Tag: jackie

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Fraternity knew Jackie’s claims sketchy, but kept silent, says Rolling Stone

After the Rolling Stone article was published in 2014, angry protesters gathered outside the Phi Psi house. Photo Martyn Kyle

The national Phi Kappa Psi organization was in court last week seeking to quash subpoenas from Rolling Stone, which contends both the national and UVA chapter of the fraternity knew there were “factual discrepancies” in Jackie’s story of a gang rape before the magazine published its now infamous “A Rape on Campus,” but kept quiet about those discrepancies to both Rolling Stone and to UVA then-associate dean Nicole Eramo.

Had the fraternity spoken up, the article “never would have been published,” said Rolling Stone in a court document.

The local Phi Kappa Psi chapter, scene of Jackie’s tale of a now-discredited alleged gang rape, is suing Rolling Stone for $25 million, the third defamation case stemming from the November 19, 2014, article.

Last fall, a jury awarded Eramo $3 million, a verdict Rolling Stone is trying to get set aside. And a suit filed by three fraternity brothers was thrown out.

At the April 5 hearing, the attorney for the national Phi Kappa Psi organization argued it was a separate legal entity from the local chapter. Rolling Stone’s subpoenas seeking information from all 99 chapters was “absolutely invasive” and “absolutely unnecessary,” said attorney Dirk McClanahan. “They don’t need to hunt down our dirty laundry.”

While the local chapter will produce the documents requested, he said, “The guys in Des Moines who are busted for hazing or drinking are categorically irrelevant.”

Rolling Stone attorney Jonathon Fazzola disagreed and said embarrassing members affect both the national organization and chapters throughout the country. “They’re inextricably linked,” he said.

Two months before the Rolling Stone story was published, said Fazzola, the national organization was contacted by UVA with Jackie’s allegations. It sent someone to the chapter to investigate, and prepared talking points to the media and training sessions—and consulted attorneys about libel.

Fazzola further argued that Phi Psi initially found Jackie’s allegations plausible because “it knows its own culture” and that its investigation “could be an admission it knows its own reputation.”

While Judge Richard Moore found the latter “a stretch,” he acknowledged Rolling Stone’s efforts. “If they can show [Phi Kappa Psi] already had a lousy reputation,” the article “can’t hurt it,” he said.

Moore also mentioned 2006, the year Liz Seccuro saw charges brought against Phi Psi member William Beebe for a 1984 rape at the UVA chapter. His involvement came to light when he wrote an apology letter to her 21 years later as part of a 12-step program. Beebe was convicted and served 18 months in prison.

‘It’s relevant that there have been sexual assault allegations at chapters,” said Rolling Stone attorney Liz McNamara, who defended the magazine in last fall’s federal court trial.

Rolling Stone also argued that the national fraternity did not have standing to quash the subpoenas because it was not a party in the suit, pointing out that its insurer, Holmes Murphy & Associates, had not objected to the discovery requests.

McClanahan maintained that the national org “is a victim here, too,” and that Rolling Stone had an agenda against all fraternities. He said the magazine’s 29 subpoenas are “unduly burdensome” and an attempt to “terrorize” the chapters.

“They’re saying, ‘We believe Phi Kappa Psi could be institutionalizing rape and we want to explore that further,’” said McClanahan. “What we’re getting is blind conjecture.”

Judge Moore took a break to read the subpoenas. Upon his return, he said, “I’m just not persuaded most of what’s asked for is relevant. Most are too broad.”

He quashed 13 of Rolling Stone’s 29 subpoenas.

After the hearing, Rolling Stone seemed undeterred by the denials.

“The local fraternity here is seeking a whopping $25 million in damages,” said McNamara in an email. ”Clearly their reputation is intertwined with the national reputation of Phi Kappa Psi.” PKP national has been very involved from the outset, she said, “and we believe it’s appropriate to get discovery from the national organization, and the judge agreed with us on that point.”

The case is scheduled for a 10-day jury trial starting October 23.

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Arts

Movie review: Jackie explores a new point of view

Natalie Portman carries the role of widow and former first lady in Jackie. Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

The myth of the Kennedys and Camelot is so interwoven in the fabric of American history and identity that we often forget how intentionally it was constructed to be just that. The style, the dinners, the decorations, everything was carefully planned to project a particular image that would inspire Americans and survive long after the administration ended. But the intentionality of it all makes it no less genuine; people need a national mythology to remind them of who they are, what they value and where they’ve been.

Jackie
R, 91 minutes
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

This is the subject of Jackie, Pablo Larraín’s new film that is being advertised as a biopic but is much closer to a meditation on a theme or a visual essay. Natalie Portman plays First Lady Jacqueline “Jackie” Kennedy, a composed and confident character with a constant eye toward how Americans of today and future generations view their leaders and, by extension, themselves. The film begins with Jackie speaking with Theodore H. White (Billy Crudup) of Life magazine after she’s left the White House. Larraín then brings us on a journey through Jackie’s time in the public imagination, switching between her famous televised tour of the White House, the fateful day in Dallas, the period of time that followed in which she was responsible for Jack’s funeral and, therefore, legacy, interwoven with her dialogue with White.

