This is the statement Brock Turner wrote to the judge

On January 17th, 2015, one man’s decisions ignited a tragic chain reaction that’s still in effect today. It was set in motion when 20-year-old Brock Allen Turner raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. He ran when two men out riding their bikes caught him in the act, but they chased Brock down and soon captured him. Rather than being sentenced to the 14 years in state prison he technically could have faced for this crime, by law, Brock was punished with six months in county jail and probation because Judge Persky believed anything longer would have a “severe impact” on the young man.

Many believe that this lenient sentence was influenced by the character letters written on Brock’s behalf. His father wrote that a harsher conviction would be “a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.” In her own letter, Brock’s childhood friend Leslie Rasmussen wrote, “…rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists.”

In addition to letters written by his family and friends, Brock composed his own statement for Judge Persky. This was uncovered by The Guardian, which published excerpts revealing that Turner blames college drinking culture for his actions.

“I wish I had the ability to go back in time and never pick up a drink that night, let alone interact with [redacted] … My shell and core of who I am as a person is forever broken from this,” wrote Brock. “I am a changed person. At this point in my life, I never want to have a drop of alcohol again. I never want to attend a social gathering that involves alcohol or any situation where people make decisions based on the substances they have consumed.”

Brock repeatedly states that his actions on that one night revolved around drinking alcohol, not the sexual assault of a woman. Now, he is consumed by what happened as he thinks of the unimaginable pain he’s caused the woman he assaulted. “I never want to experience being in a position where it will have a negative impact on my life or someone else’s ever again,” wrote Brock. He mentioned that, based solely on how his case has been reported, he’s lost two jobs. He wishes that he wasn’t good at swimming and that he didn’t have the chance to go to Stanford, so that the media wouldn’t want to write about him.

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