VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE NICOLE P. ERAMO, 2628 Jefferson Park Circle Charlottesville, VA 22903 Plaintiff, v. ROLLING STONE LLC, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104-0295, SABRINA RUBIN ERDELY, 613 S. 9th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147-2027, and WENNER MEDIA LLC, 1290 Avenue Of The Americas, New York, NY 10104-0295, Defendants. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Civil Action No. COMPLAINT Plaintiff Nicole P. Eramo, in support of her Complaint against Defendants Rolling Stone LLC, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and Wenner Media LLC states the following: NATURE OF THE ACTION 1. This defamation action arises out of the publication of the false and later discredited article in Rolling Stone magazine entitled, "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA" (hereinafter, "A Rape on Campus" or "the article"). Rolling Stone's Contributing Editor, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, wrote the article, which caused a national media firestorm and has been viewed online more than 2.7 million times. 2. Defendants' purpose in publishing the article was to weave a narrative that depicted the University of Virginia ("UVA") as an institution that is indifferent to rape on campus, and more concerned with protecting its reputation than with assisting victims of sexual assault. 3. The article leads with a horrific, graphic description of a violent gang rape of a UVA freshman, identified only as "Jackie" in the article. The article claims that Jackie was asked out to a fraternity date party by a coworker at the University pool who was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. At the party, Jackie was led to a pitch-black room upstairs, where she was tackled through a glass table, punched in the face, and brutally gang raped for three hours by seven men while her date, "Drew," directed the assault as part of a fraternity initiation ritual. 4. To personify the University's alleged institutional indifference to rape, Erdely and Rolling Stone cast Dean Eramo, who met with and counseled Jackie, as the chief villain of the story. Erdely and Rolling Stone claimed - both in the article and in a slew of media appearances and interviews designed to increase publicity for the article - that Dean Eramo intentionally tried to coddle Jackie to persuade her not to report her rape; that she was indifferent to Jackie's allegations; that she discouraged Jackie from sharing her story with others; that she "abuse[d]" Jackie; that she did "nothing" in response to Jackie's allegations; that she claimed that UV A withholds rape statistics "because nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school"; that she did not report Jackie 's alleged assault to the police; that she "brushed off' Jackie; and that she actively sought to "suppress" Jackie's supposed gang rape. 5. These statements, and the portrayal of Dean Eramo, in "A Rape on Campus" and in Erdely and Rolling Stone 's subsequent public statements, are categorically false. Indeed, publicly available information demonstrates that the highly disparaging claims about Dean 2 Eramo are all untrue. In fact, upon being told of Jackie's allegations of sexual assault differed materially from the description Erdely and Rolling Stone published immediately offered to assist Jackie in holding her attackers accountable - which Dean Eramo by going to the police, by pursuing misconduct proceedings within the University, or by both. Dean Eramo ultimately persuaded Jackie to speak with the police, and she arranged and attended two different meetings between Jackie and officers from the University Police Department and the Charlottesville Police Department. 6. Dean Eramo's efforts did not result in an official complaint or report to police - not because Dean Eramo tried to "suppress" Jackie's allegations or persuade her to remain silent - but because Jackie adamantly refused to cooperate with law enforcement or name her alleged attackers. As the Charlottesville Police Department has since confirmed, Jackie insisted both to Dean Eramo and to the police that she did not want her claims investigated, and she refused to provide any specific details that would have allowed them to do so. When police again tried to investigate the supposed sexual assault following the nationwide outcry after the publication of "A Rape on Campus," Jackie retained a lawyer and refused to speak with the detectives who were trying to substantiate her claims. As the Washington Post later noted, contrary to Erdely and Rolling Stone's portrayal of Dean Eramo as "incompetent and insensitive," Dean Eramo was "actually quite active in seeking an investigation and justice for the allegations" Jackie presented. 7. Erdely and Rolling Stone's allegations against Dean Eramo are not only clearly false, but they are defamatory per se. By claiming that Dean Eramo "abused" Jackie, discouraged her from reporting her alleged gang rape, and coddled Jackie into inaction to protect UVA, Rolling Stone and Erdely attributed to Dean Eramo conduct unfit for a counselor of victims of sexual assault and the head of UVA's Sexual Misconduct Board. Moreover, these 3 statements prejudiced Dean Eramo in her profession as a UV A Dean and administrator who is responsible for the welfare of UVA students and sexual assault survivors. 