Larraín is primarily concerned with exploring Jackie and her point of view, with the facts of her biography taking a backseat to the person she chose to be. She is surrounded by handlers and powerful men looking out for her well-being, including Bobby Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard), all of whom are interested in the immediate practicality of transition and stability. These issues are no doubt important, but Jackie knows that these are not what people will remember when they think of this hectic time. They’ll remember grace, they’ll remember powerful symbols, and they’ll remember feelings more deeply than the sequence of events. The events of our lives are often out of our control, but our legacy is of our own making.

Larraín’s camera frequently floats behind Jackie as she walks through the halls, capturing as much of the scenery as possible with her low in the frame, depicting her in her chosen context as was her wont. The wonderful score by Mica Levi (Under the Skin) feels modern yet timeless, amplifying the film’s themes of legacy and memory. Portman’s performance is studious and captivating, as attentive to both appearance and depth as the first lady herself.

Despite its intelligence, good intentions and a career-defining performance by Portman, it would be difficult to recommend Jackie to anyone but the devoted. The lack of a narrative center is its greatest artistic strength, but Larraín often circles back to the same point with nothing in particular to say that hasn’t already been said several times. And though Levi’s score is one of the year’s best, it is too often placed at random and becomes unfortunately distracting.

None of this is enough to ruin Jackie, however. Observant, philosophical and unforgettable for its examination of intentional myth-making, Jackie is a template for a new kind of biopic and a revelation for the already beloved Portman.

Playing this week

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213
Assassin’s Creed, Collateral Beauty, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Fences, Lion, Manchester by the Sea, Moana, Office Christmas Party, Passengers, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Sing, Why Him?

Violet Crown Cinema
200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000
Assassin’s Creed, Collateral Beauty, Fences, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Passengers, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Sing

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News

Day 10: Rolling Stone’s remorse in defamation trial

The final Thursday witness for the plaintiff in the $7.5 million libel trial against Rolling Stone was Sara Surface. A friend to Jackie, Surface seemed to have a purpose in alleging that reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely had prejudged plaintiff Nicole Eramo.

“She disregarded me because I didn’t fit the narrative,” said Surface.

An email released during the case’s discovery phase showed that Erdely viewed Surface not as a true activist, but as a “covert mouthpiece for the administration,” something Surface denied.

“If she had listened to my personal experiences and feelings,” the testy former student testified, “maybe she wouldn’t be getting sued now.”

The bulk of the testimony, however, was the second day of Rolling Stone’s deputy managing editor Sean Woods being confronted by plaintiff’s counsel Libby Locke.

In the morning, Locke asked Woods and the jurors to look at their phones to contrast text messages with the screen shots Jackie provided of text messages by two other alleged victims. Locke said it seemed suspicious since the name “Jackie”– as if she were the sender– shouldn’t be at the top of the screenshots.

Amid laughter from Woods and the jurors, several pointing out that phones weren’t allowed in the federal courtroom, Locke turned to the judge.

“Well, this isn’t going very well, Your Honor.”

Locked shifted course to emails such as the one on October 23 when Erdely opens with an F-bomb expletive to tell her editor the protagonist Jackie is in “full freakout mode.” But Woods downplayed the prospect of a pulling-out protagonist.

“This happens all the time,” said Woods.

As late as November 3, Erdely emailed, Jackie had gone silent. But Woods says he remained calm.

“I had other articles I could have run,” he explained.

Once Jackie resumed communications, there were problems with the story. Woods emailed Erdely to urge some confirmation– beyond Jackie– about two other women allegedly raped in the Phi Psi house.

“I wish I had better sourcing for a lot of the Jackie stuff,” Woods replied. “A lot right now is resting on Jackie’s say-so, including the entire lede.”

Letting Jackie serve as the source not only for her now-disproven tale of fraternity house gang rape but for quotations from allegedly callous friends prompted Locke to blister that lede.

“It misled readers, didn’t it?” demanded Locke.

“It did,” admitted Woods.

Locke asked the witness to admit the story lacked corroboration.

“I thought we had a lot of corroboration,” Woods testified, “but here we are.”

“Here we are,” the lawyer repeated.

On questioning from the defense, Woods pointed to an array of official-sounding statements that seemed to bolster Jackie’s tale. There was a UVA administrator named Emily Renda who testified about it under oath to the U.S. Congress. There were the those real-looking text messages. And even the UVA president personally confirmed to Erdely that the fraternity was under investigation.

Yet Woods constantly conceded mistakes– particularly when reminded that he assured a inquiring reporter that Rolling Stone verified both the existence and the identity of the alleged rapists.

