Tag: jackie

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UPDATED: Judge denies Eramo’s request for Jackie’s e-mails

UVA Associate Dean Nicole Eramo. Photo: UVA University Communications

A judge denied Nicole Eramo’s request for additional documentation from Jackie in Eramo’s lawsuit against Rolling Stone.

The 46-minute hearing was conducted June 20 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel C. Hoppe, who released his verdict the next day. Hoppe ruled that “the steps taken by Jackie’s counsel were relatively straight forward and appear to have exhausted all known areas of inquiry for responsive communications currently in Jackie’s possession.”

In court, Andrew Phillips, representing Eramo, expressed frustration at Jackie’s failure to respond to Eramo’s subpoena ordering Jackie to produce all documents and electronically stored communications between herself and Ryan Duffin and between herself and Haven Monahan.

To provide a refresher, the 2014 Rolling Stone article detailed Jackie’s alleged rape on September 28, 2012. After the rape, Jackie claims she emerged from the fraternity house Phi Kappa Psi disheveled and battered after the incident and contacted three friends. The friends immediately met with her, but were depicted within the article as callous and self-absorbed.

Jackie’s friend “Randall” in the story is Ryan Duffin, a young man with whom Jackie was not only friends, but was also enamoured. The romantic feelings, however, were not reciprocated. Eramo’s lawyers claim that, in response, Jackie created the alias of Haven Monahan and set up a ploy to engage communication between Monahan and Duffin, using texting services such as Text Free, an application that allows users to use different phone numbers for anonymous texting.

A subpoena was served on Yahoo to investigate the e-mail address of Monahan. Yahoo complied, and said the e-mail account was created one day prior to the day that Duffin received an e-mail from Monahan titled “about u.” The e-mail’s content included a flattering short essay that Jackie wrote about Duffin, according to Eramo’s attorney.

The e-mail starts off with commentary from Monahan: “you should read this. iv never read anything nicer in my life.” The e-mail goes on about Duffin: “He’s gorgeous, but gorgeous is an understatement. More like you’re startled every time you see him because you notice something new in a Where’s Waldo sort of way.” This e-mail from Monahan was sent to Duffin days after Jackie claimed she was raped at Monahan’s fraternity.

“The ‘about u’ message was one of the first things that made me particularly skeptical of Haven Monahan’s identity,” Duffin tells C-VILLE. “It seemed strange to be contacted directly by Jackie’s alleged assailant so soon after the attack. After I received that email, I started trying to find out if Haven was actually a student at the school. My search turned up nothing, but that wasn’t enough proof. It wasn’t shown definitively until the media was able to start making inquiries.”

Phillips told the court that there was heavy underlying evidence based on two known e-mail exchanges between Duffin and Monahan, along with hundreds of texts, that Jackie had orchestrated this communication and authored the messages. Phillips demanded an explanation.

Jackie’s counsel, Philip O’Beirne, retorted that these requests are unnecessary and have been deemed so in the past by a previous judge’s ruling. O’Beirne further said that a forensic investigation was completed on all of Jackie’s electronic devices and accounts and nothing was found that met Eramo’s demands.

The attorney went on to say that Eramo was attacking Jackie with attempts to obtain these documents and that it was inappropriate to include details of the assault that weren’t mentioned in the original interviews conducted by Rolling Stone. “Rolling Stone doesn’t think there’s any merit,” O’Beirne said.

Hoppe concluded in his order that any further explanation of Jackie’s search process was “unnecessary and not calculated to lead to a stone unturned.”

Updated: June 22 with judge’s decision

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Rape reporting: Pulitzer Prize winner talks sexual-assault coverage post Rolling Stone

ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller says winning the Pulitzer will not get you a better table at a restaurant in New York. courtesy propublica

The participants at an upcoming April 28 panel likely would not cite Jackie’s unsubstantiated story of gang rape to Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely as the biggest issue facing journalists covering sexual assault.

For ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller, it’s police not believing victims. His story, “An Unbelievable Case of Rape,” done in conjunction with The Marshall Project, another nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism, won a Pulitzer last week.

The in-depth report focuses on Seattle victim Marie, who was raped in 2008—and charged with making a false report. It took two detectives in Colorado to solve the case of a serial rapist in 2011 and to vindicate Marie.

One of the detectives Miller talked to had a “wonderful approach” to victims of rape, he says: listen and verify, advice that applies to journalists as well. The old adage that if it’s too good to be true, it probably is, should have set off some alarm bells at Rolling Stone, he says, adding that reporters should keep their levels of skepticism high, looking for where the holes are in their sources’ stories.

