My Body Is The Crime Scene

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Things

started to hit me.

More of this

really just happened and this is bad.

Welcome to the knife.

I'm Hannah Smith.

I'm Paisha Eaton.

This week, we're speaking with a woman named Cassie.

In 2008, Cassie attended a Halloween party at a fraternity at Oregon State University.

The party started out just like you'd picture it: fun costumes, loud music.

It was a packed house.

But the night ended with Cassie walking into an emergency room with her bloodstained costume in a bag.

After being seen by a doctor, she would meet with two detectives who wanted to know exactly what happened at that party.

Let's get into the interview.

So I'm from Portland, Oregon, and I grew up in just the suburbs, just had a pretty typical childhood.

I went to a private high school.

I loved high school.

I had a great time, but I was also very excited for college.

I'd never really been away from home or my parents.

So I ended up going to Oregon State University.

In Oregon, it's like growing up, you're either you're a duck or a beaver.

In Oregon State is the beavers.

And my family was always beavers.

And so it kind of was always,

that's where I'm gonna go yeah I was excited for like that whole college experience what were you looking forward to about you know going off to college and what did you expect it to be like I was looking forward to just I guess freedom is the best way to kind of that independence and freedom of making my own choices.

And it felt like it was a way for me to kind of have like a new start.

I don't know if it was just like a Catholic high school thing, but

before we went off to college, I feel like we were, you know, kind of told that college could be scary and parties could be scary.

And I remember feeling nervous about stuff like that.

But when I made friends with these guys that joined fraternities, it felt like, well, these parties aren't scary.

Like, I just remember feeling it was a really like carefree time.

I never worried about anything.

My girlfriends would come and it was just kind of like we were all just like a big group of friends.

I never felt scared.

After spending her freshman year at Oregon State, Cassie was feeling homesick.

So in the fall of 2007, she transferred to Portland State and it was the best of both worlds.

During the week, she could be closer to her family, but on the weekend, she could hop on I-5 and see all of her friends at OSU.

A few of those friends were involved in Greek life, and OSU's Greek Row doesn't look much different than it does in the movies.

Big Big houses, tree-lined streets, buzzing with students who are excited to belong to a social network meant to last far beyond their college years.

It was exciting, and it was a good time in Cassie's life.

But in the fall of 2008, everything changed.

The fraternity that I spent a lot of time at was Delta Chi.

And one of my really good friends at the time was a part of that fraternity.

And they were going to be hosting a joint party with Phi Kappa Psi.

And I had never actually been to that fraternity, but I was at Delta Chi all the time.

And it

sounded really fun.

There were only so many people that were going to be invited.

And so it was exciting.

So me and my girlfriend drove down from Portland.

And I remember being so excited, trying to find, you know, the perfect costume.

And I ended up choosing, I was Tinkerbell that night.

And I was

excited to be at a new fraternity, meet new people.

And there was four of us that were going to meet up and go to the party.

And I was just really excited.

And I just remember all that excited energy of listening to music and getting ready before the party and doing makeup and just being really happy.

Yeah, and it's such a specific experience to get dressed up for Halloween in college in a town where it's really cold at that time of year.

Yes, totally.

It was definitely like a time and a place where we were just, you know, my girlfriend and I had our little playlist that we had made to do our makeup and hair.

And definitely it was cold.

Yeah, it's a moment, right?

It's like you're an adult, but you're also dressed up like Tinkerbell and you're going out with your friends.

Yes.

Tell us about arriving to the party.

What did it look and feel like?

What were your first impressions of the people and the vibe there?

When we showed up, it was, I think bigger than i thought it was gonna be there were a lot of people lined up like waiting to get inside there's like a whole guest list situation and i remember being cold waiting in line and then when we finally got up there we weren't on the guest list so it was like that's such a bummer

another typical college thing where you're not on the list can't get into the party and i remember kind of arguing with the guy at the door and trying to get a hold of my friend that was the fraternity member inside.

And I just remember it being loud, but it also just, it felt like fun.

I was still excited.

Now, of course, looking back on it, I'm always like, well, what if we just turned away?

It's been almost two decades since Halloween, 2008, but sometimes this question still nags at Cassie.

What if she had just turned away?

How might her life be different?

What version of herself would she be?

That's because this night that started out so full of joy and anticipation unfolded in a way that would play out in the media and in a courtroom, altering the course of Cassie's life.

But Cassie did get into the party, and that night she walked in like any other college student, excited to have fun on Halloween.

But I got a hold of my friend and he came up to the front door and let us all in.

I hadn't seen him in a while and I remember like giving him a big hug and saying I was excited to be there.

and it was just

it was fun like we could hear the music we could hear the party downstairs in the basement and so we were all just excited to go down there and dance and and hang out so there's like the makeshift college bar there's super loud music it was 2008 Brittany Spears had just kind of come back and they were playing womanizer which was one of me and my girlfriend's favorite songs.