“Yeah, I stepped over the line,” admitted Woods. “And I deeply regret it.”

At one point, Locke spoke of another potential smoking gun. Three days after publicly disavowing the story online, Woods reached out to Jackie with a voicemail that noted, in part, “we’re standing by the story.”

“It’s like the stages of grief,” Woods explained. “I was in denial.”

Over the course of the interrogation, Woods admitted reporting, sourcing, editing and attribution errors– including giving up on attempts to reach the rape ringleader or the trio of supposedly rape-condoning friends.

“We did debate these things,” said Woods. “We just came to the wrong conclusions.”

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Day 8: Rolling Stone fact checker, Jackie’s friends testify

For a second day, former Rolling Stone fact-checker Elisabeth Garber-Paul took the stand to explain why she believed Jackie, the student whose fake gang rape story sent the University of Virginia campus into uproar two years ago.

“She seemed to really care about getting this story right,”  testified Garber-Paul. “She was totally comfortable with having her peers know she was the Jackie in the story.”

Unlike other witnesses in this trial, now in its eighth day, Garber-Paul turns directly toward the jury to explain that she conducted a pair of two-hour conversations with Jackie.

“Four hours in one week is a lot for a college student,” Garber-Paul testified.

The fact-checker said documentation supplied by reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely included a 431-page file including contemporary emails, alleged injury photos, and the transcript of congressional testimony about Jackie’s ordeal from the UVA administrator who had first introduced Jackie to the Rolling Stone reporter.

But the witness said it wasn’t just written records that seemed to validate the story; it was also Jackie’s way of recounting her alleged rape.

“It was like she had these snapshots in her head– 360-degree memories,” said Garber-Paul.

The images seemed so clear, vivid and painful that Jackie seemed at one point to be losing her breath, and Garber-Paul offered to pause the process.

“She said, ‘Let’s keep going.'”

The fact-checker said the college student spoke as someone recounting a terrifying ride.

“It was like she could close her eyes and see what was going on at every stop,” said Garber-Paul. “I believed everything in the article to be absolutely accurate.”

After lunch, the plaintiff fired back by blasting the decision not to reach out to Jackie’s former friend Kathryn Hendley, or “Cindy,” whom the article quoted as calling herself a “hookup queen” and supposedly telling Jackie she should have enjoyed getting raped.

“Why didn’t you have fun with it?” Cindy is quoted in the story. “A bunch of hot Phi Psi guys?”

“Those quotes were too perfect, weren’t they?” demanded plaintiff’s attorney Andy Phillips. “You didn’t contact her because you knew she’d deny them, didn’t you?”

The fact-checker disagreed. The lawyer then suggested that Garber-Paul should have noticed that Jackie was hiding witnesses who could corroborate her story.

“Isn’t that a giant, waving, red flag?” asked Phillips.

“I didn’t realize that she was in any way preventing us,” replied Garber-Paul.

However, the lawyer refused to retreat and reminded her that Jackie must have possessed contact information for her former friends. Finally, Garber-Paul agreed that Jackie may have been stonewalling.

“This is not specialized fact-checker information,” concluded Phillips. “This is common sense.”

The afternoon included testimony from two police officers revealing that Jackie refused to cooperate in their attempts to criminally investigate her alleged gang rape or a subsequent tossed-bottle incident.

But the bulk of the afternoon was consumed by playing video depositions of two of Jackie’s former friends, Kathryn Hendley and Ryan Duffin. Both testified that the Rolling Stone article departed in dramatic fashion from their memories of the aftermath of Jackie’s fateful date.

Each said that Jackie had trumpeted her plan to meet up with her mysterious suitor, “Haven Monahan,” on September 28, 2012, the night of her alleged gang rape. Jackie would claim that Monahan then orchestrated a five-man assault in which Jackie was forced to perform oral sex.

It was a bizarre climax to a month, the friends testified, of catfishing, creating fake messages in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to woo Duffin by making him jealous.

Hendley and Duffin disputed key details in the Rolling Stone account, saying they saw no blood or injuries on the friend who would later claim herself the victim of a three-hour, seven-man attack atop the shards of a smashed glass table.

“A complete fabrication” Duffin called the story, while Hendley– aka Cindy– called Rolling Stone’s account “a fictionalized version of my life.”

DSC_0031-Erdely-m
After a Tuesday afternoon recess, reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely returns to court. Photo Hawes Spencer

In the video, laughing off her portrayal as the callous “hookup queen,” Hendley reveals that when Erdely finally contacted her a few weeks after the article came out, she felt sorry for the reporter.

“I definitely understood,” she said, “what it was like to be lied to by Jackie.”