He also advises reporters to talk to the alleged rapist, which was another hole in Erdely’s story, because Jackie begged her not to contact the student she claimed took her to the fraternity where the alleged gang rape occurred. “You really should bring as much vigor to contacting the alleged rapist as the alleged victim,” he says.

Miller, who covered sexual assault for the L.A. Times before he joined ProPublica eight years ago, spent four to five months securing an interview with Marc O’Leary, who was sentenced to 327.5 years for six attacks. O’Leary said if police in Washington had paid more attention to Marie, his first victim, he would have become a person of interest earlier.

According to Andrea Press, a professor of media studies and sociology at UVA, “There is an epidemic of rape at UVA. Media are crucial to bringing the issue to the consciousness of victims, perpetrators, universities and police.”

One in four women indicate they’ve been assaulted on campus, says Press. “If there were a one in four chance your plane would crash, you wouldn’t get on a plane,” she says.

As a sociologist, Press says she’s done research on the issues of rape reporting. “The Rolling Stone article raised some really troubling issues about the press itself, the role of the press and problems of assault reporting,” she says.

The story did not help the long history of rape victims not being believed and being seen as unreliable, she says. “Most professionals believe Jackie was involved in a sexual trauma, but is unable to describe it in a truthful way,” Press says.

Marie, the victim in the ProPublica story, thought she may have been dreaming or made up the attack. “That’s an unfortunate symptom of this trauma,” says Press.

She’ll join Miller and moderator Siva Vaidhyanathan, UVA professor of modern media studies, at ProPublica Live: An Examination of Reporting on Rape, at 4:30pm April 28, in Wilson Hall, Room 301. The event is open to the public.

ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller says winning the Pulitzer will not get you a better table at a restaurant in New York.

courtesy propublica

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In brief: Eramo v. Jackie, Wegmans and more

Massive 5th Street Station, future home of Wegmans, is underway. Photo Stephen Barling

Eramo v. Jackie

Former UVA dean Nicole Eramo fought for months to get discredited “A Rape on Campus” source Jackie deposed for her defamation suit against Rolling Stone. That finally happened April 7, and now Eramo wants the court to throw out “personal attacks” Jackie allegedly made during the deposition, according to April 12 court filings.

Kevin Eisenfrats and gel. Photo Dan Addison, UVA university communications
Kevin Eisenfrats and gel. Photo Dan Addison, UVA university communications

Keeping those sperm from fertilizing

UVA looks like the male contraceptive leader with two different approaches. John Herr is on track to create a birth control drug for men after discovering and isolating a key enzyme and seeking to design a drug that can stop the sperm from swimming to the egg. Kevin Eisenfrats has created and is currently testing Contraline, a non-surgical gel injected into the testes.

Still increased, only less so

Albemarle supes voted to raise the county tax rate 2 cents instead of 2.5 cents April 13, and UVA upped in-state tuition 1.5 percent instead of 3 percent for continuing students, thanks to higher funding from the state.

More rewards waiting

After the disbursement of $150K for information leading to the conviction of Jesse Matthew in the death of Morgan Harrington, Crime Stoppers still has rewards waiting in unsolved crimes: missing persons Jesse Hicks, last seen in 2004, and Sage Smith, missing since 2012; the second perp involved in the 2007 brutal beating death of William Godsey at the Wood Grill Buffet and the 2006 shooting of a UVA student on Wertland Street.

Dogwood Festival’s porno website

People who Google and click on Charlottesville Dogwood Festival find a different type of carnival: Instabang, which warns “the site contains nude pics of people you may know.”

WegmansMap   

ByTheNumbers

Quote of the week

“I am reminded of this history every time that I’m running—because I like to jog—through the city and people lock their doors, or when they look at me with a face of terror even though I’m vice-mayor. …I’m reminded of this history of our country and our past when I’m called names like after the Lee Park press conference, when I was called ‘nigger-loving bastard.’” Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, City Council, April 18

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Court orders ‘Jackie’ deposed in Rolling Stone lawsuit

Jackie faces Rolling Stone and Nicole Eramo's lawyers.

In UVA former associate dean Nicole Eramo’s ongoing lawsuit with Rolling Stone, Judge Glen Conrad ruled Monday that Jackie’s request to prevent her deposition would be denied and she is scheduled for at least seven hours of depositions today.