And I remember hearing that as we came downstairs and we were just so happy and it was just busy and dark but like the whole glow you know black light thing it was just it was fun and there was a lot of people which most of the fraternity parties I had been to hadn't been quite that big but this was a joint party between two houses so it kind of made sense but we were just excited to dance and I remember the four of us kind of, you know, got into the crowd and just kind of started dancing and having a good time.

And I was, I was excited.

I remember just feeling really happy that I had always loved Halloween and

felt like it was going to be a really good night.

Yeah, those four people.

Can you tell us who those four people are?

Yeah, so I was with my best friend, Nick, who was the one that was at Oregon State that we were staying at his house.

And we had been best friends since high school.

And then my other best friend, Carla, who I had known also since high school, we were on the same cheerleading team.

And then we were with one of Nick's roommates.

Like I said, Carla and I would go down there almost every weekend and stay at Nick's house with him and his roommate.

And so we were all very close.

I was also fairly newly single.

So it was kind of like, oh, I'm excited to see.

you know, maybe I can meet someone.

I think we had maybe been kind of dancing, hanging out for maybe an hour.

It was like we were dancing and I kind of like turned around and actually physically I ran into who I now was Greg

and He was dressed as a Heineken bottle

And I remember kind of laughing about that and Then we kind of ended up like talking or as much as you can talk on the like crowded dance floor and so then we started dancing and everything was fine.

I was having a good time.

We ended up we were kissing on the dance floor.

And then all of a sudden, I noticed I had lost track of Nick and Carla, but I didn't think too much of it at the time.

And then after more time went on, maybe, you know, half an hour, 45 minutes, and I still couldn't find them.

And I was like, thinking,

okay, we should find them and maybe we can figure out.

We hadn't gotten anything to drink at that time.

So I'm like, oh, maybe they went to go get a drink and I want to go do that with them.

This is Danielle Fischel from Pod Meets World.

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Earlier that night, while she and her friend were getting ready for this party, she had a total of two drinks.

But since arriving to the party, she'd had none.

It's not worth mentioning, or it wouldn't be, except that every move Cassie made that night would later be scrutinized over and over and over again.

So I told Greg, I was like, I want to go find my friends.

You know, we can get something to drink.

And I remember he said, yeah, I'll go with you.

Let's go find your friends.

And so we go upstairs and to the main level,

like where the front door was, where there was everybody getting into the party.

We didn't see them up there.

And so we went up.

to the next level where the private rooms were for the fraternity members.

and somehow we ended up, we were in his room.

I don't remember if it was like, oh, hey, we can just grab like a drink in here or whatever.

I don't know if you've been in like a fraternity room, but they don't actually,

or at least at Oregon State, the members didn't actually sleep in their rooms.

They had like a sleeping porch area where there were a bunch of like bunk beds and stuff.

So the rooms were pretty small.

And a lot of them had just like futons or chairs or whatever

in them.

I was like, you know, I thought he was cute.

He was really tall.

I always liked tall guys.

And so I was kind of excited.

I was like, okay, I'm newly single.

This guy seems nice.

And we're sitting on the futon and we're kind of started kissing and making out, which is all consensual.

Everything's great at that time.

And then all of a sudden, he asks me if I want to have sex.

And I kind of, I remember kind of laughing, like, no, I just met you, dude.

Like, that's not really, like, can't, you know, this is fine right now.

And that's when it kind of

shifted

all of a sudden.

Then he seemed to like shut down.

And it was like the vibe was just different.

And then I tried to get up to leave, and he grabbed my wrist and like pulled me back down onto the futon.

And I remember his room was right off of the basketball court.

So I could hear people laughing and playing basketball outside.

And I remember thinking,

oh my gosh, like, why can't I say anything?

Like, I felt frozen, even though he was, by that point, he was holding me down with his forearm and had just pushed my underwear aside and was raping me.

And I just remember hearing that laughter and thinking,

they're right out there, I can hear them.

Like, why can't I scream?

Or, and I can also hear people on the other side of the door in the hallway.

And

just, it felt

it sounds like cliché, but it totally felt like an out-of-body experience where I was watching this happen to me.

And I remember

just

a lot of pain, it was really painful, and just

I felt

sad.

I just remember crying and

just wondering when it would be over, like when, when he would stop and why, why he was doing this, because it seemed like

he seemed like a good guy when I met him, as much as you can judge someone for a couple hours.

But I didn't get that kind of scary, creepy vibe from him at all.

And so I just,

it shut down, it felt like.

It's terrible to think about finding yourself in that situation.

And,

you know, even though you had met him only a couple of hours before, that is pretty normal.

You go to a party and you meet people and you're all hanging out.

And there were moments that were consensual.

It makes sense to me that you at some point in the night had felt comfortable and then that that shifted.

And so you're in, you know, his room.

How does it end and how do you get yourself away from him?

He was finished and I remember just kind of sitting up and just

being in shock.

And I remember I just

started to leave and I went towards the door and it

I don't know if it was part of

the

shock that I was in at the time, but I felt like I couldn't get the door open.

