Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, may only have to serve half of his six-month sentence.
The Washington Post reported that Turner, 20, could only have to serve three months. Turner was convicted of assaulting a 23-year-old woman behind a campus dumpster in January 2015.
On the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office website, it says Turner will be released on Sept. 2.
A sheriff’s spokesperson James Jensen told the Washington Post: “That date was given to us by the court system.” Jensen said inmates typically serve half their jail sentences unless there are disciplinary problems.
The sentence handed down to Turner also requires him to register as a sex offender, but many said that it was too lenient for such a serious crime. Prosecutors said they had asked for six years in prison. In the days after he was sentenced, hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition calling for Judge Aaron Pesky to be recalled. Meanwhile, Pesky and his family reportedly have received death threats.
On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden wrote a letter, praising the victim’s bravery for speaking out.
Biden said that he is “filled with furious anger—both that this happened to you and that our culture is still so broken that you were ever put in the position of defending your own worth,” BuzzFeed reported.
“I do not know your name—but I know that a lot of people failed you that terrible January night and in the months that followed,” Biden said in the letter. “It must have been wrenching—to relive what he did to you all over again. But you did it anyway, in the hope that your strength might prevent this crime from happening to someone else. Your bravery is breathtaking.”
Persky had taken into account more than three dozen letters of character witnesses and a recommendation from the county probation department in handing down the sentence.
