Woman sues UF fraternity brothers for videotaping sexual encounter
 

In my days, the guys just hung out on the ledge and watched.

They sure look like winners.

Since the dudes' mugs were posted in the article, I think it's only fair to post [removed]

My personal faves from the profile page:

Things I ♥
Drunk texting/Iming/Calling/Myspacing
Stoned laughing

yeaaaah...this is EXACTLY why privacy settings were invented!!!

Exactly. Her last login date lists April 2008, but the incident took place in 2006. You'd think she'd want to practice some discretion a little.

Not that I condone what happened but you think they could have come up with something better than hiding under a blanket with a video camera.

yeah well, frat boys can be stupid sometimes.

According to one of the commenters on the Sun-Sentinel forum, she still friends with one of the offenders on Facebook.

I don't think that's her facebook profile, I think that woman lives in the UK since so many of the people are in UK networks.

The girls pictured in her MySpace profile I'd like to help with their eye makeup, they are abusing eyeliner.

DOH! You're right. I just saw the first Lauren and thought it was her.

[privacy]

Looks like she's at UCF -- and friends with goofy guy in the first mug.

Well, to be fair he just [had consensual intercourse with] her, the other guy taped.

And in their defense, that was probably the first time a Florida Delt has gotten any in ages, they needed it to hold them over on their next house-wide dry spell.

otw-it may be nice if you removed the other persons page from your prior posting.

as for the larger issue my very first thought was that this was in a very broad way a kind of rape. which made me wonder why the victims name and personal information were published. i realize that with defendants not being charged with rape, the media would not follow those rules. however it does make the invasion of privacy count /charge a bit ironic. and yes i do understand that this is now a civil case, not a criminal one.

Tinia, I also think (and I am not a lawyer) that her name was published because it's a civil suit.

In my limited knowledge of the law, which is basically Night Court, LA Law, and Law & Order, a plaintiff in a civil suit might not have a right to privacy.

Also (and finally) I don't think even if it was a criminal case that the media HAS to keep the identity of the victim secret, but most of them do to be nice.

It's a civil suit, she's a plaintiff, not a victim. And I'm not a lawyer, but I think with the exception of some "filed on behalf of an anonymous party" cases (i.e. Roe vs. Wade) there is very little privacy standard for civil plaintiffs.

I think the names of minors and victims of some sex crimes are legally supposed to be protected.

If you read carefully, I deleted the post that linked to the wrong Lauren. If you have a problem with the wrong Lauren's Facebook link up there, ask my sister to edit/delete it. :rolleyes:

And even if I didn't already delete it, I'd probably still have that up there just because you asked me to remove it. You should know by now that no on tells OTW what to do.

I think you're right about minors.

Here's what wikipedia had to say about the "rape shield" as it relates to the media: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_sh..._media_outlets

i just asked, i do not believe i told you to do anything. and perhaps i may have missed a deletion between the times i looked at this thread.

i agree with you. perhaps i failed to make the distinction between my very first thoughts on matter and my own follow through.

If everyone could help me police this thread, I'd appreciate it if you report anything which might help identify this woman. I think that she's entitled to her privacy. If she truly was damaged, I would hate to add to any of that by being a party to further publication of something which is ordinarily a very private thing.

If we can't keep things under control, I'll have to delete the thread.

I can't tell you what the law is in Florida. I'm just not going to take a chance. I know her name is accessible, and that's fair game I guess, but I'm not going to add to this girl's worries by facilitating further intrusion into her private life. Thanks for your cooperation.

Lauren Highley has filed a civil suit. Her name is listed in the initial article. Can we not even discuss the article?

Or you could move it to News and Politics and not have to deal with it.

And what Senusret I said.

Whatever, Kevin. :rolleyes: Thanks for removing the links.

Good thing people know how to search Facebook and MySpace on their own. That, you cannot moderate.

Absolutely. That's why this thread is still here.

And I know people can probably find her very easily on Myspace, etc. It's just that if the individual whose profile is being linked to isn't the same Lauren Highley in the article, we could be talking civil liability. Even if it was her, we could still be talking civil liability.

These dignity torts are odd critters and I'm not in a risk-taking mood tonight :)

I think it's a reasonable RM issue.

I remember a nearby chapter of my organization having an issue like this in the 90's which did some serious damage to their chapter.

All I can control is this forum.

Search Myspace and Facebook to your heart's content.

Thank God for that.

Back in the day, our pledges were instructed to never go up to a guy's room in a fraternity house. I'm thinking we were onto something there . . .

In the past I've cautioned New Members about fraternity guys, especially the ones that prey on the fresh meat.

Still, given the date and the girl's age now, it seems like she was a (naive) UCF freshman who went to a frat party at UF.

"In May 2007, the men were convicted in Alachua County court of misdemeanor voyeurism and sentenced to 10 days in jail, 50 hours of community service and a year of probation."

Sounds fair to me. But a civil suit on top of that seems excessive. Now if that video hit YouTube, I would say go for it.

