The mugshots of a Stanford University swimmer who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman in 2015 were finally released on June 6 by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office—18 months after Brock Turner was arrested.
Turner, then-19, sexually assaulted a woman after a party on campus on Jan. 17, 2015, and was arrested the same night.
More than a year after the assault Turner’s mugshots were never disclosed, until now.
“Judge Persky failed to see that the fact that Brock Turner is a white male star athlete at a prestigious university does not entitle him to leniency,” said the petition. “He also failed to send the message that sexual assault is against the law regardless of social class, race, gender or other factors.”
The petition, started by Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber, a friend of the victim, had 263,672 supporters by June 7.
The judge earned two undergraduate degrees from Stanford in 1984 and 1985 and used to play lacrosse at the school a few miles down the road from his courtroom. Persky is currently running for re-election unopposed.
Meanwhile, the Santa Clara Sheriff’s department, which is usually active on Facebook, has not mentioned the case on its page and has not posted anything since June 1.
In court last week, the victim read a 12-page-letter, in which she addressed the defendant directly, describing how the incident left her emotionally battered.
“My independence, natural joy, gentleness, and steady lifestyle I had been enjoying became distorted beyond recognition. I became closed off, angry, self-deprecating, tired, irritable, empty,” she wrote.
Her letter went viral on social media.
