He raped me. His punishment? Next to nothing —what Audrie’s Law aims to fix

Editor’s note: This story deals with an account of sexual assault and contains mature and disturbing content. Judy and John are pseudonyms. This story is based on Judy’s account only. At the time of the rape, summer of 2013, John was a rising junior at another local high school. 

How could she know what would happen? 

She just wanted a small summer party while her parents were out. But instead of the low-key hangout she envisioned, her social gathering morphs into a 15-person party — complete with drugs and alcohol. 

Fast forward to a few hours later, and three people are sprawled on Judy’s coach. Herself, and two friends: her future rapist, John, and the bystander. The last memory she has is of throwing up in the bathroom, drunk. 

When she regains consciousness, she’s in her bed. But something’s wrong. Someone’s on top of her.

“I was in the beginning stages of shock,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do or what to think, so I just [lay] there.” 

Another friend entered the room where they were, had the chance to intervene and did nothing after John said, “Just get out.”

Judy remembers asking her assaulter what he was doing through the haze of drunkenness.

John said, “It’s OK.” 

She loses consciousness again, knowing that she is being raped.  

 

Aftermath

Last spring, news organizations publicized the tragic sexual assault and subsequent suicide of then-sophomore Audrie Pott as an example case of a national problem. Although Judy’s story received no publicity until now, what’s most striking about her story is how similar it is to what happened to Audrie. 

Both girls were assaulted at a party by boys they considered to be friends. 

Both were drunk at a party their parents didn’t know about. Both faced humiliation online after the assaults.  

Both faced an incredible uphill battle to recovery — a journey that proved too overwhelming and awful for Audrie when she took her own life in September of 2012. 

But by no means has it been  it been easy for Judy. 

Hours after John left, Judy’s parents woke her up, furious at her for not only having a party but drinking, too. 

“My head was throbbing, my parents were yelling, I just couldn’t process anything at the time,” Judy said. 

Judy spent the next day lying in bed, too scared to face her parents or think about what had happened. When they went to sleep, she sneaked out of her room to get food and brush her teeth. She also went on Facebook to confront John and see if he would confess. He did. 

“I played dumb and acted like I didn’t remember anything,” Judy said. “He said [he felt] ‘really bad about it’ and that he was ‘just being stupid.’”

At the same time, Judy juggled an overwhelming array of emotions. Guilt, because John was her friend and she feared she would ruin his life by reporting him. Confusion, because she didn’t understand how something like this could have happened to her, a student from a safe community and a safe school. Shame, for having the party and drinking. 

Judy is hardly alone in suffering an assault and seeing the perpetrator face few consequences.

In fact, according to One in Four USA, an organization dedicated to the prevention of rape, 97 percent of rapists never spend a day in jail. By college, one in four women report surviving rape or attempted rape. 

Even worse is the reality that rapists often don’t realize the severity of their crime. One in Four USA says that 8 percent of men admit to having committed rape, whereas 84 percent of rapists don’t consider their actions to be rape.

Perhaps the difference between Audrie and Judy lies in what happened after. Before Audrie’s death, her parents didn’t know about the assault that happened to her. In contrast, Judy’s parents learned about the rape soon after and reported it to law enforcement. 

 

The legal “solution” to an emotional disaster

After contacting John, Judy called a 24-hour helpline. When the woman on the phone told her she “shouldn’t feel bad at all,” Judy texted a friend, who was shocked but encouraging, suggesting that Judy report the incident. 

Soon after, her mom discovered the texts and “freaked out and [started] crying.” That night, Judy and her family brought in the police. The first sheriff’s deputy was male, but Judy had to ask for a female deputy because she was uncomfortable talking to a man about what had happened to her. 

Then, she met with a district attorney. Her dad went to the authorities with the phone recording of John’s confession, in addition to John’s incriminating Facebook messages. 

In the meantime, John called Judy in a panic, trying to guilt-trip her, she said, by mentioning that “a lot was going on” with his grandmother.

“My dad called a lawyer, I don’t know what to do,” Judy remembers him saying. “You have to help me.”