It felt locked, which I later found out that there wasn't a lock on that door.

But I think that just shows like how

I could not open the door.

I just, I felt like nothing, my hands weren't working.

Like I couldn't connect to

open the door.

And I remember

someone opened the door.

from the outside of the room.

And I remember just coming out into this group and just

feeling such a

my brain felt hazy is the best description.

I felt like a zombie.

I was now on the third floor and I had to go downstairs.

I remember I couldn't remember or figure out which way the stairs were.

And I just remember kind of going in circles.

And I ended up running into my friend, the fraternity member that had invited me to the party.

And I remember telling him, I need to find Nick and Carla.

And then he was actually the first one that told me, he said,

Why is there blood all over your costume?

I hadn't even noticed.

And I looked down, and there was just

blood all over the skirt part of the Tinkerbell costume.

And then I told him, I said, I think I was raped.

And so then he just like frantically tried to find Nick and Carla.

and we ended up finding them.

And

I remember Nick making a really big deal, like, we need to leave.

She needs to get to the hospital.

And I remember fraternity members trying to get us to not go to the hospital.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

I remember parts of it.

And then from.

speaking with Nick.

Nick was not a very confrontational

guy.

And I remember him getting

very angry

and

yelling that we need,

it was like they were almost physically trying to stop us from leaving and saying, you know, well, we can, who was it?

We can, we can figure out, let's go find him.

We'll talk about this.

And

I don't

really remember what I was thinking at that point.

I kind of let Nick and Carla be in charge, like, okay, I need to go to the hospital.

I'm going to to do whatever they say.

And then I remember just

we had walked to the party.

I was sitting outside, and Nick and Carla were frantically trying to call friends with cars.

And so we finally found a friend that was already like a designated DD for her group of friends that she was going out with.

We went home.

They let me change.

They put my costume and everything into a bag to bring to the hospital.

They wouldn't let me shower.

With her friends, Nick and Carla, by her side, and her blood-stained Tinkerbell costume in a bag, Cassie walked into the emergency room.

She waited for the doctor for two hours before they could see her.

It was excruciating.

All she wanted to do was go home.

She wanted to shower.

And maybe, if not for the support of Nick and Carla, she would have.

But what Cassie didn't know is that this was only the beginning of what would be a long and painful legal process.

The doctor was asking what had happened and I had said,

you know, I was raped.

I remember she asked me,

you know, was it

oral, anal, vaginal?

And I just, I couldn't even,

you know, I remember saying, I don't know.

I just said, I don't know, to so many things, which would later come back at trial.

But now looking back on it,

I was in still just so much shock.

I I couldn't even, I think my brain was not even processing what had happened.

I knew I was raked.

I knew something was wrong, but those detailed questions,

I couldn't even

explain what was happening or what had happened to me.

And then she asked if I wanted to talk to the police.

And I, you know, I didn't even think about it.

I just, I said yes,

because I knew something bad had happened to me and I wanted to talk to them.

And so she went to start that process.

And so then she said, I'm guessing that would you also like a rape kit done?

And I said yes.

And I remember being

very

scared.

I hadn't even had like my first Pap smear yet.

And so I remember Carla stayed with me and was just holding my hand.

And I just remember crying.

And it was so painful.

Because

obviously a rape exam is

a crazy feeling because you're, they're collecting evidence, but essentially your body is the crime scene.

So it's, you know, all lots of lots of poking and prodding and scraping.

And just,

and after you had just, I had just been raped, it felt so violating again

even though I knew I wanted to do it to get the evidence it was also

very triggering it felt like the exam took hours it didn't I mean it was just a few minutes and I also remember

they had my costume but then they even had to take my underwear and so having to go into the bathroom and change and get you know some of their underwear underwear that they had at the hospital, that's when I remember I kind of, there's still so much bleeding happening.

And that was, I think, the Born War, I saw that it was like things

started to hit me more of this is

this

really just happened.

And this is,

this is bad.

I just remember feeling scared.

And then.

Even worse at that point, then the police separated all three of us.

And so I remember waiting in a part of the hospital.

It was just like an empty waiting room for some part of the hospital.

It was dark.

I was in a super uncomfortable chair.

I had to wait there alone.

I didn't know where Nick and Carla were waiting.

I had to wait there for another hour or so, which I understand now, but they had to wait for a female officer to also be available to accompany the male officer to interview me.

So that was what ended up taking a long time.

But I just remember feeling

scared and lonely and

kind of angry at that point too.

For

like, why couldn't I wait with my friends?

It just

felt very overwhelming.

and isolating and again like everything was taking so long and i just wanted to go home it was about like 2 a.m and still just waiting for the police to to show up to talk to me.

Yeah, of course.

Like, I would be angry too.

Like, you were victimized and had to go through this terrible thing, and now you're the one having to wait around and like have your body invaded.

I also want to give props to you and your incredible friends for like insisting that you do this and taking care of you, you know.

But it sounds like a really difficult experience.

