fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

There Was No Rape at UVA

Strong evidence that 'Jackie' made the whole thing up. Who pays now?

The Washington Post reports on the results of the Charlottesville police investigation. Excerpts:

In interviews with The Post, Jackie said that she stood by the account she provided to Rolling Stone.

“I never asked for this” attention, she said in an interview. “What bothers me is that so many people act like it didn’t happen. It’s my life. I have had to live with the fact that it happened — every day for the last two years.”

Jackie also told The Post that she never expected that a police investigation would be fruitful, saying numerous times that she did not expect any charges in her case. She said she knew there was little, if any, forensic evidence that could prove the allegations two years afterward.

A Post investigation into the claims found significant inconsistencies in the account. Phi Psi fraternity members strongly rebutted the allegations, saying they did not have a party on the night in question and did not have a member fitting the description of the alleged attacker; an alleged attacker — who Jackie told friends she was on a date with that night — turned out not to be a U-Va. student, had not been in Charlottesville in years, attends another school in another state, and said he barely knew Jackie; and Jackie’s friends told The Post that her version of events to the magazine did not match what they saw on the night she claims she was assaulted.

Police said they confirmed these same findings. They also said that an alleged physical assault Jackie reported — when she told police that four men followed her and then threw a bottle at her face — had significant inconsistencies. It was at that time — in spring 2014 — that police twice asked Jackie about the alleged sexual assault at the urging of a university officials, and Jackie declined to talk to police about it.

More:

Detectives interviewed numerous Phi Kappa Psi members, including most of those who lived in the house in September 2012, at the time of the alleged attack. Longo said they found photographs of the house the night in question that show it empty and reviewed other records that indicate the house had no party on the night Jackie said she went to a party there, was lured upstairs and was attacked.

Longo also said police interviewed Jackie’s friends who met with her the night she said she left the fraternity bloody and shaken; they told police what they told The Post, that she was not physically injured and met them in a different location than was described in the Rolling Stone account.

Read the whole thing. It is impossible by now to avoid the conclusion that Jackie made it up, and Rolling Stone sensationalized her lies. The McMartin pre-school A fraternity whose members never touched Jackie now no longer exists on campus because of the witch hunt. Why are we still giving her the opportunity to hide behind the deserved privilege given to sexual assault victims, of having their identities shielded? She is not a victim, but rather a victimizer. I would use her name here but I want to see it confirmed first by an official source or mainstream media outlet, not a blogger.

If she had any assets, she should be sued for them. I hope the lawyers for the fraternity brothers take Rolling Stone to the cleaners. But Jackie must be punished in some meaningful way for what she did. What if that were your son or brother falsely accused of gang rape, or facilitating gang rape, and turned into a national pariah?

All credit on this blog to reader Ryan Booth, who smelled a rat from the beginning, even when I and others were giving Jackie the benefit of the doubt, if we doubted her at all (and I don’t think I did, not at first).

Slightly off topic, but I want to point this out before the moment passes, the WaPo‘s Jonathan Capehart deserves credit for owning up to the fact that Michael Brown, the Gentle Giant of Ferguson, was no victim, and that he (Capehart) bought into the narrative that felt right. Excerpt from Capehart’s mea culpa:

In those early hours and early days, there was more unknown than known. But this month, the Justice Department released two must-read investigations connected to the killing of Brown that filled in blanks, corrected the record and brought sunlight to dark places by revealing ugly practices that institutionalized racism and hardship. They have also forced me to deal with two uncomfortable truths: Brown never surrendered with his hands up, and Wilson was justified in shooting Brown.

More:

What DOJ found made me ill. Wilson knew about the theft of the cigarillos from the convenience store and had a description of the suspects. Brown fought with the officer and tried to take his gun. And the popular hands-up storyline, which isn’t corroborated by ballistic and DNA evidence and multiple witness statements, was perpetuated by Witness 101. In fact, just about everything said to the media by Witness 101, whom we all know as Dorian Johnson, the friend with Brown that day, was not supported by the evidence and other witness statements.

Capehart rightly says that though police brutality does happen (as, I hasten to say, does gang rape), we must never allow ourselves to buy into a “false narrative” — and when we do, we must be willing to say that we were wrong.

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now