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News

Bad memory: Jackie testifies on Day 7 of Rolling Stone trial

If “yes, to my great regret” has become the stock answer for remorseful Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely, then her protagonist in the now-discredited gang rape tale—the one who sent a college into chaos two years ago—has found a mantra of her own: “I don’t remember.”

Before a hushed courtroom in downtown Charlottesville, a federal jury and a gallery of 24 spectators gathered Monday to hear over two hours of Jackie bobbing and weaving around questions in her videotaped deposition.

This wasn’t the chatty Jackie of yore, the one who enthralled the visiting Erdely over dinner at the College Inn restaurant. Or even the the deeply scarred Jackie who dove into radio silence a month before Rolling Stone’s once-blockbuster article.

This was the Jackie whose memory couldn’t even be refreshed by looking at text messages and emails from two years ago, such as a text in which she claims that she was misrepresented.

“It says that I did,” she allows.

In the original article, the reporter accused UVA President Teresa Sullivan of over-invoking “I don’t know” as an answer, but in the nearly three hours of audio-taped deposition, Jackie said some version of this answer at least 50 times—before we lost count.

Some of the things Jackie can’t recall: why she stopped responding to Erdely, whether she backed out of the article, whether she later agreed to be in it, whether she claimed to get a sexually-transmitted disease from her alleged attack, and how Erdely—as Jackie claimed in a note to a friend—took “artistic license” and “sensationalized” her story.

“I can’t remember anything specific,” says Jackie. “I just remember reading the article and thinking I wouldn’t have written it that way.”

The lawyer presses for more.

eramo legal team
Nicole Eramo leaves court with her legal team: Libby Locke, Tom Clare and Andy Phillips. Photo Eze Amos

“It’s very difficult to explain, to articulate,” says Jackie.

As the one of the defense lawyers warned in the opening statement a week ago, Jackie—though she reveals in the deposition that she’s now married to her childhood sweetheart—”she’s a completely different person—like a shell.”

On the tape, she sniffs like Donald Trump at a debate. Her lawyer, Palma Pustilnik, who has threatened legal action against a reporter contacting her client, issued a blanket statement: “My client continues to have no comment in this matter.”

Surely, she would remember meeting with UVA Police over the criminal report she filed after allegedly getting beaned with a beer bottle on the UVA Corner?

“I don’t remember,” she says. “I have PTSD.”

She declares that she didn’t want to file criminal charges.

The climax of the proceedings comes when she’s presented a set of screenshots of text messages she’d emailed Erdely. Ostensibly from two friends and fellow rape survivors, the women were adamant about not being interviewed, and the lawyer asked if Jackie clandestinely created the text messages.

The reply: “I can’t remember.”

“You can’t remember one way or another?” gasped the bewildered barrister, who then asked if she wished, under penalty of perjury, to deny making the messages.

“I just don’t remember any of this,” replied Jackie. “It’s foggy.”

The day ended with a blistering examination of Elisabeth Garber-Paul, the Rolling Stone fact-checker.

mcnamara-amos
Team Rolling Stone includes attorney Liz McNamara. Photo Eze Amos

C-VILLE Weekly’s coverage continues tomorrow.

Correction October 25: Headline “Jackie deposed in Day 7 of Rolling Stone trial” changed to reflect that Jackie testified in court through her previously videotaped deposition.

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Day 5: A recording of ‘Jackie’ makes waves

Former Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely put in a third day on the stand Friday, a day spent answering friendly questions from the defense in an effort to show how a veteran journalist could be duped by a college girl named Jackie– the centerpiece of a story that became a libel trial.

For over two hours, the jury listened to an interview in which Jackie talks of “daddy issues” that led her to become depressed. College was supposed to provide a fresh start, but barely a month into her freshman year, she was allegedly attacked.

She tells Erdely that she got a tattoo to brand herself a survivor. As Erdely describes it, it’s a women’s symbol with a fist, a rose, and the word “unbreakable.”

Rolling Stone defense lawyer Scott Sexton stops the audio to ask Erdely, “Did it ever occur to you that someone would get a tattoo on their body to commemorate a sexual assault that didn’t happen?”

Erdely’s voice shakes in reply: “Never.”

As the anniversary of her alleged September 28 attack neared, Jackie tells Erdely on the tape, she’d have nightmares in which she pictures herself walking up stairs but telling herself, “Don’t go.”

“I’d sleep during the day and stay up all night because I just couldn’t deal with the dark,” she said.

“I reverted to thoughts of suicide and self harm,” Jackie tells Erdely. “You can run as fast as you can, but you can never get over it. I still have nightmares.”

“She tells it in such a real and emotional way,” Erdely says on the witness stand. “She’s so conscientious with her details I could feel it.”

She wasn’t conscientious about every detail.

The jury hands a note to the judge. They want to know what to make of Jackie’s varying pronunciations of the fraternity where she was allegedly raped. The background noise is distracting, but she seems to call it Chi Phi, Chi Psi, Pi Phi– rarely, if ever, the one actually named in the story: Phi Psi.

