CALHOUN, Ga — This small northwest Georgia town remains starkly divided nearly two years after the alleged sexual assault of a high school senior at a drunken post-prom party. Some locals argue the victim made the whole thing up; others believe her attackers should never again breathe fresh air.
What most people do agree on, however, is that the case has dragged on too long and it’s time to decide whether three Calhoun High School athletes assaulted a classmate while she was too drunk to consent or to even remember what happened the next day.
“Everybody is tired of how long it’s taken for something to be done about it,” said 16-year-old Garrison Baumgardner, who knows two of the three accused through younger siblings. “Everybody on either side wants something done about it.”
People may be tired of hearing about the post-prom party more than two years later, but what happened there in May 2014 remains part of the public dialogue in this town of less than 16,000. While The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, like many news organizations, does not publish the names of alleged sexual assault victims, her name is still well known in Calhoun as is the name of the three former athletes charged with attacking her — former quarterback Fields Benjamin Chapman, one-time wide receiver Andrew Isaac Haynes and ex-baseball player Damon Avery Johnson.
The Calhoun case mirrors a growing number of national high profile rape allegations and trials, which can take months if not years to navigate through the court system.
In California, former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was sentenced to six months in prison for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster — roughly a year and a half after the attack took place. Last month, a former Vanderbilt University football player was convicted of inviting three teammates to sexually assault an unconscious woman in his dorm room in 2013. Brandon Vandenburg and teammate Cory Batey, convicted in April, will be sentenced in September and the other two are awaiting trial.
“We’re in 2016,” said Atlanta attorney Robin Clark, a past president of the State Bar of Georgia. “Think about all the rape allegations and rape trials going on now. It’s unbelievable. You would think we would be over that, that young men would be raised differently, act smarter and not hurt other people.”
Court case lags
In Georgia, District Attorney Alison Sosebee said the Calhoun case may seem to be stagnating to outside observers but inside the court system it’s not. She said there needs to be court rulings before certain evidence can be turned over and that has contributed to the delay. A hearing is scheduled for early August.
A 38-count indictment was returned in August 2014 charging Chapman, Haynes and Johnson with aggravated sexual battery, aggravated battery, sodomy and public indecency. Chapman also was charged with 28 counts of sexual exploitation of children for allegedly having nude pictures of his prom date. All three are out on $51,000 bond.
They entered not guilty pleas in January 2015 and various motions were filed. That was the last time prosecutors and defense attorneys in the case appeared in court together.
Attorney Steve Williams, who represents Haynes, said prosecutors have not shared evidence, including thousands of pages of documents and records from cell phone belonging to students at the party, even though the District Attorney’s Office assured him and the other defense attorneys more than 17 months ago they would get copies of evidence soon and well in advance of the trial.
Meanwhile, the case remains a heated debate among Calhoun residents.
“No one is in jail,” said Calhoun resident Cody Baggett, for taking away the woman’s “innocence.”
But Missy Bushong, who manages a cleaning supplies store, said she believes the victim is embarrassed and that “there’s some evidence out there that will show she is lying.”
Party, booze and drugs
The plan was eight girlfriends would spend the night at the Coosawattee River cabin owned by one of their parents after Calhoun High School’s May 10, 2014. The civil suit says parents knew there would be alcohol at the celebration and still they didn’t provide any adult supervision.
The parents gave a list of names of the eight invited teenagers to a security guard at the entrance to the Coosawattee River Resort. The teens got around that minor impediment by making multiple trips off and on the property, shuttling about 20 more boys and girls to the cabin.
The teenage party-goers brought booze and drugs, according to the civil suit.
Gilmer County Sheriff Stacy Nicholson said during a news conference two years ago there was enough alcohol at the party “to float a canoe down the Coosawattee River.” Nicholson declined to comment for this story because the Gilmer County prosecutor asked him not to discuss the case.
The young woman at the center of the criminal and civil cases was not on the list of invitees. Chapman, also not on the list, showed up for the party that was expected to last all night even though he had a court-ordered midnight curfew for a conviction on alcohol possession by a minor, according to the civil complaint. Johnson and Haynes weren't on the list either.
Soon after the party began, court documents said, the woman became drunk, so drunk she couldn’t remember the next morning what happened in an upstairs bedroom. She most certainly too drunk to consent to sexual contact with the trio, according to the court documents.
By the next morning, many lives were shattered — the high school senior who said she was assaulted, the three then-18-year-olds accused of violating her and parents who were also blamed for what happened at the cabin on the Coosawattee River.
The indictment said the three young men penetrated the woman with their fingers so brutally that she suffered “bruising, swelling and lacerations to the sexual organs.”
Through their attorneys, the young men have said the sexual contact was consensual. Lawyers for Chapman, Johnson and the woman did not respond to several requests for comment made by phone and email.
Gossip and more gossip
With no date set for the criminal trial, the alleged victim filed a lawsuit on the day that time ran out for a civil case to be brought. It calls for $40 million in compensatory and punitive damages. She names the three young men accused of attacking her, as well as the parents of one of them, the parents of the teenage girl who hosted the post-prom party and the resort where the cabin is located.
Chapman and his parents immediately responded with a counter suit, describing the young woman and female family members as promiscuous liars. The counter suit also accused her of planning the sexual encounters and not telling them that she had a venereal disease.
In his response to the woman’s suit, Chapmans’ lawyer, George Weaver, made strong and startling allegations against her.
Weaver wrote the woman had continued a “family tradition” of raising “unfounded allegations of rape and sexual assault in hopes of monetary gains.” Weaver also wrote in the filing the woman had a “bucket list” of guys she wanted to be with, including Chapman.
Baumgardner, the 16-year-old, said many of the opinions of those in the community of less than 16,000 are based on gossip and only gossip.
“In a small town … take what you hear for what it’s worth,” Baumgardner said. “You have to see the facts. But regardless of what happened, it shouldn’t be going on this long.”
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