She said John’s parents were similarly insensitive, asking her to drop the charges. 

In the end, however, it didn’t matter. The legal system failed Judy much as Audrie’s parents and others say it failed to punish Audrie’s assaulters. Current law only requires that sexual assault by young perpetrators against conscious victims be tried in adult court. Because Judy was unconscious during the rape, John went to juvenile court. According to Judy, he received little punishment as a result of his age and formerly clean record. He was forbidden to contact Judy, but did not spend time in juvenile hall.

“I don’t think he viewed it as rape in that I didn’t ‘resist’ as in yell,” she said. 

Judy also doesn’t feel that John’s parents see it as a “big deal.” His parents later bought him a new car, she said. 

 

Audrie’s Law

Hope for change lies in the recent introduction of proposed legislation known as Audrie's Law, which would allow adult charges against juveniles who sexually assault intoxicated or otherwise mentally impaired victims. Adult charges can result in publicly registering juvenile offenders as sex offenders, making consequences more severe if they commit crimes in the future. 

If John had been charged under Audrie’s Law, consequences may have been been more severe for him. 

The lack of justice in the legal system was not the only horror Judy endured.  On the popular site ask.fm, anonymous posters sent Judy messages that included comments like “John is hot” “How do you feel now?” “You’re so stupid, how could you be so stupid” and finally, the worst of all: “You asked for it.”

She didn’t tell anyone about the hurtful messages, but she deactivated her ask.fm account. It took her a month or two just to get back on track. She stayed in the house and rarely went anywhere.

For Judy, the entire experience was a life-shattering encounter with the reality of trust. Apparently, friendship was no match for poor judgment, rape culture and alcohol. That night, someone she thought she could trust betrayed her.

“I definitely take a lot more time [than I used to] with trusting people,” Judy said. “I’ve changed my judgment of people.” 

Sadly, plenty of victims have broken their silence, only to be greeted with the question “So what?”

“So what that you’ve been raped? It happened a month ago. And what did you expect? It’s your fault.”

“Your fault for getting drunk.”

“Your fault for wearing all that provocative clothing.”

“Your fault for flirting with him.”

The shame associated with sexual assault is so prevalent that it’s no wonder that only 40 percent of rapes are reported, according to the Rape, Abuse, and  Incest National Network (RAINN). 

Among younger victims the statistics are even worse. Ninety-five percent of college rapes go unreported, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 

Just as over half of rapes occur within a mile of the victim’s home, her rape occurred at her home. 

Just as 75 percent of men and 55 percent of women were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the rape, John and Judy were both intoxicated at the time.

Just as most rape victims knew their rapists before the crime, Judy once was friends with John. 

The plague of sexual assault on campuses is one reason the Obama administration recently brought together a team of senior officials whose aim is to “coordinate federal enforcement efforts,” according to the New York Times. The committee recently released a report entitled “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action” that details the administration’s past actions and future plans. 

Judy was initially tempted to remain silent and let the incident fade away, but she ultimately decided to report it. She advised victims to seek help from others. 

“Don’t be scared about it,” she said. “Just say to go out and do your best, [because] if you don’t do anything about it the [people or person responsible] will just think [that they] got away with it [and] can do it again.”

 

What causes this behavior?

One can’t help think of the summer hit “Blurred Lines,” which involved singer Robin Thicke declaring “I know you want it,” and reduced Thicke’s lover to childlike status as he called her a “good girl.” 

Judy, on the other hand, attributed the attack to a simple lack of morals, saying that perpetrators of sexual violence are “sometimes happy they got away with it” and lack empathy for their victim.

She added that guys often misinterpret girls’ actions or dress and end up thinking that “It’s OK” and that “she wants it, so I won’t get punished for it.” Such misunderstandings, she concluded, make it difficult to avoid being targeted sexually. 

For Judy, Audrie and many others, any changes will be too little, too late. Judy does see hope for the future, however, in Audrie's Law.

“[Audrie's Law] would raise awareness,” Judy said. “No action like that should [be punished as lightly] as it is right now.”