Day 7: Fairfax County School Board ramps up attacks on a former student, ‘Kate,’’ and her mother

On Tuesday, on day seven of a trial being closely watched nationwide, the 12 members of the Fairfax County School Board dispatched their defense attorney, Sona Rewari, to attempt to discredit the former Rachel Carson Middle School student, “Kate,” who alleges school officials ignored her pleas for help when she was allegedly sexually harassed and then assaulted and raped as a 12-year-old seventh grader starting in the fall of 2011.

Off Courthouse Square in Alexandria, in Courtroom 1000 on the 10th floor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Rewari took command of a lectern in “the well” where attorneys for both sides of the case sit, with law clerks and staff, and began the first day of cross-examination of the former student. “Kate” had already finished two days of direct examination by her attorney, Andrew Brenner, from the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner.

Now, it was the school board members’ opportunity to question the former student’s testimony. About half a dozen supporters of “Kate” sat nervously in the gallery, worried how she would survive the retelling of traumatic memories and the expected grilling. The judge, Rossie D. Alston Jr., had already warned lawyers for the school board and other defendants that the civil trial is over two issues: did school officials get “notice” that “Kate” was being allegedly sexually harassed, and did they act with “willful disregard”? 

What unfolded, say advocates for sexual abuse survivors, was a grilling that often doesn’t make sense but is intended to rattle, discredit, and undermine an alleged victim. Over about six hours, Rewari sliced and diced statements that the former student had written 12 years ago as a seventh grader, several times driving the young woman to tears, only to have her compose herself and return to answer the questions with pointed, confident answers.

In her cross-examination, starting at about 10:10 a.m., Rewari began slowly, asking “Kate” about the medical impact of the alleged sexual assaults: post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pelvic hip pain, and other ailments. And then she asked, “They do not cause you to have false memories, right?” 

“No, they do not cause me to have false memories,” “Kate” answered. 

With that established, Rewari spent about 30 minutes dissecting the efforts “Kate” made to report the alleged sexual harassment to school officials. 

In a November 2011 meeting with school officials, Rewari asked, “You said your genitalia was being touched?”

“I gestured to there,” “Kate” responded, pointing toward her pelvis.

Rewari shared the transcript of a deposition at which “Kate” had answered questions last year about what had transpired in 2011. 

“Please take a look at page 14, line 15.”

“You were asked what touching you described in the meeting,” continued Rewari. 

Rewari noted in the deposition that “Kate” had referred to being touched in “the genitalia.”

“I’m a 24-year-old woman,” responded “Kate.” “I’m explaining it in a 24-year-old woman’s vocabulary.”

Rewari insisted that “Kate” hadn’t used the word at the meeting with Rachel Carson Middle School officials.

“You didn’t use the word genitalia…” Rewari said.

“Kate” quietly interrupted her: “I don’t think I used the word ‘genitalia’ when I was 12 years old.”

By now, it was 10:23 a.m.

The questioning turned to the young woman’s mother, “Mrs. R.” 

“Your mom does not report” the alleged assault “to the police?” Rewari asked.

“My mom is telling the school police officer,” who attended a meeting in November 2011. 

At times, “Kate” took command of the questioning, throwing Rewari off and even causing the attorney’s voice to tremble at times. For example, as Rewari asked “Kate” questions, hopscotching between meetings with school officials, “Kate” said bluntly, “I’m a little bit confused. You’re jumping ahead.” 

Rewari course corrected.

Then, Rewari pounced again, dissecting a statement “Kate” wrote when she was 12.

Rewari peppered “Kate” about omitting the mention of $50 that she had told assistant principal Sybil Terry that an alleged assailant, C.K., or “Chris,” had demanded from her. 

“There’s nothing about $50 in the statement, right?” 

“There is nothing about C.K. threatening you, right?”

Then, Rewari turned her attention again to the young woman’s mother, “Mrs. R,” pulling out emails that “Mrs. R” had sent school officials.

Rewari noted, “She does not describe any touching.”

“My mom and I describe this in the meeting.”

Then, Rewari asked, “Your mom has two degrees from Columbia University?”