Rolling Stone’s lawyer says he’d be happy to stipulate Phi Psi. But Eramo attorney Libby Locke suddenly stands and demands that the jurors trust their own ears.

“It goes to credibility,” says Locke.

Judge Glen Conrad agrees.

The infamous rape school quotation came into the record as Jackie can be heard telling the tale of what Dean Nicole Eramo, the plaintiff, was quoted in the article saying about the UVA’s alleged penchant to bury rape statistics.

In Jackie’s words: “She looked at me very solemnly and said, like, ‘Well, who would want to send their daughter to the rape school?'”

With her chin up and her gaze fixed firmly on Erdely, Eramo lets a hint of a confident smile course across her lips, as this pillar of her lawsuit– that she never actually said it– can be heard coming from the mouth of Jackie.

Later, Jackie can be heard telling Erdely about running into two of her alleged rapists in the beverage section of Walmart while she and a boyfriend were making a night-time search for spinach. Erdely took the tale as more evidence of truth.

“Her level of specificity just reinforced her believability,” Erdely testified. “She didn’t just run into them at Walmart; she ran into them in the juice aisle.”

Jackie’s not on trial here, as the judge and lawyers remind the jurors from time to time, but she seems to relish certain aspects of victimhood. She enthuses about her 12-person UVA course on women & violence, but she reserves her greatest enthusiasm for One Less, a support group for female sexual assault survivors.

“I’m not in a sorority,” she tells Erdely. But in One Less, she says, there are sorority-like get-togethers where women share emotional “highs and lows.”

“All of us are really close,” Jackie tells Erdely. “It’s a little sorority within itself.”

There almost seemed to be a little sorority within Erdely and Jackie. The audio reveals the two talking of post-traumatic stress disorder and swapping tales of psychologists, bio-feedback therapy and migraine headaches– all while as sporting events, music, and the sound of billiard balls clink in the background.

In court, Erdely testifies that Jackie, who speaks at a rapid clip, seemed “outgoing and forthright” as well as “bubbly and enthusiastic.”

How this sister act will play with the jurors who appear to be in their 40s, 50s, and low 60s is unclear; but the college student definitely made an impression on the reporter.

“It was like drinking from a firehose when you were with Jackie,” Erdely testified. “She just talked and talked.”

Jackie seems particularly talkative on the topic of “Becky,” another woman that Jackie claims shared her story of getting raped at the same fraternity.

“She spoke like Spock from Star Trek,” says Jackie, as Becky tells of going into a room with three men.

“They summoned another boy into the room,” continues Jackie, “and I remember she used the word ‘summoned.'”

“What, was she carrying a thesaurus?” jokes Erdely, impressed with the diction and the specificity of the tale.

Jackie notes that “Becky” acts formally, dresses in business casual, and proceeds to say she was an unwilling participant in “forcible sexual intercourse.” And then leaves.

“She looks at her watch and was like, ‘I’ve got to get to class now.'”

Jackie, while admittedly more emotional than Becky– whom the defense lawyer suggests may be fictitious– is never heard in the audio protesting her role as the controversial story’s centerpiece. And, Erdely testified, Jackie never asked the reporter to remove her.

“And after it came out,” said Erdely, “she was thanking me for the article.”

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Day 4: Erdely gives scarring testimony

“I found her to be very credible,” said the reporter on the podcast. “I put her story through the wringer.”

This audio about “Jackie,” the now-discredited protagonist of a once-blockbuster magazine article was played for jurors, as the plaintiff’s attorney tried to crush the credibility of reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely on Day Four of the $7.5 million libel suit filed by former UVA dean Nicole Eramo.

“I spoke to virtually all of her friends to find out what she told them at various points,” continued the Slate podcast published on Thanksgiving Day in 2014, during arguably the  greatest days of Erdely’s journalism career.

It was just eight days after the release of “A Rape on Campus,” a now-retracted story Erdely penned for Rolling Stone. And the words from the podcast hung over the courtroom, as plaintiff’s attorney Libby Locke attempted to demolish them.

Using Erdely’s own interview notes, Locke got Erdely to concede that Jackie’s roommate Rachel Soltis recalled that Jackie described her violation as a five-man oral assault that included penetration with a broken beer bottle. The magazine, however, depicted a seven-man rape with an intact beer bottle.

“Yeah, the details changed over time as she came to terms with the rape, which is typical of trauma survivors,” Erdely explained.

Locke pointed to another friend who, Erdely’s notes indicate, said Jackie claimed she’d been violated with a coat hanger.

“The important thing to me,” Erdely shot back, “was that she was verifying that she had been raped with a foreign object.”

There was one moment when Locke may have thought she’d caught Erdely with another inconsistency, a discussion of the victim wearing a red dress in one account and then a blue dress in the roommate’s account.