Yeah, it was very,

it was very difficult and

not something that I

ever thought

I a situation I never thought that I would be in

yeah of course

yeah I mean also at that point you're very sleep deprived you're yes very tired that makes everything more difficult so the female officer when she arrives what happens at that point so she arrives and her and the male officer interview me together

the female officer was there just to be there the man was interviewing me and immediately he

he made me feel comfortable he just asked me what happened and i started to tell him my my story

i wasn't sure if

If I even remembered the guy's name.

I think I said it was Craig or Greg.

I got through the story and he said,

I believe this happened to you.

I just felt relief immediately.

I don't think I was consciously thinking that I wouldn't be believed, but just having that reassurance of I had just said the most horrible thing that had happened to me and for him to say, I believe this happened to you, I felt like

maybe it will be okay.

And then I remember just

once Nick and Carla were done with their interviews, we drove back to Nick's house.

This is Danielle Fischel from Pod Meets World.

What do you think of when you hear Amazon Prime?

Delivery trucks outside your home?

Your favorite streaming shows?

Of course, but there's so much more.

Whatever you love, that's what Prime is.

Prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into, and it helps you discover new ones.

There's nothing I find more fun than falling into a rabbit hole of options, whether it's beauty products, toys for my kids, or a 20-pack of beef jerky bags, you know, just in case we need it.

As a type A person, I have a passion for making sure everything in my house is taken care of, and there is no better way to keep my family in line than Amazon Prime.

It's more than just free or same-day delivery, although that's incredible.

Do they live in my bushes or what?

But it's also along for my journey of parenthood, helping me discover what I need at every stop, keeping everyone happy and well-behaved,

for the most part.

From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime.

Visit amazon.com slash Prime to get more out of whatever you're into.

Is your AI built for everyone?

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IBM's AI agents are tailored to your business and can easily integrate with the tools you're already using.

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Get started with AI Agents at IBM.com.

The AI Built for Business.

IBM

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The drive from the hospital back to Nick's house that night was mostly silent.

At one point, Cassie tried to call her mother and tell her what happened, but she couldn't get the words out.

She threw up.

Nick took over the call.

The detectives at the hospital had asked Cassie to stay in town for another 24 hours because they'd have more questions for her.

So they went back to Nick's house and tried to get some rest.

And so I remember actually getting a little bit of sleep.

And then I remember being woken up by a detective at Nick's house.

So he was physically at the house waking you up?

The detective?

Yeah, he was knocking on the door.

I guess they had said they had tried to call all of us, but we we were all so tired.

None of us woke up to the phone call.

And so, yeah, so we woke up to it.

Was Nick's roommate actually opened the door and was like for the officer and said, you know, detectives are here to speak with you.

And so I remember kind of still being in pajamas and they had to drive me by the fraternity to physically point out which one it had happened at.

So I remember being even scared to do that.

I didn't even want to drive by in a police car that I knew I was totally safe.

They showed me six photos of men, and I had to pick out

Greg, who was in one of them.

And I ended up picking him out of the lineup, but I remember feeling so nervous, like, oh my gosh, what if I mess this up?

And then once I picked out,

I said, I think it's this guy.

Then they said, zero to 100, 100.

What percentage are you sure that it's this guy?

And then I remember that stressed me out even more.

I'm like, do I say 100%?

But then what if it's wrong?

Then I, you know, should have said a lower percent.

I just remember already questioning myself how I was answering things.

Pretty sure I landed on, I just picked like 70% or something because I felt like I couldn't say 100%.

It ended up being him.

That 30% that you decided to sort of buffer in.

you know, you had spent a couple of hours with him.

What was that?

Honestly, I think it was,

I was scared to be wrong.

Now looking back on it, I'm like, that was 100% him.

And I'm pretty sure I knew that, but I didn't want to say 100% because what if I was wrong and messed it up?

I felt it was such a traumatic experience for me.

I felt like I could pick him out of,

you know, any group of people.

Like it was just burned into my memory.

But yeah, that kind of 30%

was just, I don't want to be wrong.

I don't want to mess it up.

So I'm going to go with a number that's like more than 50, but I don't want to go all into it because what if I am wrong?

So it's all right.

It's almost like a test anxiety.

Yes, exactly.

Super high stakes test someone puts in front of you.

Yes.

And it's like, if you fill in the wrong bubble, you might never, whatever, you might never get justice or or something.

So it sounds like it was just like that anxiety of like this high pressure question, like, how sure are you?

Totally.

Cause I thought, I didn't even think there was going to be like, how sure are you?

I was just, okay, I'm going to pick this guy.

And so then to kind of, well, how sure are you?

And then I even started thinking, like, okay, are you asking that because did I pick the wrong guy?

Cassie did not pick the wrong guy.

DNA found in the underwear Saka was wearing that night was later tested.

And those test results gave a one in 10 billion chance that the DNA belonged to anyone but Cassie.

That is considered a very strong positive DNA match.

Cassie's medical examination also showed that she had vaginal tearing, which is where Cassie believes the blood came from.