Former UVA student “Jackie,” who claimed she was gang raped at a fraternity party in Rolling Stone’s now discredited article “A Rape on Campus,” has been fighting subpoenas in the legal battle Eramo, whose title at UVA is now listed as executive director of assessment and planning, filed last May. Eramo’s defamation suit seeks $7.5 million from Rolling Stone and the article’s author, Sabrina Erdely.

In a court document, Jackie opposed the deposition of her doctor as well as herself on the grounds that “the severe harm” she would suffer  “greatly outweighs the limited utility of such discovery in light of the real issues in this case.”

Additionally, Jackie’s lawyers argued that Eramo’s actions in the case were “harmful” and described her as using “aggressive attacks” against Jackie in both the media and the court.

“Plaintiff’s conduct in this case has done more to damage her reputation and discredit any claim she may have had to being a compassionate counselor and advocate of sexual assault victims than any magazine article,” the motion reads.

While the court granted that Jackie’s psychologist would “not be deposed or otherwise subjected to discovery” at this time, Jackie herself will be deposed on April 7 at a “mutually convenient location” that is not being publicly disclosed.

Eramo and Rolling Stone’s attorneys will each get to question Jackie for 3.5 hours. Eramo had requested additional time, and may depose Jackie a total of five hours over two days, and request more time from the court. Any recordings or transcripts of the deposition will be confidential.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says attorney Dave Heilberg. “It’s a civil case and discovery is getting a lot more attention” than other cases.

And because Jackie never reported her alleged assault to police—Charlottesville Police investigated and found no evidence of the assault she described to Rolling Stone—she does not have the same protections of a victim in a crime that was prosecuted, says Heilberg.

 

 

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‘Jackie’ balks: Wants subpoena quashed in Rolling Stone lawsuit

Jackie says Nicole Eramo’s attorneys shouldn’t get to depose her because of her “fragile” state as a sexual assault victim.

The young woman at the center of Rolling Stone’s now-retracted 2014 article, “A Rape on Campus,” filed a motion March 15 to quash her deposition subpoena in the defamation lawsuit filed by UVA Associate Dean Nicole Eramo against the magazine and its reporter. That same day, Eramo’s attorneys filed a motion to depose Jackie for an additional three hours.

A U.S. District Court judge already had ordered that Jackie, who claimed to be the victim of a brutal gang rape at a UVA fraternity in 2012, be deposed April 5. (C-VILLE does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.)

In the latest motion, Eramo’s attorneys asked for more time to question Jackie because the seven hours the court allotted for her deposition would have to be shared with the defendants and because of the sheer volume of notes and recordings reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely had of interviews with Jackie.

“Moreover, the voluminous evidence that Jackie has a well-documented history of making untruthful statements about the very subject matter at issue here is likely to complicate the deposition, leading to further objections by the witness and her counsel,” says an Eramo memorandum.

Jackie had already been compelled to turn over texts and e-mails for “Haven Monahan,” the pseudonym she gave her date the night of the alleged rape.  Eramo contends Jackie was “catfishing” to attract another student.

Team Jackie counters that even if she was the central figure in the Rolling Stone article, that’s “entirely irrelevant” to whether she has any factual information on Eramo’s defamation claims.

Her attorneys ask that her alleged assault be excluded from the deposition, while Eramo’s lawyers say that would be easy enough if Jackie stipulated the alleged gang rape never happened.

Every proposed stipulation is “a negative attack” on Jackie, “contains highly personal and confidential information and demonstrates a complete lack of compassion” for Jackie, her motion states.

Eramo plans to use the deposition as “a weapon to inflict harm” on Jackie with utter disregard for the “significant and undeniable psychological harm that will result,” all to further Eramo’s attempt “to extract money from Rolling Stone for reporting opinions about Plaintiff that the Office of Civil Rights has already concluded to be true,” says Jackie’s motion.

That refers to the agreement the civil rights office in the U.S. Department of Education reached in September with UVA following its investigation that found the university created a “hostile environment” for victims of sexual assault. Among other actions, UVA agreed to investigate all complaints heard for three previous years by the Sexual Misconduct Board, of which Eramo was head, to make sure they were handled appropriately.

Jackie cites her “fragile state” as a sexual assault victim as reason alone to quash the subpoena. But if she must be deposed, she wants to make sure Eramo’s suit survives a summary judgment, at which point she wants written questions, an order that prohibits counsel from disclosing the location of the deposition, no videotaping and the transcript of the deposition sealed under a protective order.