“She was making a joke,” said Erdely. “She’s referring to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.”

Locke’s questions suggested that allegations of scars on Jackie’s back and arms provided another pile of bogus information.

“I asked to see the scars on her back,” Erdely said in her own notes, as shown on two large video monitors. “Her boyfriend hadn’t seen them, but it had been two years, so I accepted the explanation that they had faded. In the dim light I see nothing.”

The notes show that Jackie then offers, “I can wear something tomorrow to show them.”

The jurors heard audio of a dinner interview in which Jackie says, “All of my friends are like, ‘What are those?’ And I’m like, ‘Those are from September 28.”

Erdely would later tell Washington Post journalist Paul Farhi: “Jackie showed me the scars that she said she’d suffered the night of her attack.”

Erdely refused to answer Farhi’s questions about whether she knew the attacker’s name and whether she’d interviewed him. He said it would be journalistic “malpractice” if she hadn’t.

“You’re getting sidetracked,” she chastised Farhi in a November 30 e-mail exchange in which she said the main point of her article was the culture and a UVA administration “which chose not to act on her allegations in any way.”

Around the same time, however, the notes show Erdely was losing confidence in Jackie and e-mailed Jackie to point out that none of her friends had seen the scars.

Also at that dinner interview according to a transcript put on the screen, Jackie tells the table that the gang rape gave her syphilis, something that catches her boyfriend off guard.

“I don’t have it any more,” Jackie reassures him.

It wasn’t the last time Jackie carried a claim about syphilis. She alleged that one of her three best friends—the ones who comforted her after the alleged gang rape—contracted the disease after sleeping with 40 guys.

“You never challenged her,” says Locke.

“Yes,” replies a quietly weeping Erdely, “to my great regret.”

That was the friend Erdely put in the story under the pseudonym Cindy, a “self-described hookup queen” who frets that Jackie should remain silent to avoid being “the girl who cried rape,” adding that they’d “never be allowed into any frat party again.”

After Locke pressed Erdely to admit that she waited until after the article’s publication to grill Jackie on the inconsistencies, the judge interjected a question of his own: Who asked Erdely to re-report.

“Jann Wenner,” was her answer.

The founder-owner of the rock/culture magazine has not been attending trial, but his magazine’s future may hang in the balance if his recent decision to sell a 49 percent stake is any indication.

Erdely was to be one of the magazine’s stars. She revealed Thursday that after writing stories for Rolling Stone for several years, this one was to be her first under a new contract that would have paid her $300,000 for seven stories over the course of two years.

During a discussion of the days in late August when Jackie allegedly stopped replying to the reporter’s texts and e-mails, Locke begins reading from one e-mail shown on a screen. When she gets to Jackie’s last name, plainly visible to the gallery, the lawyer suddenly halts and shouts to a nearby technician: “If we could take that down, please, off the screen.”

Later, the technician dims the gallery screens again when a photograph appears of Jackie’s purported facial injuries from an incident—disputed by the Charlottesville Police Department—in which Jackie was allegedly injured by a thrown bottle.

“Keeping her identity confidential is important,” said Judge Glen Conrad, to encourage “other victims” to come forward. How Jackie, now with multiple false accounts, convinced a judge as well as both sides of this litigation that she’s a “victim” has yet to be explained.

Devastatingly, Locke produced interview audio in which Erdely mentions the photo to Jackie and says the supposed facial injuries resemble “something smeared,” a substance, the reporter said, “looked like face paint.”

In response, Erdely downplayed the statement as merely a manifestion of alleged abrasions that were “so bright.”

In early November, as the article was getting vetted, an e-mail from proofreader Elizabeth Garber-Paul asked if Erdely had received a last name or comment from the alleged rape ringleader.

She e-mailed back: “Unfortunately, the answer is no and no.”

Just a week or two earlier, late October, Jackie was threatening to pull out of the story, according to texts from Jackie’s friend Alex Pinkleton.

“I need to be clear about this,” Erdely texted back, “there’s no pulling the plug at this point—the article is moving forward.”

It was October 24 when Erdely e-mailed her editor, Sean Woods: “Fuck. Jackie is in full freakout mode right now.”

The next day, Erdely turned on the charm in an e-mail to Jackie: “You’re about to make a difference. I know you can do this Jackie. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. Give yourself a hug. Everything is going to work out fine.”

A separate Erdely email to Rolling Stone’s photo editor noted that “Jackie is in not-great mental shape right now.”

Didn’t Erdely realize that Jackie had PTSD? Locke demanded.

“I’m not a doctor,” replied Erdely. “I have no qualms about building my lede around someone who is emotionally fragile.”

But wasn’t this a mistake in this instance, Locke demanded.

“It wasn’t a mistake to rely on someone [so] emotionally fragile,” Erdely said softly on the witness stand, as her voice broke and tears flowed in an otherwise silent courtroom. “It was a mistake to rely on someone who was intent to deceive me.”

