Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,406 Views)
abb
Member Avatar

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/jackie-stands-by-account-says-she-had-concerns-about-rolling-stone-article-before-it-ran/2016/10/24/22ee9afa-9a13-11e6-9980-50913d68eacb_story.html

‘Jackie’ stands by account but says she had concerns about Rolling Stone article
By T. Rees Shapiro October 24 at 4:50 PM


CHARLOTTESVILLE — “Jackie,” the University of Virginia student who described a brutal gang rape in a Rolling Stone magazine article, said that she felt pressured to cooperate with the article’s reporter and expressed concerns about the article’s veracity to friends and school administrators in the days before it was published.

Jurors heard from Jackie in a recorded deposition played in a federal courtroom here Monday, her first public remarks since shortly after Rolling Stone published her now-discredited allegations of a fraternity gang rape nearly two years ago. Jackie had issued a statement at the time the Rolling Stone article was published in November 2014 and spoke to The Washington Post in a series of interviews in the weeks that followed.

At issue in the defamation case against Rolling Stone is whether the magazine and the article’s reporter intentionally smeared Nicole Eramo, then a U-Va. associate dean who was in charge of the school’s sexual assault prevention programs. Eramo argues that Rolling Stone inaccurately portrayed her as indifferent to sexual assault, that it knew that elements of its article weren’t true and that the material the reporter gathered was made to fit into a predetermined narrative about how schools mishandle sexual assault cases.
Former UVA dean speaks out for first time about Rolling Stone's rape story

By the time Jackie spoke with reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely, she was a U-Va. junior and had for two years told friends and members of the U-Va. community that she was sexually assaulted at a fraternity party. She had also gone to Eramo seeking help. Erdely testified last week that she believed Jackie’s detailed account of the ordeal.

Jackie said during the taped deposition that she stands by the account she gave Rolling Stone and The Post in 2014 and believed it was true at the time. But she also testified that she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has memory loss and can no longer recall specific details.

In the taped testimony, Jackie said she felt pressured to cooperate with the reporter and told friends that she no longer wanted to be included in it after learning that her alleged gang-rape would be central to the narrative.

“When Sabrina told me my experience was going to be the focal point in the article, I was uncomfortable with that,” Jackie said. “I was feeling scared and overwhelmed and unsure of what to do.”

At times in Jackie’s recorded testimony, she contradicted her own story. Jackie at one point said that she believed the Rolling Stone article was not entirely accurate and that “I feel like my interpretation was different than what was written.” She said she remembered reading the story and “thinking I probably would not have written it that way.”

She later said that the portrayal of her alleged assault in Rolling Stone was correct.

“I stand by the account I gave Rolling Stone and I believed it to be true at the time,” Jackie said. When asked if she still believed it was true, she said: “I believed it was true but some details of my assault — I have PTSD and it’s foggy.”

When speaking with The Post in 2014, Jackie provided thorough details about the setting, scene and circumstances of her alleged assault. But in her recorded deposition, provided under oath, Jackie chose her words carefully and spoke deliberately. On multiple occasions she said in the recorded testimony that she no longer remembers aspects of her attack, its aftermath and conversations she had with Erdely and the magazine’s fact checker.

In the testimony played to the court, Jackie spoke in measured tones and did not address the veracity of her claims of being gang-raped. The court has not released her full name or shown jurors her image. The Post generally does not identify people who say they were sexually assaulted and has an agreement with Jackie not to identify her by her full name; though her narrative has been debunked, Jackie has maintained that she was sexually assaulted.

When confronted in the deposition about allegedly concocting evidence about her allegations — such as fabricating text messages from other women who she said also had been sexually assaulted at the same fraternity — she wouldn’t deny it.

“I just don’t remember any of this,” Jackie said. “It’s all very foggy. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

She was asked about a specific detail described in Rolling Stone: “Did you tell Ms. Erdely that you left the Phi Kappa Psi house at 3 a.m. splattered in blood?”

Jackie replied: “I don’t remember.”

The account of Jackie’s rape included the detail that she had been attacked on broken glass. Three of Jackie’s friends who met up with her that night told The Post that Jackie did not appear to have visible injuries at the time, one of several discrepancies with the published account.

Jackie also testified that she had messaged friends asking them not to reveal the name of her ringleader of the alleged assault, comparing Erdely’s efforts to determine his identity to a “witch hunt.”

Jackie said that she expressed doubts about the story ahead of its publication. In a meeting with Erdely, Jackie told the journalist that she cared deeply about Eramo and worried that her “job security” would be at stake after the article was published.

[Rolling Stone reporter said she believed ‘Jackie,’ felt ‘scared for her’]

She told friends that Erdely had misrepresented her in the article and “skewed” some of her quotes out of context. She also stopped talking to the journalist for two weeks as the article neared publication.

“I felt like I was getting pressured from a lot of different people to do something I did not want to do,” Jackie said.

Jackie also went to U-Va. administrators before the article was published to express concerns because she believed it would include “some unflattering facts or unflattering facets of Dean Eramo and I wanted to change that,” Jackie said in the recording. “So many students would be lost without her.”

The article portrayed Eramo and the university’s administration as indifferent to reports of sexual assault, something that Eramo has said denigrated her life’s work, drew hate mail and threats, and affected her career.

In the recording, Jackie said that she “felt bad” about the way Eramo, friends and others were portrayed as callous in the article.

“I wouldn’t use the word indifferent at all,” Jackie said. “I believe she cared very much.”

Yet Jackie testified that she believed Erdely “had done her best to recount what I’d told her.”

In the days after the magazine story was published, it quickly became an Internet sensation, attracting millions of readers to the Rolling Stone website. After the article went online, Jackie wrote messages to friends saying that she believed the magazine had misrepresented her account of what had happened.

“I felt like everything was out of control,” Jackie said.

The article was retracted after a Charlottesville police investigation and a probe by the Columbia Journalism School found significant inconsistencies. Police concluded that the assault described in Rolling Stone did not occur.

“Jackie’s’ testimony and the testimony over the last several days have shown that neither Sabrina Rubin Erdely nor Rolling Stone published statements about Eramo with actual malice, the burden Plaintiff must meet to support her lawsuit,” Rolling Stone said in a statement after court had adjourned.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sabrina-rubin-erdely-and-the-banality-of-evil/article/2605504


Sabrina Rubin Erdely and the 'banality of evil'
By Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) • 10/25/16 12:16 PM

When Rolling Stone author Sabrina Rubin Erdely interviewed Jackie for her article "A Rape on Campus," the now discredited writer described the fraternity alleged to have raped her subject as representing the "banality of evil."

The phrase "banality of evil" was coined by another author decades ago, and has itself generated fierce debate and criticism ever since. To be clear, Erdely is no Hannah Arendt, the woman who coined the term. Arendt is still widely respected and her writing, including her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Years from now, people will continue to respect Arendt's work, while they no longer respect Erdely's. But some of the criticism of Arendt's book, including her basis for the phrase "banality of evil," is a little reminiscent of criticisms of Erdely.

Arendt's book is about the trial of Adolf Eichmann, A Nazi who was in charge of deporting Jews to extermination camps. He was found guilty of war crimes and hanged for his role in the Holocaust. Arendt argued in her book that Eichmann was less a murderous Nazi (he had never directly killed anyone) and more a man who was just "doing his job" and carrying out orders.

In his book on Eichmann, David Cesarani argued that Arendt's depiction of the infamous war criminal was wrong. He claimed that Arendt didn't attend all of Eichmann's trial, and at most saw only four days of his testimony. Cesarani said Arendt relied mostly on recordings and transcripts from the trial to create her narrative about Eichmann.

This, to me, sounds similar to what happened in one of Erdely's earlier articles, for which she won an award in college. She has since admitted "just about everything in the story was wrong." Erdely had missed most of a press conference she was supposed to attend that was being held by folk singer Michelle Shocked. Erdely used the little information she received from the press conference and then "borrowed whatever facts" she could from other media accounts to cobble together her article.

The big difference here between the two is that Arendt had correct information but arguably drew the wrong conclusion, while Erdely never had correct information.

But it is interesting that the author of a discredited article would borrow a phrase from someone else has been criticized for journalistic malpractice.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rolling-stone-rape-hoaxer-claims-ptsd-makes-her-memory-foggy/article/2605529

Rolling Stone rape hoaxer claims 'PTSD' makes her memory 'foggy'
By Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) • 10/25/16 2:02 PM

The woman who gave a now-discredited account of a gang rape at the University of Virginia claimed in testimony that "PTSD" has made her memory "foggy" and that she can no longer recall details of her alleged assault.

Jackie, the woman at the center of the gang-rape hoax, told her story to Rolling Stone author Sabrina Rubin Erdely. Erdely's article has since been retracted by the magazine, which is being sued by a U.Va. dean who claims she was defamed by the article.

Jackie said in her deposition video that she "stands by the account I gave Rolling Stone and I believed it to be true at the time." Asked if she still believes it is true, Jackie demurred: "I believed it was true but some details of my assault — I have PTSD and it's foggy."

Just two years ago, Jackie told Erdely — and the Washington Post — exact details of her assault, details she now claims to have trouble remembering.

