On Wednesday, a Stanford University employee was charged with lying to authorities regarding two alleged instances of rape she claimed had occurred on the California campus. Prosecutors stated.
According to the complaint obtained by NBC News Jennifer Gries, 25, was arrested for two felony charges of perjury, and two misdemeanors of inducing false witness after she made false allegations of rape against a Black male coworker. This is what Santa Clara County District attorney Jeff Rosen described as a “rare, deeply destructive crime.”
According to the DA’s office, false assault reports that did not identify Gries by their names “triggered campus-wide safety alerts and unrest.” National media coverage was also provided by NBC News. NBC News covered the false assault reports as well as a student protest that took place on campus in October following the second false report.
“These false reports can be damaging both to true survivors of sexual abuse and for those in our community who were afraid and alarmed by the reports,” Stanford officials stated Wednesday . They noted that there is very little evidence of false sexual violence reports.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center , studies have shown that false reports account for between 2% and 8% of all sexual assault reports. Black men have been accused of sex assault for a long time. Five teenagers of color,, were wrongly sentenced to six to thirteen years in prison for the 1989 rape in New York City’s Central Park by a white jogger. Their convictions were overturned in 2002.
“Sexual assaults and other sexual offences continue to be a problem at Stanford as well as in the wider society.” Stanford stated that they will continue to stand by survivors of sexual assault and prevent them from happening in the future.
According to the probable cause document, the university’s Public Safety Department spent over $300,000 on investigating false reports and hiring outside security personnel.
Gries, who works for the university’s Housing Services Department has been released under $25,000 bail. An arraignment in San Jose is set for April 17, according to a spokesperson of the DA.
According to the spokesperson, she could spend five years in prison if she is convicted.
It wasn’t immediately clear if she had a lawyer. Gries didn’t immediately respond to messages and emails sent to the contacts she listed Wednesday morning.
According to her LinkedIn profile, she started at Stanford in August 2020 as a front desk assistant and then as a Housing Service Centers supervisor.
Officials announced that Gries is currently on a leave and added that they would be “reviewing” her employment in light the information provided by the DA’s Office.
The university spokesperson didn’t respond to questions regarding whether the co-worker falsely accused is still employed.
Two false reports in two weeks
According to the DA’s office, Gries told county sexual assault forensic exam nurses at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center that she was attacked by a Black man in her late 20s in a restroom near Stanford’s Wilbur Hall. According to the DA’s office, she claimed that she didn’t want to contact law enforcement and that her attacker was an “unknown assailant.”
Gries saw the campus safety alert and reached out to Stanford Public Safety Department for help. She said that she was familiar with the perpetrator of the alleged sexual assault and didn’t believe the public was at risk when they met on Aug. 17. The probable cause document states that she also asked the detective “if human resources would be informed of this report”. She said that she didn’t expect the incident to be covered in the media or for a community alert.
She was told by the detective that Stanford had received numerous questions from concerned parents about safety on its campus.
Two months later, Gries reported to Stanford Hospital’s sexual assault forensic examine nurse that she was raped again on campus. This time she said she was raped by a Black man in her late 20s, in a basement storage room.
According to the probable cause document, in both cases she signed a consent agreement acknowledging that the nurses were required reporters to inform law enforcement about reported sexual assaults. She also agreed to submit her name along with a report of suspicious injuries to law enforcement. According to the complaint, this led to two misdemeanor counts of inducing false witness.
The DA’s office stated that both Gries’ sexual assault examination kit were “analyzed as priority rushes due to the extreme public safety danger of a potential sex ofender.” The probable cause document states that “no male DNA was detected in the genital and oral areas” of both rape kits.
Evidence showed that Gries made up stories because she was angry at a coworker,” the DA’s office stated. She also applied twice under penalty of perjury to receive funds from the California Victim of Crimes Board, which reimburses crimes-related expenses. A spokesperson for the DA stated that she did not receive any funds from the entity.
“Can’t you just make his life miserable?”
The Stanford Public Safety Department found that Gries had filed a sexual harassment claim against a coworker last March. According to the probable cause document, a human resources investigation determined that the complaint was not supported. It states that she was later moved to another work location.
Also, the investigation revealed that she had admitted to a friend that she was in a relationship (with that co-worker) and that he had sexually assaulted them. She also discovered that she was pregnant with twins shortly before she experienced a miscarriage.
The investigation revealed that Gries was not pregnant. Texts between Gries and her acquaintance revealed that Gries had discussed her co-worker’s sexual assault of her. She also blamed herself for it and said, “Can’t he just make my life a living hell himself,” according to the probable cause document.
Gries met again with the Stanford Public Safety Detective on Nov. 3 and “confirmed” that she knew the assailant. The probable cause document states that Gries also asked the detective what would happen if she gave a name.
Gries was distraught when the detective said she knew who was being described. She then “became visibly distressed, hyperventilated and fanned herself” before saying she needed to breathe and crying. The probable cause document states that she left the scene and texted the detective later to inform him she was going to the emergency department because she felt overwhelmed.
Gries met again with the detective on Jan. 24 and “admitted that lying about the rapes, and wrote an apology to the target of false allegations who was also the HR investigation, and the victim,” according the probable cause document.
It says that she said she was upset at the victim because she felt that he had ‘false intentions’ and made her feel bad.
Gries’ coworker, speaking with authorities, said that he had never had any sexual or romantic contact with Gries and that the HR investigation left him “scarred” and made it difficult to care for his mother, who died later. According to the probable cause document, he also provided evidence that he was in the area at the time of the alleged attacks and provided a DNA sample.
According to him, the false accusations left him feeling “disgusting.”
“I don’t feel human.” According to the probable cause document, he stated that he didn’t feel like a human being.
Students respond
Stanford’s sexual violence prevention advocates said that false reports shouldn’t distract from the fact that Stanford has a lot of sexual violence.
“This unfounded allegation doesn’t change the fact that Stanford will see 40% of female undergraduate students identify themselves as women,” Sexual Violence Free Stanford, a student-led advocacy organization, stated Wednesday on Instagram. It was referring to the 2019 survey.
It stated that large amounts of campus sexual violence are not reported and that false reporting rates for sexual violence are almost always lower than those of other crimes.
