Our client was a freshman at Georgia State University and he was falsely accused of rape by a girl he met who attended nearby Georgia Tech.
Our client met this girl at a party at Georgia Tech. They followed each other on Instagram and had a number of mutual friends. After that, they texted back and forth for several months and went on one date together. A couple months later, she reaches out to him and asks, “Wyd rn!” (meaning “What are you doing right now?”). She makes it known to our client that she wants to hang out and drink “alc.” Our client, who is hanging out with his roommates, says, “You should come over.” The girl immediately says that she can be there “in 20 if that’s good w u.”
She comes over and proceeds to drink with our client and his roommates for several hours. She then goes into our client’s bedroom and crawls into his bed. They start making out and eventually our client puts on a condom and they have sex. During this time, both roommates could hear her through the thin walls of the apartment moaning loudly and saying “Yes, daddy.”
The next morning, the roommates go in and out of our client’s room several times to check on them and to ask if they want to go to Lenox Mall. Each time they went in the room, they saw the girl lying in the bed, cuddling with our client, where she stayed until mid-afternoon. She ends up staying at the apartment until around 3:30 p.m. at which time she orders a Lyft. Our client walks her down to her ride a few blocks away around 3:40 p.m.
We were able to secure surveillance footage from a nearby Waffle House that shows them walking side-by-side as he is escorting her to her Lyft. While they are walking together, the girl does not appear to be in any distress. She looks calm and they are walking at a casual pace. Later that evening, our client texts her and asks, “You all good?” to which she replies, “Hey! Yeah I’m good just dizzy still from the alc.”
A week later, the girl goes to the police and says that she was raped. She claimed that she was too intoxicated to consent and that our client had sex with her while she was unconscious. We subpoenaed the girl’s cell phone records and learned that this allegation was likely motivated by the fact that she had a pretty serious boyfriend at the time. It turns out that the night she reached out to our client, she made 13 calls to her boyfriend that went unanswered. In fact, the boyfriend did not call her back for another 6 days and it was the very next day that this rape allegation got made.
At the time, the boyfriend was very involved in the making of this allegation and he even accompanied the girl to the police department as well as to court on the day of our client’s bond hearing. However, as discussed below, after we basically proved this was a false allegation, the boyfriend eventually came forward and told our client that he knows that the girl lied about the rape.
There were many aspects of the girl’s allegation that didn’t make sense. First of all, it was her idea to get together with our client and get drunk together. That night, she packed an overnight bag and a phone charger – indicating an intent to spend the night. Plus, when she arrived at the apartment, she set her bag in our client’s bedroom. All of her actions made it clear that she was intending to sleep in our client’s bed that night.
Also, she claimed to have been “blackout drunk” the night of the alleged rape. Yet, she was coherent enough to realize right before going to bed that her phone was about to die, stating to the detective, “[i]t was around like 2% or 1%.” She says that as she’s plugging her phone in, she remembered to set her alarm and, according to her statement to police, set it for precisely “10:36 a.m. that’s when I set my alarm for that day.” This is a task that clearly would not have been easy for someone who was “blackout drunk.” Also, her memory was strikingly good for someone who claimed to have been so intoxicated.
Unfortunately, our client was arrested before he was able to retain us. So, our focus was on convincing the DA’s office to dismiss the case. We spent months investigating, gathering evidence, and interviewing witnesses. We were confident that we had proven this was a false allegation. Right before we were scheduled to present our case to the prosecutors, we got a surprise. The girl’s boyfriend, who had since moved on from her and moved out of state, sent our client a message saying, “Dw (meaning “don’t worry”). Ik [the girl] lied. I’m here to have ur back. How can I help man?”
Our client was unsure of what to do, so he takes a couple of days to respond to him. When he does, the guy says, “I was gonna get involved cause ive been quiet about the entire thing but I think its just best I stay out of it.” Of course, we immediately provided the messages to the detective and the DA’s office and filed a motion with the court to have an out-of-state material witness subpoena served on him.
Fortunately, we were able to present our evidence to the prosecutors which ultimately convinced the DA’s office to dismiss the case. Our client can finally move on with his life and the record of his arrest will be expunged.
Categories | Rape Cases,