text: Her letter, which was read in court defending Brock Turner, sparked national outrage from people who said it perpetuated rape culture and blamed victims 
   
   A woman who blamed a Stanford University sexual assault victim for drinking too much alcohol has issued a defensive apology, marking the latest controversy surrounding an athlete who avoided prison time for attacking an unconscious woman. 
   
   Leslie Rasmussen, a childhood friend of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, who was convicted of three felonies, wrote a letter to the judge saying that the assault was “a huge misunderstanding”, Turner is “not a monster”, and that she thought it was unfair “to base the fate of the next ten + years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything”. 
   
   Stanford sexual assault: dozens of letters to judge urge leniency for Brock Turner Read more 
   
   Her statement continued: “Where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists.” The letter – a selection of which the judge read in court, saying it was a useful reference that highlighted Turner’s strong character – went viral this week, sparking national outrage from people who said it perpetuated rape culture and cast blame on victims. 
   
   In the wake of significant backlash, Northside Festival, a New York music showcase, announced Tuesday that it had dropped Rasmussen’s band from its lineup, and her group, Good English, has now released an apology from Rasmussen. 
   
   The 20-year-old’s letter of support for Turner was one of dozens submitted to the judge, Aaron Persky, who is facing a recall campaign for giving the defendant a light sentence. Although a jury determined, based on witness testimony, that Turner had sexually assaulted an unconscious woman outside a fraternity party on campus, Persky ordered a sentence of six months in county jail, instead of the minimum two years in prison prescribed by law. 
   
   In a statement Good English shared with the Guardian, Rasmussen said she wanted the judge to “consider the effect that alcohol played in this tragedy”, adding: 
   
   I understand that this appeal has now provided an opportunity for people to misconstrue my ideas into a distortion that suggests I sympathize with sex offenses and those who commit them or that I blame the victim involved. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and I apologize for anything my statement has done to suggest that I don’t feel enormous sympathy for the victim and her suffering … There is nothing more sad than the unnecessary, destructive and enormous toll that overuse, misuse and abuse of alcohol and drugs play in people’s lives, and I don’t think my effort to point this out in confidence to a judge while commenting on Brock Turner’s character, as the sober person I knew him to be, was an irresponsible or reckless decision. Unfortunately, due to the overzealous nature of social media and the lack of confidence and privacy in which my letter to the judge was held, I am now thrust into the public eye to defend my position on this matter in the court of public opinion. 
   
   Unlike her original letter, Rasmussen acknowledged the “enormous pain” of the victim and said Turner was “tried and rightfully convicted of sexual assault”. 
   
   The band – which posted the apology on Facebook and subsequently deleted the page – declined to comment further. 
   
   
   
   After publication of this article, Rasmussen posted a second apology on her personal Facebook page, saying it was wrong for her to make assumptions about what happened that night. 
   
   “Most importantly, I did not acknowledge strongly enough the severity of Brock’s crime and the suffering and pain that his victim endured, and for that lack of acknowledgement, I am deeply sorry. 
   
   I fully understand the outrage over Brock’s sentencing and my statement. I can only say that I am committed to learning from this mistake. I am 20 years old, and it has never been more clear to me that I still have much to learn.” 
   
   Rasmussen’s letter was part of the court record of character references Persky considered before sentencing, and activists and supporters of the victim said they were appalled that the judge, who is a former Stanford athlete, placed so much weight on the references and the impact the trial has had on Turner. 
   
   Michele Dauber, a Stanford law professor and family friend of the victim, said it was important that these letters be exposed considering that the judge used them to justify leniency. 
   
   “She says in the letter that rapists don’t cause rape. That’s ridiculous,” said Dauber, who posted an excerpt of Rasmussen’s letter on Twitter and is leading the recall campaign against the judge. “I’m shocked that the judge found that to be persuasive.” 
   
   Michele Dauber (@mldauber) #brockturner court probation report is fetid pond of victim-blaming rapeyness @thehuntinground @hodgman @brielarson pic.twitter.com/hygboyoV9q 
   
   Citing Rasmussen’s references to “being politically correct”, Dauber added, “If that’s what this judge thinks is a good argument, then I think we need to get that out in front of the voters.” 
   
   Dauber noted that the character witnesses participated in a “public process”, adding, “They wanted to help their friend, and it was very effective. He was not sentenced to prison.” 
   
   Turner’s own testimony blaming the assault on “party culture” and his father’s statement that his son is paying a steep price for “20 minutes of action” have also attracted widespread criticisms. 
   
   The judge has declined to comment while an appeal in the case is pending. 
   
   The case originally received international attention when the 23-year-old victim released a powerful statement about rape culture and the suffering she has endured throughout the process. 
   
   • Two quotes in this article were amended on 8 June at the request of Michele Dauber. ||||| Former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus, exhibited concerning behavior before with other women, according to sentencing documents. 
   
   At a party the night the victim was sexually assaulted, a woman said Turner suddenly grabbed her and kissed her, the court documents show. The woman then turned and pushed him away, describing the interaction as "odd" because they had not talked much and there was no flirtation. 
   
