In a case that we can’t help but compare to Brock Turner’s, a former Indiana University student was charged in connection with two counts of rape.
On Thursday 23 June, John Enochs was sentenced to one year of probation and one day in jail, despite rape being considered as a level three felony in the state of Indiana, and punishable by up to 16 years in prison.
One of the counts of rape in question happened in April 2015, when a woman went inside to use the bathroom while at a Delta Tau Delta frat party, WISH reports. She said the next thing she remembers is being naked and alone with an unknown man having sex with her.
According to reports by Fox59, the woman said she had repeatedly told Enochs to stop, but he didn’t. Eventually she managed to get away, with security video footage showing Enochs going into a room with the her, and the victim leaving about 24 minutes later.
The news comes hot on the trails of uproar at the similarly lenient sentencing of Stanford University student, Brock Turner, who was sentenced to six months in jail and three years probation for the sexual assault of an unconscious woman.
While police were investigating John Enochs however, they found a similar case from 2013. The victim from this case agreed to help investigators, and with matching DNA evidence and witness statements, Enochs was also arrested for this earlier incident.
In September of last year, Enochs was charged in connection with the two rape cases. However, he later accepted a plea deal, which meant pleading guilty to battery with moderate bodily injury (a class A misdemeanour), and his two rape charges were then dropped.
It’s not entirely clear why the prosecutors ended up settling for probation rather than sentencing for the two counts of rape he was previously charged with, however echoes of the Brock Turner case are ringing pretty loudly.
New York Daily News reported that Enoch was due to graduate this year, however when he was charged a spokesman for Indiana University said Enochs isn’t a student there anymore.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.