“I’ve never seen that,” says legal expert David Heilberg. He calls it “the Fourth Estate’s Frankenstein monster,” stemming from the media’s practice of protecting the identities of rape victims so as to not discourage them from coming forward to report sex crimes. “She’s asking for extraordinary relief,” he says. “Jackie, as has been reported in the press, is not your typical victim.”

Shortly after the article appeared and other media outlets began to investigate Jackie’s story, “it became apparent that Jackie’s claims were entirely false, and that she likely invented the supposed gang rape in order to gain the sympathy of a man she was romantically interested in and to cover for her failing grades,” says Eramo’s motion.

On March 23, 2015, Charlottesville Police concluded an investigation and said it found “no substantive basis of fact to conclude that an incident occurred” such as what was described in the Rolling Stone article, an investigation with which Jackie refused to cooperate.

Eramo says that when she first met with Jackie, the alleged victim “related a version of her supposed sexual assault that was very different from the tale” depicted in Rolling Stone.

Phi Kappa Psi has filed suit against Rolling Stone, as have two fraternity members.

Palma Pustilnik, one of five attorneys representing Jackie, says, “We’re still maintaining our position of ‘no comment.’” An attorney for Eramo did not return a phone call.

The limit on the length of time a third party such as Jackie can be deposed—seven hours—is to protect people who are not named in civil suits, says Heilberg. “Otherwise Fortune 500 companies would be able to depose people for days on end,” he says. “You have to convince a judge to allow more time.” Eramo wants a total of 6.5 hours.

A jury trial is scheduled for October 11.

eramo motion addl time to depose jackie 3-15-16

jackie quash memo 3-15-16

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Confidential conversations: Jackie forced to hand over Rolling Stone texts

Jackie faces Rolling Stone and Nicole Eramo's lawyers.

The U.S. District Court in Charlottesville ruled January 25 to grant “in part” Nicole Eramo’s motion to compel Jackie, the woman at the center of a now-discredited Rolling Stone article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia, to release relevant communications in Eramo’s defamation suit against Rolling Stone.

Of the six types of documents Eramo, associate dean of students at UVA, requested, the court granted four in full and two in part. Of particular importance, the court ruled that Jackie, no longer a student at the university, must turn over her correspondence with Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Rolling Stone, Eramo and UVA.

“The court finds that the communications between Jackie and defendants, and between Jackie and Eramo/UVA, are highly relevant to the claims and defenses in the defamation action, and that discovery of such communications is proportionate to the needs of the case,” Judge Glen Conrad ruled.

Jackie has been reluctant to hand over these documents since Eramo filed the initial subpoena in July, and her lawyer argued that the demands infringe upon her privacy. Specifically, Jackie contended that she should not have to turn over her communications with Eramo and UVA because of the privacy implied by “patient-counselor privilege.”

Conrad, however, dismissed this argument by saying that it was “without merit.”

“Even assuming that the court could find that this statute establishes a patient-counselor privilege,” Conrad’s memorandum reads, “it appears that Jackie may have waived such privilege by voluntarily disclosing the contents of her communications with Eramo and UVA to defendants.”

Eramo’s motion also requested Jackie’s communications under the pseudonym “Haven Monahan,” the name Jackie gave to her date the night she was allegedly raped and a pseudonym through which Eramo believes she was “catfishing” to attract student Ryan Duffin. While Duffin complied with the initial subpoena and handed over his texts with Monahan and Jackie, Eramo still wants Jackie’s communications with Duffin, as well as those she authored under the Monahan pseudonym.

Jackie allegedly used this alias primarily when speaking to her friend Duffin, texting him and claiming to be Monahan, who did not understand why Jackie would not go out with him. Although Duffin says multiple times that he believes her, his later texts reveal that he has doubts about her truthfulness.

“We could find no evidence that Haven ever was at UVA,” Duffin writes in a text to Jackie. “People Search turned up nothing. Even though he dropped out, he should still show up on it. We had more reasons.”

While the court was unwilling to grant Eramo full access to these documents, saying not all of them were “within a reasonable scope of discovery,” it did grant Eramo the communications between Monahan and Duffin, as well as “any other individual whose name Jackie had provided to defendants prior to the article’s publication.”

Eramo’s request for all of Jackie’s communications about the Rolling Stone article was also granted “in part,” primarily to protect Jackie’s privacy and because not all of her communications are relevant to the defamation suit.