8. Not surprisingly, these claims had a devastating effect on Dean Eramo' s reputation. As a woman who has dedicated her life to assisting victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse, Dean Eramo saw herself tarred in the national press as the chief architect of a conspiracy to suppress Jackie's assault in order to protect UV A's reputation. Dean Eramo received a wave of emails and letters from people across the county attacking her as, among other things, "evil," a "wretched rape apologist," and a "disgusting, worthless piece of trash." 9. Rolling Stone and Erdely's highly defamatory and false statements about Dean Eramo were not the result of an innocent mistake; they were the result of a wanton journalist who was more concerned with writing an article that fulfilled her preconceived narrative about the victimization of women on American college campuses, and a malicious publisher who was more concerned about selling magazines to boost the economic bottom line for its faltering magazine, than they were about discovering the truth or actual facts. 10. Erdely and Rolling Stone acted with actual malice when they published "A Rape on Campus." Erdely and Rolling Stone knew that Jackie was not a reliable source for truthful information about her interactions with Dean Eramo. They had serious doubts about the truth of the disparaging claims they planned to make about Dean Eramo, but intentionally violated commonly accepted journalistic norms and consciously failed to investigate sources and information that they believed would have revealed the falsity of the charges they leveled. Erdely and Rolling Stone were intent on painting a narrative that depicted Dean Eramo as complicit in a cover up of Jackie's allegations and, having made the decision to so accuse Dean Eramo, celebrated their preconceived narrative by including an intentionally doctored illustration 4 of Dean Eramo that depicts her as callous toward a sexual assault victim sitting and crying in her office. 11. Erdely and Rolling Stone 's malice further is evidenced by the many half-truths, untruths, and flat out lies Erdely and Rolling Stone told in the days following publication of the story in an effort to defend the credibility of a story they knew was likely false. Erdely and Rolling Stone claimed to have interviewed sources they did not interview, claimed to have verified Jackie 's claims when they did no such thing, and claimed to know who Jackie's alleged perpetrators were when in fact they had no idea whether they even existed. 12. Perhaps Defendants' most outrageous and disgraceful conduct occurred in the last days of November and early days of December 2014. By Erdely and Rolling Stone's own admission, by November 26, 2014 they had concluded that Jackie was unreliable and were concerned about the integrity of their story - as Erdely herself put it, an "alarm bell" was going off in her head. However, Erdely and Rolling Stone kept up a public charade designed to prevent an increasingly skeptical public from learning that the story was false. 13. From November 26, 2014 until December 5, 2014 - when Rolling Stone was finally forced to admit publicly that it had lost faith in the story, after the fraternity involved presented information concretely repudiating Erdely and Rolling Stone's account - Erdely and Rolling Stone continued to conduct a nationwide press tour in which they repeatedly and callously doubled down on their false claims that Dean Eramo was indifferent to Jackie's allegations, that she did nothing in response to them, that she did not report them to the police, and that she instead sought to suppress Jackie's allegations and discourage her from reporting them. Erdely and Rolling Stone also continued to profess publicly absolute faith in Jackie's credibility, despite knowing privately that she was not credible. Ironically, far from Dean Eramo suppressing Jackie's alleged gang rape to protect UVA's reputation, it was Erdely and 5 Rolling Stone that engaged in a clear pattern of suppression of the truth and active deceit to protect the reputation of their magazine - with complete disregard for the harm they were causing to Dean Eramo. 14. Despite Erdely and Rolling Stone 's efforts to hide the truth, "A Rape on Campus" was eventually exposed as a monumental hoax. Commentators have called the article "a disgrace" and "bogus journalism" that "violated nearly every tenet of reporting." Even a report commissioned by Rolling Stone itself called the article "a journalistic failure" and noted that Rolling Stone "set aside or rationalized as unnecessary essential practices of reporting," and then intentionally "glossed over the gaps" it knew existed in the reporting of the article. 15. Even in the aftermath of what has been described as Erdely and Rolling Stone 's "systematic failures" that lead to publication of "A Rape on Campus," Rolling Stone elected not to discipline Erdely or any of its editors. 16. Dean Erarno brings this action to vindicate her rights under civil law, to restore her reputation as a highly-regarded university administrator and advocate for victims of sexual violence, and to establish Erdely and Rolling Stone's liability for the irreparable harm that they caused to her reputation by the false and defamatory statements published in "A Rape on Campus," as well as the myriad defamatory statements made by Erdely and Rolling Stone during their subsequent publicity tour. Dean Eramo seeks an award of compensatory damages for the reputational harm caused by Erdely and Rolling Stone 's defamatory statements and, given the willful and malicious nature of Defendants' conduct in knowingly publishing defamatory falsehoods about Dean Eramo, she also seeks an award of punitive damages. PARTIES 17. Plaintiff Nicole Eramo is an individual and resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia, City of Charlottesville. She is an Associate Dean of Students at UVA, located m 6 Charlottesville. Dean Eramo was one of the primary targets of Defendants' false and defamatory article. 