For example, the account in Rolling Stone claimed Jackie was raped on top of broken glass (which seems implausible). She said she ran from the fraternity house covered in cuts and that her dress was damaged and covered with blood. When asked during her deposition whether she told Erdely this detail, Jackie claimed she didn't remember.

Can one get PTSD from a fake assault? Or maybe it was the "trauma" of having her story exposed as false that gave her PTSD?

The Washington Post's T. Rees Shapiro, who helped uncover Jackie's deceit, wrote that Jackie "did not address the veracity of her claims of being gang-raped," and that she "wouldn't deny" charges that she made up evidence to support her lie.

Instead of denying that she made anything up, including creating text messages from other women she claimed had also been sexually assaulted and inventing the man whom she said orchestrated her gang rape, Jackie just kept saying she didn't remember.

Jackie also contradicted herself in her deposition, saying at one point that Rolling Stone misconstrued her account of her alleged assault and thinking after the story was published that she "would not have written it that way." Later in her deposition, she indicated that the account of her alleged assault was correct.

Jackie defended in her deposition U.Va. Dean Nicole Eramo, who is suing Rolling Stone, its publisher and Erdely over the way she was portrayed in the article. Jackie said she wouldn't describe Eramo as "indifferent" to sexual assault accusers, and that she believed "she cared very much."

In addition, Jackie said she went to U.Va. administrators before the article's publication to warn them about "some unflattering facts or unflattering facets of Dean Eramo." She said she wanted to change those details because "so many students would be lost without [Eramo]."

This contradicts what Jackie told Erdely when the author interviewed her. In that interview, which occurred two months before the article was published, Jackie welcomed bad publicity for her school.

"The only way anything is going to change is with bad publicity," Jackie said. "And I was like, you know, U.Va. has kind of flown under the radar for so long, and I was like, and I feel like someone has to say something about it, or else, it's just going to be this system that keeps perpetuating."

In that same interview, Jackie had also said she wanted to talk to Dean Eramo about something.

So she's all over the place on this, switching between defending Eramo and wanting bad publicity for the school. She can claim the publicity was toward the school, but that's a hard argument to make when the accusation was that sexual assault wasn't taken seriously and Eramo was the person tasked with helping accusers report.

Here's one of the biggest problems with Jackie's behavior: She is making things more difficult for real victims of sexual assault. Jackie spent years claiming to be a sexual assault victim and making friends in a support group at U.Va. She's adopted many of the traits activists claim accusers go through.

Jackie now claims to have PTSD and that she is unable to recall details of her alleged assault, something accusers are said to go through. But other times, Jackie remembers specific details — and even invents minute details like what she was buying at a certain moment to bolster her account — something else accusers can presumably do (the recalling of specific details, not inventing details).

Further, Jackie's account kept changing, which activists claim can happen with victims, as they either recall more information or feel more comfortable coming forward.

Jackie has adopted these tactics, and she was lying. It will make it more difficult for others to be believed.[/s]
Edited by abb, Oct 25 2016, 01:31 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/article-presented-fictionalized-version-of-events-former-friends-of-jackie/article_659ca0f5-8128-5f18-90df-6ea810681296.html

Article presented 'fictionalized version' of events, former friends of 'Jackie' say
BY DEAN SEAL - 10/25/16

In the article that first exposed the world to her allegations of having been gang-raped by seven men in a fraternity house, three former friends of “Jackie” are described as coming to the then-freshman’s aid on the night of her attack, only to nudge her into staying silent. Per the article, “Randall, Andy and Cindy” were concerned that Jackie would become the “girl who cried rape,” thus prematurely hampering their social prospects.

In Charlottesville’s federal court on Tuesday, “Randall” and “Cindy” finally got to speak for themselves, each stating unequivocally that the depiction of that night in Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s now-retracted piece was not accurate, and that Jackie “had a tendency to fabricate things.”

“Randall” and “Cindy,” however, are only pseudonyms — because Erdely never actually spoke to Ryan Duffin or Kathryn Hendley for her November 2014 article “A Rape on Campus,” she decided to use different names for them in order to protect their identities.

Tuesday marked the eighth day of trial for the $7.5 million lawsuit brought by University of Virginia administrator Nicole Eramo against Rolling Stone magazine, its publisher and Erdely. When Erdely’s infamous article was published, Eramo was an associate dean who offered resources and support for student survivors of sexual assault at UVa, including Jackie, the woman whose account of her brutal gang rape formed the centerpiece of Erdely’s story.

After Jackie’s story began to unravel through scrutiny from the media and an investigation from city police, the magazine retracted the article in April 2015. Eramo filed her suit one month later, alleging that the story had depicted her as an uncaring and indifferent administrator who dissuaded sexual assault survivors from seeking justice.

On Tuesday, Eramo’s attorneys played the separate deposition videos of Duffin and Hendley, each of whom spoke about the night in which they found their then-friend Jackie “shaken” by what she relayed to have been a sexual assault. The majority of the details expressed in the article, however, differed completely from their experiences that night.

In the first of the two videos, Hendley disavowed all of the quotes attributed to her in Erdely’s story. While reading portions of the article where she was named “Cindy,” Hendley said it was “like a fictionalized version of [her] life.”

Specifically, she scoffed at a line in the article that said she was a “self-described hookup queen” and that she warned Jackie against reporting her rape out of fear that she would be “the girl who cried rape.”

In actuality, Jackie didn’t tell Hendley on the night of Sept. 28, 2012, that she had been assaulted at all. She only told that to Duffin and Alex Stock, the other two friends in their quartet, while keeping Hendley in the dark. Hendley didn’t know why Jackie seemed resistant to keeping her in the loop, but she did recall that the scene depicted in Erdely’s article had the three friends meet a bloodied and disheveled Jackie outside of the Phi Kappa Psi house where the assault allegedly occurred. In reality, the friends met an unhurt Jackie at UVa’s freshman dorms, about a mile away, and roughly three hours earlier than the article stated, Hendley said.

Hendley said she and Jackie didn’t remain friends much longer after that — by the end of the following semester, Jackie had made up a rumor about Hendley, and the two stopped talking. Years later, Hendley read the article and said it was “shocking” to see Jackie’s allegations in a national magazine.

When Hendley did eventually speak to Erdely, who called her in the week after Rolling Stone said it had lost faith in Jackie’s story, she remembered feeling sorry for the position that Jackie had put Erdely in.

“I understood what it’s like to be lied to by Jackie,” Hendley said.

In Duffin’s deposition, he expressed a similar sympathy for Erdely, saying the author was “very genuinely apologetic” for having failed to contact them for the article.

Duffin appeared to have had a closer relationship to Jackie, who had a romantic interest in Duffin that he did not reciprocate. That may have led to the creation of “Haven Monahan,” the man Jackie said had invited her on a date only to lead her back to the Phi Psi for her alleged sexual assault.

Duffin recalled in his deposition that on the night of Sept. 28, 2012, he had received a call from Jackie, who asked that he meet her near the dorms on Alderman Road because “something” had happened. When he arrived, Duffin said Jackie “seemed a little shaken,” but was otherwise unharmed.

At the time, Jackie told Duffin and Stock that during their date, “Haven Monahan” brought Jackie to his room at the fraternity house where five men were waiting. Per Jackie’s story, the men then forced Jackie to give them oral sex.

Taking her story to be true, Duffin said he and Stock encouraged Jackie to immediately contact authorities but said Jackie refused to do so. The multiple statements, as represented in the article, about the trio encouraging Jackie to do just the opposite were entirely false, Duffin said, as were the assertions that he refused to participate in the article.

Duffin also stated that before her alleged assault, he and Stock were encouraged by Jackie to exchange text messages with “Haven Monahan,” whom they were told was a third-year student at UVa who was trying to woo Jackie. They acquiesced, to bizarre results.

“It felt kind of weird, but we saw it as a strange way to help out a friend,” he said.

Over time, it became clearer to Duffin that “Haven Monahan” did not actually exist — rather, he was invented by Jackie in what he called a “catfishing” scheme to win Duffin’s heart. Eramo’s attorneys have said as much in their court filings. In the weeks following Jackie’s alleged assault, Duffin began to uncover that there was no “Haven Monahan” at UVa or at any of the organizations that Jackie had purported him to be involved with. When Duffin called Jackie out for this possible scheme, their friendship began to dissolve.

Tuesday also saw the final testimony from a fact-checker at Rolling Stone, as well as two police officers who spoke with Jackie after she was allegedly assaulted with a beer bottle in the spring of 2014. On Wednesday, UVa Dean of Students Allen Groves is expected to testify, along with Rolling Stone editor Sean Woods.

The trial, which began Oct. 17, is expected to last 12 days, although attorneys involved in the case say it may go on longer.

Dean Seal is a reporter for The Daily Progress. Contact him at (434) 978-7268, dseal@dailyprogress.com or @JDeanSeal on Twitter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://pilotonline.com/news/local/columnist/kerry-dougherty/kerry-dougherty-journalism-on-trial/article_7f94478a-87db-5adf-994e-df98a5d08e5c.html

Kerry Dougherty: Journalism on trial
10/25/16
Kerry Dougherty is a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot.