Locke pointed out that Eramo had brought police to speak with Jackie, but later let that get removed from an early draft of the story. “A reader would have no idea that Dean Eramo took Jackie to meet with the police.”

“This article was not about how the university handles bottle incidents,” said Erdely. “It was about how the university handles sexual assaults.”

At issue was the “rape school” quotation attributed to Eramo, something that Erdely says, “Jackie told me twice, and I believed her. “

And Erdely conceded she had not strenuously attempted to verify—though she points out that she learned that her planned meeting with Eramo was cancelled as she was boarding a plane from Philadelphia to Charlottesville.

“UVA made it very clear,” testified Erdely, “that I was going to have no access to Nicole Eramo.”

Erdely also unashamedly continued to criticize the university’s policy for laying out three judicial choices for rape victims, an array that the reporter contends harms justice.

“Victim choice left Jackie, as it leaves many other victims,” said Erdely, “paralyzed.”

Locke read the second editor’s note which apologized to everyone “damaged” by the story and repeatedly asked Erdely whether Eramo had been damaged. Even after her lawyer, Scott Sexton, objected, the judge allowed the question.

“I’m sure that her feelings were hurt,” was the most Erdely would offer, well aware, as her lawyer pointed out, that “damages” has a legal meaning in a libel trial.

Erdely acknowledged the hate mail Eramo received but pointed out Eramo subsequently received a pay raise and ascribed Eramo’s removal from working with students to being found liable of violations of Title IX, the law meant to protect women on campuses. Pressed whether she stands by the story, Erdely didn’t hesitate.

“I stand by everything in the article that did not come from Jackie.”

Updated October 24: Eramo filed a motion October 17– the first day of trial– withdrawing her demand for $350,000 in punitive damages, bringing the monetary awards she wants down to $7.5 million.

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Eramo’s status: Public figurehood will determine how lawsuit plays out

Courtesy Rolling Stone

A phalanx of lawyers assembled to argue motions in former UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo’s lawsuit against Rolling Stone, along with plaintiff Eramo herself, August 12 in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville.

Eramo’s $7.85 million defamation lawsuit against the magazine, writer Sabrina Rubin Erdley and Wenner Media is scheduled for a jury trial in October, and Rolling Stone attempted to get the suit thrown out on the grounds that Eramo is a public official and must meet a higher standard and prove the November 2014 article “A Rape on Campus” was published with actual malice, which means a reckless disregard for the truth.

The now-discredited article told the story of Jackie, who claimed she had been gang raped at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in 2012, a tale that almost immediately fell apart and that Rolling Stone retracted in April 2015. The piece also has generated lawsuits by the fraternity and three of its members, the latter of which has been thrown out.

Eramo’s team had three lawyers at the plaintiff’s table, led by Tom Clare, who is also representing ousted Penn State president Graham Spanier, who is suing the school for breach of contract for releasing a report that found he helped cover up Jerry Sandusky’s child molestations.

Rolling Stone has five attorneys listed in its court filings, and lead attorney Elizabeth McNamara is currently representing Tony Schwartz, Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal ghostwriter who has denounced the Republican presidential candidate.

Clare kicked off the proceeding by pointing out that the Rolling Stone article is “quite literally” on exhibit as a “cautionary tale” of media mistakes in the Newseum in D.C.

The article mentioned Eramo 33 times, said Clare, including in a picture that was photoshopped to show her giving a thumbs up gesture to a victim of sexual assault while “Stop victim blaming” placard-carrying protesters marched outside her window.

“Is this too mean?” Rolling Stone’s fact checker had queried in red ink. The magazine “ignored dozens of warnings and red flags” about Jackie’s credibility, said Clare, and “irreparably damaged” Eramo’s reputation by its portrayal of her as an indifferent administrator responsible for handling victims of sexual assault at the University of Virginia.

“It depends on the spin you put on this,” said Judge Glen Conrad, when Clare asserted that the article showed Eramo as unfit to perform her duties and demonstrating a “want of integrity.”

Clare’s partner, Libby Locke, argued that Eramo was a private, not a public, figure who was not responsible for setting policy at the university. As an intake official, Eramo was the one who would get the call from assault victims, and she was legally precluded from discussing those interactions. And although she was head of the Sexual Misconduct Board at UVA, Eramo hadn’t done anything in that role in a year, said Locke.

“She was interviewed 28 times by the campus newspaper and TV stations,” said Judge Conrad. “She was the face of the university on sexual assault.”

Conrad said he anticipates the case will go to trial, with Eramo as a limited purpose public figure, a designation that requires her to prove actual malice on the part of Rolling Stone.

“This may be the most clear case of actual malice the Fourth Circuit has seen,” assured Locke.

