowledgement that the sex was consensual, according to court records. Branson said the woman fabricated being raped out of regret and to get revenge.
However, the woman’s attorneys argued in court documents that she is innocent and that her text messages made light of what happened because she wasn’t yet able to admit she had been raped after waking up in a strange bed with no memory of how she got there with unexplained bruises on her legs, neck and arms.