These are tough times for the nation’s dwindling press corps. Not only are newspapers and other news outlets struggling, but journalists themselves are vilified constantly.

Donald Trump, for instance, gets some of his loudest cheers whenever he accuses members of the “crooked media” of being in the tank for Hillary Clinton.

He’s not the first candidate to accuse reporters of bias, of course. Kicking around journalists is a popular political sport.

Still, to unsung shoe-leather reporters across the country who dutifully cover courts, cops and city halls without agenda, prejudice or glory, these accusations sting.

The most disheartening indictment of journalism isn’t coming from Trump’s fiery stump speeches. It’s unfolding quietly in a federal courtroom in Charlottesville, where a University of Virginia administrator is suing Rolling Stone magazine.

In its second week, the defamation trial has exposed a constellation of inexcusably sloppy reporting techniques, flawed fact-checking and a naive reliance on an alleged sexual assault victim’s incredible tale, out of some sort of misplaced belief that no one would lie about such a horrible act.

All this by an established publication and a seasoned reporter, Sabrina Erdely.

Nicole Eramo is seeking more than $7 million because of professional and personal damage she says she suffered after Rolling Stone published in November 2014 a horrific – and now debunked – tale of a gang rape in a U.Va. fraternity house.

As the associate dean who provided services to students who were victims of sexual assault at the time, Eramo claims Rolling Stone made her the “chief villain” in the sordid story.

It’s hard to argue with that characterization.

“A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA” itself made national headlines. The centerpiece of the story was an undergrad identified only as “Jackie” who claimed that in September 2012 she was violently gang raped in a fraternity house where she’d been brought by a date. The university was portrayed as an institution more concerned about its image than with a student who had been raped.

Trouble is, after the Rolling Stone story was published, a police investigation and reporting by thorough journalists – ones who were looking for the truth, not a harrowing anecdote to gin up a story about the “rape culture” on college campuses – indicate that the entire story may be false.

It took Rolling Stone five months to completely retract the story. That came after the magazine asked the prestigious Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism to review the reporting and editing that went into the piece.

What resulted was a methodical 55-page denouncement of Rolling Stone and its reporter.

“A failure of journalism,” concluded the report, which noted that the mess was avoidable if the publication had followed basic principles.

In numerous instances, it appears that Rolling Stone relied exclusively on the account of the alleged “victim” and honored her request that no attempt be made to contact the person she alleged led the rape gang or other witnesses.

Making matters worse, the critique noted that the online story got an astonishing 2.7 million clicks: “More than any other feature not about a celebrity that the magazine had ever published.”

As the defamation trial proceeds, those paying attention are getting an ugly peek at the damage that can be wrought by careless journalism. What Rolling Stone published was a shocking and compelling story, well written, by an experienced yet gullible reporter, who believed “Jackie” and was willing to set aside normal journalistic skepticism in pursuit of a big story.

“… during months of reporting, Erdely was confronted with conflicting information about how the tale was relayed to Jackie’s friends,” The Washington Post reported from Charlottesville. “She found that the number of assailants wavered. And she noticed that Jackie had changed aspects of the account. But Erdely never questioned her credibility, and she testified in federal court that she never confronted Jackie about the discrepancies.”

This week, Jackie herself testified. Sort of. A three-hour video of a deposition taken by attorneys was played for the jury.

In it, the alleged victim claimed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and memory loss. Her answers, according to news sources, were vague.

“I stand by the account I gave to Rolling Stone, and I believed it to be true at the time,” she said, adding that many details are now “foggy.”

Jackie, who is not on trial, is being afforded the same anonymity as victims of sexual assault, even though there is little evidence so far that she’s a victim of anything. During her taped testimony, her face was concealed from the public and her full name was not given.

The trial is expected to last for about three weeks. The damage to journalism will last much longer.

Kerry Dougherty, 757-446-2306, kerry.dougherty@pilotonline.com
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.richmond.com/news/national-world/ap/article_bc495c09-0397-5111-827c-22f19b32a9a3.html

Rolling Stone staffer cites regret over U.Va. story

By T. REES SHAPIRO The Washington Post | Posted: Tuesday, October 25, 2016 10:30 pm

CHARLOTTESVILLE — The Rolling Stone staffer responsible for fact-checking an article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia testified Tuesday in federal court that she had no doubts about the story when it was published in 2014 but acknowledged that she later regretted the article’s flaws.

The fact-checker, Elisabeth Garber-Paul, said she was responsible for ensuring that “everything was as accurate as possible before we went to press” with the article in November 2014. She testified that she had worked for the magazine since 2010 and had reviewed hundreds of articles before being assigned to fact-check the feature by journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely about sex assault at U.Va.

Garber-Paul said she spent 80 hours scrutinizing “A Rape on Campus,” going line-by-line and word-for-word to vouch for its credibility.

“When we went to print, I believed it all to be true,” Garber-Paul said. “To have that all fall apart, that was incredibly traumatic for me.”

Garber-Paul’s testimony came on the eighth day of former U.Va. dean Nicole Eramo’s defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone, which alleges the article smeared her, destroyed her life’s work and hurt her career by publishing a false account of a gang rape and making the claim that Eramo was callous and indifferent to sex crimes on campus at a time when she was responsible for working with rape survivors.

The since-retracted article pivoted around the experiences of “Jackie,” a student who said she was brutally assaulted at a fraternity house near campus during her freshman year.

Rolling Stone later retracted the account after an investigation by The Washington Post showed significant discrepancies in the article’s reporting. A subsequent inquiry by the Charlottesville Police Department concluded that Jackie’s 2012 attack, as described by Rolling Stone, never occurred.

Garber-Paul said that she had previously worked with Erdely and had been impressed by her diligent and thorough reporting. She said in court that as she read the article, she had no doubts about its veracity. She testified that she spent four hours discussing specific facts about Jackie’s encounter in the fraternity house, and Garber-Paul said she felt satisfied that the U.Va. student was telling the truth.

But she acknowledged in court Tuesday that she was aware that aspects of Jackie’s account had evolved over time, including a discrepancy in the number of alleged attackers. Garber-Paul said she knew that Jackie’s friend, Emily Renda, had given congressional testimony in June 2014 referring to Jackie being assaulted by five fraternity brothers. Garber-Paul said that she believed at the time that the inconsistency in Jackie’s story was attributable to how trauma can affect the memory of assault survivors.

“It takes them time to come to terms with it,” Garber-Paul said, noting that she had discussed the effects of traumatic experiences on victims with her mother, a licensed clinical social worker.

Garber-Paul testified that when she asked Jackie about the alleged assault, she was able to provide many vivid details.

“They were 360-degree memories,” Garber-Paul said. “I had a sense she was reliving one of the worst moments of her life. ... We had to pause a couple of times so she could catch her breath. It seemed like she could close her eyes and tell me exactly what she was seeing.”

In a taped deposition, Jackie declined to elaborate on aspects of her assault, saying that she has post-traumatic stress disorder, memory loss and has trouble remembering what she told Erdely.

Garber-Paul said that she deeply regrets not verifying quotes attributed to friends of Jackie’s that appeared in the article, part of a critical scene that painted U.Va. students as more interested in their own reputations than helping a classmate who said she had been attacked. Jackie told Rolling Stone that she did not want the magazine to speak to the friends who met her on the night of her alleged attack because they had a falling out.

The friends later spoke to The Washington Post and said they were never contacted by Rolling Stone to confirm their account, which differed significantly from what appeared in the magazine.

Garber-Paul said that in retrospect she acknowledged that Jackie’s reluctance to have Rolling Stone contact the friends should have been a “red flag.”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.nbc29.com/story/33485141/rolling-stone-trial-day-9

Rolling Stone Trial: UVA Dean of Students Allen Groves Testifies
Posted: Oct 26, 2016 8:07 AM CST
Updated: Oct 26, 2016 11:44 AM CST

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) -

A dean with the University of Virginia takes the witness stand in a defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone magazine on the now-retracted article "A Rape on Campus".

Charlottesville jurors have been hearing testimony from UVA Dean of Students Allen Groves in a federal courtroom. Groves is expected to be on the stand for most of Wednesday, answering questions from attorneys about the Rolling Stone article and his interactions with Nicole Eramo.

The magazine published "A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Ruin Erdely in its November 2014 issue. The article centered on "Jackie", then a UVA student, who described being gang raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in September of 2012. An investigation by Charlottesville police in 2015 found no evidence to back up the claims made in the article. Rolling Stone eventually retracted the article and apologized.

Eramo, then the associate dean of students at UVA, claims Erdely’s article unfairly portrayed her as indifferent to Jackie's plight and only interested in protecting the university's reputation. She filed a lawsuit against Rolling Stone, publisher Wenner Media, and Erdely. Eramo is seeking around $7.5 million in damages.

Groves seemed to indicate to plaintiff's attorney Thomas Clare that Erdely's article affected Eramo's ability to work with students. Groves said they were warned students, "would believe Nicole [Eramo] was somehow not capable," adding that if students believed the system is biased then they will not come forward.

Eramo lost the title of dean when she was moved out of her office on March 1, 2015. Groves told the court that “dean” is a prestigious title, one that was important to Eramo.

