Thread by @BuzzFeedNews

Abigail Finney thought she was having sex with her boyfriend in his college dorm room – until she saw his friend’s face instead.

The friend admitted he knew Abigail thought he was her boyfriend. An Indiana jury decided it wasn’t rape.

buzzfeednews.com/article/davidm…

After realizing what had happened in February 2017, Abigail went to the hospital that night, where nurses took swabs for a rape kit.

Donald Grant Ward, 19, confirmed Abigail’s story to police, and was charged with two counts of rape.

During Ward’s three-day trial, defense attorney Kirk Freeman argued that while his client’s conduct was “ungentlemanly” it wasn’t illegal under Indiana law.

The jury agreed.

In Indiana, sex only becomes rape when it’s compelled through force or threats, if the victim is mentally disabled and can’t properly consent, or if he or she is unaware that the sex is occurring.

Abigail knew she was having sex. She just didn’t know it was with Ward.

Abigail’s case has exposed a loophole in the laws of not just Indiana, but more than three-quarters of US states and territories: The word consent, when it does appear in a statute, is not expressly defined in laws.

Versions of rape by fraud laws exist in only a handful of US jurisdictions, including California, Missouri, and Puerto Rico.

After Abigail’s case, there’s been a push from US lawmakers, as well as sexual assault activists, to criminalize rape by fraud and better define consent.

Ward’s attorney says his client could have been prosecuted for sexual battery, though that would have only covered the initial moment that Ward groped Abigail when she was asleep, not the sex when she woke up. It also carried a maximum prison sentence of 2.5 years.

“We need a fundamental sense of consent to know what nonconsensual sex means,” says Joyce Short, and advocate against rape by fraud. “You change morality when you change the laws.”

For Abigail, the verdict, and legal process that took up a year of her life, has made things worse.

After his victory in court, Freeman, the defense attorney, mocked Abigail’s experience on social media as “regret sex by a Becky.” Ward’s campus ban expired after 12 months.

After taking time off school and seeking therapy, Abigail is starting to get back to her old life. But she’s still angry. And Ward is still free, reportedly at another college.

“Now he’s someone else’s problem,” Abigail said. “It’s just like kicking the can down the road.”