When Rolling Stone republished the article online December 5, 2014, with the editor’s note that the magazine had lost confidence in Jackie’s credibility, that constitutes actual malice, said Locke, because it stood behind the reporting regarding Eramo, including the statement Eramo denies she said about why there are no statistics on sexual assault: “Nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school.”

“Rolling Stone knows how to issue a retraction, and it did so on April 5,” said Locke.

For Rolling Stone attorney McNamara, there were multiple individual grounds to dismiss the case, most notably because Eramo is a public figure and she failed to establish actual malice.

“Rolling Stone has apologized to her,” McNamara said. “Rolling Stone took prompt action within hours when it became apparent there were questions.” Up until December 5, the defendants believed Jackie was credible, she said.

And Eramo’s claim that it was actual malice for Rolling Stone to publish an apology sends a “chill to publications that they correct errors at their peril,” said McNamara. “Publishing a retraction or apology is evidence of not actual malice.”

She asked that the lawsuit be dismissed, a request Conrad seems unlikely to agree to, but he said he will rule on whether Eramo is a public figure.

A two-week trial is scheduled to begin October 11.

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Flurry of filings in Rolling Stone lawsuits

Phi Kappa Psi. File photo

Last week saw one lawsuit against Rolling Stone dismissed, while Sabrina Rubin Erdely filed an 86-page statement about how she reported the UVA-rocking article “A Rape on Campus,” and plaintiff Nicole Eramo asked for several issues to be determined in advance of her October defamation trial against the magazine and Erdely.

On June 29 a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Phi Kappa Psi brothers George Elias IV, Stephen Hadford and Ross Fowler, who were not named in the article.

A dozen documents were filed July 1, including Eramo’s request for a partial summary judgment on issues such as whether she was a public figure, whether the depiction that she discouraged Jackie from reporting her alleged assault is defamatory and whether Rolling Stone acted with malice when it republished the article online December 5, 2014, after Erdely sent an e-mail at 1:54am with her realization Jackie was not credible and the story should be retracted.

Until those early morning hours, wrote Erdely, she had complete faith in Jackie’s credibility and the accuracy of her story. “I never would have written or published an article in which I did not have complete confidence,” she said.

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Frat brothers’ defamation case thrown out

Phi Kappa Psi. File photo

A New York federal judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit on June 29 filed by three members of Phi Kappa Psi against Rolling Stone and writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely for the now-discredited 2014 story, “A Rape on Campus.”

“Their defamation claims are directed toward a report about events that simply did not happen,” wrote U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in his decision.

George Elias IV, Stephen Hadford and Ross Fowler were UVA students in 2012, when the alleged rape occurred, although a Charlottesville Police investigation later determined no evidence the gang rape described in Erdely’s article ever took place. None of the plaintiffs were identified by name, but they claim that the article’s references to the attackers inadvertently involved them—even though they also claim that the same attackers were invented by “Jackie.”

The three fraternity members said the story could have prompted friends, family and peers to erroneously deduce that they were participants in the gang rape.

Elias said it could be inferred from the description of the room where the purported rape occurred that it was the room he lived in for two years and the only one accessible at the top of the stairs without an electronic keypad lock.

“Now, climbing the frat-house stairs with Drew, Jackie felt excited,” said the article. “Drew ushered Jackie into a bedroom, shutting the door behind them.”

Castel disagreed, and said that while Elias had one of several bedrooms on the second floor, the article did not identify him.

Fowler’s qualms arose with the story’s insinuations that the alleged gang rape was a requirement for initiation with its statements such as, “Don’t you want to be a brother?” and “We all had to do it, so you do, too.” As the fraternity’s rush chair, he alleged the story directly implies that he was the maestro behind the heinous acts described.

Fowler further claims that as an avid swimmer who frequented UVA’s Aquatic Center, readers would automatically associate him as one of the rape’s perpetrators.

Judge Castel didn’t buy those claims either, and said Fowler relied on an interpretation at odds with the surrounding context created by the article and said a “strained or artificial construction” could not be made defamatory.

“Essentially, real people don’t have a right to sue when someone makes up fictitious people that in some way resembles them,” says legal expert David Heilberg.

Hadford, a 2013 UVA graduate, continued to live on Grounds for 15 months after graduation and frequently rode his bike between his residence and his job at UVA Medical Center’s emergency department. According to Jackie, former associate dean Nicole Eramo claimed all of Jackie’s perpetrators had graduated, yet, Jackie had seen one riding his bicycle that same day she talked to Eramo.

“Friends, family, and acquaintances of Hadford would have made the connection that Hadford must have been the person who Jackie saw riding his bike on campus,” he claimed in his suit. The judge denied this allegation because the article failed to provide additional details of the bike rider.

This is one of three cases that Rolling Stone and Erdely faces. Phi Kappa Psi also filed a defamation suit, and another hearing in Eramo’s lawsuit is scheduled August 12 in Roanoke.