According to the Groves, UVA believed Eramo was still capable of doing her job, but was hit with a perception issue.

Groves became emotional during cross examination by defense attorney William Paxton: He mentioned Hannah Graham, who was murdered, and another student’s suicide.

Groves says he never read an email attachment from Emily Renda about what she planned to say to Congress. Renda, a UVA staff member at the time of the article’s publication, as well as a survivor of sexual assault, had testified earlier in the lawsuit.

Paxton pointed to a 2011 Office of Civil Right Complaint where a student thought her case was handled inappropriately. Eramo was chair of Sexual Assault Misconduct Board at the time of that complaint.

Groves replied, “We have critics.”

He had also weighed in on a discussion of public relations prior to Rolling Stone publishing the article: Groves wrote in a Sept. 9, 2014, email, "I'd prefer not to do it at all," and that he believed the magazine had not been objective in recent years.

Groves decided not to have Eramo do interview with Rolling Stone because she couldn't speak specifics about cases due to legal reasons.

However, Paxton asked Groves about Eramo being allowed to be interviewed in the fall of 2014 for an article about sexual misconduct for University of Virginia Magazine.

Paxton then asked about Eramo being interviewed on camera with WUVA just a few weeks before “A Rape on Campus” was released.

The defense attorney informed the jury about an “initial report” meeting between Eramo and Jackie that occurred on May 20, 2013. Paxton argued that the university knew that one of the two fraternities with “Phi” in its name was involved, and that the attacker worked with IM-Gym.

Groves said UVA did not attempt to investigate the alleged attack, nor did it pull employment records at IM-Gym, but said "the decision was made to support Jackie". He told the court that he was hopeful more information would come out so that an investigation could move forward.

"I was angry at the fact that Jackie wouldn't give us a name," Groves said on the stand.

The dean said he had multiple meetings in May with UVA Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Susan Davis and UVA President Teresa Sullivan.

Groves said he had even sought legal options to force Jackie to speak to investigators: He spoke with Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman in the fall of 2014. Chapman was said to have been worried about "tipping” off Phi Kappa Psi.

Groves talked about ending the university’s agreement with Phi Kappa Psi, telling jurors, "I was interested in putting these people in jail and shutting down the fraternity."

The jury trial began on Monday, October 17, and is scheduled to last 10 days. Only seven jurors, to be specified later, will ultimately deliberate; three will be alternates.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2016/10/uva-survivor-condemns-rolling-stone-defends-eramo-on-stand

U.Va. survivor condemns Rolling Stone, defends Eramo on stand
Editor Sean Woods says he regrets way article was handled
by Hailey Ross and Xara Davies | Oct 27 2016 | 3 hours ago

“She was there for survivors, 100 percent,” Alex Pinkleton said of former Associate Dean Nicole Eramo Wednesday before a courtroom of jurors, legal counsel and spectators.

Pinkleton’s testimony was part of the ongoing trial for the $7.5 million lawsuit Eramo filed against Rolling Stone Magazine, Wenner Media, Inc. and Sabrina Rubin Erderly, author of the 2014 article “A Rape on Campus.”

While a student, Pinkleton was the outreach chair for One Less, a sexual advocacy group at the University, and heavily involved with Take Back the Night. In the spring of 2014, she reported her sexual assault experience online. That was when she first encountered Eramo and formed a friendship with her.

“She became a huge support for me,” Pinkleton said. “I ended up babysitting her son.”

Pinkleton was also a friend of Jackie — the central figure of Erdely’s article — at the time Jackie was involved with the story.

Throughout her direct examination, Pinkleton said she was upset with the way both herself and Eramo were portrayed by Erdely in the article. In fact, Pinkleton said she saw the way she was characterized in the article — a third-year “expertly clad in the U.Va.-after-dark uniform of a midriff-baring sleeveless top and shorts” — as Erdely’s way of trying to draw parallels between University student Hannah Graham, who was last seen wearing a black crop top.

Graham, then a second-year College student, disappeared in September 2014, and her body was found a month later in Albemarle County. Jesse Matthew Jr. pleaded guilty to the murders of Graham and Morgan Harrington in March. “A Rape on Campus” referenced Graham’s death and Matthew’s prior sexual assault charges.

“Clearly [Erdely] was trying to paint me as someone I wasn’t,” Pinkleton said. “I’m not an expert on how to get into frats — I can get into frats … I consider myself more of an expert of survivor help.”

Pinkleton admitted the quotes attributed to her in the article were accurate, but also said 90 percent of her conversations with Erdely revolved around advocacy and the influencing factors of “rape culture” at the University. In fact, Pinkleton said she was excited for the article to be published because she thought it would expose problems with the University’s sexual assault reporting process.

“I was still under the impression this would be something helpful for the advocacy community,” Pinkleton said. “Those were my feelings at the time.”

Pinkleton teared up while facing the jury and talking about the public’s negative reaction to Eramo after the article was published.

“People were very angry at me for supporting the ‘devil,’” Pinkleton said while choking up, before U.S. District Court Judge Glen Conrad ordered a break to allow her to compose herself.

Some community members still hold these feelings. Just last week, Eramo was called a “rape apologist while she was outside the courtroom on lunch break.

Pinkleton became overwhelmed with emotion for a second time when Elizabeth McNamara, Rolling Stone’s attorney, had her read a letter she sent to Eramo after the debunked article was published.

“People weren’t there for you so f—k them,” Pinkleton said before beginning to cry. McNamara continued reading it for her, “You’re one of the strongest, most generous people I know, and f—k Rolling Stone for trying to paint the picture otherwise.”

As a part of the letter, McNamara read that Pinkleton wished Eramo “cheers to a successful lawsuit.”

Dean of Students Allen Groves also testified Wednesday morning. Groves said he had a favorable opinion of Eramo’s job performance, and he too disagreed with the way she was portrayed in the article.

“It painted Eramo as indifferent, cavalier, suppressing statistics,” Groves said. “A view of the environment as unsafe and not advocating for students.”

Title IX policy states that regardless of whether a victim of sexual assault wants to pursue formal or informal charges, the University is still required to investigate the information. Groves said it was difficult to conduct an investigation because of the limited information Jackie provided.

“[Jackie] was unwilling to give [the] name of attacker, was uncertain of the fraternity and so, based on that, [Eramo] supported Jackie and did not conduct an investigation,” Groves said.

Groves said he was frustrated with Jackie for her unwillingness to provide the facts needed to take action.

Rolling Stone’s deputy managing editor Sean Woods was the last to take the stand. Woods, who was also the assigning editor for “A Rape on Campus,” affirmed there are no written policies about how fact-checking should be conducted at Rolling Stone.

“I thought it was clear to the reader that it was all Jackie’s recollection. I’ve been criticized for this,” Woods said. “I really regret the way I handled this.”

Following Pinkleton’s time on the stand, the jury watched John Ritter’s video deposition. Ritter is the freelance illustrator who created the three photoshopped images for the article, including one of Eramo. He said he was paid roughly $2,500 for his work.

University Associate Dean of Students Laurie Casteen, also spent time on the stand. She said she tried to take pressure off Eramo by serving as a “buffer.” Casteen said she met with Jackie and helped to establish regular police patrols of her home, gave academic support and referred her to counseling.

The trial will resume Thursday at 8 a.m.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-attorney-asked-jackie-to-disavow-rolling-stone-rape-article/2016/10/26/c0591e48-9bba-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html

U-Va. attorney asked ‘Jackie’ to disavow Rolling Stone rape article
By T. Rees Shapiro October 26 at 6:41 PM

CHARLOTTESVILLE — A University of Virginia attorney asked a student to disavow the Rolling Stone magazine story that contained her allegations of a gang rape at a campus fraternity, urging her to say after its publication that she had never informed the university of her allegations nor identified the fraternity in question, according to a document entered into evidence in federal court Wednesday.

The request, from an attorney in the U-Va. general counsel’s office in late 2014, suggested that it would be helpful to the university if “Jackie” were to issue a public statement about her interactions with U-Va. officials, but she testified under oath that the university’s proposed statement was untrue. Jackie did not sign the statement; she testified that she had told university officials that she was gang-raped by several men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house before the Rolling Stone story was published. She never reported those allegations to police.

A draft statement the University of Virginia asked a student named “Jackie” to sign after Rolling Stone magazine published a story about her gang-rape allegations. Jackie did not sign the document and says she knew it contained false information. (Court document)

In the proposed statement, the U-Va. lawyers asked Jackie to publicly contradict statements she made to Rolling Stone.


“The incident of September 28, 2012, is not accurately described in the Rolling Stone article nor did I ever state to anyone at the University of Virginia that I was gang raped on that date in the Phi Kappa Psi house,” the draft statement read. “Any implication or statement in the Rolling Stone story that I was not fully supported by Nicole Eramo and other University of Virginia personnel from the time I reported the incident is false.”

The previously undisclosed letter appears to show that U-Va. sought to mitigate the damage from the Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus,” which published in November 2014 and immediately put U-Va. at the center of a national discussion about sexual assault.