She was overwhelmed, but for now, the police were done asking Cassie questions.

She could finally go back home to Portland.

And when she got there, she went straight to her parents' house, where she stayed for almost a month.

I wanted to be with my parents.

I was

in pajamas all day, like just wanting to feel that like comfort, blankets, like all the time.

I just, it felt like I was, yeah, like reverting to like a child.

And I remember also at that point being able to take a shower.

And I just

still remember I could like could not get the water hot enough.

And after

a very long shower, that I wanted to take a bath.

It was just such a feeling of I was just violated.

And I remember not really sleeping much that first night

and then the next day

i got a phone call that

they had found that it was um greg gregory socco

and he had been arrested and he was in jail in corralis

and then a couple days later i got the call that he had posted bail.

His parents had come and posted bail.

The district attorney called me.

I was going to be going in for

a grand jury hearing to see if this case, if it was even going to go to trial, if there was enough evidence to take it to trial.

Also, at this point, I feel like I first kind of got an insight of what it was going to be like to be a victim in this legal process.

And there was, I believe it was eight or ten people and they could ask me questions when I was done telling my story.

And this was also the first time where one of the men asked me, why didn't you scream?

Why didn't you say anything?

If there were people around, if you could hear people outside, why didn't you yell for help?

And that was the first time I got kind of hit with that victim blaming.

And

I remember at that time, I didn't really know how to answer that.

I was just like,

I was in shock.

I couldn't,

you know, and then I also remember feeling like, okay, maybe I

did the wrong thing, I guess.

And so that was kind of my first experience with the victim blaming and where I started to maybe think, okay, maybe this trial, this legal process is going to be

different

and harder than I thought.

It felt like I was more on trial that I had to prove myself in some way.

Right, because you know, it's like you are not personally bringing these charges, the state is bringing these charges, the state has determined they think that something happened here and that they can win this case.

Yeah,

so the grand jury does return an indictment, yes.

And at this point, Greg is just he's out,

he had gone back to California, and

the story it was on like the local news, and so that was also

a weird feeling.

I remember watching the TV, and it came on, and it was just, I, you know, I was just like, turn it off, turn, you know, I can't, I can't see his mugshot or because you were not identified, but he was.

He was, yes.

I was just identified as a Portland State student.

The stories would be online, and

people

were able to

comment on the stories.

And that was also a big thing for me, that I could not stop myself from looking up the news stories and then reading all the hundreds of comments that people were just posting.

Almost all of them were bashing me,

even though these people didn't know who I was, but it was always, you know, why was she at a fraternity party?

What did she think was going to happen there?

I heard that she was wearing, did you see her costume?

Or just, you know, all the these horrible things.

And I just remember I would just be sitting at my computer, just crying and

trying to explain to

my mom and my sister and my friends, like, that I couldn't just stop looking it up.

I don't know.

It was a very strange.

Feeling it's like I couldn't look away from it.

I had, I was checking daily, like, are there any new comments?

And

it made me mad and it made me sad.

And it just

kind of just made me spiral.

And then finally,

the district attorney's office just called me and said, okay, trial is set for May.

So this is in 2009 now.

They had told me that that was actually a pretty quick.

turnaround time from the assaults happening in on Halloween in 2008 and then for trial to be in May 2009.

Was Gregory offered a plea deal?

He was.

Did he accept the plea deal?

He did not.

His whole defense became

he was too drunk.

He was blackout drunk.

So

he can't be held accountable for what he did during that time.

At the trial, Gregory Sacco's defense leaned heavily into the argument that he simply didn't remember what happened that night because he'd had too much to drink, but that if something sexual did happen, then it must have been consensual.

At the Halloween party, fraternity members had been tallying drinks on their arms.

Gregory Sako's arm showed 28 tally marks, one for every drink he consumed.

But at the same time, Cassie's two drinks over the course of the entire evening were heavily scrutinized during the trial.

Yeah, I remember thinking that of like, you're going to give me this much of a hard time.

And I had two drinks and

he had what was marked as 28.

Like, it's, I just, yeah, remember being, and also just thinking, okay, I'm a college student.

Like, you know, me and my friends have all been very drunk a handful of times.

You don't rape people.

That's not, that's not something that you do, even if you are very drunk.

That's not a defense.

That was ridiculous.

And I also remember feeling even a little bit angry.

Like, he, I think he had made a statement, like, I don't even remember meeting her.

That made me feel angry.

It's like, you, you raped me, and I, like, cannot get you out of my head, but yet you don't remember meeting me.

That really pissed me off.

The trial took place seven months after the alleged rape.

For Cassie, it was not only the terror that came with retelling her story in front of an audience, but this strange and performative aspect of presenting herself to a jury.

Cover your tattoos.

Don't wear heels.

Wear makeup, but not too much makeup.

Be authentic, but not too emotional.

And as if all of this wasn't difficult enough, Gregory Sako had a lot of supporters, people who simply couldn't imagine he would do this.

