Woman charged with lying about Stanford University rapes that shook campus

Officials had been tight-lipped about the August and October sexual assault reports; they now allege an employee fabricated the claims that renewed scrutiny on the school's response practices.

A Stanford University employee who authorities say twice reported last year that she was viciously dragged out of sight on campus and raped — touching off student uproar and renewing scrutiny on the renowned college’s diligence in addressing sexual assault — has been criminally charged with fabricating the claims.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has charged Jennifer Ann Gries, 25, of Santa Clara, with two felony counts of perjury and two misdemeanor counts of making a false crime report to a mandated reporter. The mandated reporters were hospital staff at Valley Medical Center and Stanford Hospital who relayed her rape claims to law enforcement.

Records show that Gries was arrested Wednesday and booked at the Santa Clara County jail, and that her initial bail amount was set at $25,000. The current employment status of Gries, who worked for the college’s housing services department, was not immediately clear.

In a statement, District Attorney Jeff Rosen called the allegations against Gries a “a rare and deeply destructive crime” that damaged the confidence of “legitimate sexual assault victims who wonder if they will be believed.” Assistant District Attorney Terry Harman, who is overseeing the prosecution of Gries, took that notion a step further, explaining why her office decided it was necessary to press forward with criminal charges.

“There are a lot of things that make this situation complex. But we are dismayed at the different levels of destruction that she engaged in,” Harman said in an interview with this news organization. “When you make a false allegation of sexual assault, it’s an insult to all of those who have survived sexual assault. You are mocking their pain and experience and using it in a way that is so destructive.”

According to a DA investigative summary accompanying the criminal complaint filed Tuesday, Gries apparently felt romantically spurned by a co-worker and generally described him — a Black man in his late 20s — as her purported assailant.

A few months before the campus rape reports, she reportedly was the source of a human resources complaint claiming she became pregnant with, then miscarried, the man’s twins after he raped her, which was deemed unfounded because of lack of evidence that she was ever pregnant. Her resentment toward the man was further suggested in text messages to another co-worker that were reviewed during a police investigation, in which she discussed trying to make his life “a living hell,” and stated that “I’m coming up with a plan. That way he’s (expletive) his pants for multiple days.”

The investigation found that at no point did the man ever have a relationship with Gries. Forensic exam kits collected after her two campus rape claims showed no evidence corroborating her assaults, nor did she provide any explanation for the absence of biological evidence, despite her telling hospital staff that she had gone straight to them after being attacked.

But Gries reportedly never firmly identified her male co-worker as the target of her claims until this past January, where in a recorded interview with DA Investigator Sheena Woodland, Gries “admitted to lying about the rapes and wrote an apology letter to the target of the false allegations who was the same person as the (person mentioned in the) human resources investigation.”

According to the investigative summary, during the same interview, Gries affirmed that “she was upset with the victim because she felt he gave her ‘false intention’ and turned her friends against her.”

The first report was made Aug. 9; Gries reported that while she was in a parking lot near the Wilbur Hall dorm that afternoon, an unknown man grabbed her, took her into a dorm bathroom and raped her. According to the Stanford Department of Public Safety and investigators, the woman told a VMC hospital staffer that she did not want to speak to police.

A second report by Gries was made Oct. 7, authorities say. At that time, she told a Stanford Hospital staffer, where she requested a sexual assault forensic exam, that a man walked into her campus office, grabbed her and dragged her into a basement and raped her. She similarly declined to talk to law enforcement.

The legal basis of the false-report counts alleges that she lied to mandated reporters who she knew were required to alert police. The perjury counts are based on the fact that she signed forms, under penalty of perjury, to become eligible for benefits with the California Victim Compensation Board.

When the rape reports were publicized through campus-wide electronic alerts, campus security officials noted that they did not have details about either reported assault, including specific locations.

At the time, university advocates for rape survivors attributed the refusal to talk to police as a result of the school’s past inadequate responses to campus sexual assault, which created a chilling effect on women who didn’t think perpetrators would be fully held accountable. They cited a 2019 university-commissioned survey that found nearly 40% of undergraduate women experienced nonconsensual sexual contact after at least four years at the university and did not contact a Stanford program or resource for help.

Students led a campus march a week after the second rape report, demanding that the university adopt a harder line against staff and students who commit sexual assault or violate Title IX protections for students, and expand trauma-informed training for campus counselors and health-care workers.

Harman said that outcry, and concern about a “potential chilling effect” that criminal charges for Gries could have on sexual assault reporting, were heavily discussed in her office, but that they could not ignore how the false reports triggered widespread fear and cost upward of $300,000 to investigate the claims and increase campus security.

“She makes a false allegation in August, and she bears witness to all the drama, hype, protest and police involvement, and what does she do? She does it again in October,” Harman said. “When we looked at this situation, it ultimately landed on the reality that that Jennifer Gries wronged a lot of people. She wronged sexual assault victims, she wronged all the students who were afraid, all their parents, cost the university hundreds of thousands of dollars, and inflicted great harm on the victim of her lies.”

This is a developing story. Check back later for updates.