Media Milwaukee Investigation: Date Rape Drug Allegations Against TKE Were Not the First

The allegations of date-rape drugging surrounding the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity last fall were not the first. Through police reports and interviews, a team of Media Milwaukee journalists has unearthed new information about previous date-rape drug and sexual assault allegations made against a TKE member a year before the  fraternity made the news.

According to an incident report provided to Media Milwaukee by the Shorewood Police Department, an investigation was conducted by that agency in April of 2013 regarding sexual assault allegations made against an individual who was a TKE member at that time.  Those allegations also involved alleged date-rape drugging.

The woman, a UW-Milwaukee student, has been fighting her case for over a year and a half.

But the story then takes some complex turns. Her alleged assailant, also a student, has remained on campus, and a prosecutor declined to file charges saying the allegations could not be proved. Furthermore, a judge wouldn’t give the woman a restraining order against the man, saying he doubted her story because she had gotten into a car with him after the alleged assault, court records show. The man’s attorney told police any contact was consensual, according to police reports.

The allegations, which stem from April 2013 – a year before the party that made the news last fall – are documented in extensive Shorewood Police reports obtained by Media Milwaukee through the open records laws.

Media Milwaukee is not naming the women as the news outlet does not name alleged victims of sexual assault. However, the woman’s name is known to Media Milwaukee, and she agreed to speak to Media Milwaukee for the first time about what she says happened and how the system responded.

Media Milwaukee also spoke to the key suspect in the case in an attempt to get his story. He declined to comment.  Media Milwaukee is not naming any suspects as criminal charges did not result.

The university deferred to federal student privacy laws when also declining to comment when asked by Media Milwaukee what UWM knew and when about the previous allegations. As soon as the DA declined to prosecute, the woman said she alerted UWM, but to no avail. She says the University also claimed there was not enough evidence to support punitive action against the man.

The university last fall did act by revoking the TKE charter after an allegedly alcohol-fueled party in September 2014 sparked allegations of date rape drugging. However, the only charge to result thus far in that case – which is unrelated to the woman’s allegations from 2013 – involved unrelated drug charges against a former TKE member also not associated with the 2013 allegations. The university revoked the TKE organization’s charter last fall, in a detailed report that includes allegations of alcohol abuse and a raucous party that sent four people to the hospital complaining they were drugged.

At the time of the fall incident, local media reported briefly that there had been other allegations the previous April, yet reported none of those details. For the first time, Media Milwaukee has obtained those details.

“It’s been a humiliating process,” the woman told Media Milwaukee. “It’s nothing. This justice system, if we can even call it that, can’t be trusted.”

According to the Shorewood Police report, the female UW-Milwaukee student came forward to the Shorewood Police on April 16, 2013 claiming that she had been sexually assaulted the previous Thursday, April 11. She stated that she and two friends had been drinking that night, eventually making their way to Rascals bar off North Avenue at 1:30 a.m., at which point she says she was not heavily intoxicated.

According to the reports, the woman alleged to police that: While at the bar, she told police that she and her two friends began talking with three males, one of who was wearing a sweatshirt with the TKE logo on the front. She says she has no memory from that point through 10 a.m. the next morning, and when she woke up in an apartment in Shorewood she did not recognize she was with a male whom she recognized as being the male wearing the TKE sweatshirt at Rascals. The male allegedly told her they had sex. In her statement to police she said that she did not remember having sex with the male and that it was not consensual.

The woman reiterated this story in the interview with Media Milwaukee. The woman told Media Milwaukee her memory of the night is completely blank and doesn’t resume until the next morning. When she awoke, the woman was immediately on edge.

“I could tell something was wrong,” she said. “When I woke up I was numb everywhere. Then I was just in adrenaline mode.”

The woman said she was alarmed to find that she had woken up in someone else’s bed. She said she demanded to know what had happened, and was disgusted when the suspect allegedly informed her that they had sex. The woman alleges that what had happened was no longer sex: It was rape.

According to the police reports, the woman said she was missing her phone, and that in an attempt to locate it, she had the male call it. Not being able to locate the phone, the male drove her to an east side neighborhood where they searched a car and an apartment where the male said the phone might be. She stated that they were not able to locate her phone in either place. The male then drove her back to her house, where the two friends she had gone out with the night before were. One of the friends had found the phone in her jacket pocket.

She told her friends what had happened, and says they stated that they had experienced similar memory loss and believed that they too were sexually assaulted, the police reports say. All three of them then went to a sexual assault treatment center where the female received blood and urine tests. The report states that later that month Shorewood Police took the sample from the urine test to the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory for screening.

From the report it is clear that one of the female’s friends believed she was sexually assaulted by one of the other males from the bar that night. According to the report, the two friends reported their cases to the Milwaukee Police Department (their incidents occurred within the City of Milwaukee). Charges did not result in those cases either.

That weekend, the female reporting to the Shorewood Police Department attempted to search online for the identity of the male suspect. Remembering the TKE sweatshirt the male was wearing at the bar, the female said she searched the TKE website where she found a photo which included the male suspect. The female also said she found the male suspect’s name on the website’s member list. She had gotten his last name off her caller ID when he called her cell phone to help locate it. Using the male’s name, she located his Facebook page from which she was able to discover the identities of the other two males from the bar, the reports allege.

According to the police reports, the other two males were friends of the male suspect but not TKE members. The investigators interviewed another member of the TKE fraternity at the time who confirmed the other two males were not TKE members, but friends of the male suspect.  This TKE member told investigators that the male suspect told him that the female asked him to take her home with him and that they had sex.

According to the police report, a statement made to investigators from the male suspect’s attorney said that his client claims that a group of people went to an after bar party where the woman asked the male suspect to have sex with her in a bathroom. The male suspect said he didn’t want to have sex in the bathroom, but took her to his apartment instead.

The Shorewood Police Department brought this case to Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Heather Miller in late May of 2013. According to the police report, Miller “stated there were a few items that would be impossible to prove in court,” and “that she could not file charges in this case.” Miller declined comment when reached by Media Milwaukee.

Over a month after Miller decided not to file charges, the results from the urine test were received by Shorewood Police investigators. There were no drugs found in the urine.

The woman is sticking to her story. “It’s disgusting,” she says now.

The police investigation filled many pages. The 7-Eleven surveillance cameras caught the man, his roommate, and a third man who came out of the TKE house next door getting into the man’s car. The police found and interviewed the third man, who was a member of TKE. At the end of their interview, he allegedly asked the officer how long a date rape drug stays in your system.

The woman said that she feels as though she’s the one being judged.

Finding no other recourse, the woman tried to file a restraining order against the man. Twice.

A review of that court file shows she filed for the first time Aug. 2, 2013 and the reason for no injuction was cited as “service was not properly made.” The second time, Aug. 28, 2013, the reason cited was that the petition “failed to meet the burden of proof.”

The judge said that he didn’t believe it was sexual assault because the woman got into a car with the man after the incident. She said she took the ride from him because she wanted to be able to pin down his license plate number, car type and get as many details as she could. According to the judge in the court transcript, “She was a good witness, but it isn’t consistent with being sexually assaulted or raped.”

The hearing was presided over by Hon. Michael D. Goulee. The suspect was represented by a top criminal defense attorney at that hearing.

The court records also show that the woman told the court she wanted a restraining order because she had never met the man before the night of the incident. UWM told her to report it if he came near her and had told him to stay away from her, she said, according to court records.

“I was not able to get a silly piece of paper proving that I cannot be in a certain vicinity with him because there is no easy way to ever PROVE that one was roofied,” the woman told Media Milwaukee.