18. Defendant Rolling Stone LLC is a privately held Delaware limited liability company with its headquarters in New York, New York. Upon information and belief, Rolling Stone LLC has a sole member, which is Wenner Media LLC. Rolling Stone LLC publishes Rolling Stone magazine in conjunction with Wenner Media LLC. Defendants Rolling Stone LLC and Wenner Media LLC are collectively referred to herein as "Rolling Stone." Rolling Stone published the false and defamatory article about Dean Eramo on its website and in its December 2014 print edition of the magazine. 19. Defendant Sabrina Rubin Erdely is a journalist and magazine reporter who is employed as a Contributing Editor for Rolling Stone magazine. Erdely is a resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Erdely authored and published the defamatory article that falsely accused Dean Eramo of discouraging Jackie to report her alleged rape. 20. Defendant Wenner Media LLC is a privately held Delaware limited liability company with its headquarters in New York, New York. No publicly available information identifies the members of Wenner Media LLC. Wenner Media LLC publishes Rolling Stone magazine in conjunction with Rolling Stone LLC, and also publishes Us Weekly and Men 's Journal magazines. Defendants Rolling Stone LLC and Wenner Media LLC are collectively referred to herein as "Rolling Stone." Rolling Stone published the false and defamatory article about Dean Eran10 on its website and in its December 2014 print edition of the magazine. JURISDICTION AND VENUE 21. This Court has specific personal jurisdiction over Defendants under Virginia's long-arm statute, Va. Code § 8.01-328.1, as well as under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution, because, among other things, the causes of action asserted in this Complaint arise 7 from Defendants transacting business in this Commonwealth and causing tortious injury by an act or omission in this Commonwealth. Moreover, exercising jurisdiction would not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice because Defendants could have should have - and reasonably foreseen being haled into a Virginia court to account for their defamatory statements regarding a Virginia citizen and resident they knew to be employed by the University of Virginia. 22. Defendants knew that that Dean Eramo is a resident of Virginia and that UV A is a Virginia institution and, as such, their act of writing and publishing an article critical of Dean Eramo and the University manifests their intent to aim their defamatory publication into Virginia and at a Virginia audience. 23. Rolling Stone also regularly solicits business in this Commonwealth and derives substantial revenue from sale of magazines and sale of advertising resulting from their directing their publications, including the article at issue in this action, into this Commonwealth and at residents of this Commonwealth. Rolling Stone magazine may be purchased at any number of retail locations within Virginia, and, upon information and belief, it has thousands of Virginia subscribers of its print edition, and accordingly, it sends thousands of magazines each month into Virginia - including the December 2014 print edition in which the defamatory article was published. Rolling Stone also purchased at least one photograph used in the defamatory article from the Cavalier Daily, UVA' s student newspaper. 24. For her part, Ms. Erdely conducted multiple interviews in - communications via phone and email into - and directed myriad the Commonwealth of Virginia as part of her pre- publication work in authoring "A Rape on Campus." For example, Erdely spoke with Jackie, who lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, by telephone at least nine times, texted and emailed with her numerous times, and interviewed her m person in Charlottesville. 8 Erdely spent approximately one week in Charlottesville reporting the story, during which time she interviewed other individuals mentioned in the article, toured the campus, and attended a UV A Board of Visitors meeting. Erdely directed other phone calls and emails into Virginia to other UVA students, administrators, and fraternity representatives, as well as to Jackie's mother. Upon information and belief, Erdely continued her reporting - and had additional contacts with Virginia citizens and residents through emails, phone calls, and in-person interviews in Virginia - after the article was initially debunked. 25. Venue is proper in this circuit under Va. Code § 8.01-262 because the causes of action asserted herein arose in this Circuit and the plaintiff resides in this Circuit. FACTS Dean Eramo Dedicates Her Career To Advocating For Victims Of Sexual Assault And Domestic Violence 26. Plaintiff Nicole Eramo is a "triple Hoo," having earned three degrees from UVA (the school's unofficial term for a student is "Wahoo"). She earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1997, a Masters in Education in Social Foundations in 2003, and a Ph.D. in Education in 2010. Dean Eramo has worked for UVA in various capacities since 1997. 