Former University Student Accused of Raping Two Women, Receives 1 Year Probation

In April 2015, 22-year-old John Enochs, a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity at IU, was charged with rape after a victim told police that she repeatedly asked Enochs to stop having sex with her, but he did not. According to police reports, the victim left the encounter with genital lacerations. Another victim came forward with a similar claim against Enochs; the incident occurred in 2013. Prosecutors filed charges of rape against Enochs on behalf of both victims.

DNA evidence linked Enochs to both cases, and security footage inside the Delta Tau Delta frat house put him at the scene of the 2015 crime.

It is unclear at this time as to why prosecutors so greatly reduced the charges against Enochs. According to reports, the former fraternity member only spent one day in jail.

Enochs' defense team declined Broadly's request for comment.

Many on the IU campus are comparing Enochs' light sentence to that of Brock Turner's; the Stanford University athlete was given three years' probation after he was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

A 2014 survey found that 17 percent of undergraduate women at IU had been assaulted while attending the university, just under the national average of 20 percent. Of these assaults, 23 percent took place at a fraternity or sorority house. According to the Indiana Daily Student, Enochs' two alleged assaults took place at a frat and a sorority: The 2015 assault occurred at Enochs' frat, Delta Tau Delta, and the 2013 assault took place at the victim's sorority, Delta Zeta. Delta Tau Delta and Delta Zeta were co-sponsoring a dance, and Enochs had been his victim's assigned date.

"Every time they let a rapist off with a light sentence like this, or like with the Stanford case, it sends the message that rape is not a big deal," says 2016 graduate Eve Hickey. "That if you are raped, you shouldn't expect any justice if you report it."

On IU's campus, the feeling is that the crime of sexual assault is just not taken seriously. "I was arrested in Bloomington when I was 14," says an employee of the school who did not want to be identified. "The charge was curfew violation, and the punishment was six months' probation."

That means, the employee reasons, "sexual assault is, in the eyes of the state, comparable to curfew violation."