A college student convicted of sexually assaulting a semi-conscious woman while she was drunk will receive no prison time, The Guardian reported on Thursday. The lenient sentence is already being compared to this summer's Stanford rape case, which caused outrage after a convicted rapist was sentenced to only six months in jail.
The unidentified woman had asked for former University of Colorado student Austin Wilkerson, 22, to be sentenced to prison time for his felony sexual assault conviction. “Have as much mercy for the rapist as he did for me that night," she said at the hearing, according to local news source The Daily Camera.
“When I’m not having nightmares about the rape, retaliation, or a retrial gone awry, I’m having panic attacks,” she said. "Some days I can’t even get out of bed."
Prosecutors accused Wilkerson of isolating the intoxicated woman, a fellow student, after a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in 2014. He told friends that he was going to take care of her, but instead, prosecutors alleged, he took her back to his room where he made sure that his roommate saw him checking her pulse and temperature, and giving her water, before he sexually assaulted her. Wilkerson eventually admitted to digital and oral penetration, though he said he “wasn’t getting much of a response” from the woman.
Though the felony conviction carried a possible sentence of four to 12 years in state prison, Wilkerson was sentenced Wednesday to two years of work release, plus 20 years to life on probation. Under the terms of his work release, he will be free to work or attend school by day and must report to county jail at night. Wilkerson's attorney did not respond to The Guardian's request for comment on the outcome.
The case parallels that of Brock Turner, the former Stanford University athlete who was sentenced to only six months in jail for raping an unconscious woman behind a Dumpster. The survivor's powerful statement about the impact that the assault — and the subsequent trial — had on her went viral, causing outrage and dismay at the light sentence. The judge in that case has since faced a recall attempt over the lenient punishment.
In his sentencing in the University of Colorado case, Judge Patrick Butler said that he “struggled” with the idea of putting Wilkerson in prison, The Huffington Post reported. “I don’t know that there is any great result for anybody. Mr. Wilkerson deserves to be punished, but I think we all need to find out whether he truly can or cannot be rehabilitated,” Butler said. The defense had asked for leniency for Wilkerson, saying that he was remorseful for his actions.
The prosecution refuted that, saying that the fact that Wilkerson's story had changed meant he was insincere. Wilkerson had told a university investigator that he had previously tried to make sexual advances to the woman, but she had rejected him. He said he was "pissed off" and called the woman a "fucking bitch," according to The Guardian. Wilkerson also alleged at trial that the encounter was consensual.
The unidentified woman told the judge that she felt the blame had been put on her for the assault — from friends, the jury, and even her own mother. "'If I hadn't been drunk, this wouldn't have happened. If I hadn't gotten separated, this wouldn't have happened,'" she said according to The Daily Camera. "Yet it was excusable for him to rape me because he was drunk?"
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