Newly released court documents show that Brock Turner, the former Stanford student convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside of a frat house, behaved in an “aggressive” and predatory way towards other women just one week before the attack.
The 471 pages of documents released Friday by the Santa Clara County Superior Court show that Turner lied to investigators about having no experience with using drugs and alcohol before college.
Several images that prosecutors referenced during the trial are included. Santa Clara County Superior Court and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office released the case documents Friday.
The newly released photos include a snapshot of Brock Turner smoking a pipe, another of a bong, and another of a young man prosecutors say was Turner’s swim team buddy, holding a bong. The court documents also include a photo sent via the “Group Me” app that is said to be the victim’s breasts, photographed at the time of the sexual assault.
Brock Turner, with what looks like a hash pipe, in a court-released phone photo.
The former Stanford student was caught in the act of rape by bystanders, who pulled him off of the unconscious woman, behind a dumpster. Turner was convicted. His case outraged the world for many reasons, one of which was the extraordinarily lenient sentence he received. He’ll probably be out in a few weeks.
Judge Aaron Persky said he took Brock Turner “at his word” when he sentenced the onetime college swimming star on sexual assault charges.
At the sentencing hearing last Thursday, prosecutors said they wanted Turner to serve six years in prison. His “behavior is not typical assaultive behavior that you find on campus, but it is more akin to a predator who is searching for prey,” they wrote.
Turner told the judge he thought he was having consensual sex with his victim. Remember, this woman was unconscious when he raped her behind a dumpster.
In a pre-sentencing letter to the judge, Turner pled for leniency. He got it.
Judge Persky sentenced Turner to what will probably end up being a total of three months in jail. When news of the sentencing broke, and the ridiculous plea letters to Persky from Turner and his father hit the internet, Turner became the focus of a social media storm of intense outrage.
The court documents released Friday will likely stoke that outrage anew.
The morning after the assault and Turner’s arrest, investigators looked through Turner’s phone and found a text message in the “Group Me” group chat app that read, “Who’s tits are those?”
Detectives sent the phone to a forensics lab to try and retrieve that message, and any photos from the crime that Turner may have attached. Investigators say the messages and any attachments were already deleted “by a third party.” Who would have deleted such incriminating content? Perhaps his swim team buddies? Or the messaging service operator? We don’t know at this time.
In addition to revealing Turner’s shockingly predatory behavior, the documents also showed he lied to the court about being inexperienced with drugs and alcohol.
