Update on a story we covered last month: The University of Illinois-Chicago student facing jail time for mimicking 50 Shades of Grey sexual acts with a female partner has been cleared of a rape charge.
The case didn’t get any further than a “lengthy preliminary hearing in which the alleged victim testified,” and Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas found “no probable cause,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
The unnamed accuser’s testimony is revealing, and illustrates the importance of cross-examination – an option not always available to students accused of sexual assault in campus disciplinary proceedings:
His 19-year-old accuser, a chemistry major at UIC, testified for more than 90 minutes Thursday, at times wringing her hands as she told the judge her encounter with [Mohammad] Hossain on Feb. 21 was consensual at first but that she told him to stop and began crying after he hit her hard with a belt.
“I was saying, ‘No, stop,’ shaking my head from side to side,” she said.
“He said, ‘I want to see how much you can take,'” she testified. “He said, ‘I want to see you cry.’ ”
Hossain’s lawyer and a prosecutor had finished questioning the woman when the judge had several questions of her own. Chiampas asked if the woman had said anything to Hossain when he bound her wrists or while he allegedly sexually assaulted her. She answered no to both questions.
Prosecutors haven’t ruled out bringing an indictment against Hossain, a freshman, the Tribune said.
The pair engaged in consensual bondage play until the woman “began to tell him no, to shake her head, to tell him he was hurting her,” after Hossain “struck her so hard it hurt,” in the Tribune‘s retelling. She denied they were re-enacting scenes from 50 Shades.
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