Neither Ohio University student involved in a public sex act on South Court Street Homecoming weekend will face any criminal charges in connection with the incident, which attracted worldwide media attention after images and video of it captured by onlookers were widely shared through social media.
The man and woman involved in the incident are 20-year-old Ohio University students. A grand jury asked to consider the case on Monday returned "no bills," meaning they found no basis for criminal charges.
Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said the evidence uncovered by an Athens Police investigation shows that the woman – who claims to remember nothing of the incident, but who filed a police complaint the next day alleging sexual assault – did give consent for the man to perform oral sex on her.
In video of the incident, Blackburn said, the woman "had a smile on her face at one time," and grabbed the man's head in her hands at another. When the man asked if he should stop what he was doing, Blackburn said, "she said, 'No, go ahead, continue.'"
This was confirmed by an independent witness who was on the scene, Blackburn said.
The incident took place against the Chase Bank's brick wall on South Court Street around 3 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 12, during OU's Homecoming Weekend. The woman filed her police complaint the next day, reportedly after learning of her behavior for the first time by seeing images of it on social media sites.
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He said the man and woman, who had not known each other before that evening, met in an uptown bar and were drinking together. They left the bar some time after 2 a.m. and began making their way north on Court Street, kissing all the way.
Against the slightly sloped brick wall of the Chase Bank on South Court, the man began performing oral sex on the woman (and according to video, manual/digital sex as well), soon drawing a small crowd. Though the two are seen on video interacting with onlookers, Blackburn said, "neither of them had knowledge that (their sex act) was being video recorded."
He confirmed that a man came out of a nearby restaurant after the sex was concluded, and punched the man involved in the sex act, apparently because the assailant was "disgusted" by the public sex. (He noted that employees from the late-night burrito outlet from which the assailant came also gave the man and woman free burritos and water.)
The man and woman then left together, Blackburn said, and went to his Court Street apartment, where they spent about three hours. They were seen around 6:30 a.m. at an uptown gas station/convenience store.
During that time, Blackburn said in a later news release, "the female was responsive, visualized and screamed out her roommate's name and left with the male, who walked her home. The male provided the female with his cell-phone number via a text message. The male has voluntarily cooperated with the investigation."
Though the law holds that a person can be sexually assaulted if she/he is unable to give consent due to intoxication, Blackburn said the video indicated that the woman was responsive and communicating during the incident.
Blackburn said he considered the possibility of seeking charges such as pandering obscenity against the people (at least two have been identified) who took and posted video, and of public indecency against the male student. He figured these were probably not legally appropriate, however, he said. Blackburn noted that in an age of readily available (and legal) pornography, the contents of the videos might well not qualify as obscenity. And he advised Athens Police against filing indecency charges, he said, because the woman's reported total memory lapse would make proving such a charge against her very complicated, and because the punishment the two people have already suffered in the form of public humiliation is probably worse than anything the law would do to them for the misdemeanor offense.
He added that the woman was tested after the incident and found to be free of any "date rape" type drugs in her system.
Blackburn said there is "a lesson to be learned" from the incident, both about being more careful in public behavior, and not jumping to conclusions based on limited evidence such as Twitter posts.
These days, he warned, "everything we do has the ability of being recorded… We're living in a different world." He also noted that a female OU student who was wrongly identified in online sources as the woman involved in the public sex has had to suffer harassment and threats because of it.
Blackburn acknowledged that there are some people who are insisting that the incident was a sexual assault, and the woman was its victim. But he said he's willing to take their criticism for not treating it as one.
"Justice isn't always popular," he said.
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In the wake of the prosecutor's news conference, Ohio University released a statement indicating that it will take steps in connection with the incident that are separate and independent from those of law enforcement, including an internal investigation.
"Regardless of the grand jury's determination following the criminal investigation, Ohio University is mandated by federal law to respond to allegations such as those that arise out of the incident that occurred during Homecoming weekend on Court Street," the statement said. "The health and safety of our community is of utmost importance."
It went on to say that OU "is following its own internal policies and procedures to investigate the circumstances relating to the incident. While the details of that investigation are not public, the policies and procedures require careful consideration when we receive reports of alleged sexual misconduct."