Ms. Seccuro brought charges against William Beebe after he contacted her to apologize, years after the assault, because she was concerned for her safety and because an apology was not enough.
He told her that he was the only assailant; that turned out not to be true. From the time that he contacted her, through the months of investigation and then his prosecution, it was discovered that he was one of three men who had raped her at the Phi Kappa Psi house on the night of October 5, 1984.
The title of this page is a quote from the transcript, as reported by Ms. Seccuro in Chapter 12 of her book, of the March 15, 2007 hearing for the sentencing of William Beebe. The quote is from the judge, talking about Ms. Seccuro's victim impact statement, which the judge hadn't read by the start of the hearing, either because he hadn't taken the time to do it or because it was added to the file 3 or 4 days before the hearing instead of 10 days before the hearing, because of misinformation about the deadline for it. Ms. Seccuro had spent a month writing it.
At that hearing for the sentencing, several people who had not known Mr. Beebe at the time that he had assaulted Ms. Seccuro testified in support of Mr. Beebe's chatacter.
Ms. Seccuro was not allowed to read her victim impact statement at the hearing; the judge read it privately during a recess.
Also at the hearing, a probation officer evidenced total, interdepartmental confusion about probation, sentencing and parole.
The judge had graduated from the University of Virginia. This is another quote from him at that hearing:
"unfortunately, the circumstances of the case are not unique for those of us who live in and practice law for years in a college town."
If the "circumstances of the case are not unique," that means that the criminal justice system shouldn't be confused about how to process the case, doesn't it?
Part of Mr. Beebe's plea bargain was that he was supposed to give information that could help the prosecution of the other people who raped Ms. Seccuro; either he did not give that information, or it was never transcribed or never applied.
He was supposed to be at a maximum security prison for 1 1/2 years; because of a "computer error," he was at a regional jail for fewer than 6 months before he was released.
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, June 30, 2016 @ 6:36 p.m./I added the emphasis to one quoted paragraph, which was not emphasized in the book./additions to copyright notice @ 8:16 p.m.
