Raw Deal Review - The Palm Beach Post

DOCUMENTARY EXPLORES UF RAPE ALLEGATION

Paul Reid, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
February 12, 2001

It's an ugly but true story about alleged rape, layers of lies, fraternity debauchery.

It's about half-truths, politics at its worst, secret pornographic videotapes, small-town sleaze, less than sympathetic characters and possible legal shenanigans. It asks sordid yet important questions. It would make a disturbing movie.

In fact, it is a disturbing movie.

Raw Deal: A Question of Consent is a documentary, a smash hit at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival last month, according to Variety.

Artisan Entertainment - the people who brought you The Blair Witch Project - liked Raw Deal so much they bought it just a week ago from the movie's makers, Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman, a pair of 22-year-old University of Miami students. Price: not disclosed, but Spellman says it's enough for him and Corben to be comfortable and to continue their movie making.

Raw Deal runs about 90 minutes. About 35 of those minutes are footage from two videotapes made by members of the Delta Chi fraternity at the University of Florida in the early morning hours of Feb. 27, 1999.

Producer Spellman calls Raw Deal an anthropological look at college fraternity life. Fraternity low-life might be more accurate. The Delta Chi video footage, in large part, consists of sexual assignations between several frat brothers and a woman who spent the night at Delta Chi. She said she was raped. The fraternity men said no way. It is raw footage, raw sex. Raw Deal asks whether it was consensual sex. Whatever it was, it's ugly. And after Elian and the election, it's sure to leave viewers nationwide wondering: How do they operate in the Sunshine State?

Mother, student, exotic dancer

The story begins nearly two years ago, around 1:30 on a Saturday morning in Gainesville. Spring was in the air, the time of year when subtropical air masses push into and beyond north Central Florida and bring azalea and gardenia blossoms in their wake. It's the time of year UF fraternities and sororities lead their pledges through rites of initiation - bonfires, songs, some drinking to be sure and hazing, but not the emotionally demeaning sort of decades past. Many of the 20 sororities and 30 fraternities at UF were throwing parties Friday night, the 26th. And the men at Delta Chi hired strippers to augment their ancient initiation rites.

Cut to the early afternoon on Feb. 27.

After 18 years on the University of Florida police force, detective Alice Hendron thought she knew the truth when she heard it, and at 2:10 p.m. that Saturday she was pretty sure she was hearing the truth:

Lisa Gier King said she had been raped, and there she was, blue bruises on her legs, back, arms. King had been found wandering fraternity row on the University of Florida campus. She was wearing only a T-shirt, hysterical, inconsolable. Dirty. Scratched. Leaves and twigs snarled in her hair. A hospital examination would find pelvic and vaginal bruises, abrasions on her back at the base of each scapula, semen in her hair and smeared across her chest.

Alice Hendron believed King's story.

The attacker, King told Hendron, was a member of Delta Chi. And, said King, the whole attack was on videotape. Fraternity brothers, she said, made the tape throughout the long, overnight hours of her ordeal, an ordeal that ended when she pulled on a T-shirt and ran out of the house around 6:30 that morning. King was a Gainesville resident, 27, a part-time student at a community college. She was the mother of two small children. She juggled the usual domestic realities: kids, school, car, rent, marriage ups and downs. And career. Lisa King was a working mother. Her job: exotic dancer, stripper. Her advertisement in the Gainesville Sun billed her as "A Bad Girl, telephone: 37-SEXY-1." On a good night, she and her partner, Disa Holly, might make $300 or more in upfront wages and tips by dancing and stripping at private parties. Their show included the performance of simulated sex acts with each other and clients, such as the brothers and pledges of Delta Chi.

Did her job color the perspective of police, lawyers, academics, anyone familiar with the case?

Spellman and Corben are very astute at keeping their personal feelings out of the movie and out of media interviews. The movie, they say, lets police and state prosecutor actions speak for themselves.

