Rolling Stone UVA Rape Story Totally Fabricated

Things continue to get worse for Rolling Stone Magazine which published a sensational story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia.  Now, new evidence shows that the entire story was fabricated apparently as part of the machinations of a woman scorned, that woman being "Jackie" the Rolling Stone source.  The Washington Post has details on the latest facts to emerge and one can only wonder why the Rolling Stone reporter never bothered to check the facts behind the allegations.  Here are highlights from the Post:

Ryan Duffin was a freshman at the University of Virginia when he met a student named Jackie.

Both teenagers were new to campus in September 2012, and the pair quickly became friends through a shared appreciation of alternative rock bands such as Coheed and Cambria and the Silversun Pickups. Early on, Duffin sensed that Jackie was interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with him. Duffin valued her friendship but politely rebuffed Jackie’s advances for more.

Just days after he met her, Duffin said, he was goaded into a text message conversation with a U-Va. junior named “Haven Monahan,” whom Jackie said she knew from a chemistry class.

What followed was what lawyers representing U-Va. associate dean Nicole Eramo described in new court documents as an elaborate scheme to win him over — a practice known as “catfishing” — that morphed into a sensational claim of gang rape at a U-Va. fraternity and a Rolling Stone story that rocked the U-Va. campus and shocked the nation.

A Charlottesville Police investigation later determined that no one named Haven Monahan had ever attended U-Va., and extensive efforts to find the person were not successful. Photographs that were texted to Duffin that were purported to be of Monahan were actually pictures depicting one of Jackie’s high school classmates in Northern Virginia. That man, now a student at a university in another state, confirmed to The Post that the photographs were of him.

“All available evidence demonstrates that ‘Haven Monahan’ was a fake suitor created by Jackie in a strange bid to earn the affections of a student named Ryan Duffin that Jackie was romantically interested in,” Eramo’s lawyers wrote in court papers filed this week.

Jackie had told Duffin that a date with Haven Monahan on Sept. 28, 2012, had gone terribly wrong, claiming that the upperclassman had forced her to perform oral sex on five other men. That fall night, Duffin was among a group of friends who rushed to be by Jackie’s side as she cried; Duffin described her as being hysterical and appearing traumatized. Duffin said Jackie appeared not to be injured — a red dress that she had worn on the date was not disheveled or torn — and she declined to go to police or the hospital that night to report the assault.

Court documents indicate that a crush Jackie had on Duffin freshman year was the spark for all that has happened since, that the attention-seeking events on Sept. 28, 2012 spiraled into a sensational tale that evolved, made its way into a national magazine’s pages, and then took on a life of its own.

There's much more in the article, but the take away is that Jackie is psycho and, in my view, needs to be expelled from the University under the Honor Code.

More Questions Raised About Seemingly Fabricated UVA Rape Story

It looks like Rolling Stone may have something much more foul smelling than mud on its face as the pilloried UVA fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, rebuts many of the key details of the story of gang rape told by "Jackie" to Rolling Stone contributing editor Sabrina Rubin Erdely who apparently never bothered to fact check her story - perhaps out of eagerness to "break a big story."  Andrew Sullivan correctly notes:

How an editor ran this piece without even speaking to its author is beyond me; how fact-checkers did not discover some of these obvious discrepancies immediately is also astounding. I guess when you’re on a crusade, “fake but true” will do.

Whatever their motivation, "Jackie" and Erdely have harmed the cause of the right of women to safety on campus by making officials more likely to question rape allegations than before "the big story."  Something about the story never rang true with me after attending UVA as both an undergraduate and as a law student not to mention having numerous family members who are graduates.  If there is to be justice, I hope that Phi Kappa Psi aggressively goes after "Jackie" who seems to have played many into making jack asses of themselves.  Oh, and perhaps Jackie needs to be charged with an Honor Code violation and brought before the UVA Honor Council for bald face lying (if found guilty, expulsion from the University is the sanction).  Here are details from the Washington Post on the rapidly collapsing Rolling Stone story:

Several key aspects of the account of a gang rape offered by a University of Virginia student in Rolling Stone magazine have been cast into doubt, including the date of the alleged attack and details about an alleged attacker, according to interviews and a statement from the magazine backing away from the article.

