JUST IN: #BrockTurner leaves jail after serving 3 months for sexual assault https://t.co/IPpYZxjqgk https://t.co/WYLQeuIHqI
— CNN (@CNN) September 2, 2016
After serving just three months of a lenient six-month jail sentence for committing rape, former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner is a free man. Photographers and cameramen from several major press outlets captured the moment Turner left the Santa Clara County jail in San Jose, California, not too long after 6 a.m. local time on Friday. He didn’t say a word to any of the reporters awaiting his departure, instead beelining for a white SUV waiting to whisk him away.
According to CNN, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith told journalists that his office “[didn’t] know who picked him up or where he’s going.” Instead Smith stressed they were “done with him,” and that Turner “should be in prison right now, but he’s not in our custody.” Meanwhile, the Huffington Post reports Turner will go to Ohio to live with his parents. While there, however, the 21-year-old convicted rapist will have to “register as a sex offender for life and undergo three years of supervised probation.”
Following the court’s decision to convict Turner of raping a 23-year-old unconscious woman after the two met at a fraternity party, Judge Aaron Persky sentenced him to six months in prison. Critics thought the sentence was too lenient, especially when they realized how California law would allow Turner to leave prison after serving only half his sentence.
Check out CNN’s short review of Turner’s release and post-prison life below.
(Via Huffington Post and CNN)