The letter came to light in a defamation trial here this week, in which former U-Va. dean Eramo is seeking $7.5 million in damages from Rolling Stone, alleging that the magazine’s reporters and editors erroneously portrayed her as callous and indifferent to allegations of sexual assault at the public flagship university.

In sworn testimony, Jackie said in her first public comments since 2014 that she continues to stand by the account of her gang rape allegations that were published in Rolling Stone, despite the fact that the magazine has retracted the story. (Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)

University officials sent the letter to Palma Pustilnik, a lawyer who represents Jackie, on Dec. 17, 2014, about a month after the Rolling Stone story ran and after an investigation by The Washington Post found significant discrepancies in Jackie’s account, including that there was no party at the fraternity on the night she said she was attacked nor anyone matching the description of the assailant on campus.

Pustilnik declined to comment about the U-Va. letter on Wednesday.

The letter requested that Pustilnik and Jackie agree to the university releasing a statement on her behalf written by the general counsel’s office. Richard C. Kast, the attorney from the U-Va. general counsel’s office, wrote to Pustilnik that releasing the proposed statement from Jackie “would be enormously helpful to the University.”

University spokesman Anthony de Bruyn declined to comment on the statement Wednesday.

The draft statement also asked Jackie to disavow the idea that she was mistreated in any way, taking aim at the central premise of the Rolling Stone article: “Any implication or statement in the Rolling Stone story that I was treated badly by the University of Virginia, discouraged from seeking help or initiating a University complaint or criminal investigation, or otherwise dissuaded from taking action, by either University of Virginia personnel or other University of Virginia students, is false.”

But in testimony this week, a number of U-Va. officials, including Eramo and Dean of Students Allen Groves, indicated that the administration was aware of Jackie’s gang-rape allegations and that it had alerted Phi Kappa Psi about them before the article was published. Groves testified that Jackie also told the university that two other women had come to her with similar gang-rape allegations, claims that also were later deemed not credible.

When questioned about the proposed statement from U-Va., Jackie said in taped testimony that it didn’t “accurately reflect my views.” Jackie also said that she “did tell people from U-Va. that I was gang-raped at Phi Psi.”

Jurors heard Jackie testify that she continues to stand by her account, though she said she suffers from memory loss and doesn’t remember details.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/uva-s-dean-of-students-describes-frustrations-with-jackie-rolling/article_b42a49c6-98e9-53f2-a8eb-73ee1f738ebd.html


UVa's dean of students describes frustrations with 'Jackie,' Rolling Stone

BY DEAN SEAL - 10/26/16

Attorneys for University of Virginia administrator Nicole Eramo said they might only need one more day to finish presenting evidence in their $7.5 million lawsuit against Rolling Stone magazine, its publisher and author Sabrina Rubin Erdely.

That estimate comes after the ninth day in court over claims made in Erdely’s November 2014 article “A Rape on Campus.” The piece was retracted in April 2015 after its centerpiece story of “Jackie,” a then-student who claimed she was gang-raped at a fraternity house in 2012, was discredited by several sources and an investigation from Charlottesville police.

Eramo, an associate dean tasked with providing support for student survivors of sexual assault at the time of publication, alleges the piece cast her as the “chief villain” who attempted to suppress the student survivors’ claims.

Eramo’s former boss, UVa Dean of Students Allen Groves, was the first to take the stand in Charlottesville’s federal court on Wednesday morning. Groves said that, after the article’s release, there was concern over whether Eramo should continue to work with students out of a fear that the article may have reshaped her reputation as an advocate.

Taking questions from Rolling Stone’s attorneys, Groves defended the administration’s handling of Jackie’s case. The Department of Education requires universities to “take reasonable action” in investigating claims of sexual assault even when the victim doesn’t want to report, as was the case with Jackie.

The magazine’s counsel worked to show that UVa had not done so with Jackie, giving credence to Erdely’s insinuations in her article, but Groves disagreed, saying that the “decision was made to try to support Jackie” and hope that more information would come forward over time.

After she was allegedly hit by a bottle in retaliation for speaking out about her sexual assault in spring of 2014, Jackie spoke again with Eramo and UVa administrators, telling them this time that she’d found two other young women who had been gang-raped at the same fraternity as she was. At the time, Jackie also said she planned to have a meeting with police about the bottle incident.

Groves said he reported all of this information to UVa President Teresa A. Sullivan and said he was “ecstatic” that Jackie was finally going to police because it meant that a criminal inquiry into the whole ordeal might finally be initiated.

“My perception was that this was now going to the police realm,” Groves said.

Later that spring, Groves was beyond disappointed to find that Jackie did not want the investigation into her assault to go forward and that the criminal case had been closed.

At this point, Groves was the “most frustrated” he’d ever been in his position as dean of students, saying that, without Jackie giving any further details about her assault, there was little he could do.

“I was angry Jackie would not give us the names [of her attackers],” Groves said. “I couldn’t understand.”

Groves said he considered launching his own investigation, but he worried about “tipping off” the fraternity in case the city’s prosecutor wanted to launch his own investigation. On top of that, Groves said that if he took action against the fraternity, it could continue operating, just without the sanction of the university, and Groves would lose his “leverage” over them.

Before leaving the stand, Groves said he believed the article to be “over-the-top” and “designed to make an almost comic demonization” of Eramo and UVa. Counsel for Eramo also had him review an email he sent to Eramo ahead of her scheduled interview with Erdely, in which he advised against any participation at all, fearing the story might be “a hatchet job.”

Later in the day, Alex Pinkleton, a former friend of Jackie who acted as a “liaison” between her and Erdely, testified about her participation in the article. An advocate herself, Pinkleton emphatically spoke about her enthusiasm for the article prior to publication.

“I wanted a piece that would talk about the nuances of rape culture,” Pinkleton said, later stating, “but that’s not the article that came out.”

The resulting piece was far from it, in Pinkleton’s eyes. While she’d hoped the article would speak mostly about advocacy, Pinkleton said she was disheartened to see that she was only quoted in the article speaking about the best way to get into a frat party.

Pinkleton spoke sweetly about the closeness of her relationship with Eramo, echoing most statements made by student advocates from UVa, including Jackie. When an attorney for the magazine noted that Erdely’s piece didn’t attribute any direct quote critical of Eramo to her, Pinkleton became emotional, saying students lashed out at her for supporting the then-vilified dean.

“People were angry at me for supporting ‘the devil,’” Pinkleton said before breaking into sobs. Eramo, too, began to cry.

A freelance illustrator who created the art that accompanied “A Rape on Campus” also spoke Wednesday. John Ritter, in a video deposition filmed earlier this year, confirmed he created the image that Eramo’s attorneys have frequently referenced as a demeaning depiction of her, but he seemed relatively detached from the case, speaking mostly about technical reasons behind his illustration.

The day closed with some testimony from Sean Woods, Rolling Stone’s deputy managing editor and the man who presided over Erdely’s piece. Similar to Erdely’s testimony, Woods fell on his sword repeatedly in regard to glaring faults in following up with sources in the story, but he defended the gist of the article and its implications about Eramo and the UVa administration’s handling of sexual assault.

Taking aggressive questions from one of Eramo’s attorneys, Woods frequently refrained, “I disagree with that characterization.”

Woods will continue to testify when the trial picks up on Thursday morning. Attorneys for Eramo say that Thursday may conclude the presentation of their evidence.

When asked for an assessment of Wednesday’s proceedings, an attorney for Rolling Stone stated, as they’ve said for several days, that Eramo’s attorneys had yet again failed to prove actual malice on Erdely’s part — the crux of their defense in this case.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/27/jackie-s-fog-looms-over-first-trial-against-rolling-stone.html

Jackie’s ‘Fog’ Looms Over First Trial Against Rolling Stone
Far from clearing up the real story behind the now-retracted article on an alleged gang rape at a UVA frat, the first trial against the magazine has been full of contradictory testimony—often from ‘Jackie’ herself.

Lizzie Crocker
10.27.16 12:00 AM ET

Two friends of “Jackie”—the University of Virginia student who may have falsely recounted a brutal gang rape in a 2014 Rolling Stone magazine article—said in federal court this week that they believe the story’s author, Sabrina Erdely, acted in good faith when reporting the story.

“I understand what it’s like to be lied to by Jackie,” Kathryn Hendley, known as “Cindy” in the now-retracted article, “A Rape on Campus,” said in a video deposition played on Tuesday, the eighth day of former UVA dean Nicole Eramo’s defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone. The suit claims that the magazine intentionally smeared Eramo as uncaring and indifferent to rape survivors on campus at a time when she was in charge of the school’s sexual assault prevention program.

Eramo’s attorneys, who did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast, have to prove that Erdely and Rolling Stone acted with “actual malice,” meaning that they either knew what they were printing about Eramo was false or should have known it was false.

On Wednesday, the court heard the testimonies of UVA’s dean of students, Allen Groves, and of Alexandria Pinkleton, a student activist who helped Erdely with the article and who was quoted in her story. In previous court filings, Eramo’s attorney quoted a deposition given by Pinkleton saying Erdely “basically admitted… she should have completely rewritten [the story] and regrets that she didn’t” when the two spoke the day Rolling Stone apologized for factual errors in the piece.

