After a judge agreed to allow a former Baylor University fraternity president to take a plea agreement in a sexual assault case that will result in no jail time, his accuser told the court and the prosecution that they had failed her.
“I am devastated by your decision to let my rapist Jacob Walter Anderson go free without any punishment,” the woman, who has not been identified, said while addressing Judge Ralph Strother on Monday in a Waco, Texas, courtroom.
Before the woman’s statement, Strother had agreed to allow Anderson, 23, to take the plea deal, which would dismiss four counts of sexual assault in exchange for a plea of “no contest” to a charge of unlawful restraint.
As part of the plea agreement, Anderson will serve three years of probation, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. He will not be required to register as a sex offender.
“He stole my body, virginity and power over my body and you let him keep it all for eternity,” the woman said.
Had the judge denied the plea agreement, Anderson would have gone to trial. An attorney for Anderson did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by NBC News.
The accuser says Anderson sexually assaulted her at a fraternity party in February 2016.
Anderson and the woman were at the party when she was offered a drink that made her feel ill, she says. She claimed that after that Anderson took her outside for fresh air, then assaulted her.
Addressing Anderson directly, the woman said: “It must be horrible to be you. To know what you did to me. To know you are a rapist. To know that you almost killed me. To know that you ruined my life, stole my virginity and stole many other things from me.”
She said in her statement that on top of living with what happened to her, she now has to “live with the knowledge that the McLennan County justice system is severely broken.”
McLennan County Assistant District Attorney Hilary LaBorde said in a statement that she believed the plea agreement was “the best outcome given the facts of the case.” She said that Anderson will now be on “felony probation and will receive sex offender treatment,” adding that those punishments were not guaranteed if the case went to trial.
“Given the claims made public, I understand why people are upset. However, all of the facts must be considered and there are many facts the public does not have,” LaBorde said. “In approving this agreement, Judge Strother had access to all the statements that have ever been made by all people involved and agreed that the plea agreement offered was appropriate in this case.”
Vic Feazell, the accuser’s attorney, said in an email to NBC News that he was disappointed in the case’s outcome.
“Our entire system failed this young woman,” Feazell wrote. “In 40 years of law practice, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/accuser-confronts-former-baylor-university-frat-president-court-he-gets-n946121
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