Monday, December 15, 2014

Friends of "Jackie" Continue to Dish Rolling Stone's UVA Rape Story

University of Virginia student Alex Stock talks during an interview with The Associated Press in Charlottsville
As more information continues to come out of the mouths of the friends of "Jackie," the purported gang rape victim at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia, it looks increasingly that both "Jackie" and Rolling Stone's reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, were engaging in fantasy and sought to create a cataclysmic story regardless of the true facts.  If they sought to further women's rights and fight campus sexual assault, all that they have done is make future victims of actual assault less likely to be believed.  It is also noteworthy that, unlike "Jackie," the three friends dished in the Rolling Stone article are not afraid to use their real names as they try to set the record straight.  Here are highlights from Yahoo News:
Almost a month after the scathing Rolling Stone article was published, Kathryn Hendley, Alex Stock, and Ryan Duffin are still trying to set the record straight.

The friends told The Associated Press that the article about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia frat house was wrong on a number of key points, especially its assertion that they urged the victim to not report the attack.

Duffin, a 20-year-old, third-year student referred to as "Randall" in the Rolling Stone article, told the AP that not only did he encourage the alleged victim to go to police, but he started to dial 9-1-1 on his cellphone until she begged off saying she just wanted to go back to her dorm and go to sleep.

The AP also spoke with the other two friends portrayed in the article: third-year, 20-year-old U.Va. students Hendley and Stock, known as "Cindy" and "Andy" in the article. None of the three friends was contacted by Rolling Stone's reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, before the article was published; each of them rejected multiple assertions made in the article, for which Rolling Stone has since apologized for and noted discrepancies.

Jackie eventually told Duffin and Stock her version of what happened that night: that she was forced to perform oral sex on five men at the frat house.

"My first reaction was, 'We need to go to police,'" he said. "I wanted to go to police immediately. I was really forceful on that, actually. And I almost took it to calling (the police) right there." He said he had his phone out, prepared to call 9-1-1, "but she didn't want to and," he remembers thinking, "'I can't do that if she doesn't want to do it.'"
I'm not saying that force oral sex is anything to be ignored, but it is something far, far different than being gang raped after being thrown through a glass top table as reported by Rolling Stone.  Obviously, someone is lying and it would appear to be "Jackie."   

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