The former Stanford swimmer who served just half of a six-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus is now a free man.
Brock Turner was released from a Santa Clara County jail early Friday morning. He silently walked past a sea of reporters surrounding the steps to the jail’s main entrance before getting into a white SUV parked out front.
The 21-year-old was sentenced to six months behind bars earlier this year after he was convicted in the 2015 sex attack on Stanford’s campus, but was let out after serving half of that. In California, as long as jail inmates stay out of trouble behind bars, they generally get two days of credit for every day served.
Turner is expected to return to his parent’s Ohio home near Dayton, where he grew up and excelled as a high school swimmer.
He will have to report to a probation officer for three years and must avoid alcohol and drugs during that time.
He’ll also be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life. That means he can’t live near schools and parks, he will be barred from ever working with children, he must check in with a sheriff ever three month and he must submit to random polygraph tests.
Turner faced up to 14 years in prison. Prosecutors asked for a six-year sentence — but Judge Aaron Persky ignored that request and the crime’s minimum two-year prison sentence.
Instead, he handed down the measly half-year jail sentence, insisting that a longer stint in prison would have a “severe impact” on Turner. Persky pointed to the “extraordinary circumstances” of Turner’s youth and clean criminal record in departing from the minimum sentence.