27. Dean Eramo began working for UV A upon completion of her undergraduate studies in 1997 as a Special Assistant to the Honor Committee. In this capacity, she was responsible for, among other things, assisting with programs to educate students on ethical issues in education, coordinating juror participation in student-led trials for honor code violations, and working with students, parents, faculty, and administrators regarding Honor System issues and concerns. She held this position until 2006. 28. From 2005 to 2006, Dean Eramo also worked as a Doctoral Intern in the Office of the Provost, while earning her Ph.D. In this position she was responsible for working on policies 9 for tenure and non-tenure track faculty, and for leading and coordinating meetings of the Provost's Internal Policy Committee. 29. In September 2006, she became an Assistant Dean of Students at UV A. One of her chief responsibilities as an Assistant Dean of Students was to chair UV A's Sexual Misconduct Board, the University body that adjudicates all reports of sexual assault and misconduct. In addition to overseeing the Board's adjudications, Dean Eramo worked to educate students about sexual assault and about the Board and its functions. 30. Dean Eramo has made assisting those in crisis the focus of her professional career, and she devotes much of her free time to this calling as well. From 1998 through 2006, she worked as a volunteer and manager for the Shelter for Help in Emergency in Charlottesville, a nonprofit that works to support and empower victims of domestic violence. There, Dean Eramo worked the phones to help counsel and assist callers in crisis situations, and also managed the shelter's operations. She underwent weeks of extensive training in order to prepare for this volunteer position. 31. In 2010, Dean Eramo became an Associate Dean of Students. In this capacity she continued to chair the Sexual Misconduct Board, and she also took on a greater role as an advocate and supporter of victims of sexual assault, providing outreach and support to individual affected students. Dean Eramo also serves as a member of the Dean-on-Call rotation, making herself available to respond to any kind of student emergency after hours, and working with individual students, families, and academic colleagues to coordinate ongoing support and services for UVA students in need. 32. Dean Eramo has undergone extensive training for her work as an advocate for sexual assault victims. She has attended seminars and conferences on college student sexuality, sexual assault, the role of alcohol in college sexual assaults, sexual assault and domestic violence 10 survivor support, legal issues surrounding campus sexual assaults, and engaging males m prevention of violence against women, among many others. 33. Dean Eramo has been widely lauded for her work as an advocate for victims of sexual assault at UVA and has earned a reputation as tireless supporter of victims and of UVA students generally. In 2010 she received the Raven Award from the Raven Society for service to the University. In April 2014, Dean Eramo received the Z Society' s Pale Z Award, its highest and rarest honor, for her work with students whose lives have been affected by sexual violence. In 2015, the UVA Honor Committee awarded Dean Eramo the Henry St. George Tucker Award as the faculty member who best embodies the ideals of honor at UV A. 34. Following the publication of "A Rape on Campus" in November 2014, dozens of students and community supporters that have interacted with Dean Eramo wrote an open letter to the Cavalier Daily - UVA' s student newspaper - "advocating for our advocate, Nicole Eramo." These students and supporters praised Dean Eramo as "above and beyond the best resource the University has," called her "superb" at her job, commended her for being "passionate" and "selfless," and complimented her as "professional, caring, and extremely competent at an extremely difficult job." Erdely Develops An Agenda-Driven Journalism Career Recently Marred By Sensationalized Stories About Sexual Assault 35. Erdely has stated publicly that she decided to become a journalist in college. Since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994, Erdely has written for a number of publications, including GQ, The New Yorker, Mother Jones, Cosmopolitan and Self. Erdely has a history of writing stories about the victimization of women, including rape, harassment, and women's unequal access to health and medical care in the United States and around the world. 11 36. Many of Erdely's stories have been criticized for their lack of factual accuracy. While studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Erdely received a college journalism award from Rolling Stone for an article she wrote profiling folk singer Michelle Shocked. Erdely later admitted that 'just about everything in the story was wrong," because Erdely failed to attend a significant portion of a press conference where Shocked was interviewed. Erdely missed "practically everything" during the event, failed to secure time with the singer during the question and answer portion of the conference, and instead cobbled together "facts" about the singer borrowed from other mainstream publications. After the piece was published, Shocked's husband called Erdely to explain the factual problems with the story. According to Erdely, this "taught her such an important early lesson." 37. Long before Erdely wrote "A Rape on Campus," Erdely has made a practice of using narrative journalism in which a shocking rape case is used as the vehicle to show that a given institution is indifferent to, or actively seeks to conceal, sexual assaults. 