Former Stanford Swimmer Convicted of Sex Assault Will be Released Friday

SAN JOSE, CA – Brock Allen Turner, the former Stanford University swimmer convicted and sentenced to a controversial six months for sexually attacking an unconscious woman on the school campus, is expected to be released Friday, according to online jail records.

Records of the Santa Clara County jail show Turner, 20, is expected to be released on Sept. 2, just three months after he began a six-month jail sentence in June for three felony counts of sexual assault.

Turner could have received 10 years in prison, according to state sentencing guidelines. Turner was convicted in March of three felony counts of rape of an unconscious person, digital penetration with an unconscious person and assault with the intent to commit rape.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, which runs the Main Jail in San Jose where Turner is being held, confirmed the release date, according to a nreport from the East Bay Times.

The judge in the case, Aaron Persky, last week stepped down from his role in trying criminal cases in Santa Clara County after months of controversy over the lenient sentence in the high-profile sexual assault conviction.

• Also see: Father Blasts Dad Of Stanford Rapist In Emotional Letter

Rise Jones Pichon, presiding judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court, said in a statement last week that although he firmly believes in Persky's ability to serve in his current role, Persky requested reassignment to the civil division.

Starting Sept. 6, Persky will be hearing matters in Department 22 in the Old Courthouse in San Jose, Pichon said. Judge Vincent Chiarello will be assigned to Department 89 in Palo Alto.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office filed five charges against Turner for the Jan. 18, 2015, sexual assault of the woman outside a fraternity party at the Kappa Alpha house at 664 Lomita Court on the Stanford campus.

Two men on bicycles saw Turner on top of a woman on the ground near a dumpster shortly after 1 a.m. When they confronted Turner, he ran, but they chased after him and pinned him to the ground. The woman was unconscious and not moving and was taken to Santa Clara Medical Center in San Jose, where she remained unconscious for hours before waking up and telling investigators she had lost her memory after midnight.

Turner told investigators that he had met the woman at the party and kissed her on the ground outside and the intercourse seemed consensual. He admitted to drinking heavily, including having seven beers and some whiskey, before the encounter. A jury found him guilty of three felonies.

Despite the severity of the crimes, the judge sentenced Turner to only six months in jail.

District Attorney Jeff Rosen released a statement at the time criticizing the light sentence.

"The punishment does not fit the crime," Rosen said. "The predatory offender has failed to take responsibility, failed to show remorse and failed to tell the truth. The sentence does not factor in the true seriousness of this sexual assault, or the victim's ongoing trauma."

Turner, a Dayton, Ohio, resident, was a freshman at Stanford at the time of the assault but withdrew from the university after charges were filed.

One online petition garnered more than 1.3 million signatures nationwide demanding Persky be removed from the bench.

"Judge Persky failed to see that the fact that Brock Turner is a white male star athlete at a prestigious university does not entitle him to leniency," reads the Justice for Stanford Sexual Assault Survivor petition on Change.org. "He also failed to send the message that sexual assault is against the law regardless of social class, race, gender or other factors."

According to The Daily Beast, Persky once boasted of his toughness against sex crimes:

“I became a criminal prosecutor for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, where I now prosecute sex crimes and hate crimes,” he wrote in a biography for the California League of Women Voters when he was running for a judgeship in 2002. “I focus on the prosecution of sexually violent predators, working to keep the most dangerous sex offenders in custody in mental hospitals.” Persky likely figured that his résumé would go over well with women, but he nonetheless lost the election to a fellow prosecutor. He was appointed to the bench the following year by then Gov. Gray Davis.

The victim read a statement during Turner's sentencing hearing that included, in part, "You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today."

Turner was the top-ranked recruit among college-bound swimmers in the state of Ohio in 2014 and ranked 21st in the nation before he joined Stanford’s men’s swim team as a freshman that fall, according to collegeswimming.com. Turner’s photo and details of his past record as a swimmer have been deleted from the university’s website.

Once released from jail, Turner will be required to register as a sex offender for life, officials said.

Related case coverage:

• Stanford Woman to Attacker: 'I Don't Want My Body Anymore'
• Father of Convicted Swimmer Blames '20 Minutes of Action'
• Stanford Rapist's Sentence: Now, With 'Good Behavior,' He'll Serve Only 3 Months
• Online Petition Calls For Removal Of Judge In Stanford Sentencing
• Stanford Toughens Booze Rules: Large Liquor Bottles Prohibited; Hard Alcohol Banned From Undergrad Events
• Former Stanford Swimmer To Face Charges of Alleged Rape Of Unconscious Woman
• Ex-Stanford Swimmer Admits To Fondling, But Denies Raping Unconscious Woman At Frat Party

--Patch writer Dave Colby and Bay City News contributed to this report/Photo via Santa Clara Co. Sheriff's Office