You are the man parents warn their daughters about before going to parties; the man who takes advantage of drunk women, the man who doesn’t think about the repercussions of his actions or believe there will be any for him, the man who thinks he can violate a female’s body and not be held accountable, the man who only thinks in regards to his own sole pleasure.

After reading your statement, I have a few words for you. Yes, you are no longer 'a swimmer, a student, a resident of California or the product of the work that you have put in to accomplish the goals you set out in the first nineteen years of your life’. You are a rapist and I will not sugar coat it by saying you are a ‘sexual assailant’ or ‘Stanford attacker’ as many other news outlets are saying. You are a rapist and you cannot blame your actions on ‘party culture’. You made a choice on the night of January 17^th, 2015, to rape an innocent, unconscious and unresponsive woman behind a dumpster. You are not the victim, and I will not pity you because you lost your chance to swim in the Olympics, your ability to obtain a Stanford degree, employment opportunities or reputation because the fact of the matter is, you are a man, if man at all, who made deplorable choices that will forever affect the victim of this case.

Sorry to break it to you, but yes, you are not the victim. You never were and never will be the victim here. She was the victim and will be the victim for the rest of her life as long as the memory of the events following your assault stays with her.

You act as if you had no control over yourself that night, as if you did not know she was unconscious and unable to consent, as if you did not have every intention of raping her. but you are not stupid. Neither am I. You say you don’t know how you ended up behind a dumpster, but I do. You took the unconscious woman to an isolated and vacant area, away from the party and crowd just to assault her.

You didn’t even know her name at the time and she hardly even spoke to you because she was so intoxicated, she was unable to form a sentence. Were her eyes open? No. Could she stand upright on her own, or did you have to drag her there yourself? You see, you are not the victim, I’ll say it again if you didn’t catch it the first time. As much as your father may try to seek pity for his son by saying you can hardly enjoy steak anymore after your ’20 minutes of action’, you’re still not fooling me.

Originally, your sentence was six months in the county jail and three years of probation and I thought that was horrible. I thought it was a perfect example of the broken justice system and how both white and rich privilege plays a role in sentencing young men and women today. You are the embodiment of white and rich privilege and what it means to stand in a courtroom, be found guilty of three charges of felony sexual assault unanimously and still get off with a lenient punishment. It will take the victim a lot longer than six months to heal from what you did to her, if not, the rest of her life. As if it could not get any worse, I hear today that you will only serve half of your sentence and will be released September 2^nd of 2016.

You are a predator who preyed on the weak, the one who couldn’t fend for herself on January 17^th, 2015. Judge Aaron Persky seems to think a longer sentence will have a ‘severe impact’ on you, but I can only imagine the severe impact your assault has had on the victim. You deserve a longer prison sentence, you deserve to sit in jail for years, you deserve everything that is coming to you once you’re freed from your short-lived jail time: the hate, the dirty looks from passersby, the whispers, the yells that let you know just how much you are looked down upon, the rejection from women who will never give you the time of day after committing a crime such as this. You deserve it all.

You may have violated that woman, taken advantage of her body, stripped her of her own sanity, and caused her life to turn to turmoil, but how does it feel to know you have not completely destroyed her? She’s still out there and we’re still listening to that brave and courageous woman who refuses to be silenced. She is fighting for every sexual assault victim. She is showing the world what it means to rise from the dust, to be broken, but still continue to fight with an undying warrior spirit.

I’ve never met you, Brock Turner, but I know exactly who you are. You are the man parents warn their daughters about before going to parties; the man who takes advantage of drunk women, the man who doesn’t think about the repercussions of his actions or believe there will be any for him, the man who thinks he can violate a female’s body and not be held accountable, the man who only thinks in regards to his own sole pleasure.