Virginia resident Todd M. Thomas was sentenced to 26 years in prison today, having been convicted of 11 crimes against Georgetown University students—burglaries, assaults, and sexual assaults—committed in 2007 and 2008 in off-campus Georgetown residences.

Thomas was charged and found guilty of the crimes, including five counts of first degree burglary, one count of attempted burglary, one count of fourth degree sexual abuse, and two counts of simple assault, in November 2009, ABC News reports. In one case, “Thomas sexually assaulted a student who was sleeping in bed while in another a student was awakened when Thomas massaged his ankles.”

It is not clear whether any of the crimes he was convicted for are crimes that have been attributed, by either the Metropolitan Police Department or the Department of Public Safety, to the so-called “Georgetown Cuddler.” Vox could not immediately reach MPD or DPS but we’ll let you know when we learn more.

View February 2010 Crime Map in a larger map

February wasn’t a very criminal month at Georgetown. There were 25 crimes recorded in the Department of Public Safety Daily Crime Log, but nearly half of those were drug violations. There were two very violent crimes, however, one simple assault, and one sexual assault. Here’s the breakdown:

• There weren’t as many thefts in February as Georgetown usually sees recorded in a month. Only five thefts took place. A bicycle tire, a coat containing a scarf, an iPod, and cash, a wallet, the contents of a backpack, including a laptop, and a cellphone SIM card were the items stolen.

• Unusually, there were quite a number of drug violations at Georgetown last month. A grand total of 12 drug violations were recorded in February, far and away the most of any month in the DPS logs online. Earlier this month, readers pointed out to us that the spike coincided with the Voice cover story about Georgetown’s relatively lenient punishments for drug use.

• A sexual assault occurred this month at the Georgetown University Hospital in which an assailant touched a victim inappropriately and was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department. MPD has not responded to several requests for more details about the assault, and DPS has referred Vox to the Hospital’s security.

• There was one simple assault at Georgetown at 36th and N Streets, in which two male students sent another student to the emergency room. The suspected assailants were identified and the case has been turned over to MPD.

• Two incidents of harassment occurred in which a complainant received threatening notes in Copley Hall and another received threatening notes in Darnall Hall.

• There was one case of unlawful entry recorded this month, in which an individual who had been barred from campus before was found in McCarthy Hall and was arrested and charged with unlawful entry.

• There was one case of public indecency, in which an individual was caught publicly urinating.

Update 9:08 p.m. March 3: NBC Washington is reporting that the crime at 35th and T Streets resembles crimes perpetrated by the so-called “Georgetown Cuddler”:

“A woman claims a man entered her home at 35th and T streets at about 4 a.m. Sunday, climbed in her bed, sexually assaulted her and fled.”

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Update 8:34 p.m.: The Department of Public Safety has sent out a Public Safety Alert about the assault which took place in Burleith. It reads:

“On Sunday, February 28, 2010 between the hours of 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., a sexual assault occurred inside a residence in the vicinity of 35th & T Streets. The suspect gained entry to the residence by an unknown means.

“DPS became aware of the incident on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 2, 2010. The victim is not associated with Georgetown University. The incident is under investigation by MPD and no further details are available at this time.”

The PSA gives the same description of the suspect that Vox listed below.

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This weekend saw two sexual assaults in the Georgetown area. One took place at the Georgetown University Hospital or Medical Center, another in a residence in Burleith near campus.

The little information available about the crime in the Georgetown Hospital comes from the Department of Public Safety’s Daily Crime log:

“[At 6:23 a.m.], an unknown male inappropriately touched the victim. Suspect was identified and arrested by MPD.”

The crime is listed twice in the log, and so it is unclear where exactly it occurred. Vox has not gotten responses from either University spokespeople, safety officials, or Metropolitan Police Department officers about additional information about this case, including whether a Public Safety Announcement should have gone out to students.

Read the rest of this entry »

New information about the sexual assault that occurred on the 3800 block of Calvert Street this Sunday makes the crime appear more serious than it was described by the Metropolitan Police Department e-mail which first reported it.

Jason Cherkis of the Washington City Paper reports that the police report about the crime says that the suspect “thrust[ed] several times” against the woman before she screamed and he ran out of her house.

The e-mail, sent by Lieutenant Kim Gregory, said that an unknown suspect entered the victim’s house, the victim woke up to find him “cuddling her” in her bed, and then the victim screamed and the suspect ran out the back door of her house.

Cherkis pointed out that the extent of the suspect’s crime calls the perp’s nickname into question once again. The “Cuddler,” which MPD officers have said may be several suspects, digitally penetrated one of his victims and put his penis on the thigh of another victim.

Of course, whether inappropriate or not, nearly every news outlet that has reported on this incident has used the “Cuddler” moniker. But how do we make the switch to the “Georgetown Sexual Assailant”?

A recent study by the Center for Public Integrity has found that at colleges and universities across the country, sexual assaults and rapes are being under- or unreported, and many students who are victims of these crimes face confusing bureaucratic processes when they try to confront their attackers.

Proceedings against suspects in such cases are often conducted with little transparency and in a way that keeps cases relatively hush-hush, the first part of the study said. Rather than be prosecued by attorneys, sexual assaults are often adjudicated through the school’s disciplinary structure, which can be a closed affair, or resolved through informal mediation by an administrator.

The second part of the article describes how some students feel their schools are more interested in avoiding negative fallout from alleged incidents than helping their students, and that very few universities give their students training on how to respond to sexual assault. And in the third part, the report found that many schools don’t report the number of sexual assaults recorded on campus to their students accurately.

