When 17-year-old Dietrich told papers that she was assaulted in August 2011 by two boys that she knew when she passed out after drinking at a party. Unlike many sexual assault victims she didn’t want to shield her identity and wanted her case to be public.
She told papers that she was assaulted by two boys in a party and learned months later that the pictures of assault were taken and shared with others.
“For months, I cried myself to sleep. I couldn’t go out in public places,” she told the newspaper, as her father and attorneys sat nearby. “You just sit there and wonder, who saw (the pictures), who knows?”
The boys pleaded guilty on June 26 to first-degree sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism. Dietrich says she was unaware of a plea agreement until just before it was announced in court.
The boys have not yet been sentenced.
She could not say what the proposed punishment was because of the court order, but said she feels like it was a slap on the wrist.
The teens are to be sentenced next month, and the judge could reject or modify the terms of the proposed agreement.
Frustrated by what she felt was a lenient plea bargain for two teens Louisville 17-year-old lashed out on Twitter.
“There you go, lock me up,” Savannah Dietrich tweeted, as she named the boys who she said sexually assaulted her. “I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell.”
Now, Dietrich is facing a potential jail sentence, as the attorneys for the boys have asked a Jefferson District Court judge to hold her in contempt because they say that in naming her attackers, she violated the confidentiality of a juvenile hearing and the court’s order not to speak of it.
The contempt charge carries a possible sentence of 180 days in jail and a $500 fine.
Dietrich’s attorneys want her contempt hearing open to the media, arguing she has a First Amendment right to speak about her case and to a public hearing.
“I’m at the point, that if I have to go to jail for my rights, I will do it,” she said. “If they really feel it’s necessary to throw me in jail for talking about what happened to me … as opposed to throwing these boys in jail for what they did to me, then I don’t understand justice.”
