A woman who says she was raped by a former Baylor University classmate is upset over a plea bargain that will spare him from a jail sentence, saying the justice system is “severely broken.”
Judge Ralph Strother’s decision on Monday to accept the plea deal for Jacob Walter Anderson marked at least the third time the Texas judge has approved probation for men accused of sexually assaulting Baylor students.
The woman said she was plied with a drink of punch at a 2016 party and became disoriented. She said Anderson led her behind a tent and repeatedly raped her while she was gagged and choked.
“He stole my body, virginity and power over my body,” the woman said in court, according to a family spokesman.
Anderson had been indicted on sexual assault charges, but the deal allowed him to plead no contest to a lesser charge of unlawful restraint. A no-contest plea means a person does not admit guilt but will offer no defense.
The former fraternity president agreed to probation, counseling and a $400 fine. He will not be forced to register as a sex offender.
Anderson was expelled from Baylor after a university investigation.
“I not only have to live with his rape and the repercussions of the rape, I have to live with the knowledge that the McLennan County justice system is severely broken,” the woman said in a statement. “I have to live with the fact that after all these years and everything I have suffered, no justice was achieved.”
Anderson’s attorneys declined to comment.
District Attorney Abel Reyna defended the plea deal in October, saying prosecutors “achieved the best result possible with the evidence at hand.” He said evidence did not support the allegation that the victim may have been drugged.
Strother, the judge, said Monday that in making the decision, he had the benefit of arguments filed by attorneys on both sides and a background report assembled by a probation department. He said many of the comments he saw on social media or in emails were “not fully informed, misinformed or totally uninformed.”
Last year, Strother sentenced a man to probation after he pleaded guilty in the 2013 rape of a former Baylor student. The judge ordered the man to pay for the woman’s counseling. The man told police the woman had been drunk, according to an affidavit.
The judge earlier this year sentenced a man to probation and 30 days in jail for the sexual assault of a former Baylor student. The man, who was a student at the time and told authorities the sex was consensual, was allowed to serve the jail time on the weekends.
Strother did not return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.
The alleged assault by Anderson happened around the same time that Baylor was engulfed in a sexual assault scandal surrounding its football team in 2016. It resulted in the firing of coach Art Briles and the demotion of the university’s president, former Whitewater special prosecutor Ken Starr. The school’s athletic director was disciplined by the school and resigned.
The university has since settled several lawsuits from women who said their allegations of sexual assault by football players were mishandled or ignored.
The outrage over Anderson’s plea deal also mirrors reaction to the case involving former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner, who was convicted in 2016 of sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman outside a fraternity party. A judge in that case rejected a prosecutor’s demand for a lengthy prison term and instead sentenced Turner to six months in jail. He was released after serving three months.