“In an effort to balance Jackie’s privacy interest in the communications with their apparent relevance,” the memorandum reads, “the court will limit Demand No. 16 [Jackie’s communications about the Rolling Stone article] to only Jackie’s communications regarding the article itself and exclude any communications that refer to the details of her alleged assault.”

The court emphasized that any “graphic details” associated with Jackie’s alleged assault were unnecessary for Eramo’s defamation suit and thus would not be granted.

As a final measure of precaution to protect Jackie’s privacy, the court ruled that any documents she provides in response to the motion will be marked “confidential.”

Read Jackie’s texts online at c-ville.com.

haven monahan texts 9-5-12

haven monahan texts 9-27-12

jackie ryan duffin texts 9-5-12_small

jackie texts ryan duffin 12-14

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UVA Associate Dean Nicole Eramo seeks Jackie’s text messages

UVA Associate Dean Nicole Eramo. Photo: UVA University Communications

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.

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Privileged to privacy?: As Rolling Stone lawsuits continue, ‘Jackie’ remains unnamed

Jackie says Nicole Eramo’s attorneys shouldn’t get to depose her because of her “fragile” state as a sexual assault victim.

In the aftermath of a discredited Rolling Stone story about a gang rape that shook UVA students and faculty and spawned three lawsuits against the magazine and the author of the article, the woman at the center of the controversy, “Jackie,” remains unnamed in the media and in legal documents.

University of Virginia Associate Dean of Students Nicole Eramo, who says the piece cast her as the “chief villain” of the story and accused her of discouraging sexual assault victims from reporting rape, filed a $7.5 million defamation suit against Rolling Stone and reporter Sabrina Erdely in May, and has reportedly waited four months for Jackie, the alleged victim of the story, to turn over communications records.

Eramo’s lawyers requested access to several of Jackie’s communications in July, including all of those that make reference to herself as a sexual assault victim at UVA, as well as her correspondence with Rolling Stone and Erdely. After Jackie didn’t comply, Eramo filed a motion to compel her to turn over the communications.

In a hearing over the motion held in Alexandria December 4, the judge deferred a decision on the motion until it could be taken up in Charlottesville by the presiding judge on the case. Jackie’s lawyer, Palma Pustilnik, fought disclosing this information, saying that turning over these communications would be a breach of her client’s privacy. She is also filing a motion opposing the subpoena on the grounds that Jackie was not a named party in the lawsuit.

According to legal expert David Heilberg, though, the subpoena is valid whether Jackie is a party in the lawsuit. “Any third party that has relevant records to the case, you can get,” he says. Heilberg also disagrees with Pustilnik’s claim to privacy, saying neither Jackie nor Erdely has the right to privacy where this information is concerned.

“I don’t think there’s any claim to privacy in a civil suit of this kind,” Heilberg says. “Neither right to privacy nor journalistic privilege are strong enough to keep [Eramo’s lawyers] from getting the information they need.”

Communications between Jackie and her lawyer are private, says Heilberg. However, because the requested communications are primarily between Jackie and the magazine, this same privacy does not apply. “With a reporter,” he explains, “there is no such privilege.”

In a case with so many claiming harm from Jackie’s account, the question remains why she continues to go unnamed in legal procedures and the media. Edward Wasserman, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and a media ethics expert, says it is a “tradition” of media organizations to leave out the names of sexual assault victims whether their account has been proven accurate.

“The standards that courts use in determining guilt or innocence are not the same as finding out whether or not someone was treated to degrading behavior,” Wasserman explains. “Behavior that, if her name was revealed, she may receive harm or shame from.”

Rolling Stone’s failure to adequately scrutinize Jackie’s allegations was “the most egregious misconduct” in the case, not Jackie’s partial or complete fabrication of the events, says Wasserman.

“In a perverse way, Rolling Stone was the enabler of this,” Wasserman says. “If they had done their job, we wouldn’t be having this conversation of whether or not to expose the woman.”

While from a legal standpoint Wasserman believes there is not much reason to conceal Jackie’s identity, especially considering the misinformation she gave to Rolling Stone, he raises the question of what purpose exposing her would serve.

“There is a context here; we don’t really know how much of what this woman told the reporter was true,” Wasserman says. “But there’s something about it that suggests that this is a very troubled person who’s probably been victimized at some point who stands to be harmed, perhaps needlessly, by exposure.”

C-VILLE Weekly has chosen not to release Jackie’s name at this time because we do not name victims of sexual assault.