In court this week, Pinkleton reportedly testified that she was “very upset” by how Erdely portrayed her in the story and that she participated because she wanted to effect change around campus sexual assault at UVA. Eramo, she said, was “not a barrier to change.”

Groves reportedly said he was frustrated by Jackie’s refusal to name her alleged attackers at a UVA fraternity and that he had every intention of “putting these people in jail and shutting down the frat.”

A $25 million defamation suit filed against Rolling Stone by Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity where Jackie alleged she was assaulted, is scheduled to go to trial next year.

Prior to Wednesday’s testimony, a number of witnesses—including Jackie herself—suggested that Erdely did not act with actual malice.

In her video deposition on Tuesday, Kathryn Hendley said that when she finally spoke to Erdely, who contacted her a week after Rolling Stone issued an apology, she felt sorry for the reporter.

Jackie’s other friend Ryan Duffin, who was named “Randall” in the story, also sympathized with Erdely, who he said was “very genuinely apologetic” for failing to contact both him and Hendley before publishing the article, according to local reports from the trial.

He also said Erdely acted in good faith when she wrote the article, based on the information she had.

Erdely herself testified last week that she didn’t contact any of the “three friends” frequently referenced in the story because Jackie asked her not to do so, with Jackie stressing that Duffin had “declined on the strongest possible terms” to speak with her. Erdely also admitted it “was a mistake to rely on someone who was intent to deceive me.”

During her video deposition, Hendley said none of the quotes attributed to her in Erdely’s story were true and that reading parts of the article where she was named “Cindy”—a “self-described hookup queen” who, according the article, told Jackie she would be “the girl who cried rape” if Jackie reported her alleged assault to authorities—was like reading a “fictionalized version of [her] life.”

Hendley said Jackie never told her she was assaulted on the night of Sept. 28, 2012, and that she didn’t understand why she’d told two other friends in their close circle, Duffin and Alex Stock, instead.

Hendley claimed she was no longer friends with Jackie by the end of the next semester. When she read the Rolling Stone article in 2014, she said it was “shocking” to see Jackie’s allegations written up as a national news story—in part because the story’s version of events were markedly different from what Duffin and Stock recalled from the night of Jackie’s alleged assault.

In his deposition, Duffin said Jackie called him on the night of Sept. 28, 2012, and asked that he meet her near UVA’s freshman dorms—roughly a mile away from the Phi Kappa Psi house where the Rolling Stone article said Jackie’s best friends “Randall,” “Cindy,” and “Andy” met her after she was allegedly gang raped—because “something” had happened.

When he arrived at the dorms, Duffin said Jackie “seemed a little shaken” but not physically battered or otherwise harmed, contrary to the dramatic and bloody scene in the article.

Duffin said Jackie told him and Stock that she’d been on a date with “Haven Monahan,” whom they’d never met and knew only from Jackie. She'd previously said he was a junior on campus who was trying to court her. On September 12, Jackie told Duffin and Stock that she’d gone with him to his room at the Phi Kappa Psi house, where five men forced her to give them oral sex.

Duffin said in his deposition that he and Stock encouraged Jackie to contact police but that she refused. The quotes in the article attributed to her friends and the description of them discussing the “social price” of reporting her rape were all false, he said. Jackie’s claim to Erdely that he had refused to speak to the journalist was also false, Duffin said.

Indeed, Jackie’s account to her friends differed vastly from the sensational Rolling Stone story, which described how “seven men took turns raping her” while her date “Drew” (aka “Haven Monahan”) and another man egged them on; how one man had “barreled into her” when she first walked into the room, “sending them both crashing through a low glass table”; how another man was “on top of her, spreading her thighs, and another person kneeling on her hair, hands pinning down her arms, sharp shards digging into her back”; how the last thing she remembered was being penetrated by a beer bottle.

Duffin said in his deposition that, before the alleged assault, Jackie had encouraged him and Stock to exchange text messages with “Haven Monahan.”

“It felt kind of weird, but we saw it as a strange way to help out a friend,” Duffin said, adding that it became clear to him in the weeks following Jackie’s alleged assault that she'd invented Monahan as part of a “catfishing” scheme to win Duffin over romantically. (Two days after the alleged attack, Jackie told Duffin that Monahan had apologized for what happened and that she’d forgiven him.)

Eramo’s attorneys have also referenced the scheme and cited messages exchanged between Duffin and Monahan (PDF) in court filings, calling Monahan a “fake suitor” fabricated by Jackie “in a strange bid to earn the affections of [Duffin].”

When Duffin confronted Jackie shortly after the alleged assault about inventing Monahan, she denied it and accused Duffin of calling her a liar, according to their text messages. Duffin broke off their friendship and didn’t communicate with her again until after the Rolling Stone story came out. “Why did you tell us before the date happened that his name was…Haven Monahan?” he asked Jackie in a text message. “A name that belongs to no UVA student ever? Why has the name changed since then?”

Jackie’s response was convoluted: His last name was Monahan, she said, and “he called himself Haven,” she wrote in their final text exchanges. “His first name was John or jake or something.” She claimed he was “there that night but he was a bystander. He wasn’t involved. Not really.”

A fact-checker who worked with Erdely on the Rolling Stone story (and had worked with the magazine since 2010) also testified on Tuesday “about the 80 hours she spent fact checking the article, confirming details through countless sources and documents,” Rolling Stone said in a statement to The Daily Beast, adding: “In more than 4 hours of fact checking conversations with Ms. [Elisabeth] Garber-Paul and over 20 hours of interviews with Sabrina Rubin Erdely, ‘Jackie’ told the exact same account of her sexual assault.”

On Monday, the court heard a recorded deposition from Jackie, who occasionally contradicted herself in her own testimony, according to The Washington Post.

At one point she suggested that the Rolling Stone story was inaccurate—that she felt like “my interpretation was different than what was written” and recalled reading the story and “thinking I probably would not have written it that way.”

Later, she said the story was accurate: “I stand by the account I gave Rolling Stone and I believed it to be true at the time.”

Asked whether she still believed her story to be true, Jackie said she had memory issues as a result of trauma from her alleged assault (“I believed it was true but some details of my assault—I have PTSD and it’s foggy”).

When asked in the deposition about allegedly inventing evidence to support her accusations—like fake text messages from other women who, she claimed, were also sexually assaulted at the same fraternity—Jackie responded: “I just don’t remember any of this. It’s all very foggy. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

She claimed she didn’t remember whether she told Erdely that she was bloody when she left the fraternity house, and likened Erdely’s attempts to identify her alleged assailant to a “witch hunt.”

Yet she also said she thought that Erdely had “done her best to recount what I’d told her” in the story and that she “felt bad” about how Eramo and her friends were portrayed in it.

She said she “wouldn’t use the word indifferent at all” to describe Eramo and, contrary to what the article suggested (“If Dean Eramo was surprised at Jackie’s story of gang rape, it didn’t show”), believed Eramo “cared very much” about sexual assault and rape survivors.

The trial is expected to continue through the end of the week.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.nbc29.com/story/33495794/rolling-stone-trial-day-10

Rolling Stone Trial: Magazine Editor Testifies for 2nd Day
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - 10/27/16

Jurors in a multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit will be sitting in a federal courtroom for longer than was initially expected.

Judge Glen Conrad informed the jury Thursday morning that the trial will be going into next week. This is now day 10 of what was scheduled to be a 10-day trial.

Sean Woods, the deputy managing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, was back on the witness stand for a second day.

The magazine published "A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Ruin Erdely in its November 2014 issue. The article centered on "Jackie", then a UVA student, who described being gang raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in September of 2012. An investigation by Charlottesville police in 2015 found no evidence to back up the claims made in the article. Rolling Stone eventually retracted the article and apologized.

Eramo, then the associate dean of students at UVA, claims Erdely’s article unfairly portrayed her as indifferent to Jackie's plight and only interested in protecting the university's reputation. She filed a lawsuit against Rolling Stone, publisher Wenner Media, and Erdely. Eramo is seeking around $7.5 million in damages.

Thursday, Woods continued to take plaintiff’s attorney Elizabeth “Libby” Locke through the process that lead up to the publication of Erdely’s article.

Locke showed the court an October 25, 2014 email from Woods to Erdely saying in part, "I worry that we can't confirm the two girls coming to Jackie and alleging gang rape at the same fraternity."

Erdely responded via email to Woods on Oct. 26, 2014, with, "I wish I had better sourcing for a lot of the Jackie stuff."

Woods told the jury, "I thought Jackie was rock solid." He went on to say, "I thought we had a rock solid source."

Locke pointed out emails from November 3, 2015: In them there seems to be some concern that Jackie has gone silent as the magazine readies to publish the article. Woods emailed Erdely, “Any word from Jackie?”, who replies with, “not a word.”

Woods said in court that there were conversations over “recasting the lead” in the article, having it center on “Stacy” instead of Jackie.

Locke asked Woods why he deleted a disclosure that Jackie refused to identify “Jay”, who was called “Drew” in the article. According to Jackie, Jay/Drew is the fraternity member who took her into the room where she was gang raped. According to Woods, that disclosure was to be in the last section of the article. He testified that he wanted to work that information into the story, but it didn't make it into the printed version. Woods said, "I deeply, deeply regret it."