Just seeing

like the whole fraternity there, his family, I remember feeling very intimidated by, especially his mom.

Again, like silly things you remember.

It's, you know, there's one woman's bathroom in this courthouse.

And I can remember multiple times, like washing my hands next to his mom and just feeling

terrified.

Like she looked at me like I was

ruining everything.

That's what I remember a lot about trials, feeling intimidated and

scared.

There was a little part of me I knew that I wanted to keep doing this because I had also had, once I kind of started talking to more people, a lot of acquaintances or friends of friends, women would come up and share their stories.

And

I started to feel like I was a part of this

sad club that nobody wanted to be in, but

I felt like I was getting more and more support in hearing from all these people I had no idea, like I had been, you know, acquaintances from high school that I thought I knew fairly well.

And then they would come up to me and say, Did this happen to me at a fraternity party as well?

Or my sister had this happen.

I kind of held on to those stories to kind of give me

strength at trial.

Like, I'm not alone in this.

The district attorney, who ended up getting very close to, he was, he's a great man.

He had told me, he said, you know, sadly, it's not about the truth, it's about what you can prove in court.

And that's always stuck with me.

The trial was four days, and then on Friday, the fifth day, the jury went out to deliberate, which took a few hours.

And then they came back with their verdict, and he was found guilty.

On Tuesday, May 19th, 2009, Gregory Sacco was sentenced to eight years and four months for the crime of first-degree rape.

After his sentence was completed, he would then have 11 years of parole and have to register as a sex offender.

He was taken into custody right then.

He was handcuffed, taken away.

And then a week later, I went back and spoke at his sentencing.

And that was a really empowering

time for me.

I had as much time as I wanted to say whatever I wanted.

And that felt really good.

Yeah, and then I'm left to kind of just go on with my life.

So he is convicted and taken into custody.

And

I guess in, you know, the movie version, that would sort of be the end credits and there would be this like sense of victory.

But, you know, we know that that's not really how it works

legally and maybe mainly emotionally once you've been through something like this.

What did life look like for you after the trial?

A family friend had spoken to me about that I potentially had a lawsuit case, that they had a lawyer that they wanted me to speak with.

And I ended up speaking with him.

And he was a personal injury lawyer.

And he thought that this was a really interesting case.

He also had daughters.

And he said, I'm passionate about

this.

I feel like around that time, it was kind of coming out more about, you know, kind of some of these like dangers of these fraternity environments.

And

it seemed like all these bad things that kept happening at fraternities that they weren't held really accountable in any way.

And, like, the lawyer had explained to me, you know, unfortunately, the way to kind of get things to change is to have them have to pay money.

Like, that's what matters to these people.

Pursuing a civil case against the fraternity meant that Cassie would have to retell her story of the worst night of her life all over again after having just recently gone through the trial.

The civil suit was filed in 2010, but was unsuccessful.

Cassie lost.

In 2012, she appealed.

And in 2015, she won.

In 2015, they ruled in my favor, which in Oregon, that was the first time the appeals court addressed if fraternities could be held accountable for sexual assaults and rape that happened on their premises.

And so it kind of set a precedent and made fraternities kind of think more about their policies that they could have in place kind of regarding members drinking or cutting off access to personal rooms.

Wow.

So there was some,

you know, at least real policy change there as a result of this.

Yeah.

That feels important.

Yes, definitely.

That was really helpful for me, I think, healing.

Gregory Isako served the entirety of his sentence, and in 2017, he was released.

He moved back to California, but was on parole and had to register as a sex offender.

Cassie had been working hard to move on with her life.

She'd gotten married.

She'd become a mother.

Finally, it started to feel like the darkest and most difficult chapter of her life was ending.

In 2022, Cassie gave birth to twins, and just five days after giving birth, she was laying on her sofa breastfeeding when the phone rang.

It was a crime victim advocate calling to let her know that Gregory Sako was no longer on parole.

He was no longer a registered sex offender, and he was no longer guilty of first-degree rape.

His 2009 conviction had been invalidated.

Part of the reason this crime victim called was to see if Cassie felt like going through another trial if the state were to once again pursue a first-degree rape charge for Gregory Sako.

If I didn't go forward, he was just free from everything.

Everything was wiped off his record, didn't have to register as a sex offender.

And so I

was also

so in shock that took some days to think about it.

And I decided I did want to try to just go forward and do trial again.

So a couple months later we were at a first kind of pre-trial hearing and Greg was out.

So he's appearing

over Zoom and so it was the first time even just seeing him like on a screen.

We were both present for this hearing and the judge already was coming at me with

he literally said, why would you want to go through with this again you know greg has already served his time his life has already been ruined enough why do we need to do this again i was trying to be so composed and i just remember at that time just breaking down crying and the the da stepped in for me and just said cassie's life has been

greatly changed as well.

And it again brought me back to that.

It was just so much victim blaming still.

Why would I want to do this to him again?

He's already served his time.

Can't I just let this go?

And that made me mad.