   Later that night, Turner came back and tried to kiss her a second time as she was talking to a friend. He put his hands on her waist, and she "had to move away from him," the sentencing document said. 
   
   On June, 25 2015, detectives received information about two women who encountered Turner the weekend before the sexual assault took place. The woman attended a KA fraternity party on the weekend of Jan. 9, 2015, where one of the women was introduced to Turner. 
   
   The woman said Turner started dancing with her and described him as being “flirtatious” with her, according to sentencing court documents. After she began to feel uncomfortable and “turn her body away so that he would not be directly ‘behind’ her,” he became “touchy” and put his hands on her waist, stomach and upper thighs. 
   
   UIG via Getty Images 
   
   The woman said Turner "creeped" her out because of his persistence, the court document stated. 
   
   It is unclear why it took the women so long to report the incident to the police. 
   
   Turner was previously arrested in 2014, when a police officer saw him and a group of friends walking and drinking beers on campus. When the officer yelled, "Stop! Police!" the group ran away from him and continued running after he yelled it again. 
   
   One of the men who was detained identified Turner as one of his swim teammates whom he was drinking with when the detective first saw him. The detective then called Turner and asked him to return to the scene, and when he did, he was wearing a "bright orange tuxedo" and smelled of alcohol, the document said. He had a backpack with beers inside, as well as a beer in his hand, and admitted to trying to hide the beer because he was under age. 
   
   The prosecutors' sentencing document says it was "abundantly" clear that on the night of the sexual assault, Turner was "on the prowl" and attempted to "hook up" with women who were strangers to him. The sexual assault came one week after he was similarly aggressive with another female, at a different fraternity party, at the same location, the document said. 
   
   The document stated that Turner is still in denial about his criminal culpability and that he violated the victim's body and her right to choose with whom she engages in sexual activity, the document states. In his statement to probation he seems to regret his choice, not because it caused a woman to be sexually assaulted, but because it has greatly affected his life as though he is the "victim" of "peer pressure," the document states. 
   
   In the early morning hours of Jan. 18, after Brock was arrested, police observed a text message sent to Turner in the “Group Me” application that said “Who’s t*** are those?” Police obtained a search warrant for Turner’s phone but were unable to locate that text or any photos relating to that text, according to the documents. 
   
   The search of Turner’s phone “shed some light” into his behavior and character during the time period relating to the sexual assault and in the year prior to when he began attendance at Stanford, according to the sentencing document. 
   
   Prosecutors said there was evidence indicating Turner engaged in “excessive drinking and using drugs,” including a photo of him smoking from a pipe, a close-up photo of a bong, another photo of one of Turner’s swim teammates with a bong in his hand and a December 2014 video showing turner smoking from a bong and drinking out of a bottle of liquor. 
   
   Several text messages indicative of drug use during Turner’s time at Stanford and when he was still in high school in Ohio were also found on his phone, according to the sentencing document, and the texts contained several references to smoking, buying and sharing “weed” from as early as April 2014, as well as references to doing acid or trying to find a “hook up.” 
   
   The document also stated that Turner lied about ever using illicit drugs in his statement to probation and appeared to make it seem as though his first time drinking was at a swim party when he first got to Stanford. Prosecutors also said he also lied about that there was some sort of “flirtation” between the woman he kissed abruptly at the frat party. 
   
   The judge who oversaw Turner’s case has been receiving abusive and threatening phone calls after his six-month sentence caused a media frenzy, said Santa Clara Public Defender Gary Goodman. ||||| “How does the average person who is really upset and troubled about the Brock story, how does somebody participate in that, making right of a wrong?” Mr. Stedman said. “We are really just one tiny, infinitesimal part of that puzzle, but I think it was a no-brainer for us.” 
   
   In her letter, Ms. Rasmussen, 20, says that there was a distinction between rape and Mr. Turner’s case, and suggested that alcohol was to blame for his actions. 
   
   Mr. Turner, 20, a swimmer at Stanford, was found by two passers-by, partially clothed behind a trash bin on campus, on top of the 23-year-old woman, who was incapacitated by alcohol, according to the authorities. The passers-by stopped the assault and held Mr. Turner down as he tried to flee. 
   
   “I don’t think it’s fair to base the fate of the next ten + years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him,” Ms. Rasmussen, who plays drums in the band, wrote. “But where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campus isn’t always because people are rapists.” 
   
   Mr. Turner was convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault for the attack, which took place in January 2015. This week the judge in the case, Aaron Persky of Superior Court in Santa Clara County, Calif., came under withering criticism from the public for the sentence he imposed: six months in jail and probation. 
   
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   Ms. Rasmussen’s letter was part of a package of letters sent to the judge on behalf of Mr. Turner before his sentencing, a standard practice in which people seek to influence a sentencing decision by sharing their experiences of the defendant. His father also sent a letter that had an even more explosive effect when it was made public this week; he said that the episode had affected his son’s appetite and that, in particular, he no longer enjoyed rib-eye steaks. 
   