Locke later asked Woods if there was a cover up, which he replied, "I wouldn't characterize it as that."

Woods claims Erdely’s article doesn't paint Eramo as indifferent; instead, he sees the piece as helping Jackie.

Locke brought up the illustration of Eramo in the article, which appears to show her smiling and giving the thumbs up to a possibly distraught woman. The attorney asked Woods if he thought Eramo looked caring in that image, which Woods replied, "I think it shows her doing her job."

Woods told defense attorney J. Scott Sexton that he “firmly believed Jackie's story." He also testified, "We saw her [Jackie] as a victim, and we let our guards down."

Woods sent an email to Erdely on December 5, saying "I've offered to resign over the story."

An independent review by the Columbia Journalism School detailed Rolling Stone journalistic malpractices in “A Rape on Campus.”

"I think all of our reputations were trashed," said Woods in court. He added, "It was a terrible blow."

Woods talked about former-Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana, calling him a mentor. Dana was let go last year, partly because of the article.

"It broke him [Dana]. It broke all of us. We were all shattered," Woods said.

Woods is still employed with Rolling Stone, and is the corporate representative for the magazine in this trial.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.c-ville.com/day-9-uva-believed-jackie-say-witnesses/#.WBL3Z8nZbpJ


Day 9: UVA believed Jackie, too, say witnesses

Lisa Provence
10/26/16 at 7:37 PM

Attorneys for plaintiff Nicole Eramo called her former boss, Dean of Students Allen Groves, to the stand October 26 to bolster her claims that she was unfairly portrayed as a callous administrator to victims of sexual assault in Rolling Stone’s article, “A Rape on Campus.”

“My first impression, and it remains my impression, it painted a picture of Nicole as someone who was cavalier, no pun intended,” as someone who suppressed statistics and who was not advocating for students, Groves said of the November 2014 article.

Student trust of administrators is “hugely important,” said Groves, and that was why Eramo was removed from her position as sexual assault intake counselor after the article was published. “Not because I did not believe she was anything but capable,” said Groves. “My fear was the perception of the student body was that she was not.”

Groves was aware that Jackie had reported her alleged September 2012 assault to Eramo months later on May 20, 2013.

And in April 2014, after she’d allegedly been beaned by a bottle thrown in retaliation for her advocacy work among assault survivors, Jackie came back to Eramo and reported two other women had similar experiences at Phi Kappa Psi, he testified.

On April 22, 2014, “Jackie said she was willing to talk to police,” said Groves. “I was ecstatic.” That euphoria quickly waned when Jackie said the detective she talked to was “aggressive” and she refused to name her assailant.

“I was angry that Jackie would not tell us this guy’s name,” said Groves. “I couldn’t understand how you could have that violent an act and not take action.”

Under cross-examination, when Groves was questioned about a September 17, 2014, text Eramo sent to Jackie and Alex Pinkleton that said the university was “flat-out f*cked” because of Hannah Graham and the upcoming Rolling Stone article, Groves paused for an emotional moment.

“That was a very difficult fall for us, the most difficult I’ve encountered,” he said. “Sorry.”

He said if he’d known about that text and another in which Eramo referred to some of her survivor students as her “awesome bitches,” he would have advised her, “I’d prefer you don’t use that language in talking with students.”

Groves acknowledged that the university was already under fire for its handling of sexual assault cases, and the Office of Civil Rights had begun an investigation in April 2011.

When reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely e-mailed Eramo for an interview, Groves wrote, “I’d prefer not to do it at all. In my opinion, Rolling Stone has not been objective in recent years. The description of hypotheticals, OCR, specific cases, etc., leads me to believe this is a hatchet job.”

That same fall, UVA’s alumni magazine also was working on a story about how UVA handles sexual assault, and Groves was sent a draft to edit, he said.

The article began with Emily Renda’s assault as a first-year after getting drunk. “My case is a fairly typical campus sexual assault story,” she’s quoted as saying. “How can this be a ‘typical’ experience at our nation’s institutions for higher education,” questioned the piece, which noted that no one has ever been expelled for rape at the university, a fact also included in the Rolling Stone article.

The alumni magazine story was killed.

Groves said he believed Jackie until the Rolling Stone article came out. So did associate dean Laurie Casteen. And so did Alex Pinkleton, according to their testimony.

Pinkleton, a sexual assault advocate active in One Less and a 2016 UVA grad, was a close friend to Jackie—at least before the article. Initially, she said, she was excited about the story because she wanted to draw attention to rape culture on campus and raise awareness. She said 90 percent of her comments to Erdely were about that, but she was quoted in the article as talking about how “hot girls” can get into fraternities.

“Obviously I was offended,” said Pinkleton.

“I”m very critical of UVA, but Dean Eramo is not part of that,” said Pinkleton, who said she respected Eramo and babysat for her. And she said she was concerned about how Erdely would portray Eramo.

Pinkleton said she encouraged Jackie to stay involved in the story “because it’s important to control your story.” And she said she’d never questioned Jackie’s story. “I just validated what she said. That’s what advocates do.”

During cross-examination, when describing her reaction to the article and how it portrayed Eramo, Pinkleton began crying. The judge ordered a short break.

When she came back, she said she was critical of how UVA handled sexual assault after Jackie’s tale of being raped by seven men at Phi Psi, and wrote in a 2014 e-mail, “They can investigate and notify students. That’s inexcusable.”

Pinkleton said she is represented by the same firm representing Eramo, Clare Locke, which helped her prepare for testimony for several hours. “The reason I did was because Rolling Stone subpoenaed my e-mails for two years,” she said.

Courtesy Rolling Stone Illustrator John Ritter, who did the now-notorious illustration that Eramo said made her “look like the devil,” testified that he had altered her eyes because they were downcast and not looking at the student figure he’d photoshopped into his illustration.

Jurors got to see other illustrations he’s done, including one of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, whose eyes are altered, as well.

Rolling Stone deputy managing editor Sean Woods was the last witness of the day, and attorney Libby Locke grilled him on the decisions he made in editing Erdely’s story, including cutting out a section about Eramo taking Jackie to the police.

“You didn’t see that as relevant?” asked Locke.

“I disagree with that characterization,” said Woods.

Eramo’s team expects to finish with its witnesses tomorrow.

Outside the federal courthouse, Locke said it was another good day in court with Groves and Pinkleton testifying about how they read the article “as a negative portrayal” of Eramo.

Rolling Stone’s attorney David Paxton seemed equally pleased. “Through this part of the trial, we’ve heard no evidence there was any actual malice.”

Clarification 10:26 am October 27: Alex Pinkleton’s criticism of UVA’s handling of Jackie’s alleged rape was from a 2014 e-mail, about which she testified in court.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/28/is-there-a-case-for-naming-jackie-in-the-rolling-stone-sex-assault-lawsuit.html

Is There a Case for Naming ‘Jackie’ in the Rolling Stone Sex Assault Lawsuit?
The gang-rape story she told has been discredited, but ‘Jackie,’ who still maintains she was sexually assaulted at the University of Virginia, remains under a cloak of anonymity.

Lizzie Crocker
10.28.16 12:02 AM ET

In the two years since her explosive gang-rape story shocked the country, “Jackie” has been a cornerstone in our national debate about campus sexual assault and is currently at the center of defamation suit filed against Rolling Stone, which published the now-discredited article on her alleged sexual assault.

Yet the full identity of the University of Virginia student who, evidence suggests, may have fabricated a harrowing story to a Rolling Stone reporter, remains an open secret: While known to many people, Jackie’s full name continues to be protected by both the court and the mainstream media.

The media’s decision not to expose Jackie’s full identity rests on a long-standing journalistic standard against naming alleged victims of sexual assault, so as to protect their privacy and livelihoods. Likewise the court’s decision to allow Jackie to remain pseudonymous during trial proceedings in the defamation suit brought by former UVA dean Nicole Eramo, who once counseled Jackie as an alleged survivor, against Rolling Stone and Sabrina Erdely, the journalist who failed to do due diligence in reporting Jackie’s story.

Indeed, Erdely admitted to relying almost entirely on Jackie—a single, unreliable source—to mount a series of damning accusations against UVA, Eramo, and Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity where Jackie claimed she was raped (Phi Kappa Psi’s $25 million defamation suit against Rolling Stone is scheduled to go to trial next year).

But given that many aspects of Jackie’s story have repeatedly been shown to be false, through reporting following the article’s publication and a subsequent, extensive police investigation, does protecting her identity now seem questionable?

Police found no evidence to corroborate Jackie’s story that she was assaulted at Phi Kappa Psi or any other fraternity, as she told Dean Eramo, friends, and Erdely, giving inconsistent accounts to these parties.

Instead, they found evidence suggesting she’d serially lied about various details of her alleged assault, some of which weren’t included in the Rolling Stone article. Jackie’s roommate denied pulling shards of glass from Jackie’s face, as Jackie said she’d done, after claiming male bullies on campus threw a bottle at her after the alleged assault; Jackie also claimed she’d phoned her mother after she was hit by the bottle, but phone records showed no calls were placed at the time.

