Staff Writer Challenges Critics to Think Further
by Zach Pretzer

I write in response to two letters from last week: Michelle Sharkey’s “Assault Article Misleading” and Melissa Threadgill’s “Ruling a Travesty to Survivors.”

Let me first state to Ms. Starkey that the reasons for me writing “Sexual Assault Charges Dismissed” in the Nov. 2 issue were quite simple — I attended the preliminary hearing and had more than enough information to accurately describe the events that occurred inside the Oberlin Municipal Court. The news editors needed someone to write the facts of the preliminary hearing — which I did in an unbiased and thorough manner. I will, however, indulge Ms. Sharkey’s petty inquiries of my qualifications by stating that I am not only a sports editor for the Review, I am also a journalist who has roughly two years of experience in my current job and three years of previous experience as an editor-in-chief of a newspaper other than the Review. Whereas in the aforementioned article I was reciting facts and statements that are on public record, I now include my own interjections.

Amazing at it may seem to you Ms. Sharkey, I was slightly aware when I wrote this article that it had no connection to sports, and thank you so much for clarifying that Oberlin’s sexual offense procedure is completely separate from that of the city of Oberlin. The article wasn’t about the College’s bureaucratic procedures — it was about the events of the hearing.

As is certainly the case with Ms. Sharkey, I find it hard to believe that Ms. Threadgill attended the preliminary hearing. If she had, she would have heard the evidence. I implore you to check out the public record of the case, which is available at the Oberlin courthouse.

Falsely accusing a person or persons of acts of rape is a fourth-degree felony — punishable by up to over a year in prison.
So yes, Ms. Threadgill, in your case, all of those circumstances which you provided for rape are certainly true; however, they are only true if a rape occurred — which in this case, it did not. Like you, Ms. Threadgill, I am scared of the world in which I live — not because our campus is full of what you would call ravaging rapists, but because I have developed a newfound knowledge of how much impact the dishonesty and deceit of one person can dramatically affect the lives of two innocent men.