PALO ALTO (BCN) — A former star swimmer at Stanford University pleaded not guilty today to five counts of sexual assault for allegedly raping a drunk and
unconscious woman outside an on-campus fraternity party last month, prosecutors said.
Brock Allen Turner, 19, was charged last week with five felony counts of sexual assault. Deputies allegedly found him pinned by two good Samaritans who encountered him on top of the woman outside the Kappa Alpha house at 664 Lomita Court on Jan. 18, according to a report by Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
If convicted of the charges, Turner could face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, district attorney’s spokesman Sean Webby said today.
Turner, an Ohio resident, was a freshman at Stanford until he withdrew from the school shortly after his arrest.
The two men who allegedly found Turner were bicycling by just before 1 a.m. and noticed a man lying on top of a woman on the ground near a dumpster, according to the sheriff’s office’s report.
The woman appeared to be unconscious and not moving and it looked like they were having sex. When the bicyclists stopped to see what was going on, the man tried to run away. They checked on the woman and then pursued him.
They caught up with the fleeing man and, after a struggle, pinned him to the ground.
The woman was still unconscious when deputies arrived. She was severely intoxicated and taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, where she remained asleep until later that morning.
She told investigators she lost her memory shortly after midnight when she was drinking outside the house.
Turner told investigators that he met the woman at the party and they ended up kissing on the ground outside the house. He said he did not have sex with her and that the sexual activity between the two seemed to be consensual from his perspective, according to the sheriff’s office’s report.
Prosecutors have charged Turner with unlawful sexual intercourse with someone who is prevented from resisting due to intoxication, intercourse with a person unconscious of the nature of the act, assault with the intent to commit rape, sexual penetration of a person who cannot resist due to intoxication and penetration of a person unconscious of the nature of the act.