A spectator in the gallery started laughing quietly. The peppering continued about emails sent to school officials by “Mrs. R,” “your mother,” as Rewari kept calling her. There were emails about changing locker assignments during PE when a girl, J.O., or “Janet,” was allegedly bullying “Kate.”

“Your mother never asked about your regular locker being switched?” 

After a detailed analysis of room numbers and locker locations in the “Explorers” pod at Rachel Carson Middle School in 2011, Rewari switched topics at 11:06 a.m. until about 5:02 p.m., or about five hours with a lunch break on one main topic: alleged Facebook messages between an unidentified “Facebook User” and “Chris.”

Rewari took details from the young woman’s life at the age of 12 – her locker number, her mother’s birthdate, her friend’s names – and noted how they showed up in the Facebook messages, trying to allege that “Kate” had a consensual romantic and sexual relationship with “Chris” and another boy, David, whose real name is being used.

“Kate” insisted repeatedly that she didn’t recognize the Facebook messages. 

Rewari continued, unrelenting, that “Kate” had texted the alleged assailant, “Chris.” “Did you call him your boyfriend in any of those messages?” she asked.

“Kate” explained: “Chris” had used her phone to text himself messages during attacks in case she blew the whistle on him. 

“He would take your phone and write, ‘I love you’?” 

“Yes.”

Sexual assault experts say that a lot of the responses of alleged victims, especially children, don’t make sense. Still, they are the normal responses of victims of sexual trauma, navigating shame, self-blame, guilt, fear, and confusion.

During a break, attorney and former Washington Post reporter Michael York, hired by the school district to discredit “Kate,” opened the gate separating “the well” from the public gallery and huddled for nine minutes with Rewari and other defense attorneys in excited, animated conversation. 

Not long after, by 3 p.m., a story crossed the wires about the trial and the day’s cross-examination, “A woman accuses a schoolmate of raping her at 12. The school system says she is making it up.”

For her part, “Kate” kept returning to the stand, in between breaks, answering the grilling from the school board’s lawyer with answers in which she explained that she was 12 years old, afraid of her alleged assailants, confused by the bullying and navigating a new school with school officials who ignored her pleas for help. 

Rewari kept returning to the Facebook messages, as “Kate” insisted that she had not written them.

“These are not your messages?” Rewari asked. 

“That is correct.” 

Rewari read an email from Nov. 22, 2011, to school officials from “Mrs. R,” writing that the assistant principal, Terry, had told her that the issues were a “boy-girl thing” and that Terry said she knew the family of “Chris,” and “they’re good people.”

“Your mom sent a lot of emails to the school, right?”

Rewari asked “Kate” about her mother’s email.

Brenner, the attorney for “Kate,” objected.

The judge interjected, addressing Rewari, “There is no question. Next question.”

By day’s end, Rewari showed “Kate” photos from middle school of her friends. She teared up, looking at them. “That’s my best friend, Olivia,” she said through tears.

Then, Rewari turned to a fight “Kate” had with her mother over her use of her father’s cell phone. “Kate” explained she was looking at hate messages that had been written about her on Facebook. She didn’t want her mother to see them, she said.

“You started biting, scratching, hitting your mother?”

“Kate” looked at Rewari and said: “I love my mother. She’s a wonderful mother.” 

At 4:50 p.m., the judge asked Rewari, “How much longer do you need?”

Rewari answered, “Twenty minutes.”

“Kate” couldn’t make the 20 minutes. Visibly writhing in pain, she looked over at the judge, who paused and then called it a day for the cross-examination. 

“The witness may step down.”

“Kate” hobbled off the witness stand, her shoulders hunched over, her arms wrapped tightly around her abdomen, her attorney, Alison Anderson, stepping toward her to cradle her in arms, leading her out of Courtroom 1000 to return Wednesday for more cross-examination in “the well.”

Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and a Fairfax County Times contributor. If you have tips about sexual assaults in schools in northern Virginia, please contact her at asra@asranomani.com and @AsraNomani on social media. The B.R. v. Fairfax County School Board et al. starts daily at about 9 a.m. in Courtroom 1000 on the 10th floor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at 401 Courthouse Square in Alexandria. The trial is expected to continue until mid-April and typically runs through 4 p.m. or 5 p.m., with lunch breaks around 1 p.m.