There have been two sex crimes reported in the last month in Park-Stradley Hall, and in both cases the victim knew the suspect, according to reports from Ohio State Police.
A rape was reported on Oct. 12 and a gross sexual imposition was reported on Nov. 4. According to University Police, both investigations are pending.
The Ohio Revised Code defines rape as “without privilege to do so, the insertion … of any part of the body or any instrument … into the vaginal or anal opening of another” and a gross sexual imposition as “any touching of an erogenous zone of another … for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying either person” without proper consent of the victim.
No public safety notice was sent out in either case.
“They’re not related, although they were in the same location,” said University Police Deputy Chief Richard Morman. “The suspect is not the same in both cases.”
The victim knew the suspect in both cases, Morman said.
“I do know that the sexual imposition they knew each other from living on the same floor but they were not, other than that, I don’t think they were best friends or were from the same hometown or anything,” Morman said.
In the rape case, the victim knew the suspect as a resident of Park-Stradley Hall and they were familiar enough to “strike up a conversation,” Morman said.
A female Park-Stradley resident adviser whose name was listed on the report declined to comment on the rape case. Park-Stradley Hall director Paul Wojdacz was listed on the gross sexual imposition report and did not respond to an email requesting comment.
Criminal charges have not been filed in either pending case.
“Any cases that we get like this where students are suspects, we do refer that to the Office of Student Conduct. Both of these are still under investigation and may very well lead to criminal charges being filed,” Morman said.
OSU Office of Student Life spokesman Dave Isaacs, did not address the Park-Stradley cases specifically.
“The university takes allegations of sexual misconduct very seriously,” Isaacs said in an email. “There are procedures in place under the university Code of Student Conduct to address complaints. Ohio State fully complies with federal law under Title IX to ensure that the proper authorities are notified.”
In addition to Student Conduct, the Student Life makes several resources available to students, including Counseling and Consultation and Sexual Violence Education and Support within the Student Wellness Center.
Some residents of Park-Stradley said they heard about the first incident but not the second.
Samantha Rhodes, a first-year in business administration, said she heard about the incident form her boyfriend and wished she would have heard about the incidents through OSU.
“I had to hear about it indirectly, not through the building,” Rhodes said. “If we would’ve just found out it probably would’ve, I don’t know, made us feel a little safer.”
Other students weren’t as worried about the events’ implications.
“It’s kind of sad, but it doesn’t scare me or anything,” said Luke Green, a first-year in engineering.
Second-year in animal science and Park-Stradley resident Alison Martin and Megan Kavanaugh, a nursing student who lives off-campus, agreed that they would have liked the university to send out a statement.
“Especially in a dorm where you feel like you’d be safe, it’d be nice to know these things,” Martin said.
Kavanaugh said even off-campus students want to be kept in the loop.
“For living off-campus, even like not ever hearing about these sorts of things that are going on on campus, I think is kind of concerning, because I think that it needs to be made a little more evident to us, especially as girls at a university, of knowing that this is going on around us,” Kavanaugh added.
Both Martin and Kavanaugh said they never heard about any sex crimes happening in Canfield Hall when they lived there freshmen year.
“I don’t think any of that kind of stuff happened in our dorm last year,” Kavanaugh said. “But then again, you don’t know if it’s happening … If we’re not being informed of it, then who knows.”
There have been two cases of reported rape, one reported gross sexual imposition, and one reported sexual imposition on campus this school year, according the University Police log.
University Police have not seen an increase in sex crimes, Morman said.