Ex-Stanford freshman Brock Turner, recently convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, was quick to blame his crime on Stanford University’s “party culture” in court. He told his probation officer that he’d never used any illicit drugs and had never drank alcohol prior to the start of college.
But court documents, released Friday morning by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department, suggest otherwise — which would mean Turner lied to the probation officer and the court.
“Coming from a small town in Ohio, I had never really experienced celebrating or partying that involved alcohol,” Brock wrote in a letter to his probation officer, Monia Lassettre. “I’ve been shattered by the party culture and risk taking behavior that I briefly experienced in my four months at school.”
In Lassettre’s probation report, she notes: “The defendant denied ever using any illicit substances.”
However, court evidence from Turner’s cell phone show that Tuner had been using illicit drugs and consuming alcohol while he was in high school Ohio.
The court released multiple cell phone photos of Turner smoking pot out of a bong and a pipe that were used as evidence in the case.
Detectives found multiple text messages from 2014 on Turner’s phone where he indicated intent to purchase and smoke pot. He also texted with a friend about finding and taking acid and his interest in “candyflipping” — a combination of LSD and MDMA. Turner also sent messages to his sister about consuming alcohol. This was all prior to Turner’s start at Stanford in the fall of 2015.
While illicit drug use had no role in the night of his crime, Turner’s statement reflects on his credibility, which was a major factor in his ultimate sentence. Judge Aaron Persky said he gave Turner the six month jail sentence — which many see as unjustly lenient — because Turner showed “genuine feelings of remorse” for the incident, even though he never admitted to the actual crime.
If Turner was not honest with the court after the verdict in order to cast himself in a favorable light, however, it raises serious questions about whether Turner’s “remorse” was genuine or self-serving. The issue of Turner’s honesty was raised by the prosecution in their sentencing memo but was apparently disregarded by Judge Persky.