Current:Home > MarketsA woman accuses a schoolmate of raping her at age 12. The school system says she is making it up.-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
A woman accuses a schoolmate of raping her at age 12. The school system says she is making it up.
View Date:2024-12-23 19:19:37
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A 24-year-old woman told jurors Tuesday that she was repeatedly raped and sexually harassed a decade ago as a seventh-grade student in Virginia, and that school officials reacted to her pleas for help with indifference.
Lawyers for the school system say she is making it up, and she wept on the stand when she was cross-examined about evidence suggesting her allegations were untrue.
An eight-person civil jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria will have to decide whether the woman — identified in court papers only by her initials B.R. — is telling the truth, and whether school officials should be held liable for their response.
The case is one among several high-profile sexual misconduct cases that have been filed in recent years against northern Virginia school systems. Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has faulted school systems for their responses to issues of student safety.
The case involving B.R. stretches back to allegations she was raped and harassed as a 12-year-old student at Rachel Carson Middle School in Reston, a part of the state’s largest school system, Fairfax County Public Schools.
B.R.'s allegations were the impetus for a 2014 settlement with the U.S. Department of Education and the school system, over accusations the district failed to adequately investigate the student’s complaint.
But the school system admitted no wrongdoing as part of that settlement. And in the ongoing civil trial brought by B.R., the district alleges that she fabricated the rape allegations.
In court papers, the district has accused B.R. of perpetrating a “fraud upon the court.”
The school system’s lawyers introduced evidence Tuesday of social media posts and text messages back from 2011 that seem to suggest that B.R. and her alleged rapist — a 13-year-old eighth grader — were actually a boyfriend and girlfriend who willingly engaged in sex acts.
In one of the texts, B.R. flatly tells the boy “I love you” at a time when she now says she was being repeatedly raped by the boy after school at a bus stop.
B.R., according to the school system, only claimed the sex was against her will after the boy broke up with her and after her mother discovered a salacious voicemail message on the girl’s phone and alerted school officials.
B.R., though, was adamant in her testimony that she was raped multiple times by the student at the bus stop and in some nearby woods, and that other kids routinely surrounded her and fondled her on school grounds at her locker.
She testified Tuesday that she sent text messages purportedly showing a willing sexual relationship only because her attacker threatened her and made her send them so that no one would believe her if she ever claimed rape.
And she denied that she was the author of several other social media posts that seemed to indicate a consensual sexual relationship between the two, despite details in the messages that included her locker number at school and other specifics that correlated directly to her.
The school district also argues that B.R.'s claims have evolved over the years. The first written complaint that she made to school officials in November 2011 makes no allegations of rape or unwelcome physical contact. Instead, it says that she was called names, that she was falsely accused of promiscuity, and that boys were crowding her and giving her “seductive looks.”
B.R. acknowledged in her testimony that she never told school officials about the rape allegations. But she said she told them in conversations that boys at school were touching her breasts and genitalia, and that her complaints were largely ignored over a period of months before she finally withdrew from the school.
“I felt like I lost my voice as a 12-year-old,” she said. “I felt like no one believed me.”
Her allegations have also evolved since she first filed her lawsuit in 2019. In one amended version of her complaint, B.R. said that groups of unknown men gang-raped her multiple times in a school closet, and she suggested in court papers that the attacks were related to gang trafficking. In her testimony at trial, though. B.R. made no mention of those alleged gang rapes.
The trial is scheduled to conclude next month.
veryGood! (82)
Related
- Climate Advocacy Groups Say They’re Ready for Trump 2.0
- Delaware gubernatorial candidate calls for investigation into primary rival’s campaign finances
- US Soccer Stars Tobin Heath and Christen Press Confirm They've Been Dating for 8 Years
- Inflation rankings flip: Northeast has largest price jumps, South and West cool off
- Volkswagen, Mazda, Honda, BMW, Porsche among 304k vehicles recalled: Check car recalls here
- Taylor Swift 'at a complete loss' after UK mass stabbing leaves 3 children dead
- Olympics 2024: Brody Malone's Dad Will Bring You to Tears With Moving Letter to Gymnast
- Chants of 'Heil Hitler' shouted by antisemitic protestors at Israel Olympic soccer game
- DWTS' Gleb Savchenko Shares Why He Ended Brooks Nader Romance Through Text Message
- Coco Gauff ousted at Paris Olympics in third round match marred by controversial call
Ranking
- Ford agrees to pay up to $165 million penalty to US government for moving too slowly on recalls
- Meta agrees to $1.4B settlement with Texas in privacy lawsuit over facial recognition
- 2024 Olympics: Jade Carey Makes Epic Return to Vault After Fall at Gymnastics Qualifiers
- Woman killed and 2 others wounded in shooting near New York City migrant shelter
- Pedro Pascal's Sister Lux Pascal Debuts Daring Slit on Red Carpet at Gladiator II Premiere
- Francine Pascal, author of beloved ‘Sweet Valley High’ books, dead at 92
- Did Katie Ledecky win? How she finished in 1500 free heat, highlights from Paris Olympics
- A New York state police recruit is charged with assaulting a trooper and trying to grab his gun
Recommendation
-
The Daily Money: Mattel's 'Wicked' mistake
-
US golf team's Olympic threads could be divisive. That's the point
-
Illinois sheriff, whose deputy killed Sonya Massey apologizes: ‘I offer up no excuses’
-
Terrell Davis says United banned him after flight incident. Airline says it was already rescinded
-
Catholic bishops urged to boldly share church teachings — even unpopular ones
-
Best of 'ArtButMakeItSports': Famed Social media account dominates Paris Olympics' first week
-
UCLA ordered by judge to craft plan in support of Jewish students
-
2 children dead, 11 injured in mass stabbing at dance school's Taylor Swift-themed class