Police determined there was no party at Phi Kappa Psi on Sept. 28, 2012, the night of her alleged assault, and found no evidence that “Haven Monahan,” the junior Jackie said she’d been on a date with the night she was supposedly raped, is a real person.

Eramo’s attorneys have presented texts in court filings between “Monahan” and Jackie’s friend Ryan Duffin, arguing that they were part of a catfishing scheme by Jackie to win Duffin’s affections.
ADVERTISING
inRead invented by Teads

Yet we don’t know for sure that Jackie isn’t a victim of sexual assault. After concluding a five-month investigation, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo made it clear that just because they found no evidence of the rape and other violence she described to Rolling Stone, “that doesn’t mean something terrible didn’t happen to Jackie… we’re just not able to gather sufficient facts to determine what that is.”

Jackie and her attorneys have consistently maintained that she is a victim of sexual assault, though they’ve provided no evidence or further details in court filings beyond simply claiming victimhood.

In a deposition played before the court earlier this week, Jackie—whose face was not shown to jurors—occasionally contradicted her own testimony. At one moment she suggested Rolling Stone had “skewed” her words and that she remembered reading the story and “thinking I probably would not have written that way”; at another, she said she stood by the account she gave the magazine and “believed it to be true at the time.”

When asked if she still believed her story to be true, Jackie replied that she has “PTSD and it’s foggy,” attributing her memory issues to trauma resulting from her alleged assault. Critics have argued that her fogginess is convenient, given that she wasn’t foggy when recalling her story to The Washington Post following the Rolling Stone article’s publication—two years after the alleged assault.

Yet strange as it is for a person at the center of this lawsuit (though neither a defendant nor the plaintiff) to remain unidentified both in court and in the media, it’s debatable whether naming her would serve the public.

“Jackie’s allegations and interactions with the reporter are absolutely critical in the case, but publishing her name for the whole world to see is a different issue altogether,” said Robert Drechsel, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Get The Beast In Your Inbox!
Daily DigestStart and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.
Cheat SheetA speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).
By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Drechsel noted that, for the time being, he couldn’t articulate any overwhelming public interest in identifying her.

“There might be future developments in the case which could change that, but it seems the right thing to do at this point is to not name her,” he said.

The judge presiding over the case has taken the same position, since she’s referenced only as “Jackie” in court documents.

Andrew S. Boutros, a former federal prosecutor and national co-chairman of Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s White Collar Group, said courts are careful not to subject alleged victims of sex crimes to additional scrutiny or to victimize the victim again.

The same rule generally applies in cases like Eramo v. Rolling Stone, where Jackie—the alleged sexual assault victim—is a central witness.

“Courts are very mindful of policy implications and will insist on certain rules that will transcend one particular case in order to avoid the potential for a ‘slippery slope’ scenario,” he noted. “These same policies sometimes apply in other areas, such as in prosecutions and street games or to cartel members, where the government will also seek to ensure the anonymity and safety of cooperating sources by avoiding having them named in open court or any court documents.”

The fact that this case is so unusual gives the judge all the more reason not to name Jackie, therefore setting a precedent on a rare case and potentially loosening policy standards.

One case for Jackie to come forward herself is that doing so might change the climate of silence and shame surrounding sexual assault and rape.

Take, for instance, the cascading number of women who have publicly accused Donald Trump of sexual assault and misconduct since the first woman went on the record in The New York Times saying Trump assaulted her.

Or Chessy Prout, the former student at St. Paul’s School who appeared on the Today show with her family to contradict the not-guilty verdict handed down to Owen Labrie: No matter what the jury said, Labrie had raped her.

Geneva Overholser, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1991 series in the Des Moines Register about an Iowa woman who was raped (the woman, Nancy Ziegenmeyer, gave Overholser permission to use her full name in the story), has since argued that the standard of not identifying accusers “is a particular slice of silence that I believe has consistently undermined society’s attempts to deal effectively with rape,” and that not naming victims hasn’t seemed to reduce the number of unreported sexual assaults.

“The longstanding nudge (by journalists and others) toward anonymity that women who have been raped have been experiencing has no doubt comforted some, at least for a period,” she writes. “But, increasingly, the underside of this approach even for the individual is acknowledged. Painful as the truth can be, absorbing the notion that you can’t tell it can be worse.”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.roanoke.com/washingtonpost/uncategorized/university-of-virginia-sought-to-kill-alumni-magazine-article-on/article_39830545-7e92-58d5-9246-2bb27d84e17c.html

University of Virginia sought to kill alumni magazine article on campus sex assault

By T. Rees Shapiro The Washington Post | Posted: Thursday, October 27, 2016 6:13 pm


CHARLOTTESVILLE — In the weeks before Rolling Stone magazine published an article about sexual assault at the University of Virginia in November 2014, Dean of Students Allen Groves wrote a message to high-ranking administrators questioning the magazine’s bias.

“In my opinion, Rolling Stone has not been objective in recent years,” Groves wrote, noting that it “leads me to believe this is a hatchet job.”

Groves testified this week in federal court as part of a $7.5 million defamation lawsuit filed by former UVa dean Nicole Eramo against Rolling Stone, claiming that the article portrayed her as callous and indifferent to sexual assaults on campus. The magazine later retracted the article after the Columbia University Journalism School wrote a report outlining its significant flaws.

Groves’ inclination that the administration should be cautious dealing with the magazine proved prescient. But Eramo, the dean responsible for overseeing the university’s sexual assault cases, had written messages separately indicating at the time that she was eager to participate in an interview with the Rolling Stone journalist who reported and wrote the story, Sabrina Rubin Erdely.

“I’m afraid it may look like we are trying to hide something for me not to speak with her,” Eramo wrote.

The UVa administration ultimately declined Rolling Stone’s requests to speak to Groves, Eramo and Claire Kaplan, the director of the campus Women’s Center. Rolling Stone did interview UVa President Teresa Sullivan, but her answer to several of Erdely’s detailed questions was: “I don’t know.”

While Rolling Stone was pursuing its later-discredited story, the UVa administration considered an alternative: a proposed article to be published in the university’s alumni magazine about how the school handles sex assaults on campus. The alumni association, which operates the publication independently of the university, commissioned a freelance writer to examine the administration’s sex assault prevention policies and practices.

The freelance writer interviewed Sullivan, Groves, Eramo, Kaplan and other UVa staffers and students. And when the alumni magazine received a draft, the publication sent a copy to Groves for review. He sent back “suggested edits,” Groves testified Wednesday.

The alumni magazine article spanned several thousand words and explored student perspectives about sex assault prevention efforts.

“At UVa in particular, the following questions are echoing louder and louder across Grounds: Why is it that no student has been expelled for rape in modern University history? Why is sexual assault not part of the University’s revered Honor Code?” the article read. “And in the wake of UVa second-year Hannah Graham’s death in September, what are administrators doing to keep students safe?”

Along with Groves, other top UVa administrators also expressed deep concerns about the proposed draft.

“If this is a MUST DO it needs to be substantially revised,” wrote Susan Davis, who served at the time as associate vice president for student affairs, expressing concerns that the article made it appear as if UVa was shirking the federal anti-sex discrimination law. “This reads as if we are not compliant with Title IX, even though we are.”

In an email chain entered into evidence on Wednesday that also included university Vice President Patricia Lampkin, Groves wrote in response to Davis that “if it is to be killed or modified” that administrators had to act fast within the alumni magazine’s deadline.

Davis wrote back: “I vote to kill it.”

The article never ran.

A UVa spokesman said Thursday that the university does not comment on pending litigation, even if they are not a party to it, and declined to make Davis available for an interview.

Tom Faulders, president of the UVa alumni association and publisher of its magazine, acknowledged in an interview that the UVa administrators’ concerns significantly influenced the decision to jettison the freelance article. He added that the article the magazine had commissioned did not meet the editors’ original expectations.

“The freelancer went out on her own and interviewed a lot of people and came back with a very different story,” Faulders said. “It was too much of a mess to clean up in the time frame that we had.”

Faulders said that the magazine decided to send the article to the administration for pre-publication review to examine its scope. Faulders said the magazine killed the story in part because there were “quotes we couldn’t verify and facts we couldn’t verify,” and he stands by the decision two years later.

“We probably did what Rolling Stone should have done,” Faulders said. “If you can’t validate the facts, don’t run it.”

Erdely’s account explored many of the same themes as the draft alumni magazine article, including the university’s adjudication process that allowed sex assault survivors to choose whether to pursue action against their alleged perpetrators.

In September 2015, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights later ruled that UVa had violated Title IX for failing to properly investigate 22 allegations of sexual assault between 2008 and 2012. Sullivan told The Washington Post that all 22 of those cases involved students who chose not to file official complaints or follow up with an informal resolution option.

Testifying Wednesday, Groves said that he did not agree with the Education Department’s findings. Groves also was asked whether he agrees with his original assessment of the Rolling Stone article.

“Yes,” Groves said. “I think it was a hatchet job.”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Fully Featured & Customizable Free Forums
Learn More · Sign-up Now
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers · Next Topic »
Add Reply