The media is enraged after prosecutors were unable to accuse former Indiana University student John Enochs of raping two women.
The 22-year-old was charged with two counts of rape after he was accused of sexually assaulting two women at frat parties in 2013 and 2015, according to NBC News. The charges were condensed into a single misdemeanor; Enochs was placed on probation for one year by the judge after he spent a day in jail.
Prosecutors say they were “frustrated” for not having enough evidence to convict Enochs of double rape.
“This case presented a very unusual set of circumstances in that we had two unrelated accusations two years apart,” Bob Miller, chief deputy Monroe County prosecutor, wrote in a statement. “Neither case, standing alone, presented sufficient evidence to prove rape… The turn of events was frustrating for us as prosecutors, due to the fact that there were two complaints against the defendant. That fact is the reason we continued to pursue accountability on his part which lead to this plea agreement.”
Critics are comparing Enochs’ case to that of Brock Turner, a former Stanford student who was sentenced to six months in county jail for penetrating an unconscious young woman. Turner’s case drew immense national outrage after what many believed was a lenient sentencing for a serious crime.
Enochs’ and Turner’s cases are dramatically different, however. Evidence shows Enochs’ alleged “rape” may have not been nonconsensual, as Turner’s case had been.
Enochs was first accused by a young woman who claimed he had committed the crime on April 11, 2015 at the Delta Tau Delta house at Indiana University. The young woman, who has remained anonymous, told police she had passed out after drinking, and when she woke up, she was being raped by a stranger. After she had taken a rape exam, the young woman’s DNA matched that of Enochs’ and video surveillance confirmed he had led her to a room in the house that night.
The second time Enochs was accused was by a young woman who claimed he had raped her at the same frat house when she was passed out on October 12, 2013. She said she had not thought to come forward and press charges against him until she heard of the accusation against him for raping the woman in 2015.
Miller said the investigation into the 2013 rape case was “severely hindered” because the accusation came two years after the described event. The complaining witness had “no specific recollection of the events,” and “the few witnesses could not recall important details due to the passage of time and the consumption of alcohol,” Miller wrote.
Miller added, “There were also photographs that contradicted the assertion that the complaining witness was incapable of engaging in consensual activity shortly before the sexual assault.”
The 2015 rape accusation had a “similar evidentiary problem,” according to Miller. “In that case there is video evidence of activities of the complaining witness, before and after the alleged assault, which does not support the assertion of a forcible rape.”
Enochs, a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, is being sued along with his frat by his accusers. He is originally from the suburbs of Chicago.
“I totally believe John has been caught up in a whirlwind of emotion surrounding any allegation involving sexual assault on campus,” his lawyer Katharine Liell said, adding she believes her client was caught up in the “histrionics” of campus rape.
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