The U-Va. fraternity chapter where the alleged attack on a student named Jackie was said to have occurred in September 2012 released a statement Friday afternoon denying that such an assault took place in its house. Phi Kappa Psi said it has been working with police to determine whether the account of a brutal rape at a party there was true. The fraternity members say that several important elements of the allegations were false.

A group of Jackie’s close friends, who are sex assault awareness advocates at U-Va., said they believe something traumatic happened to her, but they also have come to doubt her account. They said details have changed over time, and they have not been able to verify key points of the story in recent days. A name of an alleged attacker that Jackie provided to them for the first time this week, for example, turned out to be similar to the name of a student who belongs to a different fraternity, and no one by that name has been a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Reached by phone, that man, a U-Va. graduate, said Friday that he did work at the Aquatic and Fitness Center and was familiar with Jackie’s name. He said, however, that he had never met Jackie in person and had never taken her on a date. He also said that he was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Phi Kappa Psi said it did not host “a date function or social event” during the weekend of Sept. 28, 2012, the night that Jackie alleges she was invited to a date party, lured into an upstairs room and was then ambushed and gang-raped by seven men who were rushing the fraternity.

The fraternity also said that it has reviewed the roster of employees at the university’s Aquatic and Fitness Center for 2012 and found that it does not list a member of the fraternity — a detail Jackie provided in her account to Rolling Stone and in interviews with The Washington Post — and that no member of the house matches the description detailed in the Rolling Stone account. The statement also said that the house does not have pledges during the fall semester.

Alex Pinkleton, a close friend of Jackie’s who survived a rape and an attempted rape during her first two years on campus, said in an interview that she has had numerous conversations with Jackie in recent days and now feels misled. . . . . Pinkleton said she is concerned that sexual assault awareness advocacy groups will suffer as a result of the conflicting details of the Rolling Stone allegations.

Earlier this week, Jackie revealed to friends for the first time the full name of her alleged attacker, a name she had never disclosed to anyone. But after looking into that person’s background, the group that had been among her closest supporters quickly began to raise suspicions about her account. The friends determined that the student that Jackie had named was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi and that other details about his background did not match up with information Jackie had disclosed earlier about her perpetrator.

“An advocate is not supposed to be an investigator, a judge or an adjudicator,” said Renda, a 2014 graduate who works for the university as a sexual violence awareness specialist. But as details emerge that cast doubt on Jackie’s account, Renda said, “I don’t even know what I believe at this point.”

Soltis said Jackie did not tell her about the alleged sexual assault until January 2013. Soltis said she did not notice any apparent wounds on Jackie’s body at the time that might have indicated a brutal attack.

Sexual violence on campuses needs to be eradicated. Period.  By telling lies and believing a self-announced "victim" without ever bothering to corroborate the facts is no better than lynch mob behavior in the Old South.  Jackie and Erdely have harmed the cause they claim to support and one has to wonder how many real victims will now be disbelieved because of this apparently fabricated story. 

Continued Turmoil at UVA and in Charlottesville

The backlash against the coup lead by Helen Dragas to fire University of Virginia president Teresa Sulliavn continues to roil the University and the City of Charlottesville which is dominated by the University.  Faced with Gov. Bob McDonnell's ultimatum that they fix the mess by Tuesday or be removed the members of the Board of Visitors who thought so highly of themselves have certainly reaped a well deserved whirlwind.  While state financial support of the University of Virginia has dwindled to a pittance give the GOP controlled Virginia General Assembly's anti-tax and ant-knowledge agenda, Ms. Dragas and her fellow conspirators forgot that UVA is still nevertheless a PUBLIC university.  Actions that one can get away with in a privately owned corporation - like the one Dragas inherited from her far more diplomatic father - simply do not fly in a public university context.  Adding to the uproar is the Richmond Times-Dispatch report that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges will be contacting the University to ensure that it is in compliance and can remain accredited.  Ms. Dragas and her henchmen truly need to go NOW.  An article in the Washington Post looks at the continued controversy.  Here are highlights:

While the leadership limbo continues at the University of Virginia, the verdict from students on the ouster of President Teresa A. Sullivan is clear: They feel angry, bewildered and betrayed.

