Fresno State sexual assault victim speaks out after frat suspended

Saturday, March 7, 2020
Fresno State sexual assault victim speaks out after frat suspended
The 17-year-old Fresno State student says two men raped her in separate incidents on Super Bowl weekend, the first of which happened at the Kappa Sigma fraternity house.

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A teenager's YouTube video is now part of two police rape investigations and it led Fresno State to temporarily suspend a campus fraternity.

The 17-year-old Fresno State student told Action News two men raped her in separate incidents on Super Bowl weekend, the first of which happened at the Kappa Sigma fraternity house, right off the Fresno State campus.

Her story is chilling and it's all laid out in a 19-minute explanation on YouTube.

The video is public, but we're not identifying her and in the video we've posted, we blurred her face because she's a minor who says she's also a rape victim.

"The next thing I know, I'm upstairs in (the man's) room and the door is getting slammed and locked," she says in the video.

The girl is describing a January 31 party at the Kappa Sigma house.

She believes someone spiked her drink before she blacked out and a fraternity member raped her.

She says the first people she told pressured her to keep it quiet and she did.

But she says something similar happened a little more than a day later, after a man who knew about the Kappa Sigma incident invited her to a party in Sanger.

She woke up in his bedroom with no memory, but some clues.

"My body hurts, I got a big bruise on my leg and I had my underwear on backwards," she says in the video.

Sanger police tell Action News they consider the man in the second incident a suspect and they've submitted genetic evidence for testing before making any arrest decisions.

Fresno police are looking into the fraternity house incident.

"We aware of the video that has posted on YouTube," said Lt. Mark Hudson. "We are in the middle of this investigation and our detectives since Day One have been investigating this."

The fraternity's executive director sent Action News this statement: "Kappa Sigma is currently conducting an internal investigation regarding allegations related to this matter. We respectfully decline further comment at this time."

The university put them on interim suspension after learning about the rape reports this week.

"So they are technically not a recognized student organization in the eyes of the university which does suspend their privileges that are extended to recognized organizations," said Debbie Astone, a vice president and chief financial officer at Fresno State.

The university offered a survivor advocate, but the girl tells Action News she can't go back right now, so she's stopped going to classes because of the rapes.

She also tells us other women have come forward and told her they had similar problems with the same two men and because she came forward, they will too.