Investigative blogger Charles C. Johnson cites the reasons that convinced him that the Rolling Stone rape story - which was based on allegations made my an anonymous source referred to as “Jackie” - was false.
“In my particular case, I’ve talked to many people from the University of Virginia, who either say that she (Jackie) was not present, that there was no event at the house that night – there are many things that have come to earth and been brought to my attention,” Johnson said.
He says the writer of the piece put too much faith in this one source, without getting corroborating accounts from other individuals. “In this particular case with Sabrina Rubin Erdely – who was the author of this Rolling Stone piece – it appears she was trusting a young lady, Jackie Coakley, who essentially made up a very vicious claim of gang rape.
“It was a vicious gang rape, as it was described in the Rolling Stone piece, and the evidence that I was seeing was on the contrary,” he said. “We now know that she was publishing fake – or she was giving her friends a fake photo of a guy that she’d met in high school many years back, and just the whole story has collapsed.”
He also said that Coakley was very active in feminist campaigns on campus, specifically with a group at UVA called One Less – sexual assault education group. “There was so much evidence on the other side, that the whole thing was a hoax, that I very much wanted to probe deeper and learn more about Jackie Coakley.”
Watch the full episode to also hear Johnson explain his decision to identify the alleged victim in the article after researching her current whereabouts.
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