Most of the university’s 21,000-plus students have dispersed across the state and the globe for summer break. But they have made their collective frustrations heard here loud and clear. What’s driving them is more than just admiration for a popular president.

News of Sullivan’s ouster, which reached most students via mass e-mail nearly two weeks ago, has prompted strongly worded Facebook posts, chiding tweets, trips back to campus to protest and lobbying campaigns.

A student-led “Rally for Honor” is scheduled for Sunday afternoon on the university’s iconic Lawn.

Why such intensity?  .   .   .   .  the actions this month of the governing Board of Visitors don’t square with how decisions are typically made at U-Va., several student leaders said. They say they are not accustomed to being caught off guard by major university changes. This is a school where admissions tour guides rave about the “community of trust,” where students refer to founder Thomas Jefferson as if the third U.S. president were a close friend and where those caught cheating on homework face the judgment of their peers, not administrators.

“It seemed that almost everyone kept going back to this notion that what had unfolded just doesn’t happen at U-Va.,” said Stephen Nash, chairman of the Honor Committee, a 170-year-old student-run judiciary system that upholds the university’s code of honor. All students pledge not to lie, cheat or steal, and the committee holds them to that.

The Honor Committee issued a statement last Sunday that chastised the governing board for creating “an environment that is inconsistent with the value of trust that runs through the very fabric of our University.”

The words “trust,” “integrity,” “honor” and “community” have been used repeatedly as students have tried to pinpoint why this situation has struck a nerve.

At other times when controversy has struck at U-Va. — such as the case of former student George Huguely V, convicted this year of murder in the death of his ex-girlfriend, classmate Yeardley Love — most students and faculty have refused to talk to reporters.  Not this time.

“When there’s one entity that isn’t part of the community of trust, that hurts that community. People begin to talk about it,” Vroom said. “It’s logical to me that there would be such an outcry.”

UVA Student and Friend Assaulted in Anti-Gay Hate Crime

I am a bit surprised to learn of the anti-gay hate crime that occurred on the University of Virginia grounds on April 4, 2009, especially since the boyfriend and I were in Charlottesville on Sunday the 5th. Charlottesville is among the most liberal cities in Virginia - due largely to the influence of the University and the many New Yorkers and Hollywood set that own in surrounding Albemarle County. On the other hand, the University does have its share of far right Southern students and there remain less than savory elements within parts of the city. While I do not recall the exact date, within the last year a patron leaving 216, a gay after hours club in downtown Charlottesville was beaten while leaving the club. At the time the attack seemed motivated by anti-gay animus. Nonetheless, it is upsetting to hear of this type of incident at the University. Here are some highlights from the Daily Progress:

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A University of Virginia student and a visiting friend were violently assaulted April 4 in what UVa officials are describing as a “bias-motivated crime.” The student and his guest were attacked without warning at around 3 a.m. by five males who uttered several homophobic slurs, according to a statement sent out late Friday to the university community by UVa Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Allen W. Groves.

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“Based upon the facts as we currently know them, we believe this to be a bias-motivated crime, in that the perceived sexual orientation of the two victims appears to have motivated the assault,” Groves said in the statement. . . . No arrests have yet been made in the incident, though the UVa Police Department is investigating, said Lt. Melissa Fielding. “It’s an open, active investigation,” she said. “We would encourage anyone with information about this incident to call Crime Stoppers or University Police.”

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As Toweleroad correctly notes, the hate crimes statute in Virginia affords no protection for violent crimes based on the victim's sexual orientation thanks to the efforts of Daddy Dobson's Virginia affiliate, The Family Foundation, and the GOP controlled House of Delegates. With numerous anti-gay judges still on the bench (Norfolk certainly has its share), the overall atmosphere even in more progressive parts of Virginia is often less than safe for LGBT citizens. As I recently stated at a hearing at Hampton City hall concerning the proposed addition of non-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation to the City's human resource policy, my advice to those considering moving to Virginia from more progressive states is to not move to Virginia. The University of Virginia's Honor Code, however, would provide for the addition penalty of expulsion of any students perpetrating such a crime on top of the normal crimianl penalties for violent assault.