Contact CU Independent Copy Editor Jake Mauff at jake.mauff@colorado.edu.
A former University of Colorado student will not serve prison time after being found guilty of sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact on a drunk woman back in 2014.
Austin Wilkerson, 22, was sentenced Wednesday to jail work-release and probation after being convicted of rape in May.
Under Colorado law, the sexual assault count is a Class 3 felony, but is given indeterminate sentencing. This means that the person charged with the assault, in this case Wilkerson, would not be released from prison until he was deemed fit.
District Judge Patrick Butler decided against the normal prison sentence of four to 12 years. Instead, Wilkerson was given 20 years to life on probation and two years in the Boulder County Jail that will allow him to leave during the day to either go to work or to school.
The victim asked Butler to send Wilkerson to prison at the hearing. Prosecutors in this case said that Wilkerson offered to take care of the victim after she had consumed too much alcohol on March 15, 2014 but then proceeded to assault the female student.
This news comes at a tumultuous time for the Boulder campus.
Twenty-eight percent of undergraduate females reported being sexually assaulted in a survey released last year.
Other sexual assault cases in Boulder within the last seven months show similar sentences. The ex-Air Force cadet convicted of raping a fellow cadet at a Boulder party back in 2014 also avoided prison time.
Wilkerson’s ruling comes a little over two months after Brock Turner’s controversial sentencing in June.