But after a few weeks of kind of just, I kind of feel like I had kind of like a mini breakdown, kind of started spiraling and decided I didn't want to go through with trial again.

I made the decision that what was best for me.

I was, you know, a mom of three under two at that time.

I just couldn't do this again, even if it meant, it made me so angry that he was just going to have a clean record and not have to register.

But it was what was best for me at the time.

The jury that had delivered Sacco's guilty verdict back in 2009 was not unanimous.

But at the time, Oregon law didn't require a unanimous verdict.

It required a majority of 10 out of the 12 jurors, except in the case of first-degree murder.

But then in 2020, the U.S.

Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution required a unanimous verdict for serious criminal offenders.

So in 2022, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that this decision would apply retroactively, which meant it applied to Gregory Isako.

His conviction was no longer valid.

It was almost like it never happened.

He was no longer on parole.

He was no longer a registered sex offender.

And so I

agreed to let him just plead.

He wouldn't even plead not guilty because that is, I guess, admitting something.

He pled no contest to just like a minor assault charge.

So there's nothing sexual.

So he's off the registry.

I'm okay with it now.

I mean, it's not ideal.

That was, I mean, ultimately, I've fought trial to get him convicted to have to have that consequence, which...

to me seems very minor to what he put me through.

Like, you should have to pay for what you did

by registering, even if I know that he's off the registry and doesn't have it on his record.

I know what happened.

Everybody that is important to me knows what happened.

And I've come to realize like that's what matters.

And I have to be okay with that.

Yeah.

I'm asking this question

as someone who wants to understand, as well as I think maybe listeners will have this question,

but I'm not indicating that you shouldn't feel like you want him on this, the sex offender list, because I don't, I think you should feel how you want to feel.

I'm curious to know if he had to still register as a sex offender, why do you think that's important?

I think that's a very valid question, and I had to think about that a lot too, kind of when I was going through this.

And I think for me,

what I felt was important about it was

he was out of prison and so that part was done.

But that registering as a sex offender felt like

something else he would have to do as a consequence of what he did for me.

And it felt important as

something that would still kind of change his life, affect his life in some way.

because I felt like I was so greatly affected in so many ways.

I would have to get, you know, anxiety meds to even have a pap smear.

My whole birthing experience was

that was all very triggering.

And I had to, you know, get help support around that, like just to give birth.

It just felt like my life was so affected still and still is that him registering as a sex offender felt like a little bit that it would still affect his life

in some way.

Yeah, that makes total sense.

How are you today?

Today I'm doing great.

I'm finally at the point where it's a part of my story, but it doesn't feel like it's my identity anymore.

And I think there's been so much that's gone into that because it's been so long.

Lots of therapy and work on myself.

And

also

I feel like telling my story has been a big part of the healing journey for me.

I'm part of the RAIN Speakers Bureau where I've shared my story.

I've spoken at fraternities and sororities specifically in some college criminology classes.

But that's also been a way that I feel like it's

helped make me the person that I am today where I'm on the other side of this and able to share my story as someone who feels

strong where I am now.

Yeah, I think that's amazing.

It's

probably so powerful for those people at those sororities and fraternities to hear a story like yours.

And, you know, nobody thinks it's going to be them.

I'm so appreciative of you reaching out and telling us your story.

I think it's like really powerful and you tell it so well.

So thank you so much.

I'm so glad that Cassie spoke with us and was willing to tell us her story.

I really found it to be very powerful.

Yeah, Cassie reached out to us in an email.

She had listened to the show and it feels really great that we were a safe space for her to share this.

Yeah, it does.

One thing that it really stood out in the interview is Cassie's experience getting a rape kit.

Reporting to law enforcement was so traumatizing.

And she mentioned several times that without having the support of two really close friends that stayed by her side through the entire process, she probably wouldn't have been able to do it.

Cheers to her friends.

Seriously, what great friends.

I loved that part of the story where they were by her side and helped her when she was like in shock to know what to do for her best interest.

It was really, really great.

And her walking us through everything that happened at the hospital was really powerful as well.

We hear so often from people like that experience can be traumatizing and I believe them, but it's a little vague.

And Cassie really walked us through exactly why and how that is.

Yeah, and it's easy to understand.

And, you know, one organization that Cassie mentioned to me on one of our preliminary calls is the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.

And I looked up some statistics on their website that really speak to Cassie's story and what turns out to be, you know, sometimes a common story on college campuses, and that is sexual violence.

Among undergraduate students, 26.4% of females and 6.8% of males experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation.

And only 20% of female student victims ages 18 to 24 report to law enforcement.

Hearing Cassie's story, you know, these statistics aren't surprising, but like it's really sad.

And while it's not difficult to understand, I think it's important to remember that there are so many more stories out there that don't get reported.

Yeah.

And, you know, the trauma didn't end after the trial, as we heard from Cassie.

So in 2009, the trial, Gregory Isako is convicted of rape and he's sentenced to prison.

And he does go to prison.