38. As early as 1996, Erdely published an article entitled "Intimate Intimidation" in Philadelphia magazine, detailing the alleged molestation of a gynecology patient by her physician during an exam. Like "A Rape on Campus," Erdely describes in graphic detail the alleged assault by the accuser, and then goes on to paint a picture of how the states' medical licensing systems, the physician's employers, and even the justice and court systems failed in their respective duties - each ultimately failing to protect the women who had been molested. 39. In the November 2008 edition of Self magazine, Erdely published an article entitled "The Crime Against Women No One Understands," which much like "A Rape on Campus" begins with a graphic depiction of one woman' s account of a rape she suffered after her drink was allegedly drugged during a date. The article used this graphic depiction of an anal rape to argue that juries often fail to convict "nonstranger" date rapists because the crimes are not 12 violent attacks and because victims do not necessarily act the way jurors expect a rape victim to act. 40. More recently, Erdely has authored articles about sexual assault that have fallen under serious criticism for their factual inaccuracy. In 2011, Erdely wrote a story for Rolling Stone in which she claimed that an altar boy, pseudonymously called "Billy Doe," was raped by two priests and a Catholic schoolteacher in Philadelphia, and that these crimes were covered up by Catholic officials. The article was titled "The Catholic Church' s Sex-Crime Files: How a scandal in Philadelphia exposed documents that reveal a high-level conspiracy to cover up decades of sexual abuse." Following the debunking of "A Rape on Campus," Newsweek examined the Billy Doe story, determining that "the factual discrepancies in Jackie's story are dwarfed by the factual discrepancies in Billy's story that was published in the September 15, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone," and noting Billy Doe' s "astonishing lack of credibility." 41. allegations - Whereas Erdely's previous rape stories generally involved somewhat verifiable where individuals were charged and/or convicted - Erdely has since dispensed with the need for verification in favor of more sensationalist narrative journalism. In 2013, Rolling Stone published a story by Erdely called "The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer: Inside the military 's culture of sex abuse, denial and cover-up." The structure of that article is very similar to "A Rape on Campus." That article was centered on the story of a female naval officer who was arrested for drunk driving and subsequently behaved erratically and was extremely intoxicated, fighting with officers, screaming incoherently, and attempting to remove her clothes in her jail cell. Erdely claimed that the woman had been drugged at a bar and sexually assaulted, and that this was the reason for her behavior. Erdely further implied that Navy officials tried to dissuade the officer from reporting her rape and did little to investigate her claims. 13 42. In reality, Naval officials conducted an extensive investigation that lasted a year and a half, performed a toxin screen that revealed no "date rape" drugs in the woman' s system, interviewed individuals that were at the bar with the officer that night, and generally found no physical evidence whatsoever supporting the claim that she was sexually assaulted. But in order to support her narrative that the military is indifferent to sexual assault, Erdely simply ignored this inconvenient evidence and reported the rape and supposed cover-up as if they were fact. 43 . Rolling Stone published both the Billy Doe and Officer Blumer articles and was therefore aware of Erdely's penchant for placing wholesale trust in unreliable sources and for purposefully avoiding facts that do not support her preconceived narrative regarding the particular institution that is failing to protect individuals from rape. 44. According to Erdely herself, when she set out to write "A Rape on Campus," she wanted to repeat the narrative she wove about the U.S. Navy in "The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer," but this time using an elite college as the offending institution. The Washington Post reported that Erdely worked for six weeks interviewing women at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Penn, before she identified Jackie as an enthusiastic source "dying to share [her story]." Rolling Stone Publishes "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA" 45. On November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone published "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA." The article was published online on Rolling Stone's website. The article was republished in the hardcopy edition of Rolling Stone dated December 4, 2014. 46. The centerpiece of the article is Erdely's description of the story of "Jackie," a UVA student who Erdely claims was gang-raped during a date function party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house just weeks into her freshman year, on September 28, 2012. Erdely tells the story of Jackie's alleged sexual assault in vivid and graphic detail. 