I keep trying to tell myself that the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed until about age 24 or so. From my textbook: "Full maturation [of the frontal lobe] occurs about a year earlier in females than in males. In other words, the last part of the brain to grow up is the part capable of making rational decisions, understanding the consequences of one's actions, and putting the brakes on emotional impulses."

I agree, they've been punished criminally and don't appear to have done anything with the video to inflict further emotional damage or distress on the woman.

ETA: In fact it seems to me that she's doing more to further harm her reputation by filing this suit and getting her name and the incident back in the news than they ever could have.

Thank you for some sane commentary. The guys were stupid to tape this, but she was stupid too- and she is stupid now to try and get some money when she should be hanging her head in shame. I am amazed someone on this thread actually suggested this could be considered rape- get real.

I had to go back and re-read the thread because I missed the suggestion that it could be considered rape.

The article says the sex was consensual. The sex was consensual, the taping of it was not.

I don't know WTF this girl's thinking...especially since she's Facebook buddies with homey on the left. Was it he who frat slammed her? (Frat slammed is not an inappropriate term, Kevin)

Hi OTW,

I was referring to post #13 by Tinia2. I did not see anything in the article to suggest rape.

Not knowing the facts of the situation first hand, it is hard for me to make any kind of judgement call. But I do think any person (male or female) who willingly goes upstairs and spreads their legs (sober or drunk- assuming they got drunk willingly)- gets what they ask for in this modern high-tech age.

But that does not address the law. Based on what I see here, I do not think this woman has as case- but then again I am not on the jury...

EE-BO, I don't know anything about Florida Law, but there is a tort recognized in many states referred to as "invasion of privacy." It requires that the Plaintiff's privacy be intruded upon in a highly offensive way. I think secretly videotaping sex might be such a thing.

That very well could be Kevin from a legal standpoint.

What I am saying is that I have no sympathy for a whore who spreads her legs and then gets it publicized after- even if it is in a legally actionable manner.

If she had behaved like a proper lady in the first place, none of this would have happened.

And any young gentlemen who availed themselves of a female in an inappropriate manner, may- and should, pay the price too.

Noone wins in a case like this, and on the face of the fact presented- I think that is the right outcome. She should not have been a slut, and the guys should not have exploited her by filming the event.

I'd probably sue them too. I think their sentence was way too light. A person is not allowed to be video taped in a place in which there is perceived privacy. Like rest rooms, changing rooms and bed rooms. If she was having sex in a public area, yeah burn the whore on a stake and sell it to joe francis. But a girl is allowed to have sex with a boy in a bedroom, that's not an illegal thing for her to do no matter what your minister says. So she has every right in the world to ask the court for justice in any way the law deems possible, including a civil suit. And I'm saying she has the right to do it, not that i think everyone should think she's entitled to what she is asking for.

And for everyone who is thinking she shouldn't put herself through any more trauma by doing this, that is really backwards and messed up. Are you saying victims of crimes shouldn't press charges or go through court cases in order to get justice or even possibly preventing that crime from happening to someone else?

Because she had sex, she's a whore?

You don't think that adults engaging in consensual, casual sex are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy? Are you suggesting that when she had this encounter, she was impliedly consenting to someone hiding in the room with a video camera?

I don't think it's very reasonable to believe that anytime I have sex I should simply resign myself to the fact that it might show up on Youtube.

I like the Joe Francis line.

As for the second part of your post I have quoted, I very much agree victims should try to exact justice when they are wronged. Too many victims of sexually invasive/violent crimes never report them, and it just lets the perps do it again.

But in this case we have a situation where the young lady caught the filming in the act and got the tape away from the guys before they could do anything with it. She was engaging in consensual sexual activity, and so the only real crime I see here is that the other guy got a free peek at this young woman without her permission- and that her paramour was complicit in making the other guy's crime possible.

On that grounds the punishment seems to fit the crime here- but with a full appreciation of the fact if she had not caught the videotaping when she did, it very likely would have been shown to a lot of other people.

But it was not. And so by filing the civil suit she is clearly just out for some money- and that does say something negative about her character in my view. It is one thing to seek justice, but quite another to turn the thwarted attempts at lameness by 2 kids into a big payday.

Civil suits do not mean the person is just out for money all the time. Sometimes money is the only thing people understand and perhaps 10 days in jail and 50 hours community service did not communicate to these men that what they did was wrong. In order for our system to work criminals must have a fear of getting caught and the possible punishment that is greater than the possible rewards of that crime. And I said possible rewards, meaning that just because those rewards didn't happen because she caught them shouldn't mean they shouldn't be held responsible for what they did.

We don't know what they were planning on doing with the tape. We don't know if this women was the first or would have been the last. If it were me, I would sue to make sure I was the last and that other men would be deterred from doing it to anyone else.

And this is not the first time people found florida sex crime laws unjust. http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/p...Y&pageId=3.2.1
http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...NION/807300333