So how does Georgetown stack up? While its responses to sexual assault often concern us, its official policies place it above most of the schools studied in the report.

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Last week, George Washington University saw some sexual assaults that were reminiscent of the “Cuddler” incidents that have occurred in Georgetown over the past year and a half.  Unlike Georgetown, though, GW was able to catch the alleged perpetrator.

According to a Public Safety Advisory message sent out to the GW community last Friday:

On October 9, 2009, between 4:30 am – 5:00 am, GWPD received information that a non-GW affiliated male, who was the guest of a GW student, entered several residence hall rooms in Thurston Hall and tried to touch several females while they were sleeping. The male student who signed the subject into the building was seen on camera leaving the building alone soon after signing in his guest, and therefore left him unaccompanied.

Several residents from one of the rooms brought the male to the security desk at Thurston Hall and GWPD was notified about what had occurred. GWPD and MPD initiated an investigation. The subject is in police custody, so he poses no further threat to the GW community at this time.

The GW Hatchet has more information about the incident, including an account from one victim who said the attacker “woke her up by trying to kiss her, and ‘attempted twice to place his hands down the front of her shorts.’”  The student also said the assailant told her he attended the University of Maryland.

Yaya Chang entered her first semester at Georgetown this August with much more than a high school degree under her belt.

Chang’s recent book, Hidden Behind Innocence, reveals her traumatic account of being sexually abused at 12 by her 26-year-old martial arts instructor, according to a recent article in American-Statesman.

The years immediately following Chang’s experience consisted of a painful recovery process. After her family moved from Austin to Bastrop County, Texas,  Chang stayed at home for what would have been her first two years of high school.

Mental and emotional healing came slowly; she spent about a year interning at the Travis County district attorney’s office in the victim witness division, where she would sometimes sit in on meetings with sexually victimized women.

Chang received legal justice in 2006. Her abuser, Lorens San Pedro, was sentenced to ten years in prison for aggravated sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony. Her family filed two separate cases against the Austin-based martial arts school and Pedro individually, emerging with a monetary award in damages from Pedro.

If she receives the money, Chang, now 20, plans on using it to create a non-profit group dedicated to helping people or animals.  Already a published author, Chang is working on a second book about ethics.

With so many sexual assaults occurring in the Georgetown neighborhood in the last year and a half—including two in one week at the beginning of the school year—the University is not the only one finally acknowledging the serious issue of sexual assault on campus.

Since most of these attacks seem to follow the modus operandi of the infamous “Georgetown Cuddler,” local and national news networks and bloggers have flocked to the issue, either to report on the attacks or challenge the affectionate title of “Cuddler.”

In case the Voice’s reporting hasn’t been enough for you, Vox has compiled a roundup of outside coverage of the crimes.

The Washington Post grappled with the issue of the wide range of descriptions victims have given for their attacker, but also observed that, despite the seriousness of some of the attacks, there doesn’t seem to be widespread fear in the campus community.

Local blog DCist took issue with both the softhearted nickname of “Cuddler” as well as the University’s lackluster response to the issue, particularly the initial characterization of the August 30 attack as a burglary.

Top women’s rights blog Feministing took the “Cuddler” issue very seriously, pointing out that using cute nicknames for a sex offender “excuses the attacker, dismisses violence as acceptable, and condescends to survivors.”

More coverage after the jump…

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After more than a dozen similar sexual assaults on and around campus over the past year and a half (including two this past week), the Georgetown administration has finally sent out a message about the issue to the campus community.

This evening, Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson and Vice President of University Safety Rocco DelMonaco sent out a broadcast e-mail about the incidents:

It is important to remember that those who perpetrate assaults are responsible for the harm they do. Descriptions that refer to some suspects as a “cuddler” detract from the serious nature of these incidents. We are committed to working with MPD to prevent crime, apprehend suspects, and enhance the safety and security of our campus community …

Working together we can prevent crime and help to keep our campus safe. Caring for one another is central to the Jesuit mission to be Women and Men for Others, and to care for one another and our campus community. Please join us in raising awareness and taking steps to address this set of issues.

I’ve complained about the administration’s relative silence about sexual assault issues in the past. When asked by the Voice on Tuesday about why the administration hasn’t been more vocal about sexual assaults, University President John DeGioia said, “right now the kinds of interventions that we have we think are proportionate to that kind of activity and this kind of concern.”

It’s nice to see the University finally explicitly address this problem, though—better late than never, after all.

Read the full broadcast e-mail after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

The Voice has obtained the Metropolitan Police Department’s report about this morning’s sexual assault in Village A.  Although Georgetown’s Department of Public Safety’s Public Safety Alert only stated that the suspect climbed into bed with the victim and “began sexually assaulting her,” MPD’s report clarifies that the incident involved digital penetration.

According the MPD report:

Complainant 1 reports that after falling asleep by herself, she awoke to Suspect 1 sexually assaulting her with digital penetration in her bed. Suspect 1 possibly gained access to the apartment through a front window. Complainant 1 stated that to her knowledge, no property was taken by Suspect 1.

The incident was classified by MPD primarily as a burglary and secondarily as sexual abuse, second degree.  According to the report, there were signs of forced entry.  The suspect is described as male, between 5′10″ and 6′0″ with a slight beard.  The suspect’s race, ethnicity, build, eye and hair color were unknown.

According to WTOP, MPD doesn’t know if one person or multiple people are responsible for the so-called “Cuddler” incidents.

When asked about the “Cuddler” moniker, MPD 2nd District Commander Matt Klein told WTOP, “You cuddle someone you love. We’re looking for a criminal.”

Reporting by Voice News Editor Eric Pilch