14 4 7. Psi brother" - According to Erdely, Jackie was invited to the party by a "handsome Phi Kappa called "Drew" in the article - who worked with Jackie at the UVA pool. Erdely wrote that during the party, "Drew" asked Jackie to go upstairs to a room at the fraternity house. Upon entering the "pitch-black" room, Jackie felt someone bump into her and she screamed. A man told her to shut up, tackling her backward and sending her crashing through a glass table. Erdely then claimed that for the next three hours, Jackie was gang-raped on a carpet strewn with broken glass by seven men who also punched her and violated her with a beer bottle. Erdely further claimed that this gang rape was some kind of fraternity initiation ritual directed, orchestrated, and encouraged by "Drew," with one assailant supposedly telling another, "Don't you want to be a brother? We all had to do it, so you do, too." According to Erdely, in addition to her coworker "Drew," Jackie recognized another assailant as a member of her "tiny anthropology discussion group." 48. attack - Erdely then claimed that Jackie - whom she reported as being sober during the passed out, and woke up alone on the floor at 3 a.m. Erdely wrote that Jackie emerged from the room to find the fraternity party still going on, and snuck out a side staircase barefoot, face beaten, and in a dress "spattered with blood." 49. According to the article, Jackie then phoned three friends for help. They are identified in the article only by the pseudonyms "Randall," "Andy," and "Cindy." According to Erdely, Randall initially said that they should take Jackie to the hospital. But her friend Cindy asked if that was a good idea, because " (h]er reputation will be shot for the next four years." 1 I Emphasis in orig inal. 15 Andy supposedly agreed, adding that they ought to think through whether to report a brutal and violent gang rape because it could affect his and Randall ' s ability to rush fraternities. 50. Erdely described this scene as taking place in front of the Phi Kappa Psi house, which "loomed behind them," while Jackie, "mute in her bloody dress," watched her supposed friends argue about whether reporting her gang rape would affect their social standing. According to Erdely, Cindy' s view prevailed, because if the rape were reported, "we'll never be allowed into any frat party again." Erdely later claimed that Cindy, who she described as a "hookup queen," callously told Jackie that she should have enjoyed being brutally gang raped by "[a] bunch of hot Phi Psi guys." Andy supposedly called Jackie "a baby" for being upset about the rape. Erdely also quoted Randall as saying that publicizing the rape could result in a "shitshow," but wrote that he declined her interview request, "citing his loyalty to his own frat." 51. Erdely also claimed that Jackie faced violent retaliation for sharing her story with campus support groups. According to Erdely, in Spring 2014 Jackie was harassed outside bars on the Comer (a strip of bars and restaurants off campus) by men who recognized her from her "presentations." According to Erdely, Jackie was called a "cunt" and "feminazi bitch," and one of the men threw a bottle at her that shattered on the side of her face. 52. Erdely also claimed that since the attack, Jackie had regularly seen her attackers on campus, including "Drew," who acted nonchalantly as if the coordinated gang rape had not happened, and thanked her for "a great time." Erdely also wrote that two other girls had been gang raped at the Phi Psi house in incidents similar to Jackie ' s, but said that neither woman was willing to talk to Rolling Stone about the assaults. 53. Erdely also repeatedly noted that Jackie was not willing to take any formal or official action, whether with the University or the police, to bring her attackers to justice. She wrote that Jackie "didn't feel ready to file a complaint," that she "badly wants to muster the 16 courage to file criminal charges or even a civil case," but that she feels "paralyzed" and has not done so. Erdely did not explain why Jackie, who in Erdely's words had been "dying to share [her story]" for publication in a national magazine, would at the same time be unwilling to pursue a disciplinary process through the University or file a criminal complaint with the police. Rolling Stone and Erdely Target Dean Eramo As the Villain In Their Story 54. Much of "A Rape on Campus" is dedicated to describing Jackie's interactions with Dean Eramo and, according to Erdely, Dean Eramo's alleged actions (or inactions) designed to discourage Jackie from reporting her gang rape and bringing her attackers to justice. 55. Erdely in fact started the article with the tagline, "Jackie was just starting her freshman year at the University of Virginia when she was brutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party. When she tried to hold them accountable, a whole new kind of abuse began." She then wrote: "Lots of people have discouraged her from sharing her story, Jackie tells me with a pained look, including the trusted UV A Dean [Eramo] to whom Jackie reported her gang-rape allegations more than a year ago." 56. According to Erdely, the gang rape occurred on September 28, 2012. But Jackie did not bring the alleged sexual assault to the attention of school officials until many months later, towards the end of the second semester, when Jackie was called in to meet with her academic dean after failing three classes. According to Erdely, upon being confronted with her poor academic performance, Jackie burst into tears, and her mother told the academic dean that Jackie had had a "bad experience" at a party. According to Erdely, the academic dean put Jackie in touch with Dean Eramo. 