WACO, TEXAS — The morning after he was arrested for drugging and sexually assaulting a female student at a 2016 frat party, Jacob Walter Anderson walked away with a plea agreement that resulted in a $400 fine and no jail time. In an emotional moment reported by NBC News, Anderson’s accuser got a chance to confront him in court.
“I am devastated by your decision to let my rapist Jacob Walter Anderson go free without any punishment,” the unidentified woman told the judge this Monday.
Under the plea agreement, Anderson will be on probation for three years and will not be required to register as a sex offender. The deal also dismissed four counts of sexual assault in exchange for a plea of “no contest” to a charge of “unlawful restraint.” If there was no plea agreement, Anderson would have gone to trial.
“It must be horrible to be you,” the woman said, addressing Anderson directly. “To know what you did to me. To know you are a rapist. To know that you almost killed me. To know that you ruined my life, stole my virginity and stole many other things from me.”
As NBC News points out, the two were at the party when the woman was handed a drink that made her feel sick. Anderson took her outside to get some air, and that’s when the alleged assault took place.
Assistant District Attorney Hilary LaBorde said in a statement Monday that the plea was the best outcome given the facts of the case.
“Conflicting evidence and statements exist in this case making the original allegation difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said. “As a prosecutor, my goal is no more victims. I believe that is best accomplished when there is a consequence rather than an acquittal. This offender is now on felony probation and will receive sex offender treatment, a result which was not guaranteed, nor likely, had we gone to trial.”
In a victim’s impact statement she wrote earlier in the trial, the woman urged the judge to make Anderson register as a sex offender.
“What will they tell the next victim when she questions why she did not know Jacob Anderson was a sex offender?” she wrote.
“How does she think the girls in his current college classes feel knowing they could have been his next victim? I am writing this letter to hold the DA accountable to do their job and seek justice. To hold Jacob Anderson accountable for his crimes. He raped me. He almost killed me.”
Featured image via McClennan County Sheriff’s Department
