The University of Virginia dean suing Rolling Stone for more than $7.5 million after a now-discredited story about a university gang rape at a fraternity house, which she said painted her as the “chief villain” in the case, is asking for access to the alleged rape victim’s text messages and other communications.
Associate Dean Nicole Eramo’s legal team filed documents January 6 that say Jackie, the alleged victim in the 2012 story titled “A Rape on Campus,” should not be protected from having to reveal her texts because there’s no evidence that a rape actually took place.
“What Jackie is refusing to produce is not evidence of a sexual assault, but evidence that she lied,” Eramo’s lawyers wrote in a submitted document, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
The associate dean’s attorneys call Jackie a “serial liar” in the filings and seek documents related to Haven Monahan, the student Jackie says she was on a date with the night of the alleged rape and whom officials later learned was never a student at UVA. A person by the name of Haven Monahan has never been found or linked to the case.
A January 8 Washington Post article, “‘Catfishing’ over love interest might have spurred U-Va. gang-rape debacle,” suggests that Jackie created Monahan, a fake suitor, to spark love between herself and fellow university student Ryan Duffin. She encouraged Duffin to text Monahan, whom she said was in her chemistry class, and Duffin told the Post that Monahan seemed “infatuated” with Jackie. In a later investigation, photos of Monahan, which he purportedly sent to Duffin, were determined to be photos of a person from Jackie’s high school, who was not Monahan.
Monahan once told Duffin in a text message that he should have more sympathy for Jackie because she had a terminal illness. Duffin says he asked Jackie about the illness and she confirmed to him that she was dying.
Jackie has not been named as the defendant in any of the three lawsuits the retracted story has spawned. Along with Eramo’s suit, one has been filed by the UVA chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, where the rape allegedly took place, and by a smaller group of men from the fraternity who say they were alluded to in the story.