57. Erdely asserted that Jackie told Dean Eramo the same story of gang rape vividly described in the article, and then claimed, "[i]f Dean Eramo was gang rape, it didn' t show." 17 surp~ised at Jackie's story of 58. Erdely then wrote: "When Jackie finished talking, Erarno comforted her, then calmly laid out her options. If Jackie wished, she could file a criminal complaint with police. Or, if Jackie preferred to keep the matter with in the university, she had two choices. She could file a complaint with the school's Sexual Misconduct Board, to be decided in a 'formal resolution' with a jury of students and faculty, and a dean as a judge. Or Jackie could choose an 'informal resolution,' in which Jackie could simply face her attackers in Erarno's presence and tell them how she felt; Eramo could then issue a directive to the men, such as suggesting counseling. Eramo presented each option to Jackie neutrally, giving each equal weight. She assured Jackie there was no pressure 59. whatever happened next was entirely her choice." After falsely characterizing Jackie's assault and subsequent interaction with Eramo, Erdely goes on to state that "the sheer menu of choices, paired with the reassurance that any choice is the right one, often has the end result of coddling the victim into doing nothing." Erdely then quotes a third party to hammer home the thesis regarding Dean Eramo: '"This is an alarming trend that I'm seeing on campuses,' says Laura Dunn of the advocacy group SurvJustice. ' Schools are assigning people to victims who are pretending, or even thinking, they're on the victim's side, when they 're actually discouraging and silencing them .... "' 60. Erdely goes on to reinforce Dunn's statement - as applied to Dean Erarno - by continuing her false narrative regarding Jackie's interaction with Dean Erarno: "For now, however, Jackie left her first meeting with Eramo feeling better for having unburdened herself, and with the dean's assurance that nothing would be done without her say-so." Erdely only passively acknowledged that Jackie opted not to report the alleged gang rape to police. 61. According to Erdely, when Jackie pressed Dean Erarno at a subsequent meeting for details on sexual assault statistics at UVA, Dean Eramo told her that they were not publicized 18 "because nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school." Rolling Stone and Erdely elected to emphasize and highlight this as a "pull quote" in the article: 62. Erdely then claimed that in May 2014, following the alleged bottle attack at the corner, Jackie emailed Dean Eramo to meet with her in order to discuss the alleged incident, as well as Jackie' s claim that she had discovered two other women who were also gang raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house. Jackie refused to identify these women and claimed that they wanted to remain anonymous. 63. Erdely wrote of this interaction: "[a] bruise still mottling her face, Jackie sat in Eramo' s office in May 2014 and told her about the two others. One, she says, is a 2013 graduate, who'd told Jackie that she'd been gang-raped as a freshman at the Phi Psi house. The other was a first-year whose worried friends had called Jackie after the girl had come home wearing no pants. Jackie said the girl told her she' d been assaulted by four men in a Phi Psi bathroom while a fifth watched. (Neither woman was willing to talk to RS.) As Jackie wrapped up her story, she was disappointed by Eramo's nonreaction. She' d expected shock, disgust, horror." 19 64. Erdely then claimed that Dean Eramo did nothing with this information or with Jackie's claim of having been attacked with a bottle in retaliation for speaking out about her assault. Erdely claimed that UV A as a whole did nothing until after it learned of Rolling Stone 's probe into Jackie's story, at which time it placed Phi Kappa Psi under investigation. 65. Erdely again acknowledged - again only in passing - that Jackie told Dean Eramo that she did not want to file a complaint for her alleged gang rape. But Erdely twisted Jackie's decision not to report the alleged incident to support Erdely 's own preconceived story line - that Dean Eramo engaged in a calculated strategy to coddle Jackie into not reporting her rape in order to protect UV A's reputation. Erdely wrote: "Of all her assailants, Drew was the one [Jackie] wanted to see held accountable - but with Drew about to graduate, he was going to get away with it. Because, as she miserably reminded Eramo in [Eramo' s] office, she didn't feel ready to file a complaint. Eramo, as always, understood." 66. These claims and statements in the article concerning Dean Eramo are false. 67. Dean Eramo has never called UVA "the rape school"; and upon information and belief, Jackie never told Erdely that Dean Eramo made these statements. 68. Dean Eramo did not in any way "abuse" Jackie; rather she counseled her, supported her, and tried to assist Jackie in reporting her alleged assault to the police, despite Jackie's adamant and continuing refusals to do so. 69. Dean Eramo did not in any way discourage Jackie from sharing the story of her gang-rape allegations, and in fact actively encouraged Jackie to speak to others about her allegations. Dean Eramo put Jackie in touch with a campus support group for sexual assault victims so that Jackie could share her story with others who could help support her. She also arranged for and attended two meetings between Jackie and detectives so that Jackie could share 20 her story with the police. At no time did Dean Eramo discourage Jackie from sharing her story with anyone. 70. The claim that Dean Eramo intentionally presented Jackie with an array of options in order to confuse her into not reporting her alleged gang rape is false. Dean Eramo encouraged Jackie to report her alleged sexual assault to the police, repeatedly offered to assist her in doing so, and in fact did arrange for Jackie to meet with detectives. Dean Eramo told Jackie that in addition to reporting her allegations to the police, she could pursue the University's disciplinary process. 