The UF chapter of the National Organization for Women goes further: NOW contends King's job as a dancer absolutely colored the investigation. Anthony Marzullo, one of the Delta Chi men who had sex with King and handled one of the video cameras as well, says in Raw Deal that King's profession absolutely is relevant.

Spencer Mann, an investigator and spokesman for the state attorney's office, says King's profession had nothing to do with how his office and State Attorney Rod Smith handled the case. He says 1,548 pages of official records prove it.

King, her mother, Cendra Gier, and grandmother, Marie Gier, say otherwise. And so it is with almost every detail of the Lisa King case: Everybody involved faults the motives of someone else involved.

Some minds change after seeing video

But then there's Lisa King's performance on the Delta Chi videotape.

Detective Hendron, in a deposition, said she believed King's story until she saw the Delta Chi video. Within three hours of first speaking with King, Hendron watched the tape and concluded King was lying.

King's mother was told her daughter would be arrested Monday morning. And she was. On Monday, March 1, Lisa King was charged with issuing a false statement, a misdemeanor. Rape case closed.

Hendron's arrest report states: King "stayed with saying this was a forcible sexual battery. The videotape clearly shows otherwise. King was placed under arrest."

At that point, the police investigation consisted of questioning King and members of the Theta Chi fraternity (who had found King wandering about), King's grandmother (who had arrived at Theta Chi to pick King up) and members of Delta Chi (who led police to the tape, hidden behind a picture frame). They said it would show consensual sex.

To Hendron, it clearly did.

But there's a problem. Why, when a second camera is clearly visible on the videotape, and therefore a probable second tape existed, did the police not return immediately to Delta Chi and secure that tape? The second tape was not subpoenaed by the investigators for a month.

"Either the police failed to notice a second camera or they chose to ignore it," says Spellman. "Either way, is that good police work? It certainly looks like the police rushed to judgment. They arrested Lisa."

But does the Delta Chi tape (made available under the Sunshine Law) portray King as a victim of a sexual battery? Following some scenes of the fraternity brothers dancing around a bonfire in the Ocala National Forest, the film cuts to the interior of the fraternity house. King and her partner, Disa Holly, dance for the brothers.

If their sex sequences are simulated, as they said they were, it's hard to tell. King is seen drinking: rum and a citrus mixer. Lots of drinks. Holly later told police King drank four beers before entering the fraternity house.

King was taking Prozac by prescription. The rape exam at the hospital would show traces of amphetamines in King's blood. But on the tape, King does not sway or slur her words, although at times her movements appear sluggish.

King and Holly do lap dances. They finish their routine. It was their third job of the night. King had been drinking at and between the other jobs. She had fought with one client, Holly said. Her bruises, as seen on the Delta Chi tape, were preexisting, according to the police. King and Holly depart the house. King returns. This is when the real sex and questions of consent begin.

King tells the fraternity brothers that she's in control, not them. She eggs them on. Joins them, naked, in a hot tub. Joins one in his room, has sex. Has more sex. Certain of the men make comments such as: "It's rape-thirty in the morning."

They will later say they were joking, but Campus NOW hung its case on the men's words - in essence, that if you talk the talk of rape, you're committing rape. A NOW statement said: "There is nothing 'clearly consensual' about this tape. NOTHING."

Meanwhile, on the tape: More sex. King moons the camera. More sex. She spends time with this guy, that guy, on the couch, on the floor, hour after hour, until dawn breaks and soft light weeps through the slanted shades of the bedroom window. King leaves the house, but her exit is not seen on the film.

Was the sex consensual? This is the question Raw Deal explores. For filmmakers Spellman and Corben, drunkenness negates the possibility of consent. And Lisa King may have been in no condition to give consent, they say. And the fraternity brothers were quite possibly in no condition to accept or understand consent, or nonconsent. A question worthy of study. But is the Lisa King case the best case to use in such an endeavor?

"I believe it is," says Cendra Gier, King's mother. "I believe my daughter was raped. But I'm also wise enough to know many will watch Raw Deal and not believe she was raped. And I know that everybody involved had their own agenda. Campus NOW. The police. The prosecutor. Even Billy and Alfred. They did a good job, but I'd like them to declare their feelings. But they won't, and that's OK."

