UPDATED, 7/17/2016: 22-year-old Cory Batey, an accomplice in Brandon Vanderburg's sexual assault case, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday (July 15). Vanderburg is facing 15 to 25 years, and his sentence hearing is set for Sept. 30.
According to The Tennessean, Judge Monte Watkins said the case was “one of the saddest” he has worked on his career. Judge Watkins cited that the similar sentences have been handed out among the thousands of cases he researched. Watkins stated about the sentences, “All of the defendants in this case basically have life sentences."
He added, “After they get out of jail or prison they will be on the sex-offender registry for the rest of their lives. That’s a life sentence in and of itself.”
The victim also gave a statement about assault.
“I was fearful of giving a victim impact statement at all because I know that after three years and everything that has happened, I can never do it justice, and I’m scared of that failure. It will never be possible for anyone to put into words how this has affected me. You will never understand what this has done to me if you aren’t standing in my shoes. The humiliation, the pain, the isolation, being reduced to nothing but a piece of flesh right before your eyes, it does something to you that is truly impossible to describe.”
Batey apologized to the victim, her family, and to Vanderbilt University. Batey claimed that he did not recall the night of the incident for being too intoxicated, yet called it an “unintentional tragedy.”
See original story below.
Ex-Vanderbilt football player Brandon Vanderburg, 23, has been convicted of rape at his retrial, the Associated Press reports. Vandenburg was found guilty of aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery for encouraging his teammates to rape an unconscious woman who he had been dating in 2013.
Vandenburg, along with his former teammate Cory Batey, was found guilty of the same charges during a previous trial that ended January 2015, according to Jezebel. However, that case was overturned after the judge learned the foreman of the jury was a statutory rape victim, which triggered the retrial. It reportedly took a mere four hours for the jurors to decide the verdict in the retrial.
Vandenburg allegedly coordinated the events on the night of the rape. He was found guilty of persuading teammates to help him carry the unconscious woman up to his dorm room to rape her. He allegedly passed out condoms and taped the entirety of the events. Vandenburg can be heard on the tape "giving instructions, encouraging, and [...] laughing," prosecutors said, according to Jezebel. Vandenburg was also found guilty of one count of unlawful photography.
You can find graphic surveillance video of Vandenburg and teammates carrying the victim into his dorm room here.
The anonymous victim stated during the trial that the last thing she recalled from that night was consuming a blue drink, The Tennessean reported. She says she then awoke the next say alone in the bottom bunk of Vanderburg's dorm room covered in bruises. Vandenburg allegedly told the victim she had gotten drunk, vomited, and he was forced to take care of her. She said he made her feel guilty.
"He told me that I had gotten sick in his room and he had to clean it up and that it was horrible and that he had to spend the whole night taking care of me," she said during Vandenburg's first trial last summer. "I apologized, I was embarrassed."
Vandenburg reportedly met his victim, who was 21 at the time, during a recruiting visit to the campus, according to The Daily Mail. They began to date when he arrived at the school in June 2013, just two weeks before the attack. The victim's roommate at the time of the crime, Lauren Miller, told The Tennesseean she trusted Vanderburg. "I knew they’d been hanging out for a little bit so we trusted him," said Miller.
Both Vanderburg and Batey, who was convicted during his retrial in April, face up to 15 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