And so at that point, Cassie has this small sense of like justice in her life.

And then in 2010, Gregory Isako's parents, they end up publishing a guest opinion in a smaller news publication called The Almanac.

And it's titled, Guest Opinion, How Alcohol Ruined a Student's Dreams.

And the letter is really troubling in my opinion.

I mean, it's essentially this warning shot for college students.

Like, heavy drinking could leave you very vulnerable to false accusations.

I mean, that is how I interpret what they're saying.

And the letter also references an accuser of their son, Gregory Isako, who they name in the letter, but never references this person as a victim.

And, you know, interesting, even though he's in prison at this point, he's been convicted.

Right.

At this point of the letter being published, he's convicted and he's in prison.

And one quote from this opinion piece is:

the problem with this case was that at the time the alleged incident occurred, Gregory and his accuser were very drunk or, quote, hammered, as you might say.

Okay, so this is the quote from the piece and a lot of inaccuracies a lot of inaccuracies we know that Cassie was not drunk at this party and it is my interpretation that there it's Cassie they're talking about yeah and his accuser his accuser and Cassie has always maintained that she had only two drinks the entire evening in fact there was a moment at the hospital where law enforcement, you know, determined she was sober and to a point where they didn't even need to take a toxicology test because there was no reason to.

They didn't believe that she was intoxicated.

Yeah.

And her friends also corroborated that version of the night.

So it's troubling to call her an accuser and to say that she was hammered.

She wasn't.

Whereas it seems pretty clear that Gregory Sacco was based on witness accounts as well as the fact that they had been tallying the number of drinks in their arms and he had 28 tally marks.

But yeah, regardless, you know, I think that there's been a lot sort of written about the dangers of alcohol.

And hey, that's fair, right?

Like, yes, alcohol can be very dangerous, but it's oftentimes been written about in conjunction with the conversation around sexual assault and rape on college campuses and sort of been pointed to like, well, that's the problem.

Well, alcohol is the problem.

And I'm not saying it's not a problem, but it's not the full answer.

Right.

It's not an excuse.

It's not.

It might impair judgment and it might lead to an increased risk of sexual violence, but it certainly doesn't negate anything.

Because there's plenty of people who get quote unquote hammered, as they say in their letter, that don't act violent or commit crimes against other people.

And so obviously there's another issue deeper in there that I think is important to look at.

Yeah, absolutely.

So in 2022, Sako's conviction for first-degree rape was invalidated.

And we talked about that in the episode.

It was because whenever his conviction happened, it was Oregon law that there had to be at least 10 out of 12 jurors for a conviction.

And they, for whatever reason, had that amount, you know, and he was convicted.

And then in 2022, based on a 2020 Supreme Court ruling, Oregon decided this would be retroactive in all violent cases, which automatically meant that his conviction was invalidated.

It wasn't like under review.

It just boom.

It was over.

It was over.

He no longer had a record.

He no longer had to register as a sex offender.

He had already served his time.

So the big piece of this, though, that we talked with Cassie about is this idea of him not having to register as a sex offender.

And

it's sort of a hot topic, right?

There's an ongoing debate about the usefulness of sex offender registry.

You know, there's some people that say say it does more harm than good because it can create a false sense of security.

It can also disproportionately impact certain demographics and make it more difficult for someone who's been convicted of various sexual offenses to rehabilitate or reintegrate into society.

You know, if there's one person who has to register as a sex offender in like a multi-family home, this affects everyone in that house.

There's also a lot of good arguments in favor of the sex offender registry that people, I think rightly so, want to know if there's someone who has been convicted of a sexual offense who's in their neighborhood.

So I wanted to talk to Cassie about this because it really seemed to impact her a lot, this idea that Sokka would no longer have to register as a sex offender.

This clearly, when we talked to her, was upsetting to her.

He'd already served his time,

but I was really curious to understand why that was a piece that was such a big deal, so important to her.

And I think she made a really good point because

she talked about like, well, she doesn't get the chance to sort of wipe this clean from her life.

Like, even though she's moved on and she is happy and has a good life, it's not like this doesn't still affect her.

It's never over for Cassie.

It's something that she lives with all the time.

I mean, even in her first email to us, it was apparent.

how deeply present this still is in her life and in her mind.

Yeah.

I I mean, that moment when she talked about like being reminded of it, of it when she was giving birth.

It's like, that sucks.

That sucks.

That should be just like such a beautiful memory.

I mean, childbirth is a lot of things, but like, I think most of us are able to look back on it as like, wow, what an incredible day.

And hers is haunted by this terrible thing that happened to her.

Yeah.

It definitely broadened my understanding of that perspective.

And I was really appreciative of her for sharing her thoughts and feelings on it.

Yeah, we're really thankful to Cassie for sharing her story with us.

Well, thank you so much for listening.

That is our episode for this week.

We'll be back next week.

If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it.

Our email is then at exactlyrightmedia.com, or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.

This has been an exactly right production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith, and me, Patia Eaton.

Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexis Samorosi.

This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

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