Did Detective Hendron have an agenda? If so, why? She had been instrumental in forming a sex-crimes unit within the campus police. But why would Hendron write an exceptionally long arrest report of almost 80 pages on the lone charge of filing a false statement? Hendron has refused interviews.

"That report is not going to happen in Miami or any other big city," says Spellman. "That it happened in Gainesville says a great deal about the relationship between the town and the university. Without UF, Gainesville would just be another small town on the map. Maybe that's why police called a UF dean on the 27th and told her, 'You better come down here and see this video.' "

And Campus NOW? What was in it for them?

"NOW kept this case in the press," says Corben. "That's good. But when we came to Gainesville to film the movie, NOW told Lisa not to talk to us, that we were a couple of privileged white boys out to exploit her. But Lisa talked with us anyway. Then, we get a letter from Campus NOW, telling us that if we wanted their involvement in the film they wanted $5,000 and 40 percent of the profits. And final say on the title. So who's exploiting who?"

State Attorney Smith? How does he come across in the movie?

"He told us, 'No comment, because the case is closed,' " says Spellman. "I've been told by police, 'No comment, the case is open,' but never because it's closed. I think Smith made political decisions. He was getting ready to run for state Senate. He had to please the university. And constituents. There's a scene in the movie where we try to interview Smith. He runs away from us, around behind the courthouse and ducks into a car. It was . . . just like in a movie. I think that scene speaks for itself."

Was justice - or an agenda - served?

In the end, Smith dropped the false statement charge against King. But he charged her with dancing with an expired escort license. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months probation and six hours of community service.

He won his race for state Senate. He did not respond to requests to speak about the case.

Disa Holly, who also danced that night without a license - but made no accusations of sexual battery - was not charged with any crime or misdemeanor.

Campus NOW continued picketing the State Attorney's Office in Gainesville. In response to a request by NOW to look at the case, the American Civil Liberties Union found that prosecutor Smith had conducted the investigation properly, except for dropping the false statement charge against King.

Six Delta Chi brothers were charged with solicitation of prostitution and two other misdemeanor charges. Four, including Anthony Marzullo, pleaded guilty. Charges were deferred against another. One, Josh Rothbud, went to trial and was found guilty. Those guilty received a sentence of probation and community service.

Marzullo appears in Raw Deal and and apologizes for his language on the Delta Chi video. They were only joking, he says, when they talked about raping Lisa King.

Lisa King believes Raw Deal should be shown to college freshmen as a lesson on consent. She hasn't danced since Feb. 27, 1999. She's applying to nursing school.

Delta Chi was disciplined by the university. A dean later said Delta Chi's penalty - including a two-year suspension of pledging, initiation and social activities - was a serious consequence.

Spellman and Corben are working on three movies and a book.

"Our goal was to make Raw Deal as objective as possible," says Spellman. "We seem to have succeeded, because half the people at Sundance left the theater feeling one way, the other half felt just as strongly the other way. I think we took a good, close look at what consent means."

Keep in mind, under Florida law a woman can have consensual sex with any number of men, but if she at any point says no, any further sex is sexual battery. The problem for Lisa King is she never articulates a clear-cut, audible "no" on the video. Does that mean she never said no?

"I said 'no,' " says King. "I tried to control the situation. I said 'no.' It's just not on the tape."

The tape. To view the Delta Chi videotape with an open enough mind to see things King's way requires a degree of Socratic objectivity and intellectual honesty Socrates himself may not have possessed. That's what Spellman and Corben demand from viewers. That's what Lisa King wants.

Raw Deal just may be the ultimate test of viewer objectivity, where what you see is not what you get. Then again, it just may be a further - possibly unintended - exploitation in a chain of salacious and unfortunate events. Either way, it could make big money for Artisan.

"Money. Politics. Everybody has an agenda," says Lisa King's mother, Cendra. "So what else is new?"

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