Lincoln University gang rape trial opens in Chester County

This is the side of college life nobody wants to talk about, but it happens frequently.

From a story by Michael Rellahan in The Mercury:

WEST CHESTER — Jurors selected to hear allegations of a gang rape at Lincoln University were given conflicting versions of the events surrounding the allegations, as the two sides gave their opening statements Monday.

The prosecution said the victim in the case, an 18-year-old freshman at the southern Chester County school, was so intoxicated that she did not realize what had happened to her that night, let alone could give her consent to having sex with the three defendants.

"No weapon was needed in this case because the victim was intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness," Assistant District Attorney Bonnie Cox-Shaw told the panel of 10 women and two men, comparing the incident with the stereotypical rape that is committed at gunpoint by an unknown assailant.

Her attackers, she said, "were not strangers, they were her classmates."

Attorneys for two of the three defendants told jurors that the sex that night had been consensual, and that the woman had not thought to complain to authorities until prodded by her girlfriends.

Gang rape trial opens in Chesco - The Mercury pottsmerc.com)