Mother of Stanford University rapist begged judge for no time behind bars

The mother of convicted Stanford University campus rapist Brock Turner told his judge any time behind bars would be a “death sentence.

Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky six-month county jail sentence last week for the former All-American swimmer provoked criticism by prosecutors who asked for a six-year state prison term. Yet Turner’s mother Carleen asked Persky to spare him any time incarcerated at all for the January 2015 assault in a letter to Persky made public Friday
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“I beg of you, please don’t send him to jail/prison,” Carleen Turner wrote. “Look at him. He won’t survive it. He will be damaged forever and I fear he would be a major target. Stanford boy, college kid, college athlete all the publicity... This would be a death sentence for him.”

The four-page letter from Turner’s mother followed the tone of other pleading letters from the 20-year-old triple-felon’s family members. Turner’s father Dan told Persky his conviction was “a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life” and his sister wrote that Turner had become “a shell of his former self, a broken young man.”

The stay-at-home mom from the south suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, rejected what she called the “many references to Brock being from a wealthy, privileged background” and told Persky her family “will never be happy again.”

“Those happy family times are gone forever, replaced by despair, fear, depression, anxiety, doubt and dread,” she wrote. “Brock is a shattered and broken shell of the person he used to be. My once vibrant and happy boy is distraught, deeply depressed, terribly wounded, and filled with despair. His smile is gone forever-that beautiful grin is no more.”

Turner was convicted in March on charges of assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, penetration of an intoxicated person and penetration of an unconscious person. His sentence carries three years of probation and a lifetime requirement to register as a sex offender.

 “He has never been in trouble, never even had a demerit in high school, he studied, swam worked hard,” Turner’s mother wrote. “His dreams have been shattered by this. No NCAA Championships. No Stanford degree, no swimming in the Olympics (and I honestly know he would have made a future team), no medical school, no becoming an Orthopedic surgeon.”

The letter makes no mention of the trauma endured by Turner’s victim, who investigators said he was caught raping outside a frat party on the Stanford campus early in the morning Jan. 18, 2015.

The statement read in court by the 23-year-old woman has drawn praise from Vice President Biden and millions of readers worldwide.

“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today,” the victim told Turner. “The damage is done, no one can undo it. And now we both have a choice. We can let this destroy us, I can remain angry and hurt and you can be in denial, or we can face it head on, I accept the pain, you accept the punishment, and we move on.”