Judge wants to throw sexual assault victim in jail for publicly naming her attackers

Calliegirl

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She tweeted the names of her attackers (Will Frey III and Austin Zehnder, lacrosse players at Trinity High School) and is now facing contempt of court charges. This is so utterly insane, I'm glad it's become viral. I've posted this on my FB page as well, names included. It sickens me that the boys get to remain anonymous, especially after showing pics of what they did. Age shouldn't be a free pass to a slap on the wrist.

Frustrated by what she felt was a lenient plea bargain for two teens who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her and circulating pictures of the incident, a Louisville 17-year-old lashed out on Twitter.
“There you go, lock me up,” Savannah Dietrich tweeted, as she named the boys who she said sexually assaulted her. “I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell.”
Now, Dietrich is facing a potential jail sentence, as the attorneys for the boys have asked a Jefferson District Court judge to hold her in contempt because they say that in naming her attackers, she violated the confidentiality of a juvenile hearing and the court’s order not to speak of it.
A contempt charge carries a potential sentence of up to 180 days in jail and a $500 fine....

...Dietrich said she was sexually assaulted by two teen boys she knew in August 2011. She had been drinking at a gathering, she said, and became unconscious. Months later she learned that pictures of the incident had been taken and shared with others.
“For months, I cried myself to sleep. I couldn’t go out in public places,” she told the newspaper, as her father, Michael, and attorneys sat nearby. “You just sit there and wonder, who saw (the pictures), who knows?”...

http://www.courier-journal.com/arti...t-case-against-Louisville-s-Savannah-Dietrich


Pics of her attackers: http://rantsthoughtsmerde.com/2012/...rime-victim-facing-contempt-of-court-charges/
 
Being anonymous has nothing to do with "slaps on wrists" or else-wise.

Last time I checked, the punishment was jail/fines, not being outed to everyone in the whole world.
 
Weird that one of them has III after his name. What is up with that.
 
Last time I checked, the punishment was jail/fines, not being outed to everyone in the whole world.

Last time I checked, it's your right to go out and not be sexually assaulted and have naked pictures of you passed around without your consent.

I guess life isn't fair :no:
 
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Weird that one of them has III after his name. What is up with that.
Here in the U.S., if a son has the same name as his father, he generally adds a "II" or a "Junior" behind his name. If there is a third generation with the same name, he adds "III" behind his name to differentiate from his father and grandfather.
 
Weird that one of them has III after his name. What is up with that.

it generally means that his grandfather and father (or someone up the line) had the same first name, and so it distinguishes and places him in line from the others with the same name.

It's also a pretension that families (like these ones) who send their sons to private high schools where they play lacrosse enjoy.
 
In a case like this where they took and circulated pictures of the assault it's actually very good that she came forward like this, for her own protection. In juvenile cases the names are private. But the pictures will undoubtedly make it onto the net, if they aren't already. It's good that she's publicly announcing that it was an assault and without her consent, else there's a chance that the pictures would have surfaced later (especially if she did anything noteworthy) and she would have been in the position of trying to explain that she did not pose for the pictures but was assaulted, and lots of people wouldn't have believed her. Now when they surface people will know they're seeing a crime and her reputation won't be compromised.
 
Here in the U.S., if a son has the same name as his father, he generally adds a "II" or a "Junior" behind his name. If there is a third generation with the same name, he adds "III" behind his name to differentiate from his father and grandfather.

Yes but it is weird, it is kind of like being called Henry VIII or Richard III.
 
Yes but it is weird, it is kind of like being called Henry VIII or Richard III.

Yeah, generally you see it with the preppy set. (The fanilies affluent enough to send their kids to private schools.) Of course, I don't quite get the concept of naming+ your kid after yourself anyway.
 
Yes. I wonder if it is also because they couldnt decide on a name. My friend had a boy and she couldnt decide on a name for him, he went without one for 3 months.
 
II is probably wondering where he went wrong as a parent.
 
I doubt it. After all, he is almost certainly paying for (and directing) his kid's lawyers, who asked the court to hold the girl in contempt.

I suspect the apple didn't fall far from the paternal tree. I can't even begin to imagine what my mother would have done to me if I had done something dreadful to another kid. I would have been begging for jail time.
 
Not sure how I feel about this. Should underage victims be allowed to discuss the court case?

I could see a "yes" answer to the first question causing problems - what if a victim accused the attacker of something there isn't evidence for? Unless we allow the attackers to also speak, we're getting a one-sided story. Yet at the same time, if we allow the attackers to speak, there's a chance that they are going to claim something that there isn't evidence for. It sounds like a situation where either one or both sides are going to try their case in the media, and that probably isn't good.

Yet at the same time, these underage boys did plead guilty to sexual assault. I'm not sure what actually happened, since the gag order is still on the case, but it sounds like (at the very least) they pictures of a sexual activity with this girl while she was drunk and unable to give consent, then forwarded those pictures to their friends. I can understand why she feels violated, and I'm not sure that those who have plead guilty to a serious crime should have their names protected.

But is she in trouble for naming her attackers, or is she in trouble for discussing the court case? If she said "Bob and Joe molested me", would that fall under the gag order? After all, the gag order is only about what happened in court. Could it be that her legal trouble doesn't stem from naming her attackers, but in discussing the court case?