   Following the firestorm her letter provoked, Ms. Rasmussen said that her words were being twisted and that she was being unfairly stigmatized. “This appeal has now provided an opportunity for people to misconstrue my ideas into a distortion that suggests I sympathize with sex offenses and those who commit them or that I blame the victim involved,” she said in a statement. 
   
   Ms. Rasmussen also believed that the letter to the judge was private. But a spokesman for the court said she was wrong — such letters, like most documents entered into the court, are a matter of public record. 
   
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   Within hours of Ms. Rasmussen’s letter being made public by New York magazine, Good English was removed from a roster of Brooklyn venues where they were scheduled to perform in the coming days, including Rock Shop in Gowanus, Industry City Distillery in Greenwood, Gold Sounds in Bushwick, and Bar Matchless in Greenpoint. 
   
   “We don’t want to be affiliated with anyone that’s going to try to victim-blame or even just downplay rape,” said Larry Hyland, an owner of Bar Matchless. 
   
   Mr. Hyland said he had received over 50 emails and posts on the bar’s Facebook page demanding that the band’s show be canceled. Some of the messages, he said, included threats to confront the band members if they did perform. 
   
   “We didn’t cancel the show because of censorship,” he said, adding that while he disagreed with the content of Ms. Rasmussen’s letter, he understood the impulse to want to help a childhood friend. “I wanted to avoid an unsafe environment.” 
   
   On Tuesday, the Dayton Music Art and Film Festival near the band’s hometown announced that it, too, was removing the band from its September lineup. “Such actions should not be defended, friend or not,” the festival wrote on its Facebook page. On Wednesday, Behind the Curtains Media, the public relations firm that represented Good English, dropped them from its client roster. 
   
   In her statement, Ms. Rasmussen attributed the fallout from her initial letter not to what she wrote, but to “the overzealous nature of social media.” In particular, she lamented the “uproar of judgment and hatred unleashed on me” and the effect it was having on her musical aspirations. ||||| Photo: Courtesy of the Santa Clara County Sheriff 
   
   While Brock Turner, the ex-Stanford student who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman behind a dumpster last year, has formally been sentenced on three counts of felony sexual assault, he is not being described as a convicted rapist in the media. Many people have been asking why. Here’s your answer. Warning: It’s pretty unsatisfying. 
   
   In California, rape is defined as someone using “physical force, intimidation, duress, or threats to persuade the victim to engage in sexual intercourse.” In the case of Turner’s rape of an unconscious woman, witnesses and testimony determined that Turner penetrated his victim with a foreign object, not a sexual organ. His victim, who read powerful testimony in court directly addressing Turner, explained what she learned after the attack: 
   
   Never mentioned me voicing consent, never mentioned us even speaking, a back rub. One more time, in public news, I learned that my ass and vagina were completely exposed outside, my breasts had been groped, fingers had been jabbed inside me along with pine needles and debris, my bare skin and head had been rubbing against the ground behind a dumpster, while an erect freshman was humping my half naked, unconscious body. But I don’t remember, so how do I prove I didn’t like it. 
   
   In the eyes of the law, what Turner did to his victim is considered sexual assault and not rape, no matter how horrific it sounds. The three charges Turner was convicted of are “assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated woman, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object, and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object.” 
   
   Intent to commit rape, legally, is not the same as sexually penetrating a person, and therefore, Turner is not being described as a convicted rapist. But he is now a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.
target: – More aftermath following the conviction of Stanford swimmer Brock Turner on sexual assault charges, including new allegations of previous troubling behavior he showed toward women—with prosecutors noting he was "on the prowl" the night of the attack and was still in denial as of his sentencing that his actions were criminal, ABC News reports. Per sentencing documents, a woman at a party the same night Turner attacked his victim alleges he became sexually aggressive toward her, grabbing her and kissing her, without encouragement. And in June 2015, investigators got wind about two other women who ran into Turner at a frat party the weekend before the January assault. One said he was "flirtatious" while dancing, and that when she began to feel "creeped out" and tried to turn away, he became "touchy." Meanwhile, a Turner supporter facing backlash for calling out the victim's drinking issued a "defensive apology" to the Guardian Wednesday. In her statement, Leslie Rasmussen says people "misconstrued" her defense of Turner into meaning she didn't feel for the victim, a "distortion" she blames on the "overzealous nature of social media" and, per the New York Times, the fact that she mistakenly thought her court letter would be kept private. "I apologize for anything my statement has done to suggest that I don't feel enormous sympathy for the victim and her suffering," she said. The Guardian notes that after its own article was posted with her apology, she wrote a follow-up on Facebook. "I was not there that night. I had no right to make any assumptions about the situation," she wrote Wednesday evening. "Most importantly, I did not acknowledge strongly enough the severity of Brock's crime and the suffering and pain that his victim endured, and for that lack of acknowledgement, I am deeply sorry." She adds that, at the age of 20, "it has never been more clear to me that I still have much to learn." (New York explains why Turner isn't "technically" a convicted rapist.)