71. Dean Eramo did not have a "nonreaction" to Jackie's claims that she was assaulted with a bottle and that she had learned of two additional students who claimed to have been sexually assaulted at Phi Kappa Psi. Dean Eramo immediately arranged for Jackie to meet with the police regarding the bottle incident, her alleged gang rape, and the other supposed victims. Dean Eramo encouraged Jackie to do all she could to get the other supposed victims whom Jackie insisted wanted to remain anonymous - to come forward so that UVA could take action against the fraternity if the allegations were well founded. Rolling Stone and Erdely Engage A Prominent Illustrator To Create A Negative Image of Dean Eramo To Encapsulate Their Article's F alse Thesis 72. To underscore their false portrayal of Dean Eramo, Erdely and Rolling Stone also included in the article a doctored photograph of Dean Eramo. Rolling Stone ordered and paid for an innocuous photograph of Dean Eramo from the Cavalier Daily, UV A's independent student newspaper, depicting Dean Eramo standing in a UVA classroom speaking to students. Although Rolling Stone purchased the photograph for commercial use, it did not tell the Cavalier Daily that it intended to alter the picture in any way. The picture in its unedited format, as purchased from the student newspaper, appears below: 21 73. Rolling Stone employed a high-profile illustrator, John Ritter, to intentionally alter this photo for the article. Ritter Illustration's website boasts that its client list includes national and international publications and publishers like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Time, GQ, Harpers, Newsweek, Mother Jones, Glamour, Wired, Money, Forbes, the Smithsonian, New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Random House. 74. Rolling Stone retained Ritter Illustrations with the specific intent to portray Dean Eramo in a highly negative manner - specifically by causing Ritter to doctor the image in a way to give the appearance of Dean Eramo sitting at her desk, sneering while a sexual assault victim sits crying in front of her. In the doctored image, photoshopped images of protesters appear outside of Dean Eramo's office with signs that read "STOP VICTIM BLAMING," and "SHE' S BROKEN (HE' S OK)." Rolling Stone caused Ritter to alter the image of Dean Eramo' s hand by lightening portions of the interior of her thumb, by darkening the pen she is holding, and by 22 placing a fake desk at the bottom of her hand to hide a portion of the pen, all in an effort to make it appear as though Dean Eramo was giving a "thumbs up" while the victim sits crying in front of her. Rolling Stone also caused Ritter to lighten the whites around Dean Eramo's eyes to depict her expression as "wild-eyed" in the image. Rolling Stone also intentionally caused Ritter to edit out of the image Dean Eramo' s right hand, which is making a welcoming gesture in the original photo, to further emphasize their false narrative that Dean Eramo was unsupportive of Jackie. 75. Rolling Stone 's altered image of Dean Eramo as it appears in "A Rape on Campus" is below: 23 76. A simple comparison of the original photograph and Rolling Stone 's manipulated version of the image demonstrates the lengths Erdely and Rolling Stone were willing to go to portray Dean Eramo as a villain: Rolling Stone And Erdely Promote Their False And Defamatory Story To The National Media 77. Following publication of the article, Rolling Stone sent Erdely on a press tour designed to further publicize the article and to capitalize on all the attention it was receiving. During a string of appearances on podcasts, radio shows, and television talk shows, as well as interviews with online and print media, Erdely doubled down on her false claims concerning Dean Eramo. 78. Erdely claimed on a November 26, 2014 broadcast of The Brian Lehrer Show that Dean Eramo "brushed off' Jackie, and that Dean Eramo did "nothing" in response to Jackie's sexual assault claim. 24 79. Erdely claimed on a Slate podcast on November 27, 2014 that "[Jackie] had eventually kind of mustered up the courage to tell the administration that she had been brutally gang raped and that the University did nothing with this information and that they continued to do nothing even when she told them that she had become aware of two other women that were also gang raped at that fraternity." Erdely repeated this claim and went further, stating that "even in a situation that was so extreme and so obviously within the realm of criminal," she was shocked that Dean Eramo "would seek to suppress something like this." She then claimed that not only did Dean Eramo "not report it to police," but that " [Jackie] was discouraged from moving this [allegation] forward." 80. Erdely continued her self-promotion on social media - capitalizing on the buzz surrounding "A Rape on Campus." For example, on November 30, Erdely tweeted out a link to a November 28 Washington Post article titled "Sabrina Rubin Erdely, woman behind Rolling Stone's explosive U-Va. alleged rape story." n Sabrina Rubin Erdely U i s41Cf1 ~, •.!. Follow The @washingtonpost wrote an article about me, and how my UVA article came to be: wapo.sV1 HM1rYC II Ylashlng1on Post· S.b rlna Rubin Erd•ly, woman behind Rolling Slone·s exploolve U·Ya.... A 42-ycar-dd frt>elan:er cl-.:sat>es how she du<)~ 1t.e •1ory ol Jact.ie, alt.-ge