Author of retracted rape story defends relying on ‘Jackie’
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The author of the discredited Rolling Stone magazine article about a woman’s claim of being gang raped at a fraternity house sought to show jurors Friday why she found the woman so credible, highlighting the emotion and level of detail with which she spoke during their interactions.
Rolling Stone is on trial for Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s 2014 story “A Rape on Campus,” which tells the harrowing story of a woman identified only as “Jackie,” who claimed she was brutally gang raped by seven men at the University of Virginia. A police investigation later found no evidence to back up Jackie’s claims.
Rolling Stone’s attorneys played jurors more than two hours of an audio recording of an interview between Erdely and “Jackie” in September 2014.
During the interview, Jackie discussed a tattoo she had gotten — that she later showed Erdely — which included the word, “unbreakable,” to demonstrate resolve in dealing with what she said had happened. Scott Sexton, an attorney for Rolling Stone, asked Erdely if it ever occurred